Waking from Wokeness

I'm not religious by a long shot, but lately I've been thinking of something I read in college. I took a few religion courses as an undergraduate, and this from the Bible stood out: By their works, ye shall know them.* I didn't think very deeply about it then, but I do now. 

Over the years I'd become dissatisfied by some of the discourse in leftist spaces, but I couldn't put my finger on the cause. I hadn't changed many of my core beliefs; I was still pro-choice and pro-union, still believed in Medicare-for-All, and I still wanted to tax the hell out of the rich and on the right day I still thought maybe we should devour them and pick our teeth with their bones. And I wasn't becoming sympathetic to the likes of Andrew Sullivan, who can kiss my liberal gay ass. (Unless he'd enjoy that, in which case, he can't.) So I started reading and listening to people I disagree with, to test my beliefs. Most of those beliefs stood the test, and were the stronger for being questioned. I then realized that my dissatisfaction had nothing to do with specific beliefs, but with values. 

I've been a liberal as long as I can remember, and have always gravitated towards people who were misfits, and towards interests--music, literature, film--that existed on the margins. For me, being liberal meant questioning what cannot be questioned, and never accepting anything just because someone says so. Curiosity, empiricism, tolerance for disagreement, diversity, and fairness--these were the philosophical foundations upon which my specific beliefs were built. I started to perceive that a few on the left, a very few, just didn't share those values. They didn't care about fairness, curiosity, or empiricism. These folks and I shared many of the same sympathies, but our philosophies couldn't be further apart. I call these folks woke, and while I am sure there are better terms, I'll stick with this for now.

These wokeists reminded me of nothing so much as the religious right of the 80s and 90s. They were in touch with Ultimate Truth, and those who disagreed with their conclusions weren't just wrong; they were evil. Problematic is the sanitized term we now use, but growing up gay I knew the taste of condemnation no matter how it was sweetened. That's when I realized that wokeness is a religion, with highly defined doctrines, a specific language for discussing those doctrines, a way of punishing the faithful who stray, and no sense of humor about any of it.

There are certainly woke doctrines: identitarian deference, believing victims, and intersectionality. The language used to discuss woke philosophy is arcane and impenetrable:

We must be sure not to infringe on anyone's ability to utilize persuasively shared epistemic resources, lest we hinder any contribution to knowledge production. We should always remember our own positionality and contextual normativity.

Liberals who blaspheme are punished by Internet shunning and pile-ons, or are caricatured, in No-True-Scotsman fashion, as conservatives. As I have learned recently, poking fun at any of this is literally killing people.

The irony is that I often agree with the tenets of wokeism. I do think that the intersection of identities can produce unique experiences of discrimination. I agree that unexamined privilege can blind one to the experiences and oppression of others. And I am a strong proponent of trying to do better today than I did yesterday. The problem is when those ideas become dogma, which is never nuanced, and cannot be questioned or contextualized. Once you question this dogma, your specific opinions no longer merit consideration. 

Like me, wokeists stand on the left, but we don't find the same values there. Obviously, they can believe whatever they want, but when those beliefs come to resemble religion...well, if I wanted doctrines set in stone, I'd be a conservative.

I'm taking the left to task pretty hard here, but I don't apologize. It's true that I rarely criticize conservatives this way, because it's pointless. Troglodytes are gonna trog, but I expect better from progressives. I don't know just when wokeness took over so much of liberal discourse, but I think it's past time we woke up. Religion doesn't have to involve a god, or an afterlife; it just has to work like religion. Wokeness, by your works, I now know ye.

*I am probably getting this not quite right but I'm a gay, liberal atheist so what do you want?

Lighter

It’s easy to get into offices when you are me, even offices with swipe-card security. I just wait for the next employee to swipe, then grab the door and step in behind him. The receptionist with heavy bangs and too much makeup glances at him and not me, and I make my way to the throbbing heart of the office.

Last time I was here I went right, into the conference like something out of a movie, with deep leather chairs, a long, polished mahogany table, and portraits of old white men all over the walls. This time I turn left to a giant room filled with long tables, here and there divided into mini-lounges by strategically placed plants and shelving units, at which people half my age are tapping away at laptops. Everywhere is furnished with chairs in aquamarine and gold and white, all colors I hate.

They are all here: Zig Zag and Thin Man and Bright Eyes, Gray Suit and Athlete and Blond Highlights, scattered about this testament to open offices. I feel the thrill of the voyeur, except without the maybe-getting-caught part. Oh Natalie, what a birthday present!

I cruise over to see what Gray Suit is doing--she’s the one who had asked how are leaders made and had gone right back to pecking away on her laptop. I peek over her shoulder as she’s logging into Instagram, and I note the password for later misuse. Pics of her at the beach, showing off a decent body badly served by her current ill-fitting outfit. All of her followers seem to look like her. I think of the terrible images I can upload with that stolen password--people fucking each other, people killing dogs, people fucking dogs--and I vow to find those images, later. Meanwhile, my stomach thanks me for skipping lunch.

Next is Thin Man. Where do you see yourself in five years, he’d said, with barely concealed contempt. Still in this interview is the answer I'd wanted to give but didn’t. Contempt had been replaced by a slightly manic look--jonesing for a cigarette, or a drink? The latter, I decided; he had the faint smell of beer that no shower could dispel. Jeff had been an alcoholic, and around lunchtime he’d get jittery, if he were dry. One of many hard lessons I had from him. I dislike the reminder and move on. Thin Man wasn’t my real target, anyway.

***

I stationed myself in the food court to wait for Natalie, whom I knew would want the news. She is one of those people for whom everything works out. When her car breaks down, she always locates a Good Samaritan. When the ATM is out of twenties, she knows just where to break the fifty. When it rains, she finds an umbrella in her car.. I admire and occasionally resent Natalie.

She showed up just before twelve, not looking as if she just emerged from the steam-bath weather that left me smelling like the inside of a sneaker. “Girl, you eat early,” she told me as she plopped her bag on the table. “I had to skip dinner yesterday to even think about lunch before one.” She took a chair and pushed back her explosion of wavy brown hair. “How did it go?”

“I don’t want to even talk about it--that’s how it went,” I grumped, luxuriating in self-pity. Natalie raised an eyebrow to acknowledge my luxury, which was what I needed to break out of it. She knew me too well for bullshit--this last year particularly. The food court was getting more crowded, people spilling through the glass doors and streaming towards Chipotle or The Hoagie King or wherever. 

“From the way you look, honey, I'd say you’ve had quite the day already.” From anyone else I’d have taken that badly, but Natalie had seen me at my worst. 

“They looked at me like--” I bite off they know but I’ll bet Natalie hears anyway. “I can’t believe they even brought me in for an interview.” I gave Natalie the story in lurid detail. “I get that I’m older than any two of them put together, but I don’t see what I did to deserve that kind of treatment.”

“Nothing,” Natalie said briefly. She considered one chipped nail--red giving way to fingernail color. “Honey, they weren’t thinking of you at all.”

“Don’t they hate themselves?” I had that feeling, something hot and heavy and helpless, sloshing around in my stomach. 

“Not if they never consider what they’re doing.” She leaned forward. “We’ve talked about this before. Stop giving these people rent-free space in your head, darling, because right now that’s the only place they are living.” I must have looked like doom, because she eyed me speculatively. Then she rummaged in her bag and produced a plastic ball, flattened on the bottom, along with a small candle and a cigarette lighter. 

“Why are you still carrying a lighter?” The look I got was not the usual Natalie. For all we’ve been through, Natalie can occasionally be opaque to me. 

“I am always able to produce fire.” She lifted the top of the ball to reveal a cupcake within, frosted with chocolate and flecked with purple and yellow, my favorite colors. “Early birthday. You have my permission to celebrate now.”

“Natalie, you’ll set off the sprinklers!” I gestured vaguely upward, but I wanted to hug her. My last actual birthday we’d celebrated at my hospital bed.

“Won’t happen,” she replied, plugging the candle right into the wrinkled-satin surface of the cupcake. She brought in the lighter and flame sprang obligingly to life. “Make a wish, you old queen,” but Natalie fixed me with a stare at odds with the familiar joke. The flame seemed to dance right between her eyes, which reflected nothing. The rejoinder died in my throat, and I knew only the truth would do. But what truth? I consulted my hot, heavy stomach and I knew.

“I wish I could see what they’re hiding. All of it.” Natalie’s never cracked a smile, and she flicked her eyes towards the candle. I blew the flame out.

Natalie stood and picked up her bag. “I think you have something to do,” she said, and strode away into the growing lunchtime crowd.

***

I swing by Zig Zag’s section in time to catch her on the phone, speaking so quietly that I have to nearly climb on to her lap to hear. I hesitate, then remember So tell us about the you that exists outside of this interview?  I had wanted to answer I’m actually a tall Asian woman. Regarding her artfully crooked hair part, I am sure she knows how to fold a fitted sheet, and looks forward to the experience. She read that question in some HR book and that’s enough for me to hate her, so I lean in--she’s arguing with what must be an insurance company over an oncologist’s bill. I draw back and hurry away. If I hear that conversation I will stop hating her.

I approach Blond Highlights with relish, and up close I see how young he is, Barely old enough to beat up his first girlfriend. Or boyfriend? No, he’d never known discrimination, unless he had kickd out of the Society of People Who Know Other Human Beings exist. But aren’t you actually more of a trainer than an instructional designer, he had said in that tone particular to young men who’ve never been sick, injured, or unlucky. After that he’d slowly slid my resume away from him, not even bothering to look away. 

He’s got coffee in a recycled paper cup and is looking at a spreadsheet--over his shoulder I see bar graphs and pie charts. Laughter breaks out from the table behind him, and when he turns to look, I give the cup a swat. Coffee splatters all over his his keyboard. Hopefully ruining it. I step away, feeling that heaviness in my stomach. I must be nervous about Natalie’s little gift wearing off. More laughter rings up towards the ceiling, and Highlights turns back to the mess, the back of his neck red. I wonder how expensive that computer is.

My quarry is at the end of the office, looking as yummy as before. He had mostly slept through my interview, after exchanging pitying glances with Thin Man. I had hated him for that while still wanting to get into his pants, which made me hate him more. Before I can get close, Athlete rises from his chair and crosses the office, and I fall in behind. View’s just as good from back here. He turns towards the restroom and I smile tightly. Gay men learn fast how to not even appear to peek in the bathroom, but today I would shed that protective habit. Athlete was mine to ogle, just as I had been his to ignore. Let him ignore this.

I follow him in, and he heads towards the first stall. I make to take the second, to maybe stand on the toilet and peek over the divider, but he’s not done. He moves along the stalls, checking each one to ensure they are empty. He thinks he’s alone, and he takes the stall furthest from the door. I duck into the next and lift the seat so I can stand on the porcelain. I don’t want to miss him shooting up, or jacking off, or whatever he is going to do in there. Maybe I can take a video--he won’t see--and put it online. That’s what you get.

He doesn’t pull out a needle, or a vial, or his dick. He does not pull his pants down. He sits on the toilet and holds trembling hands in front of him. I grip the top of the divider as my stomach turns hot. He clasps his hands to stop the shaking, fails. I hold my breath, not that it matters, he couldn’t hear me if I sang the “Titanic” theme in falsetto. My stomach is molten lead.

He puts his head in his hands and starts to cry, softly, trying hard to make sure no one can hear him. My hands on the divider feel numb, and I might throw up. He cries and I watch. He never glances up at me. He doesn’t see me. He never has.

***

The food court has gone from noon-frantic to two-thirty amiable, and the person at my table is just gathering up her things. The candle, the cupcake, and the lighter are still there--why not? They’re no more visible than I am. 

I wait until she picks up her bag, her magazine, her trash, and then I sit in the seat I vacated hours ago and look at the cupcake Natalie had provided. As the song went, you had to be cruel to be kind, and this gift qualified on both counts. The candle is out but still in place, and I take up the lighter. As I click and touch flame to the wick my stomach tightens painfully. It wants me to hang on. Letting go is surrender. I’ll make them sorry. They have to learn.

The fire dances on the candle, and I don’t glance around to see who is watching. No one is watching what a stranger is doing, and I lean close. “I’m done now.” My stomach throbs once more, and then it is lighter. Weightless. I breathe in shakily and blow out the candle. 

The world looks the same, standard food court with standard food and standard diners, but when a pair of white-shirted young men pass I say, “Is this lighter yours?” They glance over and one of them shakes his head curtly, annoyed. I smile and leave the lighter on the table, as Natalie wanted. Like many other things, it’s not mine to carry.

© 2020 Neil McGarry

Dogged by Dogma

 I’ve never been the kind of person who likes to be told not to think. 

As a kid, I was sent to a Catholic school, and early on I spent a lot of time worrying about dying when I was not sinless and thus buying myself an eternity in hell. I told myself I should attend church because the nuns said skipping was a surefire way to land you in trouble, but I never quite worked up the resolve to go. Then, one day--and I must have been maybe eight or nine--I thought to myself, “What if I don’t believe in God?” So I tried it out, and, wow, did I feel a lot better! No more worries about hell or skipping church, and--bonus!--I got to tune out everything they told us in religion class, which is probably why most of what I know about Christianity comes from “Godspell” or “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”

Looking back, I can see that decision was the first of many; I spent a lot of my youth doubting and/or quietly rejecting what everyone else said was true. I did not care for Bruce Springsteen’s music, no matter how many copies "Born in the USA" sold; instead, I subscribed to Options magazine, where I learned about Lene Lovich and queercore bands like Pansy Division and Cunts With Attitude. “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights” was a tedious cringe, but “Lust to Love” got me on my feet. I played Dungeons & Dragons when geek chic was still far in the future, and read Tolkien before Peter Jackson directed his first film. I remember thinking Frenchie looked great with pink hair--if that’s what dropping out of high school got you, not bad! If the mainstream opinion was to avoid a thing, I took a closer look. I liked that about me then, and I like it about me now.

This predilection carried into my politics and still does. I tend to sympathize not with the accustomed but with the unusual, so I support equality, diversity, empiricism, fairness, and intellectual curiosity. Down with dogma and up with inquiry, that’s me, so obviously I am a liberal, or a progressive, if you insist. If I wanted dogma, I’d be a conservative.

And dogma is what’s on my mind, but not that of conservatives, which I rejected long ago. Over the past ten or fifteen years, I’ve seen the rise of liberal dogma, which can often be as narrow-minded as the most right-wing doctrine, even if it seems kinder. Dogma arises from ideas...ideas like these:

Identitarian deference: Lived experience trumps empiricism.

Believe survivors: All reports of sexual assault are true.

Offense / apology: If my feelings are hurt, someone must apologize.

These are good ideas, but like all ideas, they need some contextualizing. Conversations about race should not be held without the participation of racial minorities, but what if Kamala Harris tells me one thing and Clarence Thomas another? 

Those who claim to have been sexually assaulted should not be summarily dismissed as liars, but there is a long history of white people, men and women, falsely accusing black men of rape, often simply to justify a lynching. Should those accusers have been believed?

We should try not to offend others, but does that mean that any conversation about the uncomfortable topic of institutional racism should be preceded by an apology?

These questions are one way to help put these ideas into context but when they turn into dogma...well, dogma is never contextualized. What is dogmatic is true in every situation for everyone, all of the time. 

How do you have a discussion that honors the ideas but avoids the dogma?

A tell of dogma is that it does not facilitate conversations; it shuts them down. The idea of intersectionality has us consider just how the experiences of minorities can differ; the dogma forces us to value speech in terms of the amount of oppression the speaker has suffered. The idea of class interest provides context for understanding what someone is saying; the dogma requires us to reject out of hand any idea that comes from outside the tribe. Whenever a concept becomes a commandment it has stepped over the line into dogma, and that’s not a place where any liberal should follow. So, the way you have a discussion is to remember that ideas open our minds; dogma, whether from the left or from the right, closes them.

If a closed mind is a necessary precursor for liberal purity, then I’ll stay dirty, thanks. Thinking is something I enjoy, and after all these years, something I do pretty well. Although I won’t claim I am the best thinker, I don’t care to stop. Then, or now.

Mapping left

As has been wisely said, the map is not the territory. I believed this the first time I heard it, and I believe it now. Myopic adherence to principle is, in my view, one of the most pernicious human failings; it's how religion manages to convince people to do terrible things for what seem like the best reasons.

That said, when you make a journey, it's best to bring along a map.

I'm going to jump sideways to what seems an unrelated issue: the recall of Judge Aaron Persky. This will eventually make sense.

As you will recall, Persky was the California Superior Court judge who in 2016 sentenced Brock Turner to three months in prison for sexual assault, and who was later recalled because the sentence he handed down was deemed too light. It's not my intention to revisit the sentence, and while I sympathize with the objections to the sentence, I also recognize that recalling judges who are deemed lenient is going to serve as an incentive to other judges to sentence more harshly. These are competing liberal priorities: the desire to protect victims of sexual assault on one hand, and the reluctance to make sentences over-punitive on the other.

I can totally understand if a liberal prioritizes the former over the latter, and vice versa, but what I cannot grok is a liberal dismissing either one as irrelevant. At the time Persky was recalled, the leftist response I heard to concerns about the effects of harsher sentencing on marginalized groups was: "Rapists get the book thrown at them—end of discussion."

Now, I'm not going to seriously entertain discussion on, say, repealing the 13^th Amendment, because the rights and wrongs are pretty easy to discern, and anyone who disagrees is probably just trolling. Most issues are more complex, however, and require an attitude of curiosity and a respect for nuance that "woke" culture often makes impossible. Instead of taking your time sorting through the complexities, you are expected to take a black-or-white position, and fast, lest you appear to lack empathy.

Furthermore, "Lock 'em up!" is a quintessentially conservative attitude—that the only real remedy to crime is handing out prison time like candy. A more liberal approach is to treat this situation as a balancing act between leftist priorities, because, in general, when sentences become harsher, it ain't the Brock Turners of the world who will receive them.

Sussing all this out requires an awareness of just what you value. I am a liberal because I value the principles of open inquiry, empiricism, diversity, and a respect for due process. That is the map I carry with me. I think some others are liberal primarily not due to their values, but because of where their sympathies happen to lie. I don't know what map, if any, they follow. Admittedly, those approaches can often take you to the same place, but I think it matters how you get there.

You can ask, with some justification, why I'm spending time taking liberals to task when conservatives do far, far more damage. Answer: Conservatives are usually troglodytes, and troglodytes are gonna trog. Liberals, however, are supposed to be the good guys, right, and, in my view, if you claim to be one of the good guys, you have to act like it. Drawing your map is a great way to start navigating that particular territory.

It's not always good to be nice

I've been thinking a lot lately about being good.

There's a lot of debate over what it means to do good. Is doing good creating as much happiness as possible, for as many people? Adhering to rules of ethical conduct, against lying or cheating? Embodying virtues like charity, humility, honesty, etc? Although these are interesting questions, they are not what has been occupying my thoughts. Instead, what I have been considering is the difference between being good and being nice.

We've all known nice people. They say please and thank you, ask after your well-being, are generous (when it doesn't cost them much), and engage in all of the other daily pleasantries with which we are so familiar. When you meet one of them, at a party or wherever, you say to yourself "That person seems nice", without thinking much about it, and that's not surprising, because it's easy to be nice.

Good people, on the other hand, are more elusive. They are people who may not always ask after your well-being, but when they do they actually listen to the answer, and remember it later. They may or may not be courteous, but they are considerate, and they don't ask more from you than they expect of themselves. Their generosity is not the careless flourish of the well-provided, but an act of thoughtful concern. When you encounter a good person, you remember that for a long time, because being good takes work—and the payoff, if any, often sucks.

It's easy to mistake nice for good, but, boy, are they different.

I used to think most people were good, but now I think they are merely gregarious. Humans are social beings, and it's our nature to cooperate, but cooperation can take many shapes. One of those shapes is strangers joining together to help shove a stuck car out of a snowbank; another is neighbors forming a lynch mob to murder a marginalized person for some perceived offense. Nice people push the car; good people push away the lynch mob.

These days, that distinction has become ever clearer, as I see people around me, people I might otherwise have liked, cheer the caging of children while blaming parents for the cruelty, carry guns through city streets on the pretext of defending their rights, and march to force other Americans to risk serious illness so that they themselves can enjoy a cut and color. These people are courteous, often charming, and will be the first to invite you to a barbecue, but they aren't good. They're just nice.

The more I think about it, the less concerned with being nice I become. I'll do my best to say my courtesies and chat pleasingly with people at social events, but I'm no longer feeling guilty about, say, treating Trump voters like they are terrible people, and with telling Trump voters they are terrible people. That's not very nice of me, but I have decided I am not good at being nice. I'll settle for just trying to be good.

The Problem with Pete

The New Republic axed this piece, but like all things Internetty, it's been saved for posterity. I have a Mayor Pete problem, too, but it has little to do with Mr. Buttigieg

I feel as though people really don't know how to treat his candidacy. Some have detached Buttigieg's homosexuality from the rest of his identity, so they can dismiss him as "another white guy." That's true only in the sense the Barack Obama was just another cis dude and Hillary Clinton was just another white person. It's easy to brush someone off if you deduct the parts you find situationally inconvenient, and it's something I've witnessed far too often. It's near-sighted, absurdly reductionist, and wrong.

If we treat intersectionality as a system that enables us to rank people according to their experience with oppression, then I think we doing ourselves, and others, a disservice. In my view, intersectionality is not about sorting people but understanding them, and when you are ignoring parts of people, you are not understanding them.

Back to The New Republic. I read Dale Peck's piece, and I'm not much impressed. This is the standard assilimilationist-vs.-radical tussle that's been happening for decades, and will rage on long after I am gone. I have very little interest in this debate, by the way, because I think we need not make a choice. Like any minority, LGBT people have advanced their cause through both evolution and revolution, through bricks thrown at Stonewall** and through United States vs. Windsor. Just as we shouldn't detach part of an identity, neither should we dismiss the value of both assimilation and radical action in the march towards equality.

So, no, Mayor Pete is not exactly breaking every barrier, but...does he have to? Wasn't Barack Obama the first black president even though he didn't do everything imaginable to push forward the cause of equality? Can't we still remember Hillary Clinton as the first female Democratic nominee even though we know that she was hardly a feminist fantasy? I say yes and yes, and I also say that even if the campaign of Pete Buttigieg isn't taken directly from the guide book of ACT UP, it's something to celebrate.

**Nothing I have read indicates that any brick was ever thrown at the Stonewall Riot, not by Marsha P. Johnson or by anyone else. I'm making an easily understood but almost certainly apocryphal reference.

It's OK to doubt

This opinion piece in the Washington Post has spurred me to (finally) write something that's been on my mind a long time.

You should read for yourself, but if you want to save time, Nana Efua Mumford of the Post is agonizing over the fact that she found certain details of Jussie Smollett's account of his alleged attack hard to swallow. Does doubting Smollett, she asks herself, mean doubting that racism and homophobia exist? Is Mumford bainwashed? Is she victim-blaming?

Let me state for the record that I have no idea what happened to Smollett the night of the alleged attack. Certain details seem curious, but then again curious and unlikely things do occasionally happen. (President Donald Trump, I am looking in your direction.) Police are investigating, and I am content to wait for the results of that investigation before I take a position. If Smollett were my friend, I'd believe him; since he's not, I'm reserving judgment until the facts are known.

And that's fine. We don't have to believe anything we find dubious, no matter how sympathetic the alleged victim, or how real the implicated social problem. Liberal dogma insists that we must believe women, but clearly some women lie. Some men do, too. Another leftist insistence is that we unquestioningly accept the way people self-identify, but, well. we know that doesn't always pan out, either. I think we liberals are poorly served by these articles of faith, because, well, everyone lies, sometimes. They lie for good reasons, for bad reasons, or for no reason at all. Recognition of this fact doesn't nullify #MeToo, and it doesn't mean we should assume that all accusations of anything are phony. It means we should maintain a healthy skepticism of things that don't sound credible, and remain open to the possibility that our initial inclinations or deeply felt instincts are wrong.

To come back to Mumford, I don't think she's denying bigotry, I don't think she's brainwashed, and I don't think she's victim-blaming--particularly because there's good reason to think there is no victim here. She's navigating a difficult issue, keeping her eyes open and her biases before her, which is the best any of us can do. Mumford is allowed to feel heartbroken for doubting--no one has to apologize for feelings--but she's also allowed to doubt. As are we all.

Heroes

I'm thinking about Miep Gies today. For those who don't know, Gies was one of several Dutch citizens who sheltered Anne Frank and her family (and others) for two years above an Amsterdam office. When asked if she was a hero, Gies replied:

"Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary."

These days we throw around the term "hero" quite a bit. Police officers are considered heroes, every one, as are soldiers; in fact, we seem inclined to grant that title to any who carry arms and face danger in the service of the state, regardless of what they actually accomplish. Miep Gies risked terrible danger, yet she carried no weapons and she *opposed* the state. She did not even succeed in saving the people she harbored, but in my view she accomplished as much as anyone who ever wore a badge or took an oath.

The Ruling Mask

Dan and I are delighted to announce the release of The Ruling Mask, the third book in The Grey City series.

I have to apologize for how long it's taken to get this book done. Of the entire series this was the hardest book to write, for several reasons. First, we were so burned out from releasing two novels in two years that we just needed a break, and that break seemed to go on and on. Second, 2016 was an incredibly busy year for us; in addition to finishing Mask, we launched a weekly podcast and wrote a paper that was published as part of Sense Publisher’s Challenging Genres series. (This in addition to jobs, family obligations, and taking care of a house seemingly determined to fall apart.) Third, we have a process by which we write together, and for this book we for some reason decided to abandon that process—and we paid the price in a wearying succession of revisions. Lastly, Mask turned out to be a much more complex story than we ever envisioned, something we discovered only in the middle of writing it.

That said, The Ruling Mask is the longest book we've ever written—almost twice as long as The Duchess of the Shallows—and in many ways I think it's the best. You can decide for yourself if I am right; a sample chapter is available on our web site, as well as links to purchase the book for Kindle, Nook, or in paper.

Once again, we were lucky enough to work with the inimitable Amy Houser, whose illustrations are so in line with our work that it is difficult to envision a Grey City book without them. Jim Genzano was a tremendous resource, as he picked through more than 140,000 words to find all of the mistakes we’d made. (No small task!) We are also honored to have the services of our test readers, particularly Mark Fabrizi and Suzanne Onesti, who kept us from getting lost in the fog of writing.

Finally, we are eternally grateful to everyone who has ever bought a book, written a review, tweeted a tweet, or in some other way taken a chance on a couple of indie authors. You are superheroes, every one!

Enjoy!

Calling out the call-out

There are many things I appreciate about The Future (Netflix! Podcasts! Amazon.com!), but one we could do without is call-out culture.

I'm not objecting to voicing concerns or even throwing down about the ways in which minority groups (women, people of color, gays and lesbians, trans people) are marginalized. As a member of one of those groups, I'm glad that gone are the days of assuming that the world is for straight white dudes and everyone else is just living there. That sucked. What bothers me is the notion that being angry about that marginalization gives one license to be an asshole.

Let's be clear about what it means to be an asshole. Having and expressing an opinion is not being an asshole, nor is disagreeing with such an opinion. Being an asshole is expressing an opinion in a way deliberately calculated to annoy, insult, or intimidate. Example:

"I don't think the agenda you support is sensitive to, or respectful of, the needs of the poor." – Good!

"You are an elitist dirtbag and a shill for the corporate scum who rule this nation." – Asshole.

As you have probably already guessed, this example is inspired by the news of Matt Bruenig, recently fired from Demos. I don't much care for the way Bruenig conducts himself online; he's provocative only in that he seems interested in provoking anger and not thought. Unfortunately, he's not alone in his seeming  belief that righteousness justifies any and all reactions to real or perceived injustice. Don't like what Joan Walsh said about Bernie Sanders? Call her old. Upset about the way Neera Tanden speaks about welfare reform in the 90s? Accuse her of trying to starve people.

That's being an asshole.

Don't imagine this is limited to the sphere of political dialogue, or that it never goes beyond scorching tweets. Anita Sarkeesian has suffered all manner of intimidation , including credible death threats, because she dares to critique video games. (Disclaimer: I am a fan of Feminist Frequency.) Lindsey Stone lost her job over a silly picture that wound up on Facebook. Adria Richards inspired a sanctimob over a questionable comment at Pycon, only to find that mob howling at her own door.

The folks who sent threats or demanding firings were acting like assholes, but they believed they were doing what was right. After all, how dare Sarkeesian criticize their beloved video games? Does Stone think she can show disrespect to veterans and get away with it? Richards got a guy fired, so doesn't she deserve what she gets?

The problem with self-righteousness is that it can make actions that are clearly indefensible seem morally justified. In my view, more harm is done by those who are sure they are right than by those who know they are wrong.

I'm not making a call for civility, either. Sometimes debates get heated and people are less than polite, and sometimes that's what needs to happen. This isn't tone-policing; it's objecting to what is actually being said. If the tone of a comment is making the speaker sound like an asshole, that tone should be questioned. And if the tone of a comment is leading people to believe they will be hurt or killed, then that tone most definitely should be policed. We're all aware that we have freedom of speech, but I don't think anyone should be proud of speaking like an asshole.

That's what we should be calling out.

Nitpicking: The Next Generation

I am totally excited to announce the debut of "Nitpicking: The Next Generation." In this weekly podcast, Dan and I will examine each episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", praise the good, poke at the bad, and really have at the ugly. The first episode "Encounter at Farpoint, Parts 1 and 2" is now available on our Web site and on iTunes.

The podcast is free, but if you want to donate to support "Nitpicking" we won't complain. More important, though, is that if you like what you hear, please do recommend the podcast to other fans (or detractors) of "Star Trek."

So please do join us every Monday morning as we go where everyone has gone before!

Calling it out

I wrote this letter to the Office of the District Attorney today, and I copied various people on it. I'm having trouble letting this go, I realize, so I'm hoping that I can write it out.

***

To Whom It May Concern:

I'm writing in response to the decision of the district attorney's office to allow Kevin Harrigan and Philip Williams what can only be described as a sweetheart deal to escape punishment for their September, 2014 attack on Zachary Hesse and Andrew Haught.

I don't expect Seth Williams, Mike Barry, or any heterosexual man to understand how it feels to live in a world in which, at any time, you can be in danger of life and limb simply for walking too close to the person you're spending your life with. I don't expect them to understand just how frightening the term "faggot" is to gay men, because when we hear that, we know that violence is not far behind. I don't expect them to understand how it is to grow up believing that the only way you'll be permitted to survive is by lurking in the shadows and alleys of life, leaving the main streets to the straight folks.

I do, however, expect the Office of the District Attorney to understand that when it allows confessed gay bashers to walk away without so much as seeing a day in prison, it sends a definite message to those who like to harm gay people. That message is that breaking the face of a gay man is, at least in Philadelphia, no big deal. The city would prefer that not happen, but if it does, well, a small fine, some probation, and a promise to sin no more will make it all go away. It's a message all gay people understand, I assure you, as we've heard it most of our lives.

I'm sure that Hesse and Haught approved this deal, but in my view that is not sufficient excuse. Crimes are committed not only against individuals but against communities, which is why we have a district attorney in the first place. The gay community of Philadelphia is not well served by this deal, particularly since part of the deal will bring into the safe spaces we've created the very men we're trying to avoid. I cringe at the thought of entering the William Way Community Center to find Kevin Harrigan or Philip Williams staffing the front desk, destroying the community's sense of safety for their own personal growth.

I know that I'm shouting into the wind here; the plea deal is done and the DA's office doesn't care how I feel about it. However, I believe that democracy functions best when elected officials are called out for their mistakes, even when they don't think they've made one. So I'm calling this out, because even though I'll never feel quite as safe in Philadelphia as I used, I still believe that things can change if we all work hard enough. I'm sorry that, on this day, hard enough just wasn't good enough.

Dirty fucking faggot

That’s what Zachary Hesse and Andrew Haught heard from the group of heterosexuals who accosted them in Center City Philadelphia a little more than a year ago. What they heard yesterday in court from two of those same heterosexuals was that the beating they received that night wasn’t about sexual orientation. What I heard was a flashback to the very first time the word “faggot” was used against me.

I was seventeen years old, fresh out of high school and working as a courier for a Center City law office. I’d hand deliver letters, pleadings and other documents to other lawyers, to court offices, etc., and sometimes during those runs I’d take care of personal business. One day I was in a mall (the Gallery, for Philadelphia residents) and approaching a Waldenbooks when I heard, “Are you gay?” I turned and saw, gathered to one side, three or four boys about my age, looking at me the way you look at a cockroach you’re about to squash. I knew better than to reply--back then every gay person knew that “are you gay?” from a group of straight men was the rattle before the snake bite. Instead, I hurried inside the store, hoping they wouldn’t pursue, and as I moved off I heard one of them mutter, “Faggot.”

Inside, I pretended to browse, but a block of ice had formed in my belly. This was 1987, and back then there was no assurance that, if something started to happen, that anyone would interfere. I could have asked the store staff for a phone to call the police, but I was far from certain they’d allow it, or that the police would even care. It was just as possible that I’d end up in trouble myself; after all, hadn’t I looked at them a little too long? Maybe I’d made a pass and caused gay panic. Remember that this was less than 10 years after a San Francisco jury had let Dan White off easy for killing their own mayor, all because he also happened to knock off a homosexual while he was at it. A furtive glance outside revealed that those boys were still camped near the only entrance to the store, watching--for me, I feared. No one was going to protect me. No one was going to save me.

It didn’t take long for these truths to register with my still-developing, seventeen-year-old brain, so I did the only thing I could think to do. I walked casually towards the back of the store, went through the back office hoping no one would stop me, and slipped into the service corridor that runs behind all the stores. As I hurried along that white-tiled expanse of hallway, I felt not joy at the cleverness of my escape but shame that I was slinking away down an alley after having been kicked off the main street. In that moment I felt like a dirty fucking faggot.

Twenty-seven years later, when Zachary Hesse and Andrew Haught had their “are you gay?” moment, they did not slink away like stray cats. They had grown up in a more enlightened time, and they believed that they didn’t need to stand for such things. Philip Williams, Kevin Harrigan and Kathryn Knott thought otherwise, and they drove home that point by shattering the face of one of those men. When I heard the news I flashed back to my back-hallway escape, but I told myself that society had changed since that day. The response from police, media, and the public all seemed to confirm that there were new rules for a new millennium.

Unfortunately, we learned yesterday that the district attorney’s office was partying like it was 1987. Two of the accused--Williams and Harrigan--negotiated a sweet deal that gets them some probation, some community service, and a ban on entering Center City, a ban that everyone admits is almost impossible to enforce.

I understand that Hesse and Haught were on board with this deal, and let me be 100% clear that I harbor them no ill will. They’re doing the best they can to deal with a situation that should never, ever have happened, and that was far worse for them than mine was for me. They are tending to themselves, just as they should. However, by allowing Williams and Harrigan to wriggle away from real punishment, the City of Philadelphia sends a message that, no matter how many gay couples get legally married, it’s still pretty much OK to beat up one. Which is pretty much the way it was back in 1987.

There’s not much I can do about this terrible deal. The district attorney’s office is certainly not going to change course, and there’s nothing the mayor, my councilman, or my state representative can do either. And, yes, I know that the fact that outrage has registered at all is a sign that I live in a much more enlightened society than I did when I fled down a back hallway to avoid being beaten and/or killed. I’m sure that in a few days I’ll regain the confidence in the ultimate success of the gay rights movement. Right now, however, I just feel like a dirty fucking faggot.

Neil McGarry lives in Philadelphia and, with Emmy Award-winner Daniel Ravipinto, authors The Grey City novels, which Kirkus Reviews calls "a fresh, compelling twist on fantasy."

Fourteen years was what it took

Like everyone, I'm aware of the significance of today's date, and for the first time since I got on social media I'm going to talk about the destruction of the World Trade Center, something I have been reluctant to do. That reluctance is due to the way the calamity was weaponized by conservatives against liberals, making it difficult for lefties like me to say anything without sounding traitorous, uncaring, weak, blah blah blah. So I'm breaking the silence. Here's how what happened on September 11, 2001 makes me feel:

I'm angry that thousands of unsuspecting people were targeted by a bunch of murderous, self-righteous assholes.

I'm disgusted that this nation was bamboozled into the worst foreign policy blunder of the past century because unsuspecting people were targeted by a bunch of murderous, self-righteous assholes.

I'm furious that the folks who bamboozled us made it impossible for Americans to come together on something that should NEVER HAVE DIVIDED US.

I'm resentful that we Americans compounded the damage by turning this nation into a place where law and custom now assume that those who prefer privacy are suspicious.

I'm saddened by the notion that my nieces and nephew will grow up thinking that being asked for ID before entering an office building or other formerly public space is perfectly acceptable.

I'm confused that we consider any American who puts on a police or army uniform automatically upgraded to hero.

I'm bewildered that my fellow Americans accept as normal that to board an airplane we have to allow government agents to view us in the nude.

I'm horrified that this nation actually conducted a serious debate over just which torture tactics were acceptable and which weren't.

I'm resigned that, when the next big attack occurs, we'll do it all over again.



Kirkus Reviews calls The Duchess of the Shallows "a fresh, compelling twist on fantasy."

Rahasia and the Demon Bottle

I wrote this in college for a short story writing class that I took in the evenings. One of the other students opined that she didn't think men were very good at writing female characters, so I naturally set out to see if that were true with me. You can decide for yourself how good a job I did. I haven't changed anything since I wrote it, way back in 1992, and looking back now I see that this like a children's story. Oh well.

(Sadly, the instructor of that course, Denise Gess, passed away at the untimely age of 57, but I'll never forget how much I enjoyed the course she taught.)

Rahasia and the Demon Bottle

Rahasia was meant for greatness. Her mother, father, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins and grandparents all thought so, and why shouldn’t they? They were all accomplished wizards, every one, and they naturally expected the youngest member of the clan to carry on the glorious tradition of the Goomdomberous family. The only problem was that she was not very good at magic; in fact, she was terrible. Her fireballs were decidedly green and only lukewarm; her illusions, tired and thin-looking; and the rabbits she produced from her hat, dead.

Her instructors (really her aunts, uncles, and older cousins) had all tried to improve her disappointing conjurations to no avail. They did not understand that she was bored with the wonders of teleportation, and that the arcane mysteries of turning lead into gold only put her to sleep. In fact, the only magic she excelled at was shapechanging. Rahasia could transform herself, with a speed and accuracy her family could only admire, into dogs, cats, birds, and even small insects. But there her magical proficiency ended, and her siblings shunned her as a pariah, except for her brother Sethan, who was all too attentive to her shortcomings. He made a point of upstaging her at every opportunity, as if the issue of who was the better spell-caster was really in doubt. Maddeningly enough, he was in a way a better shapeshifter than she, for he could become the very largest of animals, a trick that still eluded Rahasia. Once, when irritated by her quick transformation into a wolf (speed-changing was something Sethan had still to perfect), he had changed himself into an elephant and chased her all around the backyard. Rahasia could not believe such a large animal could move so quickly, and only her split-second shapechange into a sparrow had saved her from being squashed. The trumpeting laughter that had mocked her as she fluttered to safety seemed to haunt her through the frustrating days and weeks of fruitless lessons she endured.

The truth was that she did not want to be a wizard at all, but she reluctant to disappoint her relatives by abandoning the family vocation. Still, in her secret heart she dreamed of becoming a witch, a wild woman of the wilderness, who ran in animal form and practiced woodland magic, and who spoke with animals as if they were tea-companions (although she wasn’t sure if witches took tea at all). Unbeknownst to her family, Rahasia had already exchanged a word or two with the local fauna (the exchange was limited mainly to concerns of food or weather), and had begun the brewing of several herbal potions, but she kept her newfound abilities a closely-guarded secret. Wizards of all types scorned witches as untutored rubes, and Rahasia honestly did not know what her family would do if they discovered a budding witch right in their midst. She had heard stories of how her great-grandfather had turned one of his own sons into a bird just for speaking with a witch, and had left him in that form for six months. She wasn’t sure that this was true, but since she had little desire to join her mother’s prize parakeets in the arboretum, she kept her silence.

Her days passed slowly, and her frustrations rose to a fevered pitch, until she knew that she would have to do something to change her lot or else go mad. Perhaps if she could give her family a demonstration of just how hopeless a wizard she really was they would cast her out, leaving her alone but untransformed - and free to make her own way. With this in mind, she crept into her father’s study, where thick tomes sat stolidly upon shelves that groaned from their burden of knowledge. She took no particular care of the watch-imp that guarded the area, as the poor thing had lately become alcoholic and spent most of its time sprawled in a boneless, drunken heap on the window-sill (her father was aware of the imp’s disability, she knew, but since good watch-imps were costly to conjure, he tolerated its excesses). Rahasia was an intelligent girl, and after a few hours of study she had found what she needed, more in fact than she had hoped. Filching a quill and a piece of parchment from her father’s desk, she copied down the information she needed and crept out of the musty room, leaving the imp to its spirits-induced slumber. The next day, with a bag of stolen food slung over her arm, she set out at dawn from her family’s luxurious estate for the legendary ruins of El-Eventir.

A week later, after an arduous but uneventful journey (hastened by shapechanges into various fast-flying birds), she had set foot upon the hill on which stood the remnants of the ancient tower of El-Eventir, which brooded sternly over the surrounding countryside. Clambering carefully over a ridge, she wiped a hank of sweaty red hair from her brown and paused for a moment to collect herself. El-Eventir was a place of legend, a mighty tower of sorcery where great wizards of yore had once dwelt and made magics of incredible potency. Their time had passed centuries ago, yet it was said that the sorcerers’ spirits still dwelt in the empty shell of their stronghold, keeping watch upon their ancient home. According to the books in her father’s study, any wizard who dared tread upon the sacred ground would be put to a magical test by these spirits, to determine if his magical powers were worthy. Those who failed the test were marked with glyphs that proclaimed them as failures and frauds possessed of no true magical talents. Rahasia hoped that the book was correct, for the wizards of El-Eventir might be her only hope of finally convincing her family that magic was not her lot. She would surely fail any magical test to which she was put, and would wear the onus of defeat with pride.

With a glance down at her travel-stained garb (the dust-stained tunic and breeches hung loosely on her narrow, wispy frame), she resumed her climb, and in due course she came to the broken stone arch that served as gateway to the ruins. Silence lay over the hill-top like a shroud, and nothing moved or breathed in the shattered mess of stone that was once a home of magicians. She found herself wondering if anyone else in her family had ever been to this grim place. Taking a deep breath, she passed under the arch and made her way through the rubble, stepping carefully around pitfalls and crevices that scarred the area and clambering over piles of stones that lay across her path.

She came to what she guessed was the center of the ruins and stopped there, looking around and waiting for something mystical to occur. The wind had picked up a bit, and it now whistled emptily over broken rock and rustled through weeds that had grimly fought their way up between shattered flagstones. After a few silent minutes, she began to wonder what was taking the spirits so long. After a half-hour she was quite annoyed that the undead guardians of the place had not appeared to decry her as outcast (the thought that they might do far worse than that had not entered her mind). It was not as if they had anything better to do, she mused, irritably kicking at a loose stone. What else did any ghost have to do, other than to wreak havoc on helps mortals?

An hour passed, and she settled herself on a huge, flat stone, eating what was left of her stolen supplies and cursing her lot. It was just her luck that the spirits that guarded El-Eventir were foolish enough to find her acceptable, and without a test even! Perhaps new spirits were needed. After all, such an important place deserved to be haunted only by the most dedicated and qualified of undead, not any old ghost. She finished her makeshift meal and was just getting to her feet when she spied a flash of metal from under a nearby rock. Could this be an otherwordly sign? She hurried over to check, getting down on hands and knees to reach under the stone, but came out with only a old bottle. It was a fine piece of work to be sure, fashioned of some strange reddish metal and intricately engraved, but hardly remarkable in terms of supernatural phenomena. She decided then and there that she would endeavor to change to rules governing ghosts, if ever she became one. She sighed, and with nothing better to do, pulled out the stopper, unmindful of the danger that might be involved.

Glowing green mist issued from the bottle’s narrow opening, and Rahasia gasped and hastened to replace the cap. But the flow was too strong to allow her to position the stopper, and the smoke continued to stream forth. She dropped the bottle and scurried behind a nearby chunk of stone, berating her own foolishness. As a child of wizards, she knew better than to fool around with unknown artifacts found in magical areas, but she had been so bored and disappointed that she acted without thought. She briefly considered casting a protective spell, but wisely decided that her own magical ineptitude might endanger her more than whatever she had foolishly unleashed from the bottle.

The glowing mist coalesced into a hideous green face, complete with fangs, horns, small red eyes and a large, bulbous nose. It turned its fearsome gaze upon her and spoke with a voice like stones dragged through a gravel pit. “Look upon me, yon tasty morsel, for here is thy doom!” it boomed. She shivered in terror, wishing that she had never come here and tempted the spirits.

“Come forward, “ the huge face commanded. “Come forward where I can, er, canst get a better look at thou. Thee. Thou.” She shook her head, unwilling to move even if she could have unlocked her shaking knees to take a step. “Be not afraid, scrumptious. I will not devour thine pitiful bones until thou has...hast duly and rightfully...uh...losteth my challenge.”

Rahasia stopped shaking for a moment as its words sank home. “Challenge?” she squeaked, barely able to keep her voice steady.

“Indeed. I must needs...no,wait...I am duly dothly...oh, damn!” The face grimaced gigantically. “Look, sweets, let’s cut to the chase. I have to defeat you in a fair contest before I can eat your delightful flesh and steal your soul. Now come out where I can see you, dammit. My eyesight hasn’t gotten any better over the millennia, you know.”

She emerged from behind the rock, keeping what she hoped what a safe distance from the huge, disembodied head. It seemed large enough to swallow her with one gulp, although she saw no visible stomach in which she would be digested. “Fair contest?” she ventured. “But what if I win?” She jumped back as the creature howled laughter that shook the entire hilltop.

“Not a chance!” the creature chortled, its gross nose wrinkling with mirth. “But, in the occasion that you do, which is as likely as my seeing two hundred again, I must serve you until the end of your insect existence.”

She shook her head in confusion, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing. “Well,” she replied, clearing her throat nervously. “Why don’t we make it easy on both of us? I’ll just leave now, quietly, and you won’t have to risk becoming my life slave. Deal?”

“Not a chance, luscious,” the head replied, grinning wickedly. “If you try to leave without taking the challenge, I am authorized to eat you directly.”

She stomped her foot angrily. “That’s not fair! I had no idea what I was getting into when I opened that bottle.”

Again the demon smirked. “When is life fair, my juicy? Now, select a mode of combat, while my appetite builds to full force.”

“Mode of combat?”

“Oh, you know, weaponcraft, riddles, games of chance,” the creature remarked casually. “That sort of thing.”

Rahasia pondered, but her mind seemed to have to turned to clay; she had never been good at reacting under pressure. “Suggest something,” she said finally.

“I am not permitted to make suggestions,” it shot back, grinning once more.

“Why not?”

“Because that’s the way it works, sweets.”

“Says who?” she demanded, anger momentarily overcoming her fear. “What, does someone set the rules even for such a mighty demon-creature?”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” the demon thundered, but Rahasia could sense its seething frustration. She reflected that the sorcerers of El-Eventir had been powerful indeed, to have subjugated such a potent creature. The demon interrupted her musing, adding slyly, “You have thirty seconds to decide, or else forfeit the game.”

She started in fear. There was a time limit! This got worse by the minute. She started to protest, but held her tongue in the face of the demon’s smug grin. She racked her mind desperately, searching for some talent or interest she might possess that the demon would not. All of her skills and experience seemed so pedestrian when faced with a creature of such power!

“Time’s up, toots!” it exclaimed joyfully.

“Wizardry,” she cried at the same time. “We will fight with wizardry.”

The demon smiled. “Well now, there’s an idea,” it rasped, licking green lips thoughtfully. “I have not exercised my mind-boggling abilities in some decades; I am due for a little workout. Besides, I love the taste of wizards.” Rahasia’s heart sank. How could she ever hope to defeat a being of such extraordinary power, when she could not even prevail over her obnoxious brother?

“To the death?” she asked weakly, overwhelmed by the hopelessness of her situation.

The demon sniffed disdainfully. “Hardly. I am of course immortal, so you cannot hope to harm me. You however, will die immediately upon my victory, which is as obvious and inevitable as my superiority.”

“And your modesty,” she muttered under her breath.

“Eh, what was that,” it demanded. Evidently the demon’s long stay in the bottle had done nothing to sharpen its hearing. “Uh, what I said was, you have a lot of honesty,” she replied.

“Umm. Well, let’s get on with this,” the demon rumbled, seeming put out. “As a sign of my-” it giggled evilly “-good faith, I will let you have first shot.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, suppressing an urge to stick out her tongue. It was bad enough that the demon was evil without also having to contend with a warped and decidedly unfunny sense of humor! Nevertheless, she set herself, breathing deeply, and searched in her mind for the most destructive spell she had ever been taught. She thought of searing flames, rending bolts, and crackling blasts of lightning and thunder, filled her mind with thoughts of power and its uses. With a final breath, she chanted arcane words and pointed at the demon, unleashing a wave of magical energy that enveloped the horrid creature before her...and turned it blue.

The demon looked down at itself, which required it to bend its entire face weirdly. It laughed long and loudly, a horrible sound of crunching glass and falling rocks that made her clap her hands over her ears. “Nice try,” it mocked her, at last getting the better of its mirth. “I only wish it had been red. It’s a much better color for demon sorts of things, you know. I mean, you turn the wrong color, say, pink, and soon you can’t strike fear into the hearts of mortals, other demons stop respecting you, your hideous visage no longer inspires terror-”

“Can we get on with this please?” Mercy, but the creature was smug!

“Of course, my dear,” the demon said patronizingly. “I was just getting to it.” It blinked bulging eyes, and in an instant, Rahasia found to her chagrin that she was entirely naked. The demon licked its lips again. “Hmmm, I have not seen a more buxom dainty in three hundred years.” She looked down at her modest endowment, deciding that if the demon truly thought her buxom it had definitely spent too long in that bottle. It was toying with her, she realized, rightfully unthreatened by her puny powers, and getting a good laugh at her expense. Fuming, she began another spell.

A puff of black smoke exploded around the demon, and when it cleared, she saw to her dismay that the face was unaffected, except for a profusion of bright red flowers that sprouted from the demon’s blue forehead. “Very interesting,” it mused, flexing its face once more to examine Rahasia’s latest blunder. The flowers waved gaily from the motion. “They should prove an acceptable seasoning to the main course.” It concentrated, wrinkling its flowered brow, and she felt the unmistakable tingle of magic. She closed her eyes, expecting the worst.

She realized what had happened as soon as the felt the cold air hit the top of her head, and when she opened her eyes she was able to verify that she was indeed entirely hairless. Her patting hands told her that even her head was now smooth and hair-free as a baby’s.

“I always de-hair my meals,” the demon explained smugly. “But don’t worry, sugarhips, you’ll get one more chance to win.” Again, the demon greedily licked its blue lips. “After that I really must get something to eat. The ravages of hunger, and so forth.” With that, Rahasia knew that the demon’s next spell would be for real, and that her next move would either seal her fate or save her life. In desperation, she thought back to all her years of training, tried to remember every incantation, conjuration, or evocation that might defeat this vile enemy. The problem was that all the enchantments she could hope to carry out could never harm such a powerful opponent, but the ones that might actually do the job were far beyond her limited capabilities. She needed something else, something not even the formidable demon could anticipate.

Suddenly, she remembered her great-great-grandfather Samanious, who had lived to the great age of nearly 150 years by brewing and drinking his own youth potions. In his last years, after the potions had stopped working, he had lost most of his magical capabilities, but his mind remained keen. Rahasia had spent many hours listening to him retell the stories of the many magical duels he had fought and won, sometimes against wizards of far greater power. “I won them all, my dear,” he would tell her, gesturing with a bony finger that trembled with palsy. “I won them because I knew my own strengths, and I fooled my enemies into fighting by my rules. It’s the mind that makes the wizard, not the magic.” These words rang clearly in her mind, and in that moment she grasped her only chance at survival.

She faced the demon, her face set, and before it could taunt her, shifted fluidly into the shape of a wolf, sleek and black-furred. The demon frowned. “Now I’ll have to devour you re-haired,” it pouted, mouth tight with annoyance. “But if it must be so-” It glared suddenly, and sent out its killing spell, a dart of pure energy, red as fire and pulsing with enormous power. But Rahasia was now quick and agile, and with wolfish cunning she dodged the bolt easily, growling a challenge.

The demon’s frown redoubled. “Hmmm, I don’t usually miss, but then it has been a while. Very well, I’ll play your game, and beat you at it.” The demon shimmered and became a huge black bear, which swiped at the wolf-Rahasia with a deadly claw.

But Rahasia had made her move, and was already shifting to cat-form. The claw whistled harmlessly over her head, as she was now considerably smaller than the wolf. The bear reoriented and struck again, but now she was simply to small for it to get a clear shot. The shapechanged demon rumbled angrily, already beginning another shapechange. Soon it was a dog, large and fierce-looking, but still small enough to effectively pursue the cat, which it did. But even as it moved to attack, Rahasia shimmered and became a tiny mouse, which darted in and out between the dog’s sturdy legs. It snapped at her, but once again she was too small for it to attack.

The demon now became a rat, although still considerably larger than the mouse, and it leapt at Rahasia with its sharp teeth bared for the kill. But Rahasia outmanuevered it again, changing into a mosquito and buzzing up and away from the rat’s limited reach. The demon-rat squeaked in pure frustration, fed up with this nonsense, and it flashed into the form of a wasp, with a long, wicked stinger. The wasp zoomed to engage Rahasia, certain at last that it would finally make the kill despite the many distractions.

Rahasia saw the wasp heading straight for her, and in at that moment she accomplished her last shapechange for the day. She snapped back into human form, and before the demon could react, slapped her palms around it, squashing it flat and grinding it with a wringing motion of her hands. “I win!” she exclaimed in elation. Of course she knew that demon had not actually been killed, but she hoped that she had indeed defeated it according to the strange rules of this game. She released the crushed remains of the insect, and even as it fell it resumed demon form. The huge face was still blue, although significantly paler than before, and she saw fear and wonder in its eyes. It gazed at her with new respect.

“Damn,” it said at last, with considerably less arrogance. “I never expected such cunning from a”

“From a creature of insect existence?” she finished sweetly. It glowered threateningly at her, but she feared it no longer. If the creature truly was bound by the rules of the game, as it seemed logical to assume (otherwise it would have eaten her without so much trouble), then it was indeed under her command, for the rest of her life. But how would she command it? Nearly anything was possible with the powerful entity at her side, and her mind whirled at thought of the power she now had at her fingertips. Now she could finally seek out the witches, and leave her life of botched wizardry behind her like an unpleasant dream. Her family would damned well respect her decision, too, or else she would have the whole lot of them transformed into turnips!

The thought of transformations turned her mind to more personal considerations. “Can you show me how to transform myself into a dragon?” she asked the demon, which was still eyeing her warily.

“No problem, assuming the necessary spells can be grasped by your laughably limited mind,” it replied. After a moment, it added, grudgingly, “Mistress.”

Rahasia ignored the small slight as her thoughts centered on her first and most thoroughly enjoyable command for the demon: she would have it show her how to transform herself into a dragon. First, because it was a feat no wizard in history had ever accomplished; second, because it was the only creature she knew of that was bigger - and faster - than an elephant.

Sidney's Gift

(I published this in 2006 in a literary magazine called Rhapsoidia, which few people read but I was excited about anyway. It's outdated and kind of clumsy, but I think there's some quality there too. Judge for yourself. All rights reserved, yadda yadda.)

            Sidney was my best friend, and he was a witch. Technically he was a warlock, but gender distinctions are unfashionable in these politically correct days. Whatever you called him, he could cast spells, real spells, to predict rain, tell the future, or even cure small ailments like sore throats or stuffy noses. Not that Sidney was Wicca. No term so connected with naturalism and spirituality could ever be plausibly associated with Sidney, for whom spirituality began and ended at Wawa. Most of my friends could not imagine why the two of us had been close since high school, which can you believe ended ten years ago?

            “Sherman died Wednesday,” Sid said, licking cookie dough from the mangled tube clutched in his right hand. 

“I’m sorry to hear it.” I myself was snacking on celery sticks, although part of me would have preferred a hit of the cookie dough.

Sid took an enormous bite from the tube. “I tried recalling his soul last night,” he remarked, giving me a glimpse of chewed but unswallowed cookie dough.

“His soul?  I didn’t know mice had them.”

“Every living thing does. Humans aren’t the only creatures who have souls,” he said in his I-know-something-you-don’t way, “but they’re the only ones who think they do.”

“So what happened?”

“Nothing,” he said glumly. “Except my apartment now smells like sulphur and my mouse is still dead.  I did everything right,” he whined, tossing the nearly empty tube on a side table. I winced as a tendril of cookie dough splatted down on my good table. “The herbs, the incantations…I even used his exercise wheel to help call him back. Nothing.”

“Maybe you should stick to good luck charms,” I said uneasily. “That death magic sounds pretty dangerous.”  Sid glared.

“I think you know me well enough to arrange protective spells,” he huffed, retrieving his cookie dough and taking a small bite. “Besides, I’m getting tired of glamours, and potions.  It’s small shit. Necromancy is where it’s at!”

He did not just say “where it’s at”.  I didn’t dare laugh; Sidney could be obnoxious, but his feelings were easily hurt. “Maybe you just need to study more,” I offered, to diffuse his frustration.

“Maybe,” he mused, suddenly pensive.  “Necromancy’s an exchange, one thing for something else of equal value. That’s what the texts say.” Books of magic were never just books to Sidney. They were texts.  “I think I needed a more personal item; something he was closer to.  Too bad I never made him a little mouse-sweater.”

Just then Michael came in, a bundle of files tucked neatly under one arm. “Hi Sid,” he greeted as he set down his briefcase and scouted for a place to rest the pile. I noticed him noticing the cookie dough on the table, as well as the flash of annoyance that flickered across his handsome face. I’d been with Michael for four years, and he still hadn’t quite grown to like Sidney. Sidney flicked a hand in greeting, and I set aside my celery and crossed the room to deliver a quick kiss.

“Hey there Lucky,” Michael said, his annoyance vanishing. He was the only person in the universe who could use that nickname and not sound sappy. Michael had started calling me that after finding out my name was the super-Irish Kelly O’Hara. The fact that it didn’t make me projectile-vomit told me right off we were perfectly matched. I kept the kiss short; Sid regarded displays of affection as unseemly, most likely because he’d never had a date in his life, and the way he was going probably never would. It was a real kicker, I guess, that despite all his spells and charms and potions, I got the life partner, and he got dead mice and a run-down apartment.

Conversation turned quickly to sports, the one and only topic Sidney and Michael had in common. I’d never told my lover about Sid’s witchy activities, but as it happened he found out for himself.

Michael’s firm was located on Broad just down the street from my office. I hated that old-lawyers place, with its psychic aroma of conservatism, so I waited in the lobby. The revolving doors chuffed around, spinning the lunchtime crowd into the streets, and my mind wandered back to Sidney and his forays into necromancy.

Sidney was smart, and could work like the devil when he was motivated, but his spells had always been fifty-fifty at best. Once, years ago when I was single and recently dumped, he had made a love potion that he guaranteed would get me attention. It sure did. Sometimes gay people forget just how many straight women frequent gay clubs, but I got a vivid reminder that night as I fended off the advances of a dozen women who just couldn’t believe I was gay. Eventually I escaped through a fire door, but I learned a lesson about the reliability of Sidney’s magic. Screwing up a love potion was one thing, but messing around with the dead…well, I’d seen “Poltergeist.”

Michael stepped out of an elevator and I lifted a hand to gain his attention. No kissing or hugging here; as far as his lawyer buddies knew, Michael was straight as a line and for today I was just a friend.  “Waiting long, Lucky?” he asked, grinning in that way that meant I’d like to take you right in this lobby.

“For a big-shot lawyer like you?” I replied, sending out my own reply: On my back or on my knees?  It’s amazing how telepathic you become after four years, and how randy you can be even though you just had sex a few hours ago.  I didn’t want to sit through lunch with a hard-on, so without further ado I pushed through the revolving door, sensing his eyes on me.

The day was unseasonably warm for November, so we went jacketless along Chestnut Street among hordes of business-suit types.  Fortunately, we graphic artists can get away with khakis and polo shirts, so I didn’t feel too much like a lemming on the way to the suicide drop.  Michael was as usual dressed to the nines, and I reflected that nobody, but nobody, filled out a suit the way he did.  That brought me again to the back vs. knees issue, but this time Michael wasn’t getting my telepathy.

  “Want to go see that weapons exhibit tonight?” Michael asked as we waited for a green light.  He loved anything medieval, and the art museum was currently displaying a whole slew of swords, axes, crossbows and other hurty stuff from the Dark Ages.  When we eventually bought a house, I knew that one room would become a mini-armory for the weapons he’d collected over the years, which currently resided in storage.

“I can’t.  I told Sid I’d go with him to that Bruce Willis movie.  You know, the one with the psychic kid.”  Actually, I was going to help him cast a spell to find out if either Willis or the kid was going to snag an Oscar nomination. The lie came easily, just as the next would come when I had to explain how Sidney and I had missed the movie because “we’d just gotten talking”. 

Michael was silent for a moment, and I guessed he was wondering for the umpteenth time why blond, gym-buffed me had ever become friends with lanky, acne-ravaged Sid.  Michael thought Sid childish and pedantic, but Michael had never met the Sidney who’d always had fun things to do on our dateless Friday nights, like making pencils write by themselves or turning my hair bright green. (How my mother screamed!) Michael didn’t know the Sidney who’d been my only friend in high school, back when coming out in tenth grade was not the fashion statement it is today.  How could I tell this to Michael? It was just Sidney, and you had to know him.

Luckily, Michael let it be. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go myself, then. The exhibit will be closed by the time I get done in New York, and I don’t know when it’ll be back.”

“That’s fine,” I told him.

“The kid is a shoe-in,” Sidney insisted, scooping up the black candle stubs that were all that remained of his spell.  “The Old Ones are never wrong.”

“Remember that time you dropped two hundred bucks on lottery tickets because the Old Ones said you’d win?”  I peered around his cluttered apartment, stroking my chin thoughtfully. “Let’s see…where’s that money now?”

Sidney flashed me a look of imperious disdain, but I could see the smile in his eyes.  He was less annoying than usual tonight, which I attributed to his acquisition of a new mouse. Custer lay motionless in the cage formerly occupied by Sherman, not deigning to use Sherm’s beloved exercise wheel. No pets were allowed in Sid’s building, but white mice were insignificant enough to pass the landlady’s radar. “As I always say, just because I occasionally misread the signs doesn’t mean–“

“That the Old Ones are ever wrong,” I finished for him. “Fine, fine, looks like psychic boy gets a nod this year.” I folded up the black cloth, revealing a pitted and scarred wooden table that had seen better days, then took a seat while Sidney put candles and cloth in the wooden chest where he kept all of his magical accoutrements. I didn’t know much about the Old Ones, except that Sid called their names during divinations, and that they gave unreliable advice. The lottery ticket was the least folly they’d prompted, so needless to say I wouldn’t be placing any bets on their Oscar picks.

“So where does Michael think you are tonight?” Sid asked, moving to the fridge. He kept spring water around for my use only, and he now filled a glass.

“Seeing the movie instead of casting spells about it,” I replied shortly, accepting the glass and sipping. I was uncomfortable lying to my partner, and even more so discussing it.

“And then you’ll say ‘we just got talking’ when he asks about it,” Sidney said, sitting down with a Pepsi. “I know you too well,” he said, “and I wonder why you lie to the guy you share a bed with.”

That cut a little too near the bone. “Maybe you should stick to witchcraft and leave relationships to me,” I shot back.

“Guess you’re right.” His eyes dropped and he fiddled with the plastic Pepsi bottle.

“Hey, look, I didn’t mean to say that…” I began, feeling six inches tall.

He shrugged. “You’re right, all the same.” He began peeling the label from the bottle with enviable dexterity, and it struck me that Sidney’s hands were his most attractive feature. “That’s a magic I have yet to master.”

“It’s not easy,” I told him uncomfortably. I was never comfortable discussing his love life, or the lack of it. What could I say? That he was single because he was obnoxious and unpleasant?  There are some levels of honesty no friendship should attain, and on this topic we had reached our limit. “And it’s not magic. Believe me, Michael and I get on each other’s nerves plenty, and there are times when I almost wish I was single again.”

“’Almost’ he says,” Sidney said to the room. “You can’t fool me. Michael’s the most important thing in your life, as important as my magic is to me, and more.  As important as you are to me,” he finished, flushing. I reached across and took his hand, and his cheeks went from pink to red, but he didn’t pull away. I think I loved Sidney best in those moments when he was just Sidney, not a witch or someone who always knew more than I did. I nearly said there’s a lucky woman out there, but I was lucky to have gotten away with the handholding; empty platitudes would definitely have been pushing it. 

Sidney broke the awkwardness. “But none of you are as important as Ho-Ho’s.”

Michael died twelve hours later, when a tire fell out of a truck on the New Jersey Turnpike and smashed through Michael’s windshield. It also smashed through Michael’s chest, I’m sure, although the emergency room doctor left that part out. She probably thought she was being kind, but nothing could have hurt me after hearing he was gone. The truck driver never even realized what had happened until the New York State police caught up with him an hour later.

Friends, family, and coworkers came in a parade, and they all brought food, as if it were a component in one of Sidney’s spells. Instead of belladonna and incense, they worked their magic through casseroles and fruit baskets and pies. Michael’s mother had aged twenty years, and his father broke down and wept in my arms. That was the worst part (except, of course, for the newsbreak from the kindly emergency room surgeon). Sidney had clumsily offered me condolences, and then confined himself to being pale and preoccupied. I suppose I should have been angry with him for not doing more, but Sidney was as awkward with emotions as he was in body. Besides, what could he do besides magically dye my hair or get the scoop on this year’s Oscars?

He did clean my apartment, however, which was unusual since he rarely took a broom to the rat-hole he called home. He didn’t do a very good job, mind you, but in my state I hardly cared. While I received visitors and acted like I was just fine, Sidney went through the place with dust-rag and Windex, his substitute for cakes and casseroles. A small blessing, since his culinary skills were even chancier than his witchcraft. Sidney cleaned, and I got used to things around the apartment being out of place. I never thought anything was wrong until I went looking for Michael’s college ring.

Michael’s sister had asked for the ring after the funeral, and I didn’t see any reason not to give it to her. A rather ugly thing, I recalled, rummaging through the bedroom, which was why Michael had stopped wearing it. I sat down on the edge of the bed and reflected that it was no longer our bedroom, just as the ring was no longer his. Everything plural in my life had been rendered singular in an instant, punctuated by Michael’s encounter with a highway cannonball. For a moment I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. I just sat on that singular bed in that singular bedroom, feeling an ache that was too deep even for tears. I looked around at the things that had been his which were now mine: the shoe polish kit tucked neatly under the nightstand; the hair gel I’d teased him about buying standing on the dresser; the four neckties looped casually over the back of the closet door. One tie for every day of the workweek, that was meticulous Michael’s way.  No picking through the closet in the morning for him…

I counted out the ties: one red, one blue-striped, one mix of dark green and pale yellow, another blue, but where was the fifth? He’d been wearing a tie the day he died, but not one of these five. He never wore any of his regular rotation when he was traveling, and now one was missing.  I poked around in the closet but came up empty.

Had Sidney moved it while he was cleaning? Maybe, but why had he moved one and left the others? I swung the closet door idly back and forth, watching the four ties flutter, bereft of their fifth comrade. Sidney had taken the tie, but why?

maybe if I'd made him a little mouse-sweater

I froze for a moment, letting the door swing free. The four ties flapped one last time then hung limply, like dead fish.

            mice

            Suddenly I knew exactly why Sidney had wanted the tie, and what he was going to do with it. I snatched my car keys from the dresser, scattering loose change and unopened mail, and bolted for the door.

            Sidney’s apartment was on Callowhill, in a triplex he shared with a young married couple above and three college girls below. I shoved open the paint-peeling front door and pounded up the stairs, my face hot and my heart slamming in my chest.  How could he, how could he? I never thought Sidney would be so low as to use Michael’s death as a little experiment. I hoped he’d studied up on his fist-protection spells, because I was going to pound his ugly face.

            Sidney’s door was locked and, unlike the rest of the building, solidly made. I pounded on the wood. “Sidney, open up! Goddammit, Sidney!” I heard chanting from within, and it was like oil on a fire. I attacked that door with fists, feet, shoulders – at one point I clawed at the wood like a cat, screaming in rage and grief. Doors opened and voices sounded behind me, but they were in another world. Sidney, like an acne-spotted Gypsy, was going to conjure Michael’s spirit, and I was going to kill him for it. Inside, the chanting reached a crescendo, and even in my red cloud of fury I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickling. The voices behind me fell silent, as if they too could sense the energy Sidney had invoked.

            Suddenly the chanting cut off abruptly, and something inside fell with a thud. I dropped back a step, trembling with fear and anger. From the apartment I heard hesitant footsteps, a bolt being drawn, the rattle of a chain disengaging. The door opened and Sidney stood there, smelling of herbs, eyes wide and unbelieving. I stepped forward and those eyes met mine, stopping me coldly in my tracks.

            “Lucky?” he said.

            The neighbors never called the police, although it wouldn’t have mattered if they had. All the police would have found was a funny circle of runes chalked on the floor, a few black candles, and a small brazier filled with ash.  Hardly evidence of a suicide.

            We got out of the lease without much trouble; apparently Sidney’s landlady was not sorry to lose him. I donated his things to Goodwill, except for his magic stuff, which I keep in a spare room of our house. There are two spare rooms. The first is filled with wall-hung weapons: swords, daggers, axes, and a crossbow that had been purchased in England. The second is empty except for an old chest filled with books, candles, and pouches of herbs. All that’s left of Sidney.

            Sometimes I hate Sidney for what he did, because he was right about necromancy: For everything you gain, you give up something equal. Sometimes I cry because I feel guilty, and sometimes I cry just because I miss him. His days of botched love potions and magic dye-jobs are over. But when I lie at night with Michael, his acne-pitted face in my hands, his lanky, awkward body pressed against mine, I can’t help but feel grateful for the gift.