It's so Nice to Not Meet You!

The van pulled up in front of the woman's hotel and she opened the white door labelled "MARIO TOUR" and climbed in. Inside was one other woman with frizzy hair and a dorky smile. The driver nodded to her in his rearview mirror. She sat down next to the woman, which she immediately regretted because she felt that all-too-familiar social pressure of needing to either start uncomfortable small talk or ignore the woman and feel like a bitch.

She could feel the woman's eyes glance over at her every minute or so, obviously feeling the same pressure. She really didn't want to talk; she was exhausted from an all-morning winery tour and then gondola ride in the hot sun. She just wanted to relax but couldn't handle the pressure of other humans thinking she was socially inept or mean.

"Ugh!" She finally released. "Listen, you seem very nice, but, let's just not make ourselves have to talk to each other, okay? I would love to talk to you and I'm sure you're a fine lady, but I'd rather just stare out the window and be silent."

The woman responded with a shocked expression. "Oh my gosh! I'm so glad you said that! I feel the exact same way! Thanks for saying that and getting it out there, now I don't have to worry about being polite."

"Perfect!"

"This is so freeing! Gosh I really like you. I just don't feel like going through the whole, Where are you from? Oh great! I'm from yadda-yadda and Do you have kids? and all that crap."

"And you have to force a smile and nod and make approving sounds with the back of your throat."

"God it's so exhausting!"

"Yes!"

"I actually feel so great about this, I feel like I can be totally open to you with the fact that I just really could care less about anything about you!"

She sat up in her seat. "I was just thinking that I don't care anything about you either!"

"Ha! That's so funny! My gosh, I really feel like I get you. We're so similar!"

"We are! Okay, let's just stare out the window, no judgements."

"I'm not even going to glance at you once. I won't even say goodbye, or Enjoy the rest of your trip or any of that other bullshit! Only if a terrorist attack broke out, or the bus caught on fire would I further interact with you, and that would only be so I could push you aside so I could escape and save myself!"

"Likewise! I bet we have tons of things in common but I don't care to wade through all the energy sucking politeness to reach it! I bet we probably know the same person in Ohio or something, or are related in some way, but there is zero part of me that wants to exert that energy for you! Zero!"

"You are one of the best people I've ever met here!"

"You are! I knew from the moment I met you there was something special about you, that I couldn't care less about!"

The women talked about not talking to each other for hours. They'd never had such a real interaction. They both felt like they could completely be themselves around each other. They passed by the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Sistene Chapel, and the Pantheon and barely glanced out the window. Finally their tour was over and the women felt revitalized with energy. When the frizzy hair woman got out she accidentally let slip that she lived in Romeoville, IL; the same town as the other woman!

"No, no, don't tell me where you live. I don't care, I don't want to know you."

The other woman laughed. "So true! God I hope I never run into you again! Seriously, fuck off."

"No, you fuck off."

"Thank you. This has been one of the best relationships in my life. Go away now!"

"You go away and shut up!" The women laughed and she shut the door and walked away. Inside the van, the woman who was so tired at the start of her tour and now felt energized watched her walk away.

"Dammit, I should have gotten her phone number..."

It's a Sign.

"CAUTION! WET FLOOR!" shouted Janitor Molitrov, pointing to the yellow pointy sign. The woman walking towards Aisle 6 to get her eggs rolled her eyes.

"Oh, please, calm down- ahhh!" She tripped on the wet floor and the pack of bacon she held in her hand went flying the air and landed on the head of a man in the other aisle with such force that the package split open and cold bacon flopped down over his forehead and face. He wiped it off his head and screamed.

"WHO JUST THREW PORK AT MY HEAD?!" he shouted. His security team swarmed around him and drew their concealed weapons looking for the culprit. "They are attacking me! They are attacking Allah!" the man shouted. He walked forward to the nearest aisle where a pimply faced teenager timidly swiped people's milk cartons across the scanner with rhythmic high-pitched beeps, grabbed the telephone behind his head and shouted into the receiver. His voice echoed throughout the entire Safeway supermarket.

"I was on my way to President Barack Obama's house to sign a peace deal between my country and the United States. All war would have ended. I knew it was too good to be true. I knew it was only a matter of time before you Americans would take the time to soil my belief and country and most importantly, my God! We will now not only be withdrawing our diplomacy and signature from this historic treaty but we will be officially waging war on America!" His security guards fired off their pistols into the air and people screamed as pieces of drywall and lighting equipment fell down from above. The group then stormed out of the building.

The woman on the floor looked up at Janitor Molitrov who shook his head at her. He picked up his walkie talkie.

"Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"We got another international war sparked over here because someone didn't listen to the sign again." He rolled his eyes. "And I can't get into the supply closet, my key got jammed."

"Weird. Did you try twisting it?"

Hole, Hole in the Wall, Who's the Fairest of them All?

"I knew the mirror wasn't me," said Clara. Ever since she was a little girl she suspected that when she'd look into the mirror it showed back someone other than her. And today she finally figured out she was right.

Her mother cried. The girl behind the hole in the wall looked down.

 "It's just, baby... when you were born we knew you... didn't have my..." Her mother cast her hand over her face. "This. So I... I..."

 "Oh God!" uttered Clara.

 "I... hired a little girl your age to live in our wall and look up whenever you needed to use the mirror. I just wanted you to have high self esteem!"

"I did until now! Oh God, what do I look like? Where's a real mirror?"

 "There are no real mirrors in this town," explained her mother. "We started a rumor in the town that witches use mirrors to cast their spells. It made everyone break their mirrors, all so that you'd never see... So that you'd never have to see."

"You started that rumor? Is that why people are running around the town burning people at stakes?" Her mother cried into her hand and nodded. "Dear Lord, Mama, do you know how many people have died in Salem since that rumor started?"

Her mother just sobbed. The girl walked up to the hole in the wall that for years she believed was a mirror. "Who are you?"

The girl back just blinked.

"She doesn't talk," explained her mother through sobs. "We found her living in the forest, poor and hungry. She was pretty, though. She was exactly your height and probably age, so we just stuck her in the wall and fed her when you weren't looking. We had to train her, of course. Oh, God, it's just awful!"

Clara banged open the wooden front door and ran from her family's tiny shack, past the pigs and chickens, and down into the country. Her mother called from behind her to come back but of course she ignored her.

She looked everywhere. She needed to see how ugly she was. She searched everywhere. Every puddle was too murky, there wasn't enough sun out to reflect herself back in the ponds, everyone's spoons were too worn. She shrieked into the thin winter air in frustration. And then; finally -- a boy with bright blue eyes walked with a book under his arm.

"Can I look into your eyes?! It's important!!" She ran up to him and surprised, he jutted his head back as she oggled at her reflection in his pupil. She saw a ragged girl with an odd shaped face and bushy eyebrows.

"Mom was right... I'm hideous."

She took a step back from the boy.

"I think you're the most beautiful girl I ever saw."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Too beautiful."

"Do you mean it!?"

"Yeah. Say, you're not a witch are you?"

"No!"

"Did you make me drink a love potion?!"

"No!"

"WITCH! WITCH!"

And then the girl was ran out of town by a mob of scared simpletons trying to capture her to set her on fire. And she lived happily ever after.

God Bless the U.S.A. (and Nobody Else)

This is a story that has taken MANY a form. This is the most recent draft before I scrapped the whole thing in favor of my story Charity Bloodlust which takes a new spin on many of the elements of this story in my upcoming book Lord of the Fries, available for Amazon Kindle users for just 99 cents! (Release date TBD.) So enjoy God Bless the U.S.A. (and Nobody Else):

            Minnie in full North Face wear and Benjamin in his leather jacket lead their two little ones down the streets of Times Square, shopping bags in their gloved hands. Down the street, a wispy man in a green smock holding a binder in his wife gloves waved amicably at them.  

            “Hi there folks! Do you have just one minute to help a child who is currently dying?” he asks with optimistically misty breath. He has a pen behind his ear and Irish white skin. He stands back to back with his colleague, who grabs people’s focus coming the other direction.

            Minnie becomes very excited. She looks at Benjamin’s reaction. Yes! He’s honed in on the kid. She could feel it… he’s going to cut this guy up like a cantaloupe! Most people would just shake their heads and ignore these people, incurring the public shame of being the jackass who refuses one single minute for a child’s actual life! Called out in front of everybody for being callous; to refuse these fresh little pumpkin pies, freshly baked with college degrees, and steaming from the ideas their professors put in their heads. No, Minnie and Benjamin would not join this stream of unfortunate people to meet that passive shame because they’re different. These people shit red white and blue. They’ve got business smarts and every day reap the awards of the American dream. He’s next in line to be an executive at Balchek, a company which manufactures radar systems for tanks and aircrafts for their client, the American military. Minnie, his little Statue of Liberty, runs an online business selling her invention, lower back pillows targeted at new mothers. With their five and seven year old they live in upper Manhattan.

            Benjamin glances at Minnie. He sees that she’s tuned in. He winks. She shakes her head.

            “No, honey,” she says, lips curling. “Don’t do it. Don’t.” He walks up to the young man with the clipboard. She tries to suppress her squeal but can’t help it. He sizes the young man up. The tall lanky young man puts his hand out.

            “Hi there. I’m Pete. What’s your name?”

            Benjamin squeezes his hand. He looks down at the young man’s green smock: Save the Presently Dying Children Organization. He smirks and locks eyes into the young man.

            “Shoot me.”

            “Sorry?”         

            “Your pitch. Shoot me.” Benjamin eyed his wife who looks at him with knees rubbing together, and a playfully disapproving look. His children blink as they watch him. The young man opens up his binder to expose laminated pages full of colorful charts, pictures of multi-ethnic children in dirty clothing standing in front of crumbling infrastructures, and words like HUNGER and EPIDEMIC in fun Microsoft WordArts.

            “Sir, did you know that there’s 4 million children dying every year from hunger alone according to the U.N? I’m sure you’d agree this is unacceptable, yeah?”  

             Benjamin raised an eyebrow. “Mmm.” Minnie’s heart beat fast. Any minute he’s going to pinpoint the business’ failings and slam them in this man’s face. It would be horrifying. She couldn’t wait.

            “And I’m sure you’d agree that all children deserve to have the basics: a home, a meal every day, clean water; basically, a future. Right?”

            Benjamin smiles and laughs. Look at this youngster, building up a classic sales yes set. “Sure, son.”

           “Excellent. You can do that for one whole child. Sponsorship,” he opens his binder page to expose pictures of children in ragged clothing standing in front of ramshackle buildings. “Let’s go ahead and get you signed up today, alright?” the boy opens the binder to the front cover, exposing the blank Sponsorship Enrollment forms. He freeze-smiles, oozing as much boyish charm as he can. Benjamin laughs aloud again. The young man narrows his eyes a bit.

            “Son, let’s start with your company. Who the hell are you?” He looks at the boy’s smock. “I haven’t seen that logo in my wildest stress dreams.”

            “Benjamin, be nice!” Minnie says sternly but quickly melts into giggles when Benjamin gives her a cocky wink. “Enough!” she says, laughing, dispelling any reason to listen to her.

            Their kids, used to their parents playing these games, continue to watch with mouths slightly agape, like watching a television show. Their little breath mists come out in intervals.

           “Save the Presently Dying Children Organization has been around since 1963.” The young man opens up to another binder page that displays their organization’s New York permit and a printed certificate from the BBB. He further explains their non-profit was featured in the “Top Ten Sponsorship Programs” in the respected NPO National last year.

            “How do you distribute your revenue stream? I want my money going to the kids, not your bosses’ new yachts.” He smirks at his own wording. The young man plants his feet wider apart and flips to another page in the binder that display an audit sheet of their business expenses with another pie chart that indicates the stingiest piece is the revenue that goes to the executives. Benjamin nods. “Target market?”

            “Anybody!” he says proudly.

            Benjamin shakes his head. “How has your company adapted to managing your product’s life-cycle?”

            “Our what?” the boy asks, his cheeks growing slightly redder. He flips through the binder which normally provides an answer or segue for every moment in the interaction. It’s suddenly unhelpful.

            “Honey!” Minnie says, simultaneously begging him to stop and to continue.

            “What is your product?”

            “Sponsorship,” the boy says.

            “No it’s not,” says Benjamin.

            The boy looks at his for assurance. “Yes it is.”

            “No it’s not.”

            “Ben…” moans Minnie.

            “Your product is selling change to the world. Did you not know this? Your consumers want to know that their dollars are making a difference. How does your work make a difference?”

            The boy flipped through pages of his binder. “Sponsorships… We have initiatives to purify water sources, provide the basic medical services which these children often do not have, and offer nutritional food supplies as well.”

            “Are you Johnson & Johnson?”

            “…No.”

            “Then why are you selling Band-Aids?” Minnie’s head is cloudy with the amount of hot breath she emits. “That’s not the product your customers want. I lead a Fortune 500 company.” Minnie’s breathing is audible. “If I were to tell my clients that we’re selling them a radar scope that can butter their toast they’d sue my butt for material misrepresentation. Right now your product won’t-” He looks over at Minnie with a cocky smirk, “-satiate your market demand.” Minnie mouths silent words.

            “Alright, babe, that’s enough!” she says, trying to fight the warm sensations in her body that have come from watching Benjamin neuter this street boy.

            “The real way to get these children out of poverty is to give them business classes. Teach them to be leaders. Teach them how they can grow up to add to the global economy.”

            The kid is red-faced, speechless, and emasculated. He begins to sputter some fragment of a rebuttal. Minnie looks her husband, the superior man. Watching it could make her pregnant.

            The other street worker turns around to face them. She’s got rosy black cheeks and bundled in a red coat with white gloves , hat, and scarf. She has a badge around her neck that reads Taniqua.

            “I could not help but overhearin’ your conversation with Pete. Mind if I interject?”  

            “Su-”

           “The reality of poverty is that the most immediate short-terms needs –food, water, shelter, medical attention – is step one to tacklin’ long term solutions. I don’t think it makes much sense to come into a village in Uganda and hand out business strategies to starving keeyids, would you?”

            Minnie and Benjamin are taken aback.

            “So there’s no reason not to sign up today, isn’t that right?” the girl says, smiling sweetly.

            “We give through our church,” says Minnie, stepping in.    

            “Oh yeah? To what organizations?”

            “Relief for the Troops, Animal Cruelty Society, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Education Injustice,” she rattles off with practiced ease, “an organization that gives scholarships to those affected by the racism of Affirmative Action.”

            “Sounds like you’re helping out a lot of people in America,” the girl named Taniqua says, “but not so much in the rest of the world. Let’s go ahead and complete your charity today by signing you up with a sponsorship, alright?” Benjamin narrows his gaze on her. She was good.

            “Why should we give to children across the world when there are children starving right here in New York?” says Minnie blinking rapidly.

            “Because children don’t have access to passports and travel insurance!” says Taniqua, smiling brightly.

            “Thank you for your business pitch,” offers Benjamin, shaking the girl’s hand. “But I’m a man focused on the big picture. It’s very much like Jesus said, ‘Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to commercialize, package, patent, distribute, and vend fish products, he’ll be in the black for a lifetime.’” He turns to his family and smirks. His wife’s knees were rubbing together and his children look up at him in adoration and awe. He begins to walk away when the girl speaks again.

             “S-sir,” she says, the sheen on her face suddenly struggling to stay on. “I would be happy to speak to you about our program, but one thing I ask is please don’t…” Her eyes search in the air for the most customer service kosher way to say it. “Disquote Jesus. I would appreciate it.” Her heart beats fast. “So, anyway, which country would you guys be interested in sponsoring from?” The girl tries to force-smile back on the optimism that has dripped off her face.

            Benjamin laughs aloud. “You are sharp. I like that, honey. This girl is a good Christian role model,” he says to his children with a confidence smile. “You’re right, honey, let me not embellish. That wasn’t the literal quote. It’s actually ‘Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.’ I just updated it to reflect the times.” He smiles.

            The sternness enters the girl’s face again. “Okay, sir, please, the one thing I ask is if you could just stay away from that subject. Jesus Christ was utterin’ no such phrase. There ain’t no scriptural record of that.” She takes a deep breath, trying to breathe out her sudden frustration. She goes through an internal war: Her customer service street sales skills dictate that she usually allow (and even sometimes imply agreement with) clear blocks of ignorance in a customer’s worldview because it’s disadvantageous to create tension with a prospective donor. Some of her best tactics she uses includes a nod of the head with diverted eyes, neutral words that passively appease their ideologies like “Alright,” or “Sure,” or nervously laughing into a new subject. But Jesus Christ is the one topic in which she wouldn’t suggest any falsehoods.

             “So anyway… Let’s start you guys off with our base donation of only eighteen dollars-”

            He smiles his eyes and laughs to himself. He glances over at his children and wife who look at him anxiously. “Alright. I’m not about to have an argument with a college student about who knows scripture better.” He smiles smugly. “Jesus said that.”

            She bites her teeth. “Sir. Please stop lying about the King.”

            Benjamin grits his teeth. “Lying?” He laughs one hard loud laugh. “No, no, no! That’s not what’s happening here. You need to find that quote in the Bible. It’s a very valuable lesson about Jesus, God, and profits.”

            The girl looks at him sternly and coldly.

            Benjamin laughs again in an effort to maintain his status in the conversation. “We’re a very religious family and we go to church every weekend. I’ve been going to Sunday school all my life, sweetheart.”

            “Terrific, sir.”

            Benjamin begins to walk away and then swivels on the spot. “We’re Protestant. We never miss church. Every weekend.”

            The girl blinks. “Alright then, sir.”

            Benjamin furrows his brows and stared deep into the girl’s eyes. “Do you not believe me?”

            The girl blinks. “Sure I do, Sir.”

            “No you don’t! You think I’m a phony!” He scrambles to come up with something. “W-We- look at the evidence. My wife is wearing a huge gold cross necklace. I gave it to her as a present.” Minnie holds up her pendant. The sunlight bounces off the metal and shines into Taniqua’s eyes and she winces.

            “Daddy?” asks his oldest McKenzie, with round worried eyes. “Does that lady think you don’t like Jesus?” Benjamin’s heart starts beating.

            “No! No! She doesn’t think that!” he turns to Taniqua. “Please tell my daughter you don’t think that.” She answers him with a pregnant stare. Benjamin lashes out. “We don’t care what you think! Who the hell are you? Why are you bothering us today?”

            “Sir, feel free to carry on with yo’ day.”

            “Well, I very well can’t right now because my religious freedom is being scrutinized!” he says, panting. His son and daughter watch in horror as their always on-top father scurries to regain his dominance. Even Minnie looks afraid. “I love Jesus, honey! I love him! I love him more than life itself! I love him more than my wife and kids! I love him more than all the riches in the world!”  

            His daughter starts crying.

            "No, no, sweetie, I do love Jesus! I love the hell out of him!” He stands up and looks around, as though waiting for an angel to reach out a hand. No such luck, he shouts, “Praise the Lord! Praise Jesus!” He throws his hands up into the cold winter air. “Jesus, oh Lord! We are here today to give you thanks. As always, bless my wife and children, and all the children in the world,” he says as he eyes Taniqua. People who walk past stare at the crazed man with apprehension.

            “Oh Lord,” says Taniqua.

            “Hear my prayer! I am one of your most faithful followers! If I am please send a sign!”

            A homeless man carrying a garbage bag on his back bumps into Benjamin right at that exact moment. “Praise the Lawd,” he says and hobbles away. Benjamin looks at the girl and crosses his arms. His cocky smile returns. The girl looks at him with an unconvincing smile.

            “I need to get back to my work.  

             “WHAT’LL IT TAKE TO PROVE TO YOU HOW MUCH I LOVE CHRIST?!” he seethes. He looks at her binder. “I know! I’ll adopt one of your little foreign kids. Give me that.” He reaches for her binder but Taniqua doesn’t hand it over.

           “You mean sponsor?”

            “YES!”

            The girl looks over at Pete, who looks amazed that she got him to want to enroll. Taniqua looks at her binder; she knows it doesn’t feel right to enroll this man. One of the organizational rules is to enroll people with intentions to keep the program for at least two years. She couldn’t be sure with this man.

            “I’ll take five kids! Give me five!” He grabs the binder from her hands and pen from her ear and flips to the SPONSORSHIP ENROLLMENT form in the front pocket.  

            “Um…” the girl hesitates, reaching for the binder. “Sir, you know what?” She clears her throat. “Thank you anyway, but your enrollment for this program is not necessary today.” She tries to pull the binder away from him. Benjamin holds onto it.

            “Oh, no. No, no, no, I’m getting these kids!” he says.

            “Sir, thank you so much for your willingness, but on behalf of S.P.D.C.O. I’m going to have to reject your application.” She tugs at the binder. He holds on.

            “Oh no you don’t!” he shouts. “Tell me who doesn’t love Jesus after this!” Minnie and the kids watch with fascination. They’ve never seen him do this before. The girl tries to wrench the binder out of his hands. She slips a bit on the icy sidewalk. She grunts and tugs harder.

            “GIVE IT TO ME!” she screeches. He yanks it away as he continues to scribble in his address and credit card information as quickly as possible. “GiVE IT TO ME!” she repeats. He holds it up in the air as he fills out the information and she jumps but can’t reach it. He indiscriminately checks the boxes next to the countries from which to sponsor. “Sir, this is not a game!” She shrieks.

            “Ha! Ten little foreigners! I bet you’ve never signed up that many kids for one person! I love Jesus, I win!” He hands her the binder with a smirk and begins to walk away. “Come on, kids, let’s go. Daddy just saved some kids. Time to go to McDonald’s.” 

            The girl waits until the family is out of sight. Then she takes the form out of her binder and is about to tear the paper when someone wrenches it from her hands. She turns around to see her site gawking at the sheet in ecstasy.

            “TEN SPONSORSHIPS!?” the short-haired woman cries. “We’ll definitely beat the Portland office now! Amazing Taniqua!!”

            Taniqua and Pete eye each other.  

 

A week later, Minnie carries a big bowl of popcorn through their ‘Caribbean’ kitchen (multiple islands) which has been featured earlier in the year to Interior Mansion fanatics. The pictures on the glossy page gleamed with the naked interior of their kitchen. Minnie and Benjamin keep the magazine under their bed and frequently refer to it when the children go to sleep. This night Minnie passes through the ocean of a kitchen with a bowl of popcorn and sees Benjamin sitting in the dining room at the other end. She walks over to him. Their dining room table sits underneath their diamond chandelier (which has ended up creating a reflective glare abundance problem, but they still keep it up) and the walls featuring art works of all genre, all unified by their highest tag prices.  

            “Honey, come into the family room. We’re about to start watching Toy Story.”

            “I’ll be in there later, babe.” He’s still in his work clothes, tie loosened, and hair slicked back.

            “But you love Toy Story,” she said, leaning against the doorway, “This would be a great opportunity to talk to kids about the classic toy market of the American 1940s and 50s…!” Her voice sexually flitters between all pitches, ending on a high one. “Are you feeling okay?” She walks up to him and rubs his shoulders. She looks down at the slew of pictures and crayon poorly hand-written letters across the table. “What the hell is this?!”

            “These are my kids!” he says, pointing to the pictures. Minnie looks hard at the papers across the desk, like trying to set them on fire with her mind.

            “Huh?”

            “The kids I adopted! These are my kids!”

            “Okay…ehh,” Minnie says, starting to feel a bit sick. She glances at the half-written legal pad under the pen he holds. “What are you writing?”  

            “Capitalism manifestos,” says Benjamin. “For my kids. Most of them don’t go to school, so I’m giving them the tools they need to succeed. Look at this one.” He shows her one of the letters, written in shaky red crayon handwriting, with a small brown boy’s picture attached: He stands in front of a one-story house with a sheet metal roof and a desert background. Minnie looks at the photo in disgust.  “This is Ignacio, from Chile. He says that his family has to ‘walk down the street to the neighbor’s farm to get milk every day.’ This kid’s got a great eye for identifying market demand! I’m going to teach him how to create a milk supply chain, how to get to know the right people in his village who have the assets he needs to dominate his village! With my guidance soon he’ll have his own business. Who knows, maybe someday my corporation can sponsor his little business and then we’ll take over his entire Chilean coast!” He looks at the photograph with fire in his eyes. “My little entrepreneur.” Minnie’s neck veins bloat.

            “And this is Karthita, from India. She likes to play with Legos. She’s my budding architect. I’m sending her sample blueprints to someday build a massive skyscraper in her town! Time to turn her peasant outskirt into a new metropolis! And I’ll be the mayor!” His face turned red with passion and excitement.

            “Oh my God,” Minnie utters.

            “And his is Ahmad. He’s bursting with social marketing skills, you can just tell based on his letter, which is basically a resume and interview. Look at this,” Benjamin points to the letter. “‘I was class President two years in a row, and my mom taught me how to make falafel.’ What a smoosher! I’ve printed these little business cards with his name on them,” he said, holding up a brown bag with a Kinko’s logo on it. “Together, we’ll widen his network of contacts and create a web of foreign business connections for us to tap into like undiscovered oil!” He stands up and grabs his wife’s hands. “I could take over the world with these kids honey..!” he breathes.

            Minnie stares at his eyes, completely turned off. Benjamin feels her distain and begs her to see the positives of philanthropy, but she does not. Reaching outside of the country makes her feel uncomfortable and the God-given system of freedom and capitalism dictates to her that if something makes her uncomfortable, there’s always something to buy to make it go away.

            “That’s so nice honey,” she says with no light in her eyes or expression. “But you know, we have children of our own.” She presses up against him so as to distract him from his charity work. “And you have your own little foreign girl of your own to worry about,” she says. “I am Delnova.” She jumps immediately into an extremely convincing Eastern European accent. “I fram Ukraine and I need American citizenship status. How do I get eet?”  

            “Unfortunately, we’re all booked in America,” Benjamin says, cocking his hips against her. “No more room. Tight.”

            “Vell vhat am I to do, Meester?” 

            “You’ll have to make me… satisfied…”

            “Oh yes?” she says as he caresses her chin. “And vut do you have in mind?”

            Benjamin leans in close to her ear. “Naturalization,” he whispers. “You’ll have to study for hours. You’ll have to come home from your twelve hour work shift and go straight to the library to study about the greatest nation God ever created.”

            She moans. “That sound like too much work. EEf only I have beeg, sturdy man to help me out vis zat. Isn’t there anything… else I could do,” she says, rubbing his shoulders. “Anything at all? Anything.”

            “Absolutely not,” Benjamin whispers to her, kissing her inbetween words. “Nothing is handed to you for free in America. You’ve got to work for it.”

            “And then I’ll be naturalized?”

            “Yes… naturalized all over you…”  

            “Let me into U.S. I want my dreams to come true.”

            “You want me to let you in?”

            “Let me in!”

            He pushes her over the table. She spreads her arms out. The letters crinkle, the pictures fall all over the ground.  

            “Wait! Be careful honey!” he shouts, grabbing the papers and unfurling them.

            She looks up at him. “Babe! They’re just letters from foreign kids!”

            “They mean a lot to me,” he argues back. She gasps. Thoroughly turned off, she turns around and struts back out of the room and shrieks: Her kids are there. They look up at their parents with big round eyes, absorbing in what they’ve seen.

            “How long were you two there?!” she shrieks, making sure her shirt is all buttoned up.    “The duration,” answers Matthew. He scratches his nose.

 

Also later that week Taniqua sits in at her Student Bible Fellowship group in the NYU library. She’s Vice President as of the start of the term three months ago. She joined two years ago when she first arrived, a fresh young lady from the Bronx, and has rocketed up to E-Board and V.P. in the past two and a half years. While she’s of Pentecostal roots, the group has introduced her to all sects of Christianity and things in between. They’ve had people from dozens of countries around the globe and a positive lifeblood of learning flows through most of the group’s members.

            When they have to meet in the library (if the classrooms are full) they mostly choose to grab the tables near the southwest walls; all the members seemed to prefer it and Taniqua is sure it’s because this is near the historical fiction section, whereas the north end tables are among the genetics, evolution, and embryonic research books. They had a few meetings near that wall but the members seemed distracted by the books taunting them.

            Today the majority of their regulars were in attendance and the current President, a round faced girl from Alabama, pulls out a secret bunt cake from her messenger bag with a devilish look on her eyes. She quietly passes around plates and plastic forks.

            “Hide it from the librarians!” giggles one member.  

            “But we can’t hide it from God!” says the President. Everyone giggles. The group begins opening with a prayer and then to be followed by spiritual stories the members share one by one around the circle. Taniqua is compelled to talk about her experience at work a couple weeks ago.

            “I met these two people who I felt….” She searched for that word, “persecuted my beliefs.” The comment catapults the group into a quiet-mouthed outroar.

            “My Genetics professor for reals said that God creating humans in his image was a ‘mindless’ theory,” says a thin girl who twirls her sandy-blonde hair. Her shoulders seem to get closer and closer together as she speaks in front of the group. “I soowww wanted to stand up and defend my faith, like all out, but I got too scared. Everyone around me laughed at what the professor said and I knew if I said anything I’d be… attacked…”

            “I getchu on that, I getchu!” said the only other native New Yorker in the group besides Taniqua. “100 percent. 110 percent. It’s like, if a late night talk show host says something about a Muslim or a Jew it’s a freakin’ headline. But they bash Christians all the time and nobody gives a hullaballoo! They just do it with words and not clubs, but it’s the same mentality! 100 percent! 120 percent!” The other members nod in agreement.

            “There’s a war on freedom of religion in this country,” says a boy from Uganda. “I was just learning about the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights in my Ceeveecks Two class. Have you guys read eet?” Most of the members shake their heads. “People have a right to ‘manifest’ their religious beliefs. So if we feel like we can’t express our religious beliefs because others will criticize them, that’s persecootion! That is disgusting, reprehensible, sinful religious persecootion!”

            “And of all things,” pipes up a very shy senior. “Christianity. The religion of love. We know it’s the religion of love. You feel God, you just know. You feel it in your heart.” He closes his eyes and rubs his heart. He usually doesn’t say very much of anything so the members are pleasantly surprised to see him open up. “You’re connected to something bigger than yourself. It flows through you, like the hummingbird wings of the angels… humming ever so infinitely.” He reaches into the air as though plucking the harp the angels carry around him. They watch him have his moment, and then jump back into the discussion.

            Taniqua pipes up again. “And to hear it coming all from other Christians! It’s horrible!”

            You’d think you’re watching a movie that pauses with how quickly the group freezes after this. The President cocks her head all the way to her shoulder, bunt cake still in her mouth. “What’s that Taniqua?”

            “Otha Christians! So-called Christians! They walk around with the cross of the King, our Savior, dangling over they boob jobs and steroid pectorals! Oh Lord, help the anger not wash over me like poison!” She breathes. “Of course people be hatin’ on us, they bee seein’ them!”

            A boy from Australia blinked. “Well, Taniqua, no one’s perfect. We’re still all sinners. We can’t be expected to account for others’ mistakes.”

            “But Calvin, obnoxious people is the loudest kind of people! Of course they gonna give us a bad rep! Our persecution will never end with them around! Shoot. Lord, please keep me from the temptation of hot fondue chocolate anger I want to drink right now.” She takes some deep breaths. “I wish there was just a way we could weed them out…!”

            “Impossible,” said the young man from Eritrea.  

            “Or maybe… at least separate out the worst of them…” Taniqua stares at the Artifacts from Ancient Rome spine on the shelf, lost in thought.  

              

“Daddy what does God look like?”

            “Just think of him like a tetrahedron eye floating above a pyramid,” Benjamin answers, thumbing through some emails on his internet phone as the family watches their 68-inch tube television on a later Sunday afternoon. Minnie looks over at him skeptically as she flips through the channels. They stop on Fox News. A big breasted anchor reports from a large school gymnasium, filled with Japanese families on cots and blankets on the floor. The headline reads, “Earthquake and Flood Devastate Japan; Estimated More than Ten Thousand Dead” as the anchorwoman recounts the disaster from the past twelve hours. The report flashes grueling images of floods, crumbling structures, helicopters flying over flooded towns, and pictures of LOST posters.

           “Those mommies can’t find their kids?” Their youngest Matthew blurts out. Minnie and Benjamin eye each other.

            “Not…right now, honey,” says Minnie. “No.”   

            McKenzie pipes up. “Who’s going to help them find their kids?”

             “The U.N,” says Benjamin. “And the Red Cross.”

            “Which our church gives to!” says Minnie, smiling.

            “Is that going to be enough?” asks Matthew. “That looks really bad.”

            “Of course, Matthew!” says Minnie. “They’re going to get through it.”

            “Can we go to Japan to help them?” asks McKenzie.

            Benjamin is glowingly proud of his children. “Has Daddy been rubbing off on you?” He looks up at Minnie whose eyes are round with fierce fear. He watches the images on their tube television and knows the right thing to do. “McKenzie, Matthew,” he says. “Your hearts are in the right place, which is a good starting point. The second step is to know how to make sound financial decisions with your donations and dollars. Throwing a handful of pennies at a boulder-” the children finish with him, “won’t make it move. That’s right. Now, kids, we talked about this: what other entities did this storm probably destroy besides people?”

            The kids look at each other. Matthew follows McKenzie’s lead to sound out the word correctly. “Cor-corporations.”

            “Good! And what do corporate entities add to a country?”

            The kids couldn’t remember. “GOP?” guesses his daughter.

            “Good, close! GDP! Very close though,” says Benjamin. “Now, if Japan lost many corporations, what does that mean for its GDP?”

            “It’ll have less!” says McKenzie, Matthew trailing the last word with her.

            “And why is that bad?”

            “They’ll have less states.”

            “Close. It’ll be living in a lower quality state. Give a country some food and water, they eat and drink for a day. Contribute to their profit margins, capital gains, and investment value and they’ll be in the first world. Think of the stock market crash in the 30s. It was the country’s capital that made people go hungry. We don’t want Japan to go hungry, do we?”

            “No!” his children cry. He shuts the TV off and stood up.

            “Let’s go do the right thing.”

            Thirteen minutes later, they walk through the sliding glass doors and florescent lighting of their local Best Buy where a bored-looking youngster greats them. Benjamin leads his kids and wife over towards the section full of home theater televisions, speaker sets, and Blue Ray players..

            “Sir,” Benjamin says, grabbing the attention of an azure-shirted employee. “We’d like to send aid to Japan. Where are the largest Japanese flatscreens? The bigger, the better,” he says, winking at his son and daughter. The young man blinks and leads them down the nearest aisle of varying sizes, brands, and types of high definition televisions. All display the same mash-up of movies and television shows; two children running through a field, an angry shark as it gnashes at the screen, Bruce Willis in Die Hard eyeing the Best Buy customers and blasting his pistol, and a slow motion explosion engulfing the entire screen. It fades out and the words High Definition: Have the Experience in Your Home! spreads across the screen. It then loops back to its beginning sequence.

            “Babe,” hisses Minnie as they follow the employee. “We haven’t bought a foreign product in years. Not even when we were in foreign countries. Stop this nonsense. You’re scaring me.”

            “Let’s see…” says the employee. “The biggest we have is our 90-inch.” He points to it on display on the wall. It’s mattress-sized. The images seem to jump off the wall, offering to the family to explore a new universe within its wide borders.

            “You’ve got 90-inch televisions?!” Benjamin cries, eyeing it with lust.

            “We do, and we can install it in your house with the use of a miniature plow.” Benjamin became semi-erect. “So, you’re looking at the Sharp LCD television for $8,999.”

             “The Sharp brand?” Benjamin blurts, shaking his head. “No, no, we’re buying a Japanese brand. That would probably be any other brand. How about a 90-inch Panasonic?” 

            “The only 90-inchers are American brands,” replies the representative. “The largest Japanese brand would be our 75-inch Sony over there.” He points to another flat-screen set on the wall. It looks dinky compared to the pool-sized Sharp screen.

            Minnie grabs Benjamin’s shoulder. “Honey. Get the 90.”

            “We’re here to help Japan!”

            She reals, appalled. “Listen to yourself! When have you ever gone against the natural order of the markets? Only the 90-inch satisfies our demands!” she hisses. “Are you trying to play God?!”

            “We’ll have to sacrifice our market demand!” he growls. “Self-sacrifice, hon! It’s what Jesus would have done!”

            “NO!!” Minnie lashes out. “Who are you?! My God, if I’d known you’d turn into some tree-hugging liberal I’d never have married you! Your 75 inches don’t satisfy me!”

            “Buying the 75-inch is the holy choice!” The store employee slowly back away as the couple gets more and more heated.

            “No it’s not! You disgust me!” Minnie looks at her husband, the martyr. She bawls. He grabs her shoulder and she pulls away. “Don’t touch me!”

            A few hours later, Benjamin turns on the new 75-inch Sony vessel of charity. The shots of the devastating wreckage are now in crystal clear high definition.

 

Benjamin sleeps on the couch that night. He gets up early the next morning and heads to the mailbox to find a letter from Save the Currently Dying Children Organization with the word URGENT in red letters. He rips open the letter:

            Dear Mr. Taylor:

Thank you for your patronage and support of young Ignacio from Chile. We regret to inform you that Ignacio has been diagnosed with the all too common hixies infection, which comes from a tape-wormed induced bacterial infection of the liver.

            Benjamin gasps. “No! My little entrepreneur!”

Ignacio is currently being treated at the Santa Maria free clinic next to his hometown but is fighting a losing battle. If you can find it in your budget to offer any more assistance to his family at this time, please call 717-823-0093. Any addition assistance, no matter how small, would be greatly appreciated by his family.  

            “No! I’ve got to save my little foreign kid!” Benjamin runs back into the house and dials the listed number on his cell phone. A girl’s voice picks up on the other end.

            “Hello?”

            “Yes, hi, I just received a letter from your organization because my adopted kid is dying, and I need to be able to give some extra money to save him!”

            There is only silence. “Wow. I can’t believe you called.”  

            “Why not?”

            “I really didn’t think you’d call.”

            Benjamin scans the letter with his eyes and looks at the number. “Who is this?”

            “I’m the girl who sold you the sponsorships the other day in Times Square.”

            The realization washes over Benjamin. “Oh ho! I sure do have a lot to tell you, babe! So remember our little discussion about Jesus? Yeah! Guess who just sent nearly four thousand dollars of aid over to Japan?”

            “I can’t believe I was wrong…” her voice says softly in the receiver end.

            “Yeah, that’s right!” he says, nodding vigorously. “That’s right, little girl. You were wrong. I’m a Jesus fanatic and you know it. No more silent judgmental stares from you. Everyone knows I love Jesus now. Everyone!”

            “When I didn’t hear back from you, I was going to go into the company records and delete your sponsorships… Because I was sure you wouldn’t notice.”

            “No, why!?”

            “I thought you shouldn’t be a part of our organization.”

            “Oh, this again? I don’t need to hear this crap from you. How about you? Yeah, you work for a charity, but how often do you go to church? How often do you sacrifice your happiness and your marriage for the name of Christ?”

            The girl laughs. “I can’t believe I was going to do it. I was really going to do it. I was going to delete those enrollments…”

            “Wait, what are we talking about here? Are you saying that you know I love Jesus, or aren’t you?”

            “It’s all man-made. It’s all made by man.”

            “What?!”

            “The church. It’s made by man. It can never be perfect. Only God is perfect. But God didn’t make the church. We made the church to get closer to God.”

            “Again, where do we fall on who loves Jesus more?”

            “And getting obsessed with what’s man-made would lead people to do terrible things, like cutting off aid to children who aren’t a part of this fight…” He chuckles softly. “Thank you for showing me the right way.”

            Benjamin jumps in the air. “Yes! You’re welcome! So you are saying that I love Jesus more than you do?!” He laughs aloud. “This is great!”

            “I’ve learned a lot from you.”

            “Wow! So you’re saying that I’m like a prophet!”

            “No, you’re a terrible human being,” she says as she hangs up. Benjamin looks at his cell and roars in frustrations. He dials the number again.

            “Yes?”

            “I work at a company that processes the radar equipment used in military tanks and planes. We’re going to start partnering with some international corporations to infiltrate untapped markets… We’re going to spread across the globe. We need to hire liasons between our company and the international ones. We need people like you. You’re sharp, you’re on your game, you’re fearless.”

            “Oh, thank you, but I’m only interested in non-profits with a mission of social justice at the m-”

            “Pays one hundred twenty-thou a year. Are you interested?”

            The phone goes silent for a few seconds. “Hell yes!”