Ruthless. He was only one step away from being on top of his company, so why not dominate the playing field of names as well?
Thoughts like that.
I scrolled through the search results. There was the usual cast. Civil War Ben Cleaver. Val-Corp vice- president Ben Cleaver. House of Platinum Ben Cleaver. Honor roll Ben Cleaver. Another inane blurb I left on a message board. Is it really necessary for these to be linked? I’ll have to watch what I say in the future, or at least not post after four rum and Cokes.
“Hey Mort, man — you rock! I mean, you really rock!!” I felt like pounding my head onto the keyboard.
Jill again. “Ben? Honey? You coming to bed?”
The women I’ve known don’t value the importance of alone time. Jill has said that if she were never alone for the rest of her life, it would be fine with her. In fact, she’d prefer that. Prefer constant company, continuous companionship.
I used to think this was a strange defect particular to women. But maybe I’m the one with the defect. Maybe Jill’s longing for constant companionship, whether it be with me or her family or friends, is a symptom of altruism, pure and simple. A desire to share. Maybe that’s the true sign of unselfishness.
Maybe I should spend more time with her.
My computer stopped working only ten minutes ago, so I’m going to write as fast as I can the old-fashioned way; on a pad of paper. With a
I can no longer see the valley below. The phones aren’t working. I don’t know where Jill is. I shut the computer room window this morning, because what if that strange fog seeps into our house?
But…
Last night. Paranoia set in. Only 103 hits when I entered “Ben Cleaver”. The vice-president of Val-Corp and all his captivating press releases were gone. Maybe their computers were down. Their network? Hell, I didn’t know how it worked. But other Ben Cleavers were gone, too. The elementary school principal. The honor roll student.
I hit reload. The hits dropped to 98. I stared at the screen.
Hit reload again.
97.
Reload.
Still 97.
I noticed that civil war Ben Cleaver had disappeared.
Jill called out from the bedroom. “Ben?”
“In a minute.”
“How long are you going to be?”
“Just a minute!”
I tapped on the mouse. Hit reload again.
Exhaled. The number of hits remained at 97.
I had to stop. I had to pry myself away from the screen. I didn’t know what this was all about, but it couldn’t be something bad, could it? The worst it could be was some computer virus roaring across the virtual highway like a PCP freak on a Harley. Right?
I pushed the chair away from the computer, walked zombie-like down the hall and fell into bed.
“Sorry I snapped at you,” I whispered, but Jill was already out. I kissed the back of her neck and watched her sleep. She looked so vulnerable. A sleeping child. I rolled onto my back, but the pillow wouldn’t conform correctly to the shape of my head. It’s hard to fall asleep when you have so much to say, but don’t know how to say it, or are afraid to say it, or don’t want to wake up the one you want to say it to because she’s so goddamn beautiful laying there, and you feel that if you wake her, you’ll ruin something so pure and perfect and rare.
But mostly, I thought about the links.
What was going on?
And why should I care if tomorrow there were only fifty hits? Twenty hits? What difference would it make?
I told myself I wouldn’t even check. Not tomorrow. Not the next day. Forget about it. I won’t even check my email until Friday. It was Tuesday then, so I figured three days of no checking. Jill’s right when she says I’m too damn obsessive about my email. Especially since all I get is spam about enlarging my penis and *** HOT COED COLLEGE GIRLS *** and Look and Feel Younger in Just 10 Days!
So who cares? Who cares if I don’t find out until Friday? Not me, boy. No way.
When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of cotton candy. I haven’t had cotton candy in over a decade, but I woke up craving it.
Before Jill woke up, I snuck down to the computer and fired it up.
How could I not look? Just a quick peek. I brought up the search engine.
Typed in “Ben Cleaver”.
Only two hits.
Two.
The note I’d left on Mort Castle’s message board. (Hey Mort, man — you rock!)
The other was for The House of Platinum.
Doesn’t matter. No big deal.
I tapped nervously on the mouse. I looked outside.
The valley below was engulfed in the blueberry swirl ice-cream fog. It crept up the hill in softly rolling waves. My hand trembled over the mouse. I was afraid to hit reload.
“Jill?”
She didn’t answer.
“Jill? Wake up!”
I clicked on The House of Platinum link. Instead of the website, an error message popped up informing me that the site no longer existed.
I hit the back button. Hit reload.
One hit.
Me.
“Jill!”
I looked out the window. The blue haze rolled up gently to the highway that wound past our house. Concrete crumbled and dissolved as the haze drifted over it.
“Jill, damn it, wake up!”
Where was the smoke and dust? The sounds of explosions? Screams? Where was the fire and brimstone and the blare of Gabriel’s trumpet? Where, oh God,
It’s so quiet. Peaceful. Beautiful. The fog laps at the foundation of our house like a playful kitten. It rises softly. Quietly. Reminds me of cotton candy.
I keep staring at my reflection in the blank computer screen. Once I put down this pen, it’ll be all I have left.
Branding Day
The children gathered at the fence of the corral, jockeying for position as the cowhands separated the calves from their mothers. The calves bawled, jumped and kicked to the amusement of the students, while their mothers groaned with eyes rolling wildly and milk dripping from their teats onto the dusty ground.
My class had three children who stayed home that day, which was better than previous years. The first year we took a field trip to Culver’s Farm, only nineteen of my thirty-four third-graders attended. Parents retain the right
