ANSWERING MACHINE

Hello, this is Past P Jay. I’m sorry to say that Present P Jay is unavailable, but if you, Present You, would like Future P Jay to get in touch with Future You, that is entirely possible. Here’s the system I’ve worked out, and I must say it’s pretty ingenious. Future P Jay will thank me.

Here’s the process. In a moment, Present You (well technically Slightly Future You, but you guys are close, right?) goes ahead and speaks into the receiver. I, Past P Jay, have connected a device, which works intra-temporally by recording what you, in the present, say. Now, that message will be effectively immortalized, passing through time for our purposes largely un-tampered with in any way, until such time as Future P Jay comes in and re-plays the message, thereby creating a sort of time-leap and opening a one-way line of communication between you, who are in the present, and Future P Jay, who is not.

Your head must be reeling, but don’t worry. The basic weight of this whole procedure is this: upon hearing a beep, you will be effectively speaking with Future P Jay immediately. As such, you needn’t use any special or unusual grammar (eg: Hey, I ‘was’ leaving a message) since this will only confuse Future P Jay. In fact, if you wish, you can go right ahead and, along with addressing Future P Jay in the present tense, speak as if you are Future You him/herself . It won’t make much difference to Future P Jay, and if he can get in touch with Future You right away, it might actually be the smoothest means. Just be sure you pass along to Future You the message so he/she isn’t caught off-guard. How embarrassing that would be!

I don’t know how exactly I came up with this method of connecting we four parties (to recap: Past P Jay (me), Present You (you), Future P Jay, Future You) except by divine creativity. There must have been a muse here with me. My only regret is that even with all the open lines for communication, I cannot, not via any third- or fourth- or fifth- (etc.) party message-passing, ever connect you, Present You, with Present P Jay, for Present P Jay is clearly not in (or why would you otherwise hear from me?). The two of you are destined never to meet or enjoy simultaneity of any kind. Regrettably, this is probably all you really wanted though, eh?
BEEP.

Young Eubie

Eubie was poised to prove his worth to Sam when the opportunity came that day. It was lunch time, and Eubie sat a the end of a long brown formica table with the rest of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, this being second lunch. Sam was in the middle of the table, bookended by her two best friends. Just in case he needed to know, Eubie had made the decision to memorize the names of each, first and last, even though Gertrude Flemming wasn't in Mrs. Plum's class with Gillian Stanz, Sam, and Eubie.
As Eubie eyed Sam from his perch at the end of the table, careful to use mainly his peripheral vision so as not to make her nervous with constant staring, he gathered from a series of actions that Sam's mom had once again botched a sandwich order, and switched Sam's turkey and swiss with ketchup for her brother's banana, peanut butter, and honey. A not uncommon mistake, Eubie had seen this before, and it's a good thing he had, for on this day, Eubie was able to step in and save Sam from a tummy-grumbling second half of the day.
A small smirk crept across Eubie's face. "Ha! Eubie, you've done it again!" he nearly said aloud. Eubie never ceased to amaze himself, though frequently failed to amaze plenty of others in this world: teachers, parents, bullies. This didn't bother Eubie, for no one's opinion of Eubert Sharp's worth mattered more than his own. Well, except for right now in the lunch room, when he was about to open himself up to judgment from Sam. His smiled evaporated just then, and some of his confidence was replaced by a sort of professional seriousness. 'Here we go. Don't worry, she'll love you for this,' he whispered.
Eubie hated turkey, swiss, and ketchup sandwiches. Or at least he had at first, now he was able to stuff them down without much thought, as long as there was a carton of milk around to wash it down. He always ate his sandwich first, before the teddy grahams, when he was hungriest. It flattened the taste.
His dad thought he was crazy. 'You want what for lunch?' he'd said, one eyebrow raised.
'A normal turkey and swiss sandwich. With, ya know, a squirt of ketchup on there for some zip.'
'Zip, huh?'
'Yeah, you know, hit the edge of my palete.'
'Your palete?'
'Is this going to be a problem? I don't ask what you eat for lunch.'
This jab of sass made Eubie's dad suspicious, but also gave an effective mind-your-own-business message, which ended the questions. Eubie's dad had a special consideration for his son's unique and personal needs as a young man.
'I suppose not.'
'And don't bother cutting the crusts off, I've decided I need the extra fiber.'
'Uh huh. Well I'm not sure your grasp of diet is quite as firm as you think, but who am I to argue with a man's preference in matters of lunchtime?'
'Exactly. Thanks Dad.'
Sam was wrinkling her nose in disgust as she peeled back a sticky, honey-slathered piece of bread on the sandwich in front of her. Eubie toyed for a minute with delivering a corny line like 'Never fear, my sweet!' but decided an understated brand of chivalry would suit him better. He grabbed up his untouched main, still fresh in its ziplock pouch, and swung out of his seat at the end of the table. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves, and walked over behind Samantha.
'Excuse me, madmoiselle.' "Oh, nice touch Frenchie," thought Eubie. But she failed to turn around. Instead he got the attention of Gertrude, whom he knew more on paper than in person.
'Huh?' She replied, demonstrating, from Eubie's perspective, a significant lack of intellect.
'Nevermind, Miss Flemming. I was speaking to your friend, not you.' But Samantha had turned away from him, and was now engaged in some seemingly spontaneous giggling with Gillian.
'Who are you? My name is Trudy.'
'I am Eubert Sharp.'
'Weird.'
'It's a family name, and though it may seem esoteric to you, I have a great deal of fondness for it.'
'I would never marry a boy named Eubert.'
'I think I see why we've never spoken before.' Eubie was unable to contain his impatience.
'Yeah.'
Eubie reached over and tapped on Sam's shoulder.
'What do you want?' Gillian was facing Eubie and spoke first. Eubie attributed the lack of friendliness to a childish lag in maturity. No doubt Gillian spent her afternoons playing with dolls, a "No Boys Allowed" sign taped up on her bedroom door.
'From you? Nothing.'
Now Samantha turned her head and face Eubie. She was only a few inches away, and the proximity erased Eubie's mind completely.
'Hi Eubie.' Sam looked up with those pretty green eyes. Her hair was pushed back with an elastic headband, and two clip on earrings twinkled on either side of her face.
Eubie parted his lips slightly and stared. Several seconds passed.
'How are you?' tried Sam.
Eubie nodded a little. More empty seconds passed, filled only with the dull roar of an elementary school cafeteria.
'Um...' Sam said, adding to the thickening awkward surrounding Eubie. She continued to meet his gaze, petrifying Eubie as though she had snakes in her hair. He was a stone, he was inanimate, he was completely helpless. And just when it looked like little Eubie would blow it, a little spark of coherence glimmered.
He was suddenly very aware that he was staring, and that was bad. Eubie quickly shifted his vision to put Sam in the periphery, and that made him feel better. Then, he saw her sandwich sitting there, peeled apart and unwanted, and Eubie's synapses fired once more. The sandwich! Still unable to put words together, and careful not to re-establish eye contact (lest he descend again to complete idiocy) he reached his sandwich out in front of him toward Sam.
She looked at it, confused.
Eubie, frustrated that she didn't comprehend his magnanimous gesture, yet still not back to a verbal state, pushed the sandwich into her hands to make his point. She raised her eye brows in bewilderment, and it was at this point that Gillian and Gertrude began the infernal giggling. Eubie looked at his shoes, then the wall, and his shoes, then the wall, and the giggling kept on coming. Louder and louder, and now Eubie wanted to explain himself, wanted to say he was sorry, and he felt words returning to him, but that giggling! It drowned out his thoughts and all he could do was clap his hands on his ears and run, out of the cafeteria, down the hall to the boys bathroom.
Gerturde and Gillian were beside themselves with laughter next to Sam.
'He's so weird!'
'I know!'
Sam however, had noticed the ketchup stain on the ziplock bag. She opened it up and caught a familiar and welcoming smell of that most unusual combination of fine swiss, oven baked turkey, and bread avec crust, all of it ruined with ketchup, and smiled to herself. Inaudible to her shrieking friends, she said 'Thanks Eubie' and took a bite.

Donald Goes Down

When I look back on my childhood, as far as I can see into the past, I begin to mix memory and biography like anyone else. Sometimes I think I remember what is really a photograph I’ve seen many many times.

One thing though, which no one photographed was lunch-time soccer in elementary school. I remember from first grade to third running all over the mostly dirt schoolyard field, using the cunning and ingenious “bunch-ball” strategy so prevalent among un-coached teams of that era. It was a mostly defensive game plan, though a highly aggressive one. It can be summed up in the few following words, which were surely echoing around the insides of every kid’s head: ‘He’s got the ball! Get him!’

Since there were approximately thirty kids on the fields all following the same conniving plan of action, it was difficult for anyone to do much with the ball. And therein lay the basis for such a tactic. If you solidly connected with rubber even once, you fell to the right of the bell curve. No one could handle the smothering, stifling blanket of twenty-nine other pairs of legs kicking and jabbing at his ankles.

No one, that is, except Donald.

Five minutes after lunch began, we’d meet on the field, stomachs suffering mild indigestion after the ulcer-inducing flux of food into our eight year-old guts. A rigorous survey taken today would surely reveal staggering levels of heartburn among the victims of such behavior. My apologies to the good taxpayers of my country for shouldering the present healthcare cost of my youthful carelessness.

Those in charge, who drew their influence from being the oldest and biggest, and most notably, the ones providing the ball that day, were in charge of picking the grossly unfair teams we all came to expect. The reason for this was Donald. Donald was a natural, who’d probably bicycle-kicked his way out of the womb, and his above average talent was enough to sway the game in his team’s favor no matter what the distribution of the rest of us. Naturally, my narrow-minded peers concluded that to get what they really wanted, domination of the Craigin Elementary Premier League, they should contract Donaldinho to their squad. Everyone wanted to be on his team, and naturally when your team has the best striker in the league, you want to get him the ball.

So Donald handled the ball pretty much all the time. If you were on Donald’s team you were unofficially promised a victory that day, and you could be part of that success in one way: pass the ball to Donald. Any other offensive decision might as well have been treason. And so, Donald attracted the worn-out, half-flat implement recognizable as a soccer ball only by its traditional polygonal pattern of black and white, like a paddle does a tethered bouncy ball. He took every shot, and his leg was built like a sixth grader’s. How could it have been otherwise? No sensible human could ignore the simple statistics of the situation. By far and away the most likely way to score was to tee it up for Donald.

But I didn’t like racking up assists. I didn’t like playing for the team everyone knew would win. Winning meant nothing then. So I dodged Donald’s team and I played for the daily underdogs, waiting for the game that would really make history: when Donald was overthrown.

Here’s the one event that sticks with me most of all, though by most medical reckoning probably shouldn’t. It was a fantastic day for glory. The score, after a nearly complete lunch break was still 0-0. Craigin Elementary’s first ever tie game was afoot (pun intended)! A total hierarchy overhaul was not in the making here, A.C. Underdog had put precisely no shots on goal. Win we certainly could not. However, we’d adopted an even more heavily defensive strategy than classical bunch-ball that day. At the unlikely opportunities when the ball should squeeze free of the bunch like a slippery fish, we directed our clears not upfield to the opposing net, but out of bounds. Throw-ins were a good way for a lesser player to feel like part of the action, and so we burned up minutes on the clock forcing the other team to argue over who should get to chuck the ball to Donald from the sideline.

But we sucked. I’m talking bad. The ball spent about 99.9% of the time on our half of the field. Our most devastating counter attack came when a member of Donald United got confused and started making for his own goal. He was quickly dropped from the roster and would struggle to find work in the league again after that day. One reason for our incompetence was that anyone with a little finger’s worth of skill or speed was typically used to, and liked winning, and so got himself onto Don U. But not me and the boys of A.C. Underdogs. We were holding our own that day, by combination of determination and dumb luck, and soon we’d have our overdue fifteen minutes.

A hurdle to success presented it self just then. Our ferocity on D, though driven, was skill-less and desperate, and finally led to an overzealous goal stop a la mano from a non-goalie, resulting in a nearly point-blank penalty shot. Naturally, gargantuan-leg Donald would be shooting. This was a game-ender. No one blocks a penalty shot, especially not when you’re as tiny as we were. And Donald with the leg he had. No wonder our keeper quit the team just then, and no one was stepping forward to take his place. Who wanted to be the one who allowed certain defeat? After so nearly pulling off the big upset, it wasn’t fair to ask anyone to take on that responsibility.

So I did it. I stood smack in the middle of the goal, hunkered down, and stared Donald in the chin. Before what went down went down, Donald gave me a reasonable warning. “Look out, kid. This is going to be a hard one.” No shit Sherlock. But as I say, this day remains clear. Most of it. As Donald reared back, took his few approach steps and absolutely creamed the ever-loving bajesus out of that poor ball, I guessed correct and jumped in a parabolic path that intersected the incoming artillery round. That ball, fresh off the foot of Goliath himself, felt on the side of my face pretty much like the foot of Goliath himself. I was kicked in the head hard, but the collision altered the course of the ball. Unfortunately, the impact threw my chin wildly upward. I didn’t see where I’d re-directed the ball, and as my skull shook around my brain with horrifying force, I admit I lost all understanding of what the hell was going on. The memory goes hazy for a moment during the most critical slice of time in the whole story, but it begins again, clear as day. It is of lifting my little ringing head off the dirt and asking whoever was nearby, “Did it go in?”

“That was awesome!” someone said.

“Did that hurt?”

“You took it right in the dome!”

I repeated. “Did it go in?”

Some kids looked around. The answer was obvious. They wondered how I could not know. I noticed no one was playing anymore. “Yeah, it went right in. Bounced through to your left.”

Damn. Oh well, another one in the same old same old column.

But it wasn’t. All day I enjoyed celebrity status. I overhead retellings, “Did you see Henry get hit in the head?”

“Donald nailed him.”

“He didn’t even see the nurse.”

Nurse. Ha! Point Henry!

Donald: 100 billion, Henry: 1.