Table of Contents Views and Mechanics Publisher's Note Editor's Note Review of Nickel and Dimed Review of Night Shade By Elizabeth Murray Radical Influence: Review of Spoken Word Revolution Redux By Romella D. Kitchens Creative Nonfiction Toiling in the Garden of Memory By Madonna Dries Christensen Poetry Homecoming By Nic Sebastian Maple Syrup Emergency By Paul Carlino Bathroom Visitor By Michael Lee Johnson Fiction A Job Well Done By Catherine Cheek Animal Man By R.B. Trout Watch Over By S.K. Tatiner The Frailty of Perfection By William R. Stoddart Eat Drink and Be Merry By Rebecca Barbush Cover Art "Riot of Flowers" By Dee Rimbaud About the Contributors © 2007, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission. River Walk Journal, Inc. Board of Directors Chairman - Elizabeth Ross Vice Chairman - Joseph Koch Secretary/Treasurer - Geri Stock-Ross Editorial Director - Patti Kurtz, DA Literacy Director - Kenneth Weiss, Ed.D Policy Director - PA State Rep. Jess Stairs Advisory Board Chairman - Patti Kurtz, DA Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD Samuel Hazo Christopher Leland Edwin Yoder Joseph Bathanti Journal Staff Publisher - Elizabeth Ross Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch Senior Editor - Patti Kurtz Senior Editor - Neeldhara Misra Copyeditor - Kathy Skaggs Blog Contributing Editor - Maggie Koster Education Blog Contributing Editors - Jordan Wirfs-Brock, Kim Haynes Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/subs.html. Questions about promotions, subscribers' services, and advertising should be sent to publisher@riverwalkjournal.org. River Walk Journal, Inc. is a non-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. For information about volunteer opportunities and internships, visit VolunteerMatch.

Watch Over By S.K. Tatiner White light coiled outside the wall of glass, looking for a way to hurl L.A. into the hotel room. Dan Bracker and Minna Cohen stood in the pale-yellow carpet on opposite ends of the room, their luggage between them. Dan pulled open the sliding glass doors and stepped onto the balcony. He wondered if the surface was real marble or faux. Could real marble be so unblemished? Anyway, it was beautiful. “It’s too hot here,” Minna called to him. “Get back inside so we can close the doors and windows and turn on the air.” Minna uncoiled her red-and-tan plaid scarf from around her neck and threw it across a blonde plastic chair with slats, the only uncomfortable-looking chair in the room, claiming it for her own. Dan watched a bikinied mother rub sunscreen on her little boy near the pool below the balcony. She didn’t fit Dan’s stereotype of a mother, formed long ago from fragments of popular culture and memories of his own mother (wavy hair parted in the middle, faded jeans, no makeup, hopeless eyes, barefoot usually), but the boy called the young woman mommy when she walked over to the deep end and stepped off the ledge into the pool, so there it was. Dan wondered if the unconscious of the little boy grown to manhood would think mother when he saw a hot woman in a bikini step into a pool. There were worse maternal memories, he knew. There were more dangerous places for mothers of little boys to step from. His own mother had stepped out the kitchen window of their twelfth-floor apartment one night like she was stepping onto a subway train. She had asked Dan to stay up with her and watch TV. Begged more than asked, perhaps, but either way, he had fallen asleep, then opened his eyes, his head still on the sofa, and looked past the food and newspaper debris on the coffee table, past the console TV light and laughter on the left, through the kitchen door, to watch her step out the window with care. Recently, the sight of it had returned to him in dreams, in altered forms. A few nights before the trip, he dreamt of his mother stepping out through cracked glass onto a window sill of the 100th floor of the North Tower, holding on to something behind her, dangling her foot in the air, and filled with hope that she could survive the fall. She was troubled enough to have believed that, and Dan, in his own way, wanted to believe there was a sort of happiness out that window. “Dan? Dan? Did you hear me? I’m hot. Put on the air.” He turned to Minna. She was a small, slender woman, wearing a tight red sweater over a red turtleneck. She looked even smaller here, almost childlike, as though she had lost three inches on the flight west, one for each time zone. Her curly hair was fractured today, but her lovely face, lovely even with the scar on her left cheek and the reproving eyes floating, still aroused in Dan feelings about which he had always understood only one thing with piercing clarity: they made him stay. When her eyes closed in sleep, he often fantasized about leaving her. He always had. “You’re still dressed for New York,” he said. “Maybe we should both get naked and see what happens.” “Here?” “It’s our suite.” They were standing on the main level of the bi-level oval room. A super-king-size bed and a bathroom were off to one side and down five steps. Off to the other side and down another set of steps was a kitchenette, with a half wall, presumably to hide your dirty dishes from yourself. Along about three fourths of the oval on the upper level were windows, floor to ceiling, interrupted by the glass doors and the balcony. “I can’t imagine making love in this room,” Minna said. “It would be like having sex in an operating room or in a spaceship after you were abducted and probed.” Dan engaged Minna in his kind gaze and held her there until he felt her disarm. No gaggle of girls back in high school had ever described Dan’s small eyes as beautiful, but when they were in their kind state, he found that women appreciated them. The blue of these eyes was lovely, soft, almost baby shade, women said. They were in the park with Dan. Dogs were chasing Frisbees. Dan was smoothing out a blanket for them on the grass. In the other state, the intense one, his eyes were more gray than blue. He studied people with these eyes. Fixed in his intense stare, people felt like magazines rifled through but never brought home. Dan peeled the layers of clothing off Minna, tossing each layer onto her blonde, slatted chair, and they lay down on the bed. He kissed and caressed her. She was slow to respond, and he felt distracted. Finally, though, Minna became excited and began to moan the words oh no, oh no. Dan was aroused by this, as usual, but it irritated and depressed him, as well. Why was it never, oh yes? What had it meant to be turned on by this inconsolable utterance for six years? Afterward, Dan lay angry in Minna’s arms. He kissed her eyelid, and then, on impulse, began to trace the top of her scar with his tongue. She moved her head away from him. He pulled his tongue back in retreat, and lay back on the bed. He heard her breathe, and remembered how she had heard the doctor tell her parents, through the half-opened door in the emergency room, that the damage would have been minimal if only she had waited for help instead of struggling to free herself from the playground fence. “Why didn’t you wait for us, sweetie?” one of the parents asked. “Why weren’t you there?” Minna answered. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you tomorrow, Dan?” she said now. “I don’t think guests go to the luncheon for Oscar nominees.” “You could check with someone.” He stood up and turned around to look at her. The bed had been too big for the two of them. For her alone, it was absurd. What would happen to such a tiny woman alone in such a big bed? He resisted the urge to climb back in with her, instead covering her with the sheet. “I’m sure,” he said. “You should get out and see L.A.” He gestured magnanimously at the light prowling behind the wall of glass as he headed for the bathroom. ** Dan hadn’t known what to expect at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon, but the moment he walked past the flowing potted grasses on the steps of the Beverly Hilton Hotel, he felt like he had arrived. The overall impression was bright and golden. The lobby was lined with conical chandeliers hanging like full breasts above the creamy white marble floors. A stab of heartburn threatened to mar the whole experience, so Dan turned to the right to buy antacids in the crowded gift shop, formed by four glass panels. Waiting to make his purchase, he heard a voice from behind his shoulder. “You’re who I think you are, aren’t you?” Dan turned to see a chubby Asian teenager, with a woman, presumably the boy’s mother, just back of his elbow. They were both about the same height and both had short, spiky hair. The boy had tattoos of earrings on his ears. “I am,” Dan said. “I saw you on TV.” Dan winced. He remembered some of the interviews he had given when he was campaigning for a nomination. He had giggled at all the lame jokes of the TV personalities. The sound of his giggle was like something that had never come out of him before. High-pitched and terrified, if you heard it through Dan’s ears. Dan had hoped only he and dogs could hear it. “I hope you win,” the boy said. “Everybody wants you to win,” the woman spoke up. “O’Toole was a great movie,” the boy said. “When you forced the twisted doors open after the plane hit and you looked down the elevator shaft?” The boy snarled and pulled at imaginary doors in the air. “The look on your face when you realized you had to climb down out of the North Tower? Man! Like the poster said …” (he looked down and fanned his hands in front of his face) “What if this were the only way back home?” He dropped his hands to his side. “You were great.” “Thanks very much,” Dan said. “What’s your name again, mister?” the woman said. The boy rolled his eyes. “Dan Bracker,” Dan said. “Oh, yeah, yeah. Everybody wants you to win. Will you give me a hug?” “Mom!” “Shush, you!” “Sure,” Dan said. The woman was at least ten inches shorter than Dan, so her mouth was somewhere on his chest when they embraced, but Dan could swear he heard her whisper, “Your energy will heal me.” When she released him, he backed away toward the door. He couldn’t resist asking her. “Heal you of what?” “Huh?” she said, her face in a scrunch. “Nothing.” He half smiled, half waved, burped himself back into the lobby and moved quickly away from the gift shop. He saw perennial nominee Hank Mars walking toward him, smiling warmly with outstretched arms. “Hank Mars,” Hank said when he reached Dan, shaking with his right hand and taking ownership of Dan’s elbow with his left. “Dan Bracker.” “You must be excited, Dan.” “Yeah, just a little bit.” “Hungry, too?” Hank led the way toward the dining room. “I’ll tell you a true Hollywood secret,” he said. “The Nominees Luncheon is the best thing about being nominated for an Oscar. I’ve been nominated four times …” Deserved it twice, Dan thought. “…and I can tell you, this is the high point. It ain’t the food, Mr. Bracker. It’s the vibe. Everybody’s happy because everybody’s proud of themselves, proud of their work, proud that the folks back home get to say that old so and so was nominated for an Academy Award. Ever notice how many people thank their mothers when they win an Oscar? There’s just something about this award, makes us all revert to pure infantile, narcissistic pride. Like the first time we pooped in the potty. You remember that feeling?” “Uh . . .” “You don’t have to remember it, Dan. You’re reliving it. You have made yourself one hell of a turd.” “Thanks. You, too.” “I know it.” After a surf and turf lunch that Dan hardly touched, and free-flowing wine that he did, an Academy executive lectured them all on their acceptance speeches. “Don’t come with a list of people to thank. Just don’t! If you start listing people, I’ll have to come out on the stage personally and drag you off, and all the guys here are stronger than me—and the women, too, if you count emotionally. You can be as grateful as you want to be. Go ahead. Who’s stopping you? Your mother will be proud of how well she raised little grateful you. But keep it between you and your mother ‘cause all the rest of us will be bored shitless.” Hank Mars leaned over and whispered to Dan, “It’s a hopeless cause this. Ninety percent will rattle off a long list of thank-yous, ending tearfully with mom.” “Did you, when you won?” “Thank-yous, yes. Mom, no. I forgot to mention her, actually. I have a complex relationship with my mother.” The luncheon speeches hummed from the dais, sometimes soft and low, sometimes rising in a rattle like a swarm of cicadas. The rattle, the wine, the odd sensation, for a New Yorker, of being warm in February, all of it made Dan feel like he had landed in a rare summer afternoon of his life. He lay back in the hammock and amused himself by imagining giving engaging interviews on the craft of acting, the sort of thing he had heard on “Inside the Actors Studio.” He worked out his answers to the ending questionnaire. Dan’s favorite word was roar. He loved the simple, powerful, animal energy simmering in it. But he decided that roar wasn’t good enough for a favorite word. Besides, James Lipton might expect him to actually roar after he said it, and he’d look like a damn fool. Maybe, he should say home. Home was his second favorite word. But, no, he shouldn’t use home because of the O’Toole poster. He needed to differentiate himself from the film if he wanted to have a real career. Dan settled on authentic as his favorite word. In the mingling after lunch, Hank introduced Dan to several groups of people and then drifted away. Dan was nervous on his own. He expected some resentment at the behind-the-scenes stretching of the rules that got O’Toole on the list of eligible films. It had opened in New York and L.A. for a week, as required, but jumped to DVD backlist quickly. Then something happened. The film received no more theatrical showings, few reviews, none of them great ones, but its popularity grew--furtive and powerful as an affair. By late summer, at gas pumps and cash registers, in swimming pools and kitchens, people were imitating Dan as Benedict O’Toole delivering the final line of the film. He walks through the apartment door. His wife sits on the blood-red sofa with the lights of disaster in downtown Manhattan flashing in the window behind her. He drops his right fist to his chest and says, “I wouldn’t die.” The Academy made a tactical decision to side with the public and declare O’Toole eligible for voting. Maybe some of suits from the studios were pissed, but not the creative types. At least, not as far as Dan could tell. Everybody was nice. They welcomed him. Gave him career advice. Told him to call when he was ready to move to L.A. He was going to move, right? The window of opportunity is open. Jump. On his way to the men’s room, he felt someone’s arm slip under his own. When he turned, he saw the other arm belonged to Amanda Pryce, who was smiling at him. She didn’t look exactly like the Amanda Pryce from the movies, but Dan was used to that already. In person, no one looked quite like they did on screen. She looked softer, smaller; her skin was almost translucent. She had on very little makeup. Her hair was tousled in a perfectly familiar way. She stroked his arm with two of her fingers as she said, “Your performance was so pure. I hope you can hold on to that. I want to see it again and again.” She slipped her arm out of his and wafted to the right. Dan watched her float. The bottom of her see-through peasant blouse rose and fell with the air around her, and her renowned breasts undulated just below the surface. When this vision was about ten feet from him, she turned without warning. Arms on hips, head cocked to the right, she first regarded Dan with a curious, surprised look on her face and then returned. “Want to be in a movie with me?” “What?” “I’m a teacher slash rape victim. You’d be the detective. We’d fall in love. Terrence Schwab was cast but dropped out because of scheduling. They’re looking around for someone now, and I know they care what I think. I’m exec producing, for one thing, and they were really happy to get me, for another.” She moved closer and stood inches away from him, careful not to touch. “I think I want you,” she whispered. “You know what I mean?” She rippled a laugh and walked away, calling back over her shoulder, “I guess their people will call your people, like they say in the movies. Oh …we shoot in April.” Dan stood in place. He heard sounds. He saw people move around him. But he was in some kind of zone. Someone accidentally bumped into him, and brought him back. He went into the men’s room and prepared to urinate. Making the physical connection with his own body unleashed a fire inside his head. Amanda Pryce. A 10! Wants me! A 10! A 10! A 10! A 10! And suddenly Dan knew that all his sexually conscious life—from the feeble stirrings at 9, to the initial masturbatory fantasy at 13; from getting to first base at 15 and second base at 16, to the interminable inning that kept him on second base until 18, to …well, to now, damn it—he knew that all his sexually conscious life he had craved having a 10. Neon numbers flashed all over his brain. He knew—flash!—that he thought of himself as a 4. He saw that his first girlfriend had been a 3, with her pimples and thick middle. Ever since then, he had been working his way up: girlfriend Lucie was a 4, maybe 4.5; Regina was a 6. He tried to stop himself before he got to Minna. What kind of man keeps this kind of secret numerical inventory of the women in his life? But he knew two things: without the scar, Minna was a solid 8, and with it, he wasn’t sure. By the time Dan met Minna, she had defined so much of her self by the scar that it was hard to be attracted to one without the other. She flaunted it, daring people to attend to it and then shooting them a look of defiant shame when they did, demanding everything that scarred people are owed. He could see the look now. It had always held an irresistible logic for him. If you look, you should pay. At some point, the scar had become Minna’s main source of income and Dan her major customer. Dan and Minna had been at home when the Oscar nominations were announced. He danced her around the room in a joyful movement that was part polka, part Twister. When they stopped, laughing, he took both her hands in his and asked her, “What kind of gown shall you wear to the ball, mademoiselle?” Still laughing, she pulled her left hand away from him to touch her scar. “I don’t know. What goes with this?” They would all look. He would pay. Dan put his penis back in his pants. Seeing that he was not alone in the men’s room, he walked over and washed his hands. ** Four o’clock. Minna had left hours ago to go shopping. They’d been in L.A. for over a week, and she seemed really restless. Said she needed some underwear thing for her Oscar outfit. How long could it take to buy underwear? What if something had happened to her? He should call. He really should. She could have been hit by a car. A car … or a bus. A bus, maybe. She’d be dead, then. For sure. Yeah, a bus. Minna put her key card in the door slot and green-lighted her way out from under the bus. “Hi, babe.” He smiled. “Got what you needed?” “Why don’t you answer your phone? You have no idea what I have been through.” “You called?” Dan looked at his phone. “Oh, God. I had it on silent. What happened?” “The store clerks are all rude assholes who expect everyone to know everything. If you ask a question, they look at you like you’re the asshole. The women are all anorexic or bulimic. I heard a woman vomiting in a stall next to mine in a ladies’ room. One store had sizes I had never seen before. Minus sizes. And the light is so bright I had to wear my sunglasses inside the stores, and I got a screaming headache anyway. Then I got lost trying to get back here. Nobody knows how to get anywhere in this farkatke city. You should have come with me. I told you I needed you to come with me.” “I had to read …” Dan had stayed at the hotel to read the teacher-and-detective script that had arrived by messenger, a few days after his agent had been contacted with preliminary feelers. “I don’t know why you have to read it again. You know you’re going to do it. You’ve already made up your mind. Haven’t you? Well? Well?” “Yeah, Minna. I’m going to do it,” he said, tired of her barking. Minna placed her bottom on the slatted chair, still holding her shopping bag. “Where are they shooting it?” she said. “Phoenix.” “You’ll be gone a long time.” “Six weeks. Eight weeks. I don’t know.” “Eight weeks.” “Could be six.” “I’ll miss you.” “I’ll miss you, too,” Dan said. He kissed her on the forehead and walked down the steps behind the half wall of the kitchenette to make coffee. When he came back, Minna had moved only one hand. It was in her lap now, and the shopping bag had fallen to one side on the floor. Her face was red and her eyes looked wet. “You’re crying,” Dan said. “No.” “Yes, you are.” “Stop.” “Minna, what’s wrong now?” “What do you mean now? Like there’s always something wrong.” “Just tell me what’s wrong, and not make me do this song and dance where I beg you to tell me, and you won’t, and on and on. Please do me that favor.” Minna walked down the stairs and into the bathroom. In the mirror, Dan watched her sort through toiletries and read directions on the hotel shampoo. Then she turned back and stood in the bathroom doorway, with one hand on each post, like someone following earthquake instructions. “Why did you bring me here? I don’t fit in. It’s too perfect. Does it ever rain here? Is there any cloud cover? I guess no one here needs to hide, but I do, Dan. I sure as hell do. And you used to, too. . . . “ Dan started to protest. Minna shot out of the doorway and nearly fell across the huge bed. “No! Don’t say you didn’t, because I know better. I hid you. I hid you in my heart when you needed a place. And now, you won’t do anything with me. You just sit around making or taking phone calls and reading scripts. And then when I go out, you put your phone on goddamn silent!” “I feel like I’m on a toll road that never gets paid for with you.” “How long have you been preparing that line?” Minna asked. “There’s never going to be enough, is there?” “Baby, there never has been yet.” “That’s not fair. Play fair, Minna.” “I didn’t know we were playing. I thought we were trying to find a way to love each other for good. I can love you forever.” “’For good’ and ‘forever’ shouldn’t necessarily be allowed to mean the same thing.” “Fuck you,” Minna said. Dan saw that her hands were shaking. He looked down so he wouldn’t have to watch, but he slouched toward her and took hold of both of them. ** When they said Dan’s name in the Kodak Theatre, the place exploded. The crowd in the three levels of balconies surged from their seats and roared. For a second, Dan actually thought that a bomb had gone off at the exact time his name was read. Then Minna put her arm around him. “You won, Dan. You won. Go.” He jumped up. He felt as though he were experiencing gravity for the first time. He concentrated on moving his newly heavy body, pushing it forward; past smiling, applauding people, up the stage steps, across the wide stage, into the arms of the winner of last year’s best actress award. She placed the Oscar in his hands, along with the card that had his name on it. He read the card, just to be sure, and the audience laughed. The laughter relaxed him enough that he began to remember parts of what he wanted to say. “Thank you. Thank you. So much. I’m shocked, really. By your generosity to an actor who hasn’t done much up till now except work his rear end off and get pretty much nowhere. [Laughter] Thank you for not, you know, voting on seniority or whatever. [Scattered applause and laughter] There are so many people I want to thank tonight …” And Dan began to recite the names of the most important ones: the money people, first, because forgetting them would be a mistake he could not afford to make. Then the director … “You are going to hear more from Billy Flynn. He is a director with vision and style.” Blah, blah, thank you, thank you. He saw Hank Mars in the second row, aisle seat, smiling at him. “And, well, she’s gone now, but I should say thanks to my mom. I always knew she loved me, no matter what. And speaking of love . . .” He was feeling a little lost, but he had gotten himself to the last line he had planned, which began And speaking of love. And speaking of love, what? What? What? Dan could not remember. He rocked like a little, wordless boat that had no business being out on the sea of faces in front of him. “And speaking of love . . . I love all of you tonight!” he ad-libbed in panic, raising the statuette in the air. The music swelled, last year’s best actress took his arm and led him offstage. It wasn’t until he was in the velvet-lined elevator on the way down to the press room that he remembered what he had planned to say: And speaking of love, I want to thank my sweetheart, Minna Cohen, for believing in me, when I had little else to hold onto. The realization of what he had done hit him like an airbag. And that’s exactly what he said to Minna when he apologized, as soon as she caught up with him in the press room. “Like an airbag?” Minna said. “Yeah, those things are brutal, I’ve heard.” “They also save your life, don’t they?” “What do you mean?” “Oh, nothing, Dan. It doesn’t matter.” “This happens all the time, you know. It’s very common.” She put her hand over his mouth and closed her eyes. He ran his tongue along the cup of her hand. Academy personnel moved the winners through the press gauntlet with skill. The press conference was a scorching landscape of lights, but it was going reasonably well. Either Dan was getting better at this press stuff or he was so high from the excitement and the two shots of tequila he had belted from the sidebar that he couldn’t tell how bad he was. “Dan, how do you account for the enormous appeal of O’Toole?” “I think people were ready to explore their feelings about 9/11 on a more universal level,” Dan said. “O’Toole is about the courage it sometimes takes to truly live the very next moment in your life. That’s a timeless theme.” “Did you have to rent that tux?” “It’s due back by noon tomorrow or I owe another day.” The press loved it. Next up was a sit-down with the entertainment correspondent from the network that had aired the Oscar broadcast. They had rigged a half circle of taupe curtains to make a cozy spot for conversations with the big winners. Minna stood behind the curtain to wait for him, and Dan settled into one of the wing chairs on the other side. Dan was comfortable. The press was pretty predictable, he decided. Many questions were very similar to ones he had been asked for a month now. His answers were getting better. The tequila helped, too. The network correspondent began. “Well! Dan Bracker. Congratulations. What a wild ride this must be for you.” “ ‘Wild’ is the word, man. Wild,” Dan said. “Best Actor in a Leading Role. That makes you Big Man on the Hollywood Campus. So . . . I guess you know what I have to ask you now . . .?” Dan had no idea what was coming. “ . . . Tell us about your love life!” Dan stammered, smiled, emitted the high-pitched giggle. Could you really call what he had with Minna a love life? “You’re here tonight with a lovely lady as your date,” the correspondent prompted. “Is she your wife? Girlfriend?” “No!” Dan heard his buried voice rise and had a mental image of himself stepping out a window. “Oh, no, oh, no,” he repeated, shaking his head. His body turned upside down as gravity pulled the weight of his head downward. Where the hell did that come from? “So you are still an eligible bachelor,” the correspondent said. “Yes, yes. Yes, I am,” Dan said, with a determination to hit the ground on his feet that astounded him. When Dan came around the taupe curtains, Minna was gone. On his phone, he found her text message: “Went home.” ** A few days later, Dan returned home, too. Minna and her things were gone. He didn’t know where. She hadn’t responded to any of his calls or texts. He tried not to think about her, but couldn’t be distracted because his arms literally ached for her. He hugged couch pillows to help him get through the first evening. He replayed the virtual breakup scene over and over again in his head, sometimes on his side of the taupe curtain, sometimes on Minna’s. He tried getting angry at her. How could she leave like that? Without letting him explain? He had to go to the Governor’s Ball by himself. And the Vanity Fair thing, too. She really had let him down on one of the most important nights of his life. Screw her. But anger didn’t help with the guilt or the grief, so what was the point? Then, roaming like a lost boy among flashing police lights and adults too busy to see to him, he discovered the one thing that did help--the relief he felt to be free of her. He climbed inside the relief as though it were the ambulance they sent for his dead mother. He let it wrap a blanket around his shoulders and put a cup of hot chocolate in his hands. And though he was ashamed, he let it close the door and begin to drive him away. It drove him to L.A. He moved there right away. Hated it at first, for all the New York reasons (too sunny, too plastic, too blonde), then loved it (the sun! the palm trees! the climate!), finally accepted it as home. He made the movie in Phoenix with Amanda Pryce. A few weeks after filming ended, Amanda let him go gently like an underweight fish. He didn’t complain. He’d had his 10, and he was grateful. Grateful, even, for the aphorism she had given him on the sunny (of course) afternoon she left: “Sweetheart, stop moping around feeling all guilty all the time. Relationships are like cars on life’s road trip. You were using her to get some place. She was using you. You got there first. What were you supposed to do, wait around forever?” Funny thing was, Dan had taken a little road trip when he and Amanda were in Phoenix. He had driven his rental car far out into the dessert just before dawn one morning, leaving Amanda sleeping on 1000-thread-count sheets. He stopped at an overlook and got out of the car. Rocks the color of wounds ringed the valley below him. Junipers, Arizona Sycamores, and Crucifixion Thorns stood around in clusters like neighbors after a tragedy. He remembered the morning before his mother stepped out the window, when she suddenly pulled him close to her and whispered, “Oh, Danny. I wish someone could save me. I’m so sorry.” He remembered the morning of her funeral, when his father, only half as drunk as he would be by nightfall, told Dan, “Your fucking mother was a fucking fruitcake.” And he remembered telling his father, “Maybe she just wanted a husband who would take care of her.” Or a son who would watch over her. Instead of what he was now—a man whose watch was over, because it was time to forgive himself. He texted Minna for the last time: Thank you for leaving me. Then he faced the dessert and began to roar. Not hesitantly. Not even the first time.