Billy the Dung Beetle

Billy the dung beetle’s dad flung open the door to find his son sculpting a naked ladybug. “Holy Christ!” he roared.

“I told you, Dad,” cried Billy’s little brother, hopping from foot to foot just behind his father.

“Yes, thank you, Lance,” said his dad. “Now go back outside. Daylight’s burning.”

 “But – “

Billy’s dad shot Lance a look, then stepped into his son’s room and shut the door. “What the hell’s this?” he demanded.

Billy continued fashioning an antenna out of a ball of cattle excrement. “Well, it’s a figure, Dad,” he said. “You know, a statue.”

“A figure! I can see that, Son. God in Heaven.” He grabbed a shirt from the floor and whipped it about the ladybug’s glistening abdomen. “What I mean is, why aren’t you outside rolling? Ricky’s out there. And I saw that friend of yours, Angie. She’s becoming quite the little tunneler.”

Billy fell back onto his bed. “Aw, that stuff’s not for me, Dad. I’m no worker bee. I’m an artist – a real artist. See?” He reached under his bed and dragged out an exquisite reproduction of Notre Dame Cathedral.

“A little church,” his dad said flatly. He laid a foot to each side of the work and rolled it into a pill.

“Dad!”

“It’s for your own good, Son. This artist business – it won’t wash. It’s unseemly.”

Billy began to sniffle.

“Oh, here we go,” moaned his dad. “Here come the waterworks.”

Billy regarded his father through stinging eyes. He could suddenly envision his next project: a simple, narrow-minded elder beetle set upon by a murder of crows.

“I blame your mother for this,” Billy’s father said, settling backward onto a delicate, three-dimensional rendering of da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” He produced a cigarette from beneath a wing. “’Let’s enroll the boy in tap,’ she said. Then there were the piano lessons. That French tutor.”

“Check out the magazines on his nightstand,” came a voice from the other side of the door.

“Outside, Lance!” yelled Billy’s dad. “Right now.”

Billy tossed his dad the Walter Foster figure-drawing books from beside his bed, then flipped toward the wall. “Excuse me, but there’s no smoking in the studio,” he said, voice breaking. “And I’m not like, gay, Dad, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

Billy’s dad’s gaze ran from the back of his son’s jaunty blue blazer to his ascot and beret. “Uh-huh,” he said.

“Look, you’re developing into an adult, Son,” he continued. “And an adult doesn’t waste the light of day making little, I don’t know … ”

“Objet d’art, Dad.”

 “Exactly – doll houses and whatnot – holed up in his room. Especially when we’ve had a herd of angus move through the area. What you’re doing with manure here, boy, it’s not worthy.”

Now Billy was getting another idea, this one for a performance-art piece. He let his mind run with it. “Allow me to challenge you with this,” he’d recite to a great crowd of admirers including Auguste Rodin. Then he’d rip sheets from sculptures of an insensitive, block-headed patriarch and the youngest of its offspring. Next, as the throng looked on in awe, he’d mold a working shotgun, fill it with pebbles, and fire at the statues until they were reduced to busts.

But Billy hated to work angry. It was not the artist’s way. So he came up with something else, a plan of escape. There must be a hundred art schools that would accept him. Or he’d go to Paris, hire himself a little garret.

Billy’s dad moved to the foot of the bed and sat. “This may surprise you, Boy, but at your age I considered myself quite the painter.”

This was a house of lies. Then again, Billy considered, there was that paint-by-numbers Holstein evacuating its bowels tucked away in the garage.

“It’s true,” Billy’s dad continued. “I had it in my head I was going to leap onto the boot of a passing naturalist and work my way into the city, make a big stink. That was until I had it out with my old man, too.

“He was a roller, he told me. My grandfather was a roller. We’ve all been rollers, this entire family, since the beginning. It’s who we are, he said.”

Billy turned to face his father’s words. “What’d you do with that?”

“What did I do? I scurried the hell out of this place as fast as my legs would carry me. I got beyond the plains, set up shop and, after a while my stuff developed a following. I had fame, all the females I could inseminate – ” he glanced nervously at the door – “not that your mother needs to know.”

In awe Billy slowly nodded his head then quickly switched to shaking it from side to side.

“Point is it wasn’t so great. It wasn’t even good. It’s all crap, Son. All of it. All of the time. What you want is to be happy. And you’ll never be happy until you know who you are.”

Billy studied his dad for a minute. He could see himself in that face. Then he looked about his room, his studio. He got up, arranged his jacket on a wooden hanger in the closet and placed his beret carefully upon a shelf.

“We’d better get outside,” he turned at last to say. “Daylight’s burning.”

Sometimes a Bite

On the day Karen Moore’s boss told her she was no longer wanted at work, she returned to her apartment to find her longtime roommate had packed her bags.

“You’re stifling me,” the cat announced. She hoisted a tiny pack stuffed with catnip toys and Friskies onto her back, and padded toward the door. “I’m going back to school. I’ve taken an apartment near the college.”

            Karen fell back onto the couch, unable to speak. Since when had Fluffles been interested in education? She’d gotten herself a flat?

And what was with the talking?

“You’re moving in with that orange tom, aren’t you?” she finally mustered.

            The cat held up a paw. “Let’s not do this, Karen,” she said. “Let’s be adults. The truth is I can no longer put up with your abuse.”

Abuse? Karen had been nothing but good to the animal. She’d been Mother of the Century. She stared at Fluffles, openmouthed.

The creature’s ears went flat against its head. “Oh, this is news to you?” it hissed. It threw the backpack to the floor. “To begin with, you talk down to me. Spare me the babbling like a baby, will you please? I’m 40 years old.”

Karen gasped. She’d thought Fluffles to be only about 7.

“Our years are not your years,” spat the cat. “My life is half over. I’ve spent it at the foot of your bed. Then there’s the little issue of your having me spayed. Did you not think I’d like to be a mother one day?

“Fluffles, I'm --"

"That slave name! I won't have to hear that anymore. Nor will I have to see you close the door to do your business in decorated, secreted splendor while I use my own restroom in the kitchen. You gave me a plastic box of dirt, Karen -- a plastic box of dirt full of shit and piss!” The beast’s eyes went black with rage.

Karen realized she’d been a little remiss in the receptacle’s cleaning. But what was with the talking?

            “At night, your purrs,” Karen managed to say.

            “Yes, well, the last couple of months I was faking it,” said the animal.

            Karen looked at the carpet, at a spot where Fluffles had once had an accident. She wondered now if it really were an accident at all.

“Look, we had some good times,” the cat said, placing its paw softly upon Karen’s foot, the way it used to brush Karen’s cheek. “I loved it when we'd chase after wrapping paper and ribbons at Christmas. And remember how you’d point out birds near the window?” The beast made the rapid-fire, “ack-ack-ack” sound of being lost in the hunt, staring down its prey. She appeared to smile for a moment. Then her gaze, too, fell to the floor.

From the window wafted the distant tinkling of wind chimes, the warm hum of a plane's passing overhead, the soft ticking of a lawn sprinkler. In Karen’s head, though, an air-raid siren blared.

With a sudden crack the lid of the mail box fell, sending the cat scurrying for the bedroom closet.

It soon returned, slinking low to the ground in embarrassment. It picked up the backpack. “So long,” it said. Karen leapt to her feet. “Wait. I can change.”

“This is life, Karen. Sometimes you get a lick. Sometimes you get a bite,” called the beast. Its words, compounded with Karen's being sacked just hours before, pierced her clean through.

“I left my number on the fridge,” the animal said, and out the window she bounded.

Karen stood sobbing for a moment. Then she ran to the door and threw open the screen. “Now you fucking speak to me?” she screamed.

Remote, Unincorporated Area Outside Asheville, North Carolina or Bust

It’s said travel improves one. But all my plane tickets to Charlotte, North Carolina have brought me is despair.

My morning flight out of LAX is, I learn in a baggage line stretching a mile long, cancelled. My direct hop is now a sojourn of connecting flights and long layovers. It isn’t clear my suitcases will find me at the end of my odyssey. Finally arriving hours after I was supposed to, will the rental car I reserved still be waiting? I’d done all I could to avoid it but would now be negotiating sight-unseen mountain roads under the cover of night.

“Call your assistant,” my wife commands. “Get us out of this mess.”

“I am an assistant. Technically, I guess that would be me,” I say.

“You get up there, then, and get them to put us on another airline.”

That sounds as though it might involve conflict.

“But the nice man in my voicemail message assures me these flights of theirs are the only ones available.”

Lucy rolls her eyes. “Of course they’re going to say that. But they have to find you seats on another carrier if you want. It’s the law.”

            I glance at the harried ticketing/baggage agent. Dark coronas of sweat radiate from beneath his arms. He has the wild, wide eyes of a terrified mare.

            “Oh, for God’s sake,” Lucy huffs. She attempts to push past me toward the counter.

            “I’ve got this,” I say. I cinch up the pants in the family and stride almost confidently forward.

            The counter is awash in protest. The scene calls to mind recent images from Libya or the chili dog stand at Walmart. The woman next to me is in tears. With eye makeup running down her cheeks, she looks like Alice Cooper. Maybe she is Alice Cooper.

“Look here, good fellow, this simply won’t do,” complains an Englishman.

            “You fat fuck,” yells a fellow Angelino.

            After many tense minutes of negotiation I return to my wife’s side.

            “We’re taking their flights,” I say.

Las Vegas

            The highway to hell is a thing of beauty. We head out over the ocean before dipping our wing and turning inland toward Sin City. Below, white sails bob atop an ocean of blue velvet. As we bank, a sparkling ribbon of sunlight moves across the sea’s surface and dances upon my window.

            I gaze more intently and notice flecks of white beneath us. White caps.  It’s actually quite turbulent. But from this heavenly vantage point, one might never know. Taking the long view, all is serene, smooth sailing.

            A rim of the Grand Canyon soon fills my window. Its layers of rose-colored and purple rock stand out against vast ivory fields of snow at higher elevations. Then appears another wonder: Lake Mead. Its Hoover Dam is the likely the largest in the world.

We glimpse this first class beauty from the tail of our plane. We are in the very last row. “This is actually the safest part of the plane,” Lucy says. But I can’t hear her, the lavatory at my elbow smells so awfully. Gone, too, is my sense of taste. My eyes refuse to focus. The toilet announces itself with a fetid hello each time someone opens its door. A line forms and people stand with their rears pushing against the side of my head.

But there is no moving, no escaping my caste. The flight is sold out. “For safety reasons, please stay within your class,” an attendant reminds those of us looking to freshen up and avoid the queue. Then she pulls closed a curtain to separate the untouchables from the Brahmin.

In Vegas, even the airport is chock full of slots. Lights flash. John Williams’ thrilling score rings from a bank of Indiana Jones-themed machines. I’m not in McCarran for two minutes before the wheels come completely off the wagon.

            “You know what?” I tell the Starbucks worker, “Let’s do toss a little cream cheese in with that bagel.”

            She paws beneath the register.

            “Non-fat, right?” I add.

            She comes up squeezing a fistful of little packets and shakes her head.

            I’m silent for a moment. “Let’s roll them dice!” I finally say. I’ve run entirely off the rails. “’What happens in Vegas,’ right?”

            She watches me as she hands over the bag.

Somewhere Outside Charlotte, North Carolina

I’ve been ripping along the highway for an hour but have made only 30 miles of headway. Were it not for the driving rain and dark, I imagine I could still see the control tower at Charlotte, where I landed what seems like years ago.

I head one way up the road, then have to turn around and go the other. I miss altogether onramps onto other highways. Why can’t I work this navigation system? Is it me or is the device telling me to veer right or left only when I am directly on top of the spot I should turn? I select the machine’s written-directions option, but the names of freeways and exits don’t always seem to match what’s on the signs I see out my windshield.

With 100 miles of forward progress still to make and the Witching Hour within view, my mind gives way to worry. Who knows what lives in these ancient forests surrounding my tiny car, dwarfing it, threatening to swallow it whole should my headlamps fail? It occurs to me I don’t recall where Bigfoot makes his home. I plan evasive maneuvers should a stegosaurus suddenly dart across my path.

I took this trip to experience the un-experienced. But now I’d give anything for something I’ve done on a thousand occasions before. I pass a red, glowing Outback sign for the fourth time and swerve into the parking lot.

It’s after 9 p.m., too late to be ordering a steak. But I do it anyway – and demand a baked potato and salad, to boot. My Dodgers and Giants are on the television before me. It’s the home opener in Los Angeles, where the sunshine’s so warm some fans aren’t even wearing shirts.

I order dessert, as well.

BILTMORE ESTATE, ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA: In this beautifully unassuming land stands the largest privately-owned home in the United States. The Gilded Age mansion features 135,000 square feet of space and boasts 250 rooms. In the foreground, the author’s wife smiles but inwardly curses her husband for his paltry earnings. Her own George Washington Vanderbilt keeps her in a cottage no larger than the quarters of the scullery maid, behind.

Ridgecrest, North Carolina*

I’ve come all this way for a glimpse of my niece in her wedding gown. But I can’t take my eyes of these cold, tree-covered mountains. They’re sadly majestic, dressed in rust, gray and shades of brown. Spring hasn't fully come, so these hills are mostly yet threadbare and worn. I imagine I see tattered companies of Confederates making their way through the fog.

 The little flecks of white falling from the sky aren’t snow. They’re petals from a variety of tree exploding into ivory bloom. All the same, they collect to form snow-like drifts along the side of the road.

A reluctant sun retreats as titanic, rain-swollen clouds crowd the horizon. The day grows dark. Trees tremble as winds roar down the sides of these crests. Much of this growth has yet to leaf. Still, the rustling of branch and limb fills the air with a thunderous rush.

Standing outside, one can see the great gusts move over the landscape. First, distant hillside brush is blown flat. Then, a street away, chairs are turned end for end. A car alarm sounds. Next, a tsunami wave of leaves engulfs the body. At last comes the wind. It sends the feet to staggering.

* My destination is actually not a remote, unincorporated area outside Asheville, North Carolina, I learn from the man at the hotel registration desk. It’s a fully realized, stand-alone city and a perfectly lovely place to make one’s home. He’ll thank me and the rest of my fancy Hollywood friends to get that straight -- if keeping straight is something we boys can even manage.

Asheville, North Carolina

A healthy Southern breakfast includes a ladle of gravy poured atop one’s biscuits. “’That’s what she said,” I tell my wife. She sighs and continues scanning her menu.

We breakfast in the same café for each of the three days we’re in town. Just as unchanging is the tableau. To the right is a table of the groomsmen we’ll see at the rehearsal dinner and wedding. There’s my niece to the left, with her husband-to-be. The rest of the family sits variously about the place. We fill the joint. And we'll do it again tomorrow.

We have come from all corners of the country to sit here each morning and listen to the waiter tells us stories about his friend, the groom. He’s a warm God-fearing kid, we’re told. But then, all these young men are. The next day, after the bachelor party, the table of groomsmen looks haggard. It’s been a rough night. We learn later it’s only because they’ve stayed up praying.

Los Angeles

            SuperShuttle must’ve made sense on paper. Its creators probably drew up their business plan, leaned back, and said to each other, “We’ve really got something here.” It’s only in the real-world touching down late at night and being taken home in a grimy, suffocating box packed wall to wall with bodies and bags that the thing's exposed as utter madness.

To begin with, one’s pickup time is not the hour he or she begins heading homeward. It’s not even close. There’s still the stopping at every terminal to wait for others to be considered. Los Angeles International’s a very big place. Then there’s the dropping off at locations all over the Southland before you finally get your shot to leap from your seat.

            At last I reach the house. I’m immensely thankful to be in one piece. The ancient arthritic cat has not died. The house has not been broken into. I'm part of a wonderful family. Somewhere young people are good.

            I make myself a cup of tea and realize that's worth all the trouble in the world.