The Great Plains 39865 191 pp June 2

The Great Plains

By: Michael Moran McKenna

ISBN: 9781365205828

Dedicated to the one I love, my Mom, Anne McKenna

The Miracle Worker

Lulu Press

Raleigh, North Carolina

The Great Plains in Three Parts

Written 100% completely AI free.

The above information forms this copyright notice (©) 2026

ISBN: 9781365205828

Printed in the United States of America

MMXXVI All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher or Michael McKenna, author or David C. Rogers, cover artist. This book is subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher or Michael McKenna.

Part One

Chapter One

Pool Game

I happened to be walking up an alley behind Sawyer Avenue near 103rd street. Halfway through, I noticed a single, lonely light coming from the basement window of one of the many, nearly identical, six room homes lined up to my right, across the alley from an assembling factory. I knew the house with the light on because that’s where I spent many an afternoon in the summers of my youth. “That’s the O’Leary’s,” I muttered and continued on my way.

I thought of Horace, my childhood friend. I imagined Horace was sitting near that window where the light was coming from, reading or watching TV.

Horace O’Leary was a blood descendent of the very same Mrs. O’Leary, whose cow started the Great Chicago Fire. A blaze that destroyed a huge wooden city in the dry hot October of 1871, though some see it as the conflagration that transformed Chicago into a sturdy city of stone.

Horace was quite used to the label of a fool, because he was subject to its terms and conditions for reasons only the Universe can explain. Horace did not go around begging for spare change in a jester’s hat. Horace was not a fool in the sense of the word you might think, for example he knew enough to put gas in the car before a long trip, things like that. He believed in God. He maintained steady, gainful employment for years. He even went on to become a long-term employee of one of two local PBS TV stations in Chicago.

Nothing about Horace looked like a fool. He just always managed to annoy people. I assure the reader Horace never meant to “put his foot in his mouth” as they say, to say something that causes someone to be embarrassed, upset or hurt. He just always managed to do it. Quite innocently, I should add, Horace never ever expected the reaction he often got.

Horace learned over time to not get mad, because for one thing, he was terrible at being mad. Also, he realized he annoyed people. Most annoying people don’t know they are annoying.

Horace’s experiences in life definitely humbled him, which is one character trait about him I liked. Horace had just enough boyish mischievousness in him to get vilified when he deserved it.

The easiest thing for you and I, making small talk, for example, was, for Horace O’Leary, the hardest. The hardest things for you and I, finding a career in a tiny niche market, in a very small world like show business, proved rather easy for Horace.

He probably could’ve polished his appearance up for two days out of the week- enough to be snuck into sophisticated circles and hang out within that group. A group who are deathly afraid of looking foolish, who listened to the coolest jazz and read the hottest mysteries, but hesitated to mention it for fear they should be reading the coolest mysteries and listening to the hottest jazz.

Horace seldom relished any involvement with those types…and then tolerated them only by chance.

…the “in crowd” were also, by the way, the most likely to be quickly, swiftly fascinated by him and utterly reject him. They were the only ones drawn to him and yet ultimately everybody, especially the hip crowd, eventually spurned and avoided Horace.

If, by any remote chance, someone from the “in crowd” were a portrait painter, they would ask Horace for a photo and “Could they paint his portrait in oil on canvas?” They would require a fee up front and proceed to hem and haw and prevaricate as they analyzed and studied Horace’s face in the photo. Finally they would hand him back the photo with a portrait of some scene behind him in the background with no explanation.

It had been a long time since I’d seen him. With Horace I was sure we were still on good terms because I never stopped “protecting him” (from the world’s perception of him). This may sound strange but that’s what Horace needed the most from a friend, and that I always offered him. I imagined the O’Leary’s must have moved. “But even if they do still live there, I could never just drop in on him. He’d be way too embarrassed because it’d mean he was still living at home, never spread his wings and left the nest.” Then I realized I was too embarrassed to see him because I had nothing to do on a Saturday night.

Then I thought its senseless to be embarrassed, him or me. I suddenly felt obliged to see Horace, see if he still lived there, and coax him into joining me for some exercise.

Both Horace’s parents were born in America to parents who emigrated from rural Ireland to help create Chicago’s urban quality. They’d been retired for years and Horace had gotten quite used to their habits and ways.

The idea did present itself to me that Mr. O’Leary had passed on and the O’Leary’s had moved as I said, but even if he did pass, it would be just like Horace to have nursed him to the grave and afterwards have nothing planned, nothing to do. So, I found myself unlatching their back gate and walking up to their backdoor. A door I’d last knocked on when we were still in school.

In High School, in the very beginning of his freshman year, Horace was still an unknown student, left alone, and able to lay low and fit in. ALL the misfits tended to act like sheep in the same way. Keep their head down, stay out of the way and go unnoticed as much as possible.

Then a singular event that same year took place that I believe shaped Horace’s fortunes for the rest of his life. The incident cannot be overstated and yet it’s one Horace may have even forgot about on purpose.

In the back of the Biology classroom, a 100 gallon aquarium held a school of piranha. They fascinated Horace at once. Why did these famously ravenous fish draw him? I doubt he compared these timid, yet killer, fish to his fellow classmates at that time.

One October day, Horace brought in a single gold fish in a plastic bag of tap water to feed it to the piranha before class. To 500 other first year students with strong beliefs about what is right and wrong, Horace’s action ran the spectrum from strange at the very least, to the greatest sin.

Of course this demonstration drew everyone’s attention. If only because it delayed the day’s lesson. All the students in class “oohed” as Horace poured the water in his plastic bag into the piranha tank. Eventually the goldfish dropped into the large tank full of ferocious South American fish. The gold fish, curious about its new surroundings, swam up to the nearest piranha and immediately darted back to a corner. It struggled mightily to swim away further, to push beyond the glass walls holding it prisoner. In seconds, a piranha swam to the goldfish. The goldfish wiggled out of its corner and swam off. The piranha seemed to lack self-confidence and allowed the gold fish to maneuver away.

But the goldfish swam directly into the rest of the school of piranha and got eaten alive. So savage was that first bite, only half of the dead goldfish remained visible to us. The rest of the tail floated to the top of the tank and got quickly get finished off.

The teacher ordered all the students to return to their seats. The show was over. Class would begin, it was time to read about the life span of drosophila, or fruit flies.

Now the students began grumbling about Horace. Who would go to the trouble of brining in a goldfish? Was it Horace’s pet goldfish? The spectacle turned to mumbling and quiet gossip aimed at Horace O’Leary.

I was in class with Horace that day, and I heard all the terrible rumors. Everything from how Horace tortured his pet cat at home, to he pulled wings off flies caught in spider webs, to he set his dog’s tail on fire. Horace’s name got no peace. Word spread and Horace remained silent.

Students could just not leave Horace alone. As if they didn’t want him to be one of them. From that moment on his freshman year through his last year in High School, bullies appeared out of thin air to tease him. While most young men are learning to rely on their classmates, Horace became an outcast. Partly it was his own fault.

I knew Horace since kindergarten, been to his home daily for stretches, I knew none of the gossip was true. He was a late bloomer in grammar school and perhaps that’s something else they noticed about him in High School. But that’s a charge against him?

Horace eventually got in a fight purely to defend himself, out of instinct, but it was so long after they'd begun terrorizing him that it did little to improve his image.

One good thing that came of it. Their taunts taught him and instructed him to never bully another living creature on this earth. He learned that lesson…profoundly.

Three and a half years of being the butt of jokes, skipping basketball games and Friday night football games and prom does not just wash off after graduation. There’s no telling where Horace’s head was at after High School ended. The hit on self-esteem had to be monumental. It was as if he brought a goldfish to school every day looking to feed a Biology class piranha all over again.

III

The O’Leary basement door is a private entry at the bottom of four concrete steps, the way all bungalows in that part of town are built, a concrete pit and a basement door. I descended and was about to knock when I overheard some voices.

I hesitated and listened, partly just to be sure the O’Leary’s still lived there and not someone else. I heard through the door:

“We rejoice in our suffering because we know that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given to us.”

It wasn’t Horace’s voice so I turned to leave. As I spun to move I accidentally moved a clay pot off its perch on the step and it broke. A few seconds later the door flung open and a man appeared watching me picking up the pieces.

“Frank,” he said smiling.

“Hi Horace.”

“Frank McGovorov, how have you been? Come in.”

Horace had a memory like an elephant, it did not surprise me that he remembered my name after all these years.

Horace could never hide anything, especially his pleasure at seeing an old friend. In fact, it felt like he could read what I was thinking. Horace would be the first to tell you I was never too inquisitive or just snooping around for gossip. That is precisely because he KNEW I would help him, not talk about him. In fact if I dropped by and he was painting the walls for example, he knew I’d have jumped in and helped hm tape and paint on the spot. Our conversations were always best described as easy and detached, until that night.

Horace was my age, 27, but he looked older because he seemed tired. He needed a shave and a haircut, though a shave much more than a haircut. His hair was beginning to recede and thin on the top and surely he’d be without any on top inside of a few years.

His appearance also gave me an impression of ennui or as if he’d been awake for days. He seemed uptight but determined to appear relaxed. I couldn’t help but notice Horace looked heavier than last time I saw him. This new waistline of his was not vestiges of his former drinking days but his new found appreciation for good food or, food that produces serotonin in the brain and calms nerves at least for a little while.

There was a certain luster back in his blue eyes, but you had to describe the rest of his face as tired looking, baggy eyes and all.

Horace had a small nose. He had a broken teacup kind of smile. When he smiled, it seemed forced, as if you were marveling at an expensive teacup from China and then notice your favorite pattern had a chip in it and could only be tossed on the scrap heap.

Horace dressed like thousands of clerks like him dress, in other words, on credit, modestly, as if he had means but really hadn’t. He did his own laundry and on laundry days he might wear something that didn’t match, like a long sleeved shirt with horizontal stripes and suspenders. By themselves they were harmless but together, kind of funny looking. Horace did things, all things, his own way. From his job to his personal life.

One thing about Horace, he knew well how to bear solitude. I was actually shocked he had a guest over.

“Frank, I’d like you to meet a co-worker of mine, this is Tommy Newmanskis.” Tommy was a giant of a man, easily 6 foot 6. He’d completely fill a large doorway when he entered a room. Tiny me, I entered the room and Tommy stood up to greet me. I couldn’t help but marvel at his great height.

“Hello,” Tommy said. In his hand, I’ll never forget, he held a hand copied Holy Bible. There was something ominous and innocent about him. His hair was salt and pepper and utterly out of place. He wore thick framed glasses that had been broken numerous times and crudely refashioned together. He needed a shave.

His complexion wasn’t very good, the side effects of some medicine he was taking.

Horace and Tommy met on a playground basketball court, one of thousands in the neighborhoods of Chicago. Tommy was a “gym rat” before his mental illness symptoms really kicked in in college.

Horace was a late bloomer on the court. His ability at basketball didn’t surface in grammar school or he might have played for his High School team. Pickup Basketball would prove to be the antidote that counteracted 4 years of High School.

Street basketball in Chicago refines the whole state of (basketball crazy) Indiana into a city. You can find a game 365 days a year in Chicago if you just ask. It’s also a closed ‘society’. Unless you’re really good at the sport, you won’t be invited back or truly feel a part of it, though hustle makes up for a lot of inexperience and skill.

Horace practiced for hours, days, weeks and months making layups and open shots before he played his first game. Horace’s energy and desire made up for his jump shot’s form in the beginning. And it was a crucial balance to his High School experience.

Hitting a softball or a jump shot allowed many a misfit to play pickup games all over Chicago. (Incidentally the same thing applies at jobs, especially office jobs, you had to be productive if you didn’t fit in.) Tommy Newmanskis could talk about Jesus, if, he made one game winning jump shot and got his deliveries made on time.

A great example of local “hoops” talent was Bobby Kniecke, who went by the nickname “Special K”. K’s ability on the court really shined at the local University, Division 3 St Xavier, as part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics competition. His jersey still hangs at the gym there, and the ball used when he scored 60 points in a single game. K was also “one of the guys” who was born between 1950 and 1985 who loved streetball and played whenever and wherever he could in city parks all over the Southside.

The collective group of street ballplayers sensed what the High School kids sensed about Horace, but they accepted Horace nonetheless because he tried so hard, because of sheer hustle and effort and THAT was life-saving.

Young meek student Horace transformed on the court. Only on the court could he relish the difference between sterile classroom and blood pumping in his veins. On the court was where movement and effort beat quick witty replies to other mean students seated at their rigid desks all day.

The outdoor basketball court, the game of Basketball inspired Horace, motivated him and energized him.

One time Horace took out personal home life frustration on the court and ordinarily that’s unforgivable, but by then Horace was one of the “pack”. A pack of ball players not unlike wolves who rarely cast out of their own. On the court Horace’s blood ran red. He was transformed from the meek student

“This room hasn’t changed at all,” I said, “Except for that.”

I was looking at a great desk in the corner. It was the kind of model first produced by the steel mills back in the 50’s if only to find more uses for steel. I would have really liked one for myself. I looked at it admiringly. Horace tried to anticipate my thoughts.

Horace grew animated and said, “You can find one in any flea market, I’ll arrange to get one for you," making it seem like the desk was a paperback novel by comparison. I laughed.

Hopefully Horace realized I was there to see him and not get a desk out of the deal but he equated my interest by trying to really give me the moon.

“No, actually," Horace said, taking my laughter for disbelief, "I don’t think you could find one just like it even in shops, here you can have this one. You won’t find a sturdier desk anywhere. It’s in perfect condition.”

I wasn’t paying attention to Horace but admiring his desk. I admit I’d imagined writing many a story on a desk like that. I sat down at it. Only Horace could have produced a situation like this and made me feel like I was obligated to take an item he really cherished.

There was a photo in a frame on the desk.

“Nice picture,” I commented jokingly. “Who is she?”

Horace paused and said “that’s Katie Schmidt. The photo is about 5 years old though.”

By this time Tommy was looking for his coat and trying to find a way to excuse himself. He abruptly said, “I’ll tell you how Horace feels about this girl, (he pointed at Katie’s photo) ‘when Jesus disembarked from the boat, and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them and he cured their sick.’ That’s how Horace feels about this girl,” Tommy said looking at the photo of Katie. “The framed photo might as well be a shrine,” Tommy added. “She cast a spell on Horace.”

There would never ever be a photo of Tommy on any girl’s desk. Though Tommy and Katie would eventually meet before this story is over and on that day he might even impress her as Quasimodo impressed Esmerelda. Not by his physical appearance but by his wisdom.

Horace went on, “I think of her every night before I drop off to sleep. It's like clockwork, at bedtime, I think of Katie and whisper her name, Katie Schmidt.”

I felt uncomfortable and decided to insist it was I who should be moving along. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I’ve obviously interrupted you here. I only wanted to see if you were still in the neighborhood Horace. It’s good to see you.”

“No Frank, stay,” Horace insisted.

In an awkward way, Tommy burst out of the basement into the night and disappeared. I didn’t make any comments but I knew something with him went beyond poor social skills.

Suddenly we heard a long low moan coming from upstairs. It was a desperate sound, one you might expect to only hear in terminally ill hospital wards or prisons. It agitated my nerves right away.

“That’s my father you hear,” Horace said. “He’s spitting on his pointless suffering. He’s a real druid, honestly he can spot a mile away if you’re good or not, it’s as if he can see right through you.”

“Has he seen through you?” I asked.

Horace looked down at his feet and grew quiet. I hated myself for making that comment because of Horace’s reaction. “I love him, I’m curious about him, I like spending time with him.

He’s 82. He wouldn’t moan if he wasn’t really in need of something, but sometime we, my mom and sister and I, don’t know what that is. We may never find out as he stopped talking much. But I tell you, the life dawning on us now is a life very close to Jesus and it’s a miracle I can take care of him.”

Everyone knew Horace’s mom to be saintly. We all wished ours was even half as kind. His sister Loraine was a carbon copy of his mom. Together his mom and sister had smoothed out things for Horace more than anyone could imagine. Loraine loved Horace enough that he let his guard down around her. That alone is so rare it’s worth mentioning.

Horace was a contradiction unto himself. The son of a hardworking father and the most loving of mothers. He told me these things about his father in complete innocence and yet I last saw him, merrier than drunk in a bar, kicked out, sneaking back in over the beer garden wall, and laughing at the bouncers who disgraced him.

Drink had nothing to do his meekness. For every minute Horace spent in a bar, he spent: 30 seconds in church praying. He could be described as a pendulum under a clock. If he was mild, it merely meant he was getting ready to oscillate to wild, normally and without any catalyst.

These two sides, this double version of Horace, were as far from one another as east from west. Except both versions of Horace were self-deprecating. Horace tended to undervalue himself. In his younger days, through his 20s and 30’s, Horace believed both his biggest cheerleader (his mom) and biggest critic (everyone else) alike. It’s just his critics were only that way out of boredom and didn’t care. Yet, to Horace, his critics were beyond dispute. Eventually everyone roots for the one who steams ahead quietly toward their goal, awaiting confidence. Horace didn’t consider doing that without making fun of himself first.

“Tell me more about Katie?” I asked to change the subject.

“That's an old picture of her, she’s since changed,” Horace said. “It wasn’t her fault, her boyfriend changed her completely, She got her chest “augmented”, started to wear a lot of makeup and got her teeth capped and her nails done... Just for him.”

“Just because of you. Your gushing you mean! You tell a plain girl they are beautiful like I’m sure you did and that’s what you get. It goes to their head, they believe you and start getting all dolled up.” I said.

The notion that Horace’s compliments and praise made Katie vain dawned on him. It struck him that perhaps he, Horace, inclined her to wearing cheap cosmetics and perfumes and ruining her appearance.

Chicago is full of beauty parlors where women can go and hide anything about them that's plain or cover their plain-ness up as well as possible but rarely where they reveal their beauty.

Horace continued, “and remember the first time I told her she looked beautiful. She pointed to her breast and said ‘who? me?’”

“That’s precisely when Cupid struck huh? Well,” I said,

“how do you tell a girl she looks kinda plain as a compliment.”

“I dunno, but I will never forget her ‘who me?’ response. A lot of girls are born knowing they can attract a man with makeup and perfume, and they succeed and that is that, it’s natural. They’re attractive and that’s that. But there are a rare few like Katie. When I first met her, she looked truly modest…it made me want to be holy,” Horace said and smiled the first time that night.

“She looks sickly in this picture,” I said.

“Hmmm,” Horace said, “that exact impression elicits empathy and that feeling always restores me. I wanted to be around her, I wanted her to be my supervisor at the factory, and I wanted to be in her company. It didn’t matter what she looked like. It wouldn’t ever matter. The feeling I got from her goodness, that’s what mattered. That’s what shook me,” Horace said.

If Katie and I hit it off, for sure I’d settle down. I’d slow down, I’d pause. But life only gives you the railroad to live next to, rarely the station.”

The notion of them hitting it off seemed unrealistic. I didn’t need to tell Horace that. He knew that, and not because she met some ‘clever guy’ like she did.

VII

I remember Horace living very much in the moment last I saw of him. To me he seemed to have settled down. Last I knew, you were running the streets, sleeping on rooftops, drinking a quart of beer in the alley for breakfast…after being out all night.”

“Yeah, I was in full blown pleasure seeking mode alright. Saying things just to get a reaction, always trying to sound outrageous. I never caught my breath in those days.

I’m older now, I don’t stay out all night half as much.”

“Well,” I said, “your dad needs you.”

Horace turned crimson. He was still trying to do both, take care of his parents and run the streets.

He changed the subject. “God bless my mom for the persistent prayers she said to my guardian angel to protect me. They worked! I’m still able to walk, not crippled form some car wreck. He paused and studied the photo of Katie.

I used to think, even if I just was her co-worker and we could share happenings in the factory, it’d be enough to fall asleep at night to. But maybe it would only whet my appetite. All I know is, Katie’s of this world bring drinking all night to a halt as well as keeping your mom up all night worrying.

Katie is the type of girl who naturally helps her partner accept the “rules of life”, sickness, old age, death. She makes her partner a standup man. She would motivate you to forget instant pleasure seeking, or switch gears more smoothly from it. If you have a girl like her, you’re peaceful. You’re liked by society because Katie likes you. With Katie I’d become that and stay that I believe. Right now I’m just the great great grandson of Mrs. O’Leary whose cow started the fire,” Horace protested.

Still Horace always held out hope she could see something in him, and Katie just felt nothing for him. To her, Horace was the great great grandson of Mrs. O’Leary, and to Katie, he was not even her cow.

VIII

By the way, that photo on Horace’s desk was my first glimpse of Katie. She was in no way ugly, just pale and downcast. She wore no makeup at all in that photo he had on his desk and barely had her hair combed properly for a photo.

Objectively speaking Katie is a 5’6”, slender, with shoulder length straight blonde hair and 19 or 20 years old when she met Horace. Her ravishing youth made up for a bulbous nose and overly large forehead. I often wondered how she could have captured all of Horace’s senses, utterly and completely, even for 5 seconds. But she did and that was enough for a lifetime for Horace.

“This picture of her on my desk is a trade school graduation photo.

She is the most beautiful girl in the world in this photo. I’ve told her that too often, but she is. They either stop believing you or the comment falls into diminishing returns by nature.

If only she were born a week earlier. She’d be a Taurus, I’d be her “type” completely. But she stayed in her mom’s womb that extra few days and as a Gemini, she could never really love my type.”

Horace described that perfectly in one sense, he left out the part that Katie Schmidt was not compatible with him, that she wore lipstick instead of eye makeup, and that all he had to do was toss her back into the sea and fish some more, so to speak. Ever stubborn Horace decided to try and rearrange the stars.

"Katie is simple I guess,” Horace said without knowing (she wasn’t simple) and she prefers simple things. Maybe to the point I sympathize with her for the way she looked when I first met her. She doesn’t get diarrhea of the mouth, where she can’t shut up like those girls she worked with,”

“Hey,” I said. “No girls are simple things. And above all she cannot pity you or it’s over.”

Ignoring me, Horace went on, “She’s Southside, blue collar, working class, likes hard rockin’ music, no nonsense, belongs on the Southside. She’s reachable for…”

"Reachable…for a working-class, blue-collar grease monkey, which YOU ain’t, Horace,” I said being bluntly honest. “You think she follows basketball? Nah, prolly not. And if you tense up around her, that ain’t good, she’ll sense that.

“Hey, I’m an hourly wage earner like the next guy, I should reach her,” Horace said unaware of the reality that poor Horace just didn’t command respect from most people. “But you do have a point, her boyfriend hustles suckers at the pool parlor on 111th street."

“Interesting way to pay the bills,” I said. “But that’s the kind of guy she’s attracted to. As far from you as can be.”

“Yes, well he doesn’t pay for a thing. Katie’s paycheck at the factory behind us on the other side of the alley pays all the bills. And when I told her ‘I’d give anything to be your boyfriend.’ She knew I meant because then she’d love me, not that she’d pay my bills.”

“Are you sure she understands you? Anyway, you really want to get involved in that?”

“I have no choice.”

“How did you meet Katie?”

“Fell into my lap! She was on an employee break for the assembly factory across the alley from this very house. I was just watering our back lawn one day when I saw her.

There was something feminine about her, despite her factory-work clothes.

She was taking a cigarette break with her coworkers at 6pm between the factory and our back fence. She didn’t smoke but they did and she was with them out of solidarity. I took the garbage out to the alley as a pretext to overhear what they were talking about. I noticed at once all the girls taking a break were just gossips and swore in every other word but not Katie. She was quiet. * (see appendix)

I took the garbage out as an excuse to go out into the alley and eventually I approached her and we started to talk.

Her pale, blue eyes on her soft pale face struck me. She is so shy that just getting beyond a simple "hi" took a while, until her break was almost over. But that “hi” was all it took.

Tongue tied I couldn't express a single observation to her for the life of me.

She seemed so forlorn and hopeless. My heart jumped out of my chest with compassion. For a moment I thought I just won the lottery,” Horace said. I got her phone number. In the beginning I could even call her and say “Katie?” and she would reply ‘yes’, and I’d say “I love you” and she’d let out a mirthful little laugh.

But eventually she stopped me from saying that, she wouldn't let me say ‘I love you’ anymore. She’d stop me and say ‘you don’t even know me’.

“Anyway, one of the last times I talked to her, she got quiet and said nothing, only silence, then I heard someone pick up the other line to listen in…. Katie forced a little laugh and said something, ‘dear Horace’ or something.

I exclaimed, “that’s it! it’s your voice! Katie, you have the most charming voice.” Then I just heard click.

Strangely I was just reading about this exact phenomenon in a philosophy class I was taking at Daley College. Horace was experiencing precisely what Schopenhauer described in his work On Women in 1865. It’s a very natural thing in a scientific way. And nature plays very much to a woman’s advantage in this department.

“Nature has had in view what is called in a dramatic sense a woman’s “striking effect on men,” for she endows them for a few seconds with a richness of beauty and a, fullness of charm at the expense of the rest of their lives; so that they may ensnare the fantasy of a man to such a degree as to make him rush into taking the honorable care of them, in some kind of form, for a lifetime.” Schopenhauer wrote.

Horace went on as if he were experiencing some unique, novel, purely outside nature event, “For a moment, imagine you met the girl who makes you feel a blend of sorrow and joy, sorrow for whatever she is dealing with and joy that you’re in her presence.” Horace offered.

Horace also felt a kinship with Katie because she could theoretically act as a mask or cover for his foolishness. If Horace were smart enough to get Katie to be his girl, people would guess he was clever and assume he was no fool. If he kept his mouth shut, even better. Women value cleverness far about service, but so do male coworkers and colleagues.

Suddenly Horace’s eyes glossed over, his eyes became dull as if he were deep in thought. As if he transplanted his body back to when he first met Katie, in the same alley I’d just been walking up.

Horace began to speak in a trance like state, “I must have not been able to take my eyes off her as we talked so finally she said to me, ‘you really want to kiss me don’t you?’ (Yes, I really, really wanted to kiss her.) She said again ‘don’t you?’” I paused unable to believe my ears. She looked so plainly irresistible.”

She said, “There can only be one moment when I will let you kiss me. If this moment passes, you won’t ever have another chance.”

Then Katie reached her long slender fingers around the back of Horace’s neck and pulled him toward her gently. Their lips would touch any second. At the last second, Horace turned and offered her his cheek.

That moment, 6:15pm on a weeknight in the summer of 1991, in an alley behind his parent’s house, struck, it came and went.

“I had a terrible summer cold or I’d have kissed her…” Horace said.

I sensed he needed reassurance. I shook him, I said “Horace, that moment represents how much you cared for her, you didn’t want to make her sick.

Horace’s eyes returned to normal.

He said, “I would still see her on her 6pm break from time to time and exchange hellos…The way she said “Hi Horace” brought me to sheer exhilaration. She said ‘hi Horace’, mirthfully, bursting the two words out with a blast of air from her lungs, like a little elf.

Then one day she started to wear cosmetics and spend money on herself. I knew something changed in her life.

That's when she met that new boyfriend of hers, Cam. “I’d been sending her a letter or parcel a day for months. I addressed the last letter to Mrs. Katie O’Leary.” Then she met Cam and she stopped all communicating with me.

She stopped taking a 6pm break altogether. I think she got another shift.

Things changed.

“Obviously you didn’t make her laugh the last time you got through,” I thought all the while wondering why he was so ‘in love’ with a plain Jane. “You’ve got to leave them laughing.”

“I made her laugh but only at me,” Horace said.

I got sick of this. I said, “Horace If only you studied a joke book as much as you read classic Russian Literature Horace,” I said. “You’d be fine meeting girls.”

(By the way, who knows if Horace ever read Schopenhauer? I, for one, do NOT think he was subconsciously compensating for his lack of cleverness by accepting a lack of stunning beauty. I really think Horace fell hard for women with plain features.)

Horace did not pretend as to who or what he was.

He understood that he might have complete will power over his passions one moment and not even make an attempt at controlling his fears or desires the next.

He’d go to church the following Saturday at 3:00pm and sit in the sacrament of confession with the priest. (The sacrament of Confession is always what separates the miserable people living in disorder and compassionate people striving to make something of their lives. No matter how mundane Confession may sometimes seem, it always separates the receiver from down and outer - outcasts, the dregs.)

Horace would tell of all his giving-in to temptation and even his near victories over temptation and how he wanted to live a righteous life again. Then, when the priest gave him absolution, he’d go and find a pew and say the Rosary (even though the priest just asked for one prayer) and tell himself that if he’d done nothing else in his life worth note, at least he said the rosary in this church on that day.

Then he’d go off and sit in a bar and that same one glass of beer would relax his wildly fantastic imagination. He'd forget he was this kind of double personality. He did swing back and forth on a pendulum like that, swaying from virtue to vice.

After the disaster of Horace’s High School days ended, he had his pickup basketball games, but when the game ended, he fell in with a Mexican girl who came from the wrong side of the tracks. She would eventually become a Chicago Police Officer. But back then, “Rose” offered Horace “acceptance” to his face, while behind his back she laughed at the crazy gringo. She and Horace ran the streets all night, running down drinks, but then driving, tempting fate on a supernatural scale.

Horace’s mom, already dealing with the declining health of Horace’s father, prayed, and prayed and prayed. What Horace didn’t know then is his mom’s intercessory invocations for his safety moved mountains on Horace’s behalf. Horace’s mother’s prayers had the power of a St Columba. ** (See Appendix)

Like a false god, Rose redeemed Horace from his High School days with a $2.50 purchase of a quart of beer. Horace’s mom saved him with her prayers. The difference could not be more profound.

That’s when Horace was both stupid and a fool. Horace’s mother never gave up though. Mrs. O’Leary’s intercessory pleas through Horace’s own Guardian Angel, said late at night were truly the model of persistence. Horace’s mom prayed every night the same prayer. That Horace’s Guardian Angel protect him, and every night Horace somehow came home safe.

She prayed especially at night all while dealing with her own husband’s failing health.

“When my dad was 71, the left side of his brain hemorrhaged. The blood seeping inside his skull had nowhere to go and just dried up right there, like paint, blocking what were once free passageways and leaving the right side of his body more or less paralyzed.

Now, as we’re just starting to cure him, old age is having its way with him. He’s outlived all his arthritis, his wheelchair (he never needs it anymore because he doesn’t get outside much), even one of his doctors! It’s true, he’s become one of the 5% or so of stroke sufferers who outlive the first bout of illness. Get a stroke, survive it and require long term care.”

I said, “There is a very good nursing home just up the alley, literally so close, you could visit him every day.”

“A good nursing home? Go up there right now, anyone who really can't look after themselves is lying alone in pretty bad conditions.

My mom would never ever, ever hear of it. Anyway we refuse to institutionalize him,” Horace said

That’s when we heard a knock at the back door, Tommy Newmanskis returned. Tommy forgot his XXL Chicago Bears leather coat. He kind of barged in and took it off the chair. Horace said nothing at first.

Tommy asked me “Have you ever read the Bible?”

“From cover to cover?” I replied with a question. “No I never have.”

“Tommy here memorized it in a ‘hospital’,” Horace said smiling good naturedly at Tommy acknowledging his achievement.

Tommy shot back. “What would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God?”

Tommy couldn’t resist the idea his illness afforded him a closer relationship with God than most men. That is what allowed him to see his condition as a consolation.

Tommy spoke up, he couldn’t resist, “Well, you can’t always get up at night in a mental hospital and read, so I liked to have the passages memorized,” Tommy said.

“All of them?”

“Know your Bible I always say. For example, Jeremiah has Horace here all figured out, Jeremiah would call Horace a man of strife and contention to all the land, he neither borrows, nor lends, (just tries to nurse his father). Yet all curse him.”

“Curse him? That’s a strong term. What were you in the hospital for?” I asked.

“I’m a paranoid schizophrenic and a manic depressive,” Tommy said.

That’s when I noticed his hands trembled from all the diet coke he drank all day.

When we shook hands again, I couldn’t help but notice how powerful his grip was. He was an intimidating force.

Tommy quickly added “I was rushing, I go to fix my roommates problems then I remember I left something behind I need here at Horace’s.”

“What does your roommate do that needs fixing?” I asked.

“Oh he tells me giants like me don’t need to read the Bible because Goliath lost his battle in that Book and I’ll lose mine. He just tries to fill my mind with doubts, but it’s a real blessing he even mentions the Bible,” Tommy said. “Its huge progress…He’ll know real peace someday if he reads the Bible.”

“Do you see someone, a psychiatrist?” I asked.

“I did until she found out I had a crush on her. One day I rattled off her car’s license plate number and she couldn’t understand how I knew it. It was all just a fluke that I knew it. I mean I happened to see her get in her car.”

“Lots of people happen to see people they know get in their car, but don’t memorize their license plates,” Horace said. “You gotta stop doing that…”

“Yeah, yeah, never saw her again, well she was Jewish and she was tired of me preaching the New Testament to her too. But man she was pretty.”

“Hey look,” I said, “why don’t we all go out for a beer and talk? Can you join me?”

“Let you know in a minute,” Horace said and excused himself and a few minutes later came back downstairs.

“What do you say Tommy?” Horace asked.

“Sure…” Tommy said because an invitation meant I was buying. “Roommate can wait.”

“First I have to say,” Horace said, “before a sip of beer will pass my lips, if I have done anything in my life worth anything, and believe me, that’s debatable, I can always say, on my deathbed, I drank a cold beer tonight on your recommendation Frank.”

We left through the basement door. Horace never said goodnight to his parents upstairs. That sort of stuff made his mom worry for him night after night when he was out with whomever. Anyone who Horace caroused around with, except me, were looking out for his best interests.

Chapter 2

“How do you keep it up?” I asked Horace at the bar we ended up at.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s a lot of work you have on your hands on the home front …”

“Home front and beyond, listen to this... I was driving down an eight-lane highway when another car swerved into my lane, broad sided me and left the scene. I hopped out of my car and tried to get the license plate number but it was useless. I stood there shocked.

For some reason a surge of something like forgiveness entered my heart. There it was, a superabundance of energy. I started doing jumping jacks by the side of my car. (The car was wrecked but there wasn’t a scratch on me.) Police told me it was a miracle I survived judging by how my car looked.

I went home with the energy to carry out great plans.”

Just then he came in.

“That’s Cameron Vamella right there,” Horace said to me and sat up straight. "Katie Schmidt's boyfriend."

"How do you know? Ever seen him before?" I asked.

"Never, but I just knew I'd run into him sooner or later and I'm sure that's him."

"When was the last time you called Katie at his place?" I asked.

"Last night,” Horace said.

I admit I braced then and there for trouble. I knew Cams of the world. They get by on a constant flow of artificial euphoria’s so that their tolerance for these “highs” means they no longer work so good. In Cam’s case it was not booze or drugs but having a homely girl like Katie Schmidt wrapped around his finger, or suckering someone like Horace at pool. If things didn’t go his way in these areas, coward that he was, he’d automatically think to get ugly and get even. And he’d be very petty in doing so.

“I had a dream last night. Katie and I met and fell in love. From the dream I had a great inspiration that I would finally convince Katie once and for all that she should realize I loved her enough for both of us. Now she should and could love me back. Of course I woke up and phoned her before I realized I'd forgotten the exact specifics of the dream, I'd woken her up too. But I still remembered the essence of the dream clearly. In reality though, all I did was wake her up from a sound sleep."

Just then the giant, Tommy Newmanskis, came back to our place where we were sitting at the bar and announced for everyone within earshot that he just played a song on the jukebox for the female bartender who barely noticed.

All this time I kept my eye on this guy who Horace thought was Katie's boyfriend, Cam.

Shark is a very accurate term to describe Cam’s movements in the bar. He looked completely in control of his image. Not a hair on his head was out of place. His shirt and jeans were pressed with an iron at home. His boots were polished.

“Beck's,” Cam told the bartender who immediately pulled a long, blue tap in the shape of a baseball bat with a Cubs logo on the top. She pulled it before she had the empty glass under it and got her hand wet with beer. In seconds the glass was full and overflowing with the head of the beer.

The bartender knew who Cam was, she once spilled his drink and tried to kill him with kindness as they say. If you were so inclined you could not kill shady people like Cam with kindness. The bartender learned that. As hard as she tried to please him after that spill, he didn’t even leave her a tip.

The bartender also knew to get Cam a cup of ice water. It was his baptism water, he drank before every game of pool.

From a distance, the blonde bartender overheard Tommy and smiled. She knew something was wrong with him but wasn’t sure what. Tommy could pass for normal at times such as in a dark, half empty bar with two friends by his side.

She put the glass of beer in front of Cam and took the singles he’d placed for her to grab. Cam took a short sip, he had no intention of drinking much.

Cam had to approach Horace. Men like Horace are the sole source of entertainment for the Cams of the world. In even the thickest of crowds, Horace always stood the best chance of being discovered for sport. People need to relax, and needling Horace was the delight of many an acquaintance of his.

Cam smelled a sucker and he pounced, taking a seat right next to Horace. Cam had no idea Horace was the pest calling up his girlfriend in the middle of the night. The very guy who was making Cam testy with Katie at home of late, Horace O’Leary was right there for the taking.

Then suddenly Horace did the unthinkable, he started talking about Katie to thin air. The last thing he should have done. He started speaking of the girl whose boyfriend (he strongly guessed) was sitting right next to him.

I mean he wasn’t talking to me, he wasn’t even talking to Tommy, and he was looking straight ahead.

He had to know his rival for Katie's affection (not to mention Katie's live-in boyfriend) could not help but eavesdrop every word he said.

“I miss Katie like you miss home when you’ve been away from it for any length of time,” Horace said. Of course Cam's ears perked right up.

“It’s strange, I promised myself I wouldn’t think of her again, yet last night she visited me in my dreams.

Last night, the very first night of my vow to forget her forever and she visits me,” Horace said out loud.

“Funny you mention the name Katie, pal” Cam said to Horace as if they were old friends and Horace was actually addressing him though they’d never set eyes on each other before this night.

“My girlfriend’s name is Katie. I have some nut calling my house at all hours to talk to her too...”

Cam had black eyes and flawless skin. He smiled a smile that any dentist would know was gift of good pedigree.

Cam made an attempt to appear like he came from some honest trade when any fireman would instantly guess he labored over his looks and had not worked a day in his life. Whether they could see his manicured fingernails or not.

I guess I’d call him the ultimate busy body. He listened with delight to the latest negative gossip because he didn’t have a hobby that occupied his time.

When Cam gets old he will resort to spilling the beans on anyone because people won’t tell him anything.

He didn’t go to church so his connection to God was only through other people and unfortunately, he didn’t look for God in them.

His hobby was pool and Katie and both of those subjects were completely and utterly at odds with each other and mutually exclusive. Pool playing provided him with drinking money and Katie paid his rent.

Now the woman paying Cam’s rent, Katie, was taking Horace's phone calls. Katie paying the rent had to be automatic, the norm, and the rule. If he dumped her for making him jealous, he’d be on the street.

Of course making someone jealous was not putting Katie in her best light either and she knew it. In any event, her plan worked and Cam was plenty jealous.

This was just another night for Cam. He was out looking for another fool to be suckered in pool, someone who could be tricked for some drinking money. But Horace ignited Cam's jealousy and that would throw him off his game.

Cam had been on a losing streak lately as well. That and feeling jealous was a combination he didn't need. Now Katie was more than a roommate to clean up after him and cook...now she was in his thoughts outside of their apartment.

Horace seemed like a sucker who he could swindle at first, but gradually Cam got bothered about who he was. Could this be the guy who was calling and looking for Katie? Once he asked himself the question he knew the answer but dared not believe it.

He thought to himself, “c'mon Cam, this is an easy mark, take his money and be home by 9 getting your feet massaged by your silly girlfriend.”

Horace remained calm and quiet. At that moment he seemed to become "ordained" to speak of Katie around Cam of all people.

Horace obeyed some “rule” that those of his line were required to, that is do something subtle and silly that invites anger and is dangerous because it was so un-thought out.

Horace took on another role as well, a surprising one for him. The role of champion who conquers by quiet submission. Horace's being quiet then and there made him the esteem of myself at least.

“Ah but Katie, that’s a common enough name,” Cam said aloud.

It was so obvious, Horace did not belong in a sleazy pool hall bar on 111th street.

Don't get me wrong, Horace loved bars, but he probably was happiest in his life when he left them alone and pool halls?? This feeling of being out of place in a pool hall reflected on his face like the out of place flashy neon sign over the door. To this day I wonder about fate and that on that specific evening I got Horace out and to a pool hall. But we did not tempt fate.

Suddenly Horace reversed his tactic again and answered Cam’s question. “I dreamt Katie and I were together and that we'd grown closer since we'd last actually talked. I do know someone named Katie.”

“Oh really,” Cam said and sipped his Becks. No one in there drank German beer brewed in St Louis by the way. Everyone in there was an Old Style or Pabst drinker.

Cam was suddenly ears up, on the lookout for the guy who was calling Katie. He knew it was annoying to him, so he predicted it annoyed Katie but why was she allowing this guy to call in the first place? He wondered.

Suddenly Cam's suspicions took hold of him.

This was the guy who was making him work for Katie’s affection of late, the guy who was lurking in the shadows, waiting for him to make a mistake, it was the guy sitting right next to him, Horace.

Cam’s heart began to race.

“It’s funny, my girl’s name is Katie and I have this troublemaker calling every now and then asking for her. I think that when I’m not around, they talk for hours, maybe even about of running off together.

My Katie,” Cam said, “she’s a soft little mouse and any cat could put the wrong ideas in her head.

Then I’d come home and my Katie would be gone. And then I’d be really mad.”

“You needn’t worry. Maybe if you didn’t ask her to change or need her to change for example.”

“What do you know about that friend?”

“Common name, Katie. I’m sure we’re talking about different people. I’m only offering you a for instance.”

“Yeah, right,” Cam said, for a second taking this advice and then laughing at himself for it and getting really angry.

Katie never produced any real information on Horace to Cam in an attempt to protect him.

Katie always hesitated to say anything, even when Cam pressed her. She knew he’d love to take out his frustration on someone like Horace.

Earlier that very evening, Cam and Katie did, in fact, have a knock down dragged out argument. Katie knew how Cam earned his living.

Cam wanted to use her car to go out that night because someone he hustled recently found Cam's car and took a baseball bat to it.

Hustling was how he chose to make his living. Now it dawned on her that he was also hustling Katie no less than some stiff at billiards.

Cam lived with her but he rarely actually helped her pay bills and long relied on the fact that she was smitten with his charming good looks. That's why she got false fingernails at first, started wearing garish red lipstick, had her breasts augmented, her nose fixed, wore extra large wide hoop earrings. All these changes were strictly for Cam because she thought he was clever and made her laugh. That and his rugged good looks.

Cam would never admit he tried to change Katie from looking plain.

“What do you like most about your Katie?” Cam asked.

“She’s plain looking, no one would ever steal her from me. What do you like about your Katie?” Horace asked.

“Maybe she isn't so plain looking anymore,” Cam said fighting back his fury. “Those women who men think are corrupted by their boyfriend into looking like trash, they had that look in them from the beginning and they have their boyfriend to thank for bringing it out in them…” Cam said.

“No, only thing a boyfriend who needed her to look trashy brings out in them is jealousy...” Horace replied.

Just as Cam was ready to reveal who he thought Horace's Katie was...something changed. An unusual nemesis of Cam’s came in the bar and immediately started asking questions.

Horace blocked this newcomer’s view enough to afford Cam this chance to notice and slip away unseen. This new entry to the bar was plenty angry.

Cam swindled him out of a lot of money a week earlier.

He didn’t know when to quit and gave his whole pay check to Cam over. Now the hangover had worn off and he was looking for blood. Cam knew immediately why he was there. The energy in Cam turned 180 degrees. Suddenly he sought to befriend Horace instead of smash his head in!

Cam asked Horace to guard his drink as he ducked into the men's room, to wait out the intruder. Suddenly Horace wasn’t so much his enemy as his rival and Cam appreciated that. The guy asking questions with the bouncer of the bar was someone who wanted to beat Cam within an inch of his life and certainly could, not to mention, at the very least, remove a little of Cam’s boyish good looks.

Before Cam left Horace's side, Cam said “Hey buddy, I tell you what… “I think we may be talking about the same girl! I tell you what…you want to play a game of pool for her? You win, I’ll pour out my heart to her, tell her I tried to change her and I was a fool to do so. I’ll pack my bags and leave. I win, and I’ll pour my heart out to her, tell her I tried to change her and that it’s a foolish thing to ask. Then I’ll ask her to marry me. What do you say?”

At that second, before Horace had a chance to reply, Cam had disappeared into the men’s room. (Tommy and I had gotten into a conversation nearby). Horace motioned me over and told me Cam's offer to play pool for Katie's heart.

Just then, before Cam came out of the bathroom, a tall, wide and bearded man came up to Horace,

Tommy and I and politely asked us if we knew anyone named Cameron Vamella. We replied no because at the time we had no idea who Cam was. Then this imposing man quietly and calmly said in a deep voice, “The man I'm

looking for is clean shaven, about 6 foot tall, wears an earring in his right ear, plays pool. Well, he’s a hustler. Listen, if you happen to see him fellas, please tell him bluebeard is looking for him, will you? I greatly appreciate your assistance gentlemen. Thank you.”

“Does he owe you money?” Horace asked.

“Oh I plan to murder him on sight,” bluebeard said calmly. His long dark beard caught the neon and did pass for Navy blue.

“You are bluebeard I take it?” I asked.

“I am,” he replied. “Good night.” With that, he went directly to the men’s room. We all expected a melee to break out.

Bluebeard must have looked around and in the stalls and walked out and then out of the bar and back onto Western Avenue.

Just then Cam, who had been hiding in the stall with his feet suspended off the floor, came out. If Cam was embarrassed, he didn’t show a trace. He went for the front door to see Bluebeard milling about and returned to us at the bar.

Cam’s fright, seemed to give Horace the “upper hand”. He suddenly attained the higher ground on Cam morally and psychologically. Now Cam appeared to us in a different light. He was more a fool than Horace. With his perfect teeth and jeans, he became a clown to us.

“So, what do you say pal?” he asked Horace without skipping a beat and almost drooling over the prospect of playing him a game of pool.

Chapter 3

Horace chalked up his cue stick as we tried to cheer him on.

“Horace, if you win, the girl of your dreams is yours!” Tommy said naively.

“And if I lose, my worries are gone…she’s gone, gone forever…”

“Horace,” I whispered, “he’s a born con-man. All he wants is to lose to you, pretend to give you Katie. You’re not winning anyone in this first game. He’s selling you the Brooklyn Bridge. The next five games he will hustle you for all your worth. He’ll probably even tell you the money he wins off you is to get out of town and leave you Katie.”

Horace may have not been fit for this rat race dog eat dog world, but the one thing that conquered his unlikeable aura was that you could pity him for suffering like he did in silence.

“Once you come over to see Katie, he’ll eat you alive. He’s just being careful tonight because that fella Bluebeard is lurking around.”

“No,” Tommy said, “I know one thing, he looks like a man of his word. Just look at him.”

At that moment we realized that Cam was doing his best to eavesdrop on us. He assembled his pool cue from a flight case, not a hair out of place, his part perfectly groomed at home. He pretended he did not hear a word.

“Who do you know who comes in here with his own cue?” I asked Horace.

“Say, couldn’t help but overhear ya there pal,” Cam said. “I got this cue as a door prize at a church raffle. It’s the only thing I own that they tell me is any good. And do you think I’d use any old cue off the rack when it comes down to my girl’s heart?” (By this time, Cam realized Horace was more gullible than he first thought.)

“What church? When was the raffle?” I shouted.

“Um, err, St. Linus, last month…” Cam said irritated.

They commenced their match.

Cam broke, his shot sank nothing. Horace’s first shot was a ‘gimme’. He was solids.

He missed his very next attempt as did Cam.

Horace was up. He sank a solid but then missed an easy shot. I noticed Cam wince as he watched Horace miss, check his watch and look at the front door.

Cam came up, missed a shot even Horace would have made. Horace up, he made another solid.

After 25 minutes of this, Horace was shooting for the eight ball and Cam hadn’t made a shot yet.

“You sink this pal and she is yours…”

Just then Katie Schmidt, of all people, entered the bar. She entered right after Cam swung his gaze on the door like a searchlight does in a prison yard looking for Bluebeard. She snuck past Cam’s vigilance, I guess you could say, but she wasn’t trying to. Cam didn’t realize she entered.

She looked just like she did in the photo on Horace’s basement desk! No makeup, false nails cut off, hair in a bun, covered up in a coat for the chilly night air. Tennis shoes on her feet.

She managed to make it directly Cam without him noticing.

The game was at the point where Horace’s match winning shot was certain to fall. A real gimme.

Katie had been crying but long since dried her tears. She looked like she’d been crying.

“Buddy, you make this shot and Katie is yours…” Cam said loudly with a grin.

Katie heard this and her eyes became like Kennedy dollars. She cleared her throat. It sent shivers down Cam's spine.

Cam had been being especially mirthful with us to offset his nerves. And his nerves were so taught over bluebeard that anything just then would have turned him from edgy to feeling slightly angry.

Hearing her directly behind him, Cam instantly knew it was Katie and that she heard what he said.

“How ridiculous! You’re shooting pool for me??” Katie managed to blurt out.

“Not some beer money for yourself and one of the ladies in here?” Katie said.

Cam spun on his heels. “Baby…I was just…”

Katie froze up, she always thought Cam was so handsome and his appearance always conquered her. He looked so much like the husband she always dreamed of. She was about to burst into sobs.

Horace saw his beloved Katie well before anyone else did. He’d last seen her at church, with a dazzling made up face and 4 inch high heels. Now she again looked very much like the girl who initially stole his heart a few years before. A “normal” girl. His heart rose and then he realized the game was for real.

His hands started to tremble. There’s no way he was gonna sink another billiard ball.

Katie spoke firmly with sobs nowhere to be found. "This is where you come when you say you are going to work? A pool hall on 111th street?”

“Yeah keep it down, if ya know what’s good for both of us, I don’t need any attention brought my way just now baby, right, exactly. And are you crazy? I just came down here to relax on my way to the office," Cam said with an affectation to his speech and tone. Trying to sound carefree but worried Bluebeard would hear the commotion and return.

“Excuse me,” Horace said weakly. “Katie, it’s me Horace O’Leary.”

Katie turned white. She did not notice who Cam was playing. Suddenly she felt the horror overcome her that Cam was actually playing a game of pool for her hand. Horace was crazy for her.

In the Vamella’s “household” where Katie paid the rent, it was long since understood that the day Cam and Horace would meet was the day Cam would kill Horace.

All the phone calls Horace placed, all the times Katie tried to talk him out of his crush meant that Horace and Cam would never, could never meet in person. And now here they were, playing pool together. Katie was speechless.

“Knock off the dumb stuff dude,” Cam shouted at Horace. Not sure what else to say, half in a world where he needed every “friend” he could muster in case Bluebeard returned.

Horace inhaled and exhaled deeply. This is important, he didn’t rush. An inner voice told him to take his time. He sensed his opportunity. The eight ball hung on the lip of the pocket. All Horace needed to do was brush it with the white cue ball and it would give way and fall.

“That’s it!” Horace said aloud when he succeeded, “I win, I’ve won your hand Katie. Now he’ll tell you the truth, that he tried to change you and no one can or has the right to change another person. Then he played a game of billiards for you as if you were a commodity.

Cam and Horace began left their positions at either side of the table and began to wrestle.

Cam was surprised at Horace’s quickness and ability to defend himself and remain calm in the heat of the moment.

Cam saw the fight was going nowhere and that Tommy or I were poised to step in at any moment, and would only get them kicked out to perhaps another, even nastier fight with Bluebeard.

Bolstered by his success, Horace demanded Cam keep his word. “Tell her you renounce her, tell her the truth. Exactly what you told me if I won.”

“Your nuts dude, Katie, this is not the place to talk. We’re going home right now,” Cam said.

The giant Tommy got in his way. “I thought you were a man of your word. Tell her what you told my friend,” Tommy said, sounding as sane as a judge, standing even taller than Bluebeard.

“Look Katie, I’ll explain all this to you later, let’s go out the back way.”

Tommy blocked him.

“He told us he’d play pool for your heart ma’am,” I said. “If he lost, then Horace could have a chance to ask you out.”

“Cam, you’ve done a lot of hurtful things but this is the worst.”

“You know what, you can have her!” Cam said loudly and left out the back door.

Katie began to cry and Horace approached her. All she could think of was Cam and Horace reminded her of dreading another grueling shift at the enormous hulking assembly factory by the O’Leary’s back fence.

They went to the bar and Horace ordered her a beer.

The hour grew late. Chicago’s street lamps bathed the city in yellow light. Just a few blocks away, that alley I just walked down lay in pitch black, inky blackness. Feeling like a fifth wheel, I wanted to return to it.

Chapter 4

“You’re sorry!??” Katie sobbed to Horace. “The greatest man just walked out on me. In public.”

She looked up at Horace. There was no trace of empathy for him. He didn’t look so bad that night either. He wore a nice ADIDAS jacket and matching trousers. He wore brand new, stainless gym shoes. His hair was beginning to thin out but that was a long way off and it was combed as well as Cam’s come to think of it.

His smile was warm and healthy, no missing teeth. Yes he might have done with a few pounds off his mid-section but don’t we all?

“Are you really Horace O’Leary?” Katie asked. Then she grew pensive. “Why did I barge in on him tonight like this? This place, it really is where he works after all. I was wrong to come. He never walked away from me before like he did tonight.” Then she shifted completely. “This, oh this is…, hey, you’re not the guy who goes up librarians and snap a picture with her and tell your parents in Florida that you finally found her?”

Horace looked at his feet.

I am no apologist for Horace. I know what he went through in High School and admired that he fought only when he was physically touched, but this was becoming cruel. This was not looking good.

Katie switched back to Cam… “He’s kind, he’s generous, and he’s sweet. He’d do anything for me. He had it rough. His father was an alcoholic,” Katie was almost in tears.

Horace thought, “My dad is home, he is unable to move very much on his own. I am sure with all the time he has to think, he is praying for me at this very moment,” Horace mused silently.

“Well Cam told me really bad things about his dad. His father died when cam was only 9. He said his mom and dad fought all the time. He has vivid memories of their fights. And she’d go and spray on perfume and his dad would go drink whisky. He remembered that vividly.

Cam would draw the comparison that she took a kind of alcohol to feel better too, the perfume was alcohol based. Horrible smelling stuff…” Katie didn’t realize Horace was consoling her. She really needed to let it out at just that moment too.

She drained the glass of Old Style Horace ordered for her.

“Cam is kind, he takes me out when I’m really tired from working. He knows my favorite place, Resi’s on Irving Park…Well, it’s his favorite place too. In fact he took me there for my first time after a Cubs game. That’s what he did, he took me to see my Cubbies…he is a huge Cub fan too…He must have taken me there twice last year alone. He knows my favorite songs.”

Horace didn’t know what to say. This was all a lot for him. He kept thinking, “I’m seated next to the girl of my dreams and she is talking to me, confiding in me. Sharing with me her troubles,” Horace thought.

What else would a man who loves her do?

“If we were a couple, we would be the envy of all the ladies who I say the rosary with,” Horace thought.

Katie continued, “Cam lives quite a life. Is that any kind of stable life? No. But look at him. He’s called to that life. Handsome Cam, that’s what my girlfriends and I call him.

But we’re not together long enough where this argument will all just pass…he might really be gone from my life…”

Just then poor Horace caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar. He saw his face between the bottles of whiskey. He thought his drinking was getting the best of him. (It wasn’t true) But to Horace, his jaw was no longer pronounced. There were bags under his eyes. He took a deep breath and forced out the only question he could. “How did you know Cam was here?”

“Pure chance,” Katie replied. This was the only time they actually had a conversation, not just a monologue from Katie. “I had to get out of our apartment. I went for a walk to get some fresh air. I saw my car outside this bar. His Toyota is all smashed up.”

By that time Bluebeard had departed and Cam slipped around the building and took off in Katie’s Chevy.

Then Horace looked at Katie. She looked like a used bar rag to me. To Horace, she would never return to the beauty she was when she was plain. She had to see her dignity.

“If you hurry, you might catch him,” Horace said.

“Thanks, oh thank you,” Katie said. For a moment they exchanged that mutual feeling you get when you bump into someone in some foreign airport who is from your hometown. You know they know exactly where such and such street corner is and you instantly bond.

As she got up, Katie finished the beer and hugged Horace. “But Cam’s a tiger, I’ll never change him.”

“Well, I know that you understand,” Horace said. I know you know how it is. Guys like me….”

“Don’t get a second glance from a girl like me?” Katie finished his sentence. I’m nothing special. (That line alone was proof she had absolutely no interest in Horace.) At least no one ever thought I was. Until I met Cam…”

“I knew who you were the day we met in the alley. You showed me some poetry you wrote.”

Katie lit up. “That was the day I met Cam!”

“Yeah, the poetry was about him…but we met before you wrote it.” Horace ordered her another beer. The first one did not make her feel exactly exalted, but certainly she needed the tranquilization. She silently accepted it.

“Are you serious?” Katie laughed. She took another sip of her beer.

“I don’t get this much of a reaction from ole handsome. He thinks it's enough of a privilege for me that he stays with me,” Katie said. Secretly she loved the power he had over her.

“Oh you’re Horace…hey I forgot, you’re my stalker…ha ha ha, sorry, that’s how I refer to you at work,” Katie said.

“You’re funny,” Katie said and took another sip of beer. She hadn’t enjoyed herself this much in a while.

“Ahhh, so now I get it. This is fun. Resi’s Bierstube isn’t so darn stuffy, Cam is! Cam made me work for even a glance. Now I get it,” Katie said.

“This is how life works. It's always stressful living with someone moody like my boyfriend. I make it work by not being demanding of him, and not walking on eggshells around him.

Everyone wants to be around beautiful people, we just do…and there are a handful of us who are just able enough to date them…to marry them…”

Katie finally got a good look at Horace. He would be home for her every night. He would wait on her hand-and-foot. He’d have to be hospitalized for exhaustion before he’d stop feeding her chocolate and rubbing her feet.

But she also sensed that same old thing the alpha males and the clever jokesters at his High School saw and sensed about Horace. That he was just unlikeable after all and that stood out. He had no common sense, no way to solve life. But he didn’t give up or give in and kept coming to class, kept checking on Katie. Horace needed to be neutralized and sterilized and no longer able to threaten. This O’Leary could not be allowed to burn the city of Chicago down like his great great great great grandmother did.

Katie also thought, as Horace kind. “But that’s not how I want my life to work. I need to have my heart race when I come home…"

“Are you mad at me?” She asked and as she sipped her beer.

“No, your heart's…not…racing. That’s the best sign of…” Horace said.

“Sorry Horace,” Katie said. “You’re nice, just kind of……” She paused for an eternity… “plain,” she said.

Part Two

Chapter One

Dawn’s Muse ~ Emmie’s Idiot

When Horace O'Leary turned 37, his father passed and was interred nearby at Mount Olivet.

I would say Horace’s face filled out, his hair receded a little more than it had, but overall he still had hair to cut and part. He may have added a few pounds but he was by no means overweight. I would describe him as slightly distinguished. Especially compared to the Horace I knew in High School who had the deer in the headlights look. Horace’s appearance balanced compared to his younger days. Age hadn’t yet detracted from him in any way.

Horace was a late bloomer. About ten years ago, by a miracle, he finally sought work only where he really wanted to work. When I say miracle, I mean it. After an airline he worked for went under due to the Wimp President Bush’s Gulf War fiasco jacking up gas prices, Horace would still show up at the airport and wander around. One day, going through his wallet to see if he could come up with the price of a cup of coffee, a business card fell out.

It said Cindy Ferenzak Noser Sophmorek, WICC PBS TV Daley College, Channel 20. With a poorly executed little logo “We’re Chicago’s Education Station” etched into the card in blue.

This card just happened to land on the side with Cindy’s number and extension facing up, not on the back side or Horace would have not even picked it up. He called the number right then and there at Midway airport, at risk of annoying Cindy because he’d called every week for weeks, and she said he could report for duty the following Tuesday.

Horace took a two-bedroom apartment over a Polish bar called Maria’s on 111th Street and Sacramento Avenue, adjacent to the non- commuter railroad tracks with an enormous Catholic Cemetery beyond that. Over Maria’s door hung the ubiquitous “Old Style” lighted sign. Many other taverns had the same sign, it’s a symbol of Chicago working man’s taverns for many.

All across the length of the bar was an advertisement for a beauty contest.

The first prize was 125.00 dollars or the equivalent in free drinks or food at Maria’s.

The rules were simple.

The contest was open to all ages, 25 and over. Entry fee, $25.00 to charity.

It started out that "Miss 111th Street" would be the ideal, simple, plain, working class girl in Chicago who took the Orange Line to her job downtown and didn’t have time to get noticed.

The thought did cross Horace’s mind that the winner would be Katie Schmidt who dumped Cam (but not for good) in that very bar 10 years earlier.

I saw him at that bar on a Friday about 7pm and took a seat next to him. It was a local place, owned by Maria. He was in a jovial mood no doubt induced by the Old Styles he was drinking.

Drink made him feel “clever” or rather masked that he wasn’t.

“Ah Franky,” he said to me. “How ya doin’?”

"Fine Horace, say that’s the oddest beauty contest I’ve ever seen,” I said to Horace who was seated at the bar.

“It’s a Polish thing, Polish girls are naturally beautiful. Keeps American girls out of the running,” Horace mused aloud. He was right. There must be a million Poles in Chicago and many of them were born in Poland. Our bartender was born in Zakopane and they’d all done their pilgrimage to Czestochowa.

Horace decided to indulge me (and he) in a bit of his well-known mimicry. He blurted out in an auctioneer style voice, ‘and the winner is Joanna Georgski. Joanna also goes by Yoasha and is from Zakopane, she’s been to Czestochowa several times on pilgrimage and like all pretty girls, if you’re the guy for Joanna you better make her laugh. Joanna only dates men who make her laugh! If you can’t make her laugh, you’re wasting your time.”

I laughed out loud, “yep that’s right, the guy has to find her pretty and the girl has to find him clever. She’ll date a drug addict but only if he’s clever enough to own the country of Columbia. That’s Schopenhauer!”

The bar we sat it looked totally different than it did 10 years earlier. The pool tables were all gone and replaced by tables to have something to eat at. The food was better than bar food, chicken, Kielbasa and ham sandwiches and on Sunday, a sideboard in the back would present these delicacies for free as a buffet.

Cam was always lurking around somewhere, though since Maria took out the pool tables, he had little reason to go in there. No one ever seems to pin him, except Katie, who was still in love with him. They were still together after all these years. Cam fell out of love with her though, she did the worst thing you can do with a guy like Cam. She praised him once or twice.

“Say I haven’t gotten a post card from you from the Bahamas lately. What gives?” I asked. Horace had a job with the airlines and could fly for free anywhere in North America.

“The airline went bankrupt years ago. They told us while I was on duty. No final check, nothing. And I’d worked a lot of overtime at that point,” he replied. “It all worked out quite, well I got the perfect job 9 years ago this week.”

Maria the bartender liked her regular customers like Horace. She’d find a seat for him if the bar were crowded. She’d say in Polish two guys talking to each other, “proszę, Andy, przesuń się tutaj i pozwól Horace'owi usiąść” knowing Horace wasn’t going to sit between two guys talking Polish to each other. Maria was in her 50’s, she bought the bar and made it a success through 16 hour days and her skill in the kitchen. She was plump, blonde, needed to remind herself to smile.

I ordered a beer and asked her, “How is the beauty contest coming?”

“Well, all the contestants are in, and one is gonna be picked by November 11th. That’s Polish Independence day.

She’ll be a young girl, not a bored housewife screaming at her kids because their socks don’t match,” Maria said as she poured my Old Style from a miniature baseball bat tap handle.

"What does the winner of this pageant get anyway?" I asked.

"A date with a single guy who hit the most home runs in the softball league at Mount Greenwood Park over the summer. Plus 100 bucks,” Maria said forcing a smile and placing a Zwiec beer front of me spilling over slightly. “Also a plastic crown and she’ll be on our float in the parade.”

Horace’s second drink arrived.

“How is work?” I asked.

“Just started a new job at WICC,” Horace said.

“You finally broke into broadcasting?”

“I’m not exactly an overnight sensation at 34 years old,” Horace said. “but I think I found my niche thanks to Dawn. I lucked out or I’m blessed from all my mom’s intercessory prayers to my guardian angel.”

“What happened?”

“First day on the job I met the new coworkers. They could all barely pull themselves away from pretending to be busy when I met Dawn,” Horace said. “Imagine your first day in a new job that it took you 10 years after graduation from college to get and you meet the perfect coworker.”

“Who’s Dawn?” Frank said.

Dawn noticed Horace the way an artist notices his or her muse. Dawn was not artistically inclined, however if she were, she’d have painted Horace or at very least written some bad poetry about him. Still Dawn did create a Horace just as if she’d painted his portrait in oil on canvas. She took a man barely suited to sell graves, and mentored him into a PBS executive.

Dawn helped Horace on day one. They had so much in common to begin with, same age, same interests in music and, of course, PBS, and that moved Dawn and Horace about as close as could be without their desks touching.

What also set Dawn apart was that she never gave up putting out a first class daily log, ignoring that several programs on it would never get aired because other human links in the chain just didn’t care.

Dawn was in continuity (creating station logs) and Horace was moreso in (tape) traffic (fixing missed satellite feeds). And things in traffic were in quite the state of flux on Horace’s first day.

Horace told me. “I am a late bloomer Frank. I’m 34 and I finally found a home (at the TV station). Thanks to Dawn! Yes things were hectic at the start but that’s why I got hired.

Dawn has helped me survive in of all places, at Chicago’s second PBS TV station, and she’ll make me succeed.

The station, WICC channel 20, had fallen on hard times. Before Horace arrived, if you glanced at the TV guide and tuned into WICC, you didn’t see the program listed in the paper. If the paper said NOVA: searching for the elusive Great White shark, the viewer saw was a repeat of last week’s program NOVA: Volcanos on Mars. It seems Master Control (which recorded feeds from satellite) were not happy with Cindy Ferecak Noser Sophomorak. They felt she was a snob I guess. This resulted in several schedule changes per day. Cindy’s instruction to Horace, “fix it.”

Dawn gave Horace the lowdown on their very first lunch break. She did not sugar coat things and she wasn’t afraid to give Horace the honest truth as well as feedback. She told him the morale in Master Control was terrible and with everyone in the union, Cindy, the Program Director wouldn’t be reprimanding anyone. “Look,” Dawn told him, “you’ve been hired by Cindy because she’s desperate. The girl who used to do what you’ve been hired to do just stopped coming to work. The gears have been stressed for a while but now things about to come to a grinding halt.”

Horace frowned. Dawn smiled, “sorry to be negative Nelly, the state of flux here could easily change.” Dawn always knew better than to damper Horace’s enthusiasm.

The editor at Channel 20 didn’t do anything a viewer would notice. There were few promos for shows airing and they were all very old. Workers, with degrees in broadcasting and editing, acted like city workers from the Chicago Public School System working any city job, they just collected a check.

Horace changed all that. He got the shows that Cindy programmed on air by any means necessary. This meant calling all the 358 other PBS TV stations in the country and ordering video tapes from them if necessary. Sometimes even hours before air, Horace placed the correct tape in Master Control for air, transferred it to a blank tape the next morning and archived it. No one else wanted to do it, especially not for the pauper's salary Horace got by on. He did the work there no one else wanted, or could do as it was embarrassing how many feeds the WICC studio missed.

The WICC schedule went from 7 schedule changes a week to zero.

With the WICC editor Pauly J asleep at his desk, Horace, no editor himself, single handedly crash edited every Saturday night movie from 2 analog tapes to one digital tape. The selection of movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood shot up from a handful of movies airing to 159 titles. Viewership snowballed when someone told the WICC editor at a tavern one afternoon, how much they loved WICC movies on Saturday nights. Pauly J. (the editor), was more or less guilted into making a promo of the movies!

All of Chicago caught on and began to turn to WICC on Saturday nights.

The lazy editor stopped going to the tavern in the afternoon and started making new promos (:30 second spots to promote the station and individual programs like BBC news weeknights at 6:00pm, block programming like exercise shows from 3pm to 5pm or cooking programs around dinner time).

Morale finally creeped back up. The operators on duty literally had a videotape for a show that they missed, ordered from another PBS station and placed in their hands, they couldn’t fail at their job with Horace around. Slowly everything at the station started trending in a positive direction. Master Control operators who all belonged to the Electrical Union and could not be fired, were gently nudged and even shamed into recording the correct feeds from satellite. WICC finally was starting to air the right shows, week in and week out!

This all caught the eye of Cindy Ferencak Noser Sophomorak, the Program Director AND one fellow co-worker named Dawn Browning.

Dawn had a plain face and normally this seemed, as we have illustrated with Katie, to draw Horace’s attention. Her face did not, however Dawn’s easy manner, her interest in Horace, and her expertise in the office, did. Dawn was not unattractive but her face was kind of puffy. And she absolutely unembellished her face. She wore no makeup. With one exception. She had a kind of fixation most Scandinavians in winter must share, the excessive, perhaps, with the use of lip balm and lip gloss. Dawn wore her thick blonde hair shoulder length.

In Copenhagen she’d have been taken as a native daughter. She was Scandinavian through and through.

Horace picked up on her rather serious nature and made her laugh by calling her D girl and himself Scandi-Boy. Silly as it was, for the first time since his father got sick, Horace made someone laugh, and she was a girl. That moment was not lost on Horace. Not to mention, Horace may actually have stumbled into a career in show business (or in this case, a good office job in a PBS-TV station).

Standing a petite 5’5” with shorter extremely thin blonde hair, Dawn never allowed anyone to see anything else than precision and dedication, except where Horace was concerned.

It’s true, serious Dawn the Dane berated herself and reprimanded herself for she instantly, at first sight, fell in love with Horace O’Leary.

III

Dawn Browning was all Horace could ever have hoped for professionally. She knew her job inside and out. She was there since the station went on the air, from day one. Her supervisor, as well as the guys operating the switches in Master Control, expected and received pristine broadcast logs daily and always three days in advance. They trusted her and she always delivered pristine logs every day.

Was Dawn too plain? All her life, the boys ignored Dawn Browning. Dawn didn’t get asked to the prom in school, or out on dates for that matter. She and her sisters just laughed it off but it had to hurt.

Professionally, when she got her first entry level job in public TV, Master Control boys counted on her. If a BBC news program wasn’t air able, Dawn’s logs directed them to the weekly evergreen. The Master Control guys never had to guess what to do with Dawn’s logs. Or wake up any one important at 5am when the BBC feed didn’t come down from the bird (satellite). Another girl in the office side of Operations, Christy B., did a broadcast log per day, allowing Horace and Dawn to “flirt”.

Dawn had a lot to offer Horace and Horace noticed her. I’ve wondered and wondered why he couldn’t see her the way he saw Katie. In my opinion, Dawn possessed the same sort of face as Katie. It may all come down to one attribute that stands out when couples first meet. Katie was slender and Dawn was not.

Dawn always looked and acted strictly professional. The guys saw her as “one of them” because she fit in and was deemed essential to operations at the TV station where Horace worked. Fitting in was not Horace’s specialty though he certainly fit in where Dawn was concerned.

Dawn definitely and precisely covered up ALL of Horace’s flaws, foolishness etc. Horace smelled like a daisy with Dawn the Dane as his co-worker. Horace never knew the praise he received.

She automatically liked Horace when he arrived (which is nearly impossible). She laughed at his jokes, she thought he was perceptive and friendly. But above all she instantly had a crush on him that went beyond the office walls.

What set Horace apart was, he didn’t treat her like the guys in master Control did. He joked with her and went out to lunch with her. He came up with nick names for her like DERBY as a play on her three initials, Dawn Rachel Browning. Or he’s call her “D Girl” as in THE girl. That allusion to Dawn as THE girl was not lost on her. To Horace it was just the first initial to her first name. To Dawn she thought he was Mr. Right.

Dawn liked two things, Ford Mustangs and Horace O’Leary, even though with both you noticed every single pot-hole.

Dawn and Horace talked about everything she always wanted to talk to an otherwise eligible bachelor about. He treated her differently than all the guys she knew before him. He wasn’t discouraged by her looks. Dawn was not blessed with stunning feminine good looks but could not be described as totally unappealing either. Great and plain would suffice to describe her.

At this stage in his life, the ex-clerk at an airline making 6 dollars an hour, yet again found a place he really wanted to be. A public television station, WICC. It was small, Chicago had another, much larger, PBS station that could fit four WICC’s in it. But WICC aired programs the other station didn’t have time for. With no more irksome schedule changes, WICC took off in the ratings. Viewers loved Ballykissangel and Monarch of the Glen from BBC. Horace even eventually even play a part in getting Doctor Who on air. A program he grew up watching as a boy. Horace singlehandedly brought up morale which Dawn realized was missing before Horace. That brought back job security.

Dawn excelled at her job at WICC, but working in continuity and reconciled logs didn’t have the impact Horace had in his role. Dawn and Horace’s desk were right next to one another.

“If you could only have one food item for the rest of your life…what would it be?” Horace asked Dawn one day.

“Pizza,” shot back Dawn’s answer.

The serious “Dane” Dawn and the silly Irish Horace.

“Did you know?” Horace would say out of the blue over his cubicle wall to Dawn, “every morning in your bedroom is a Browning Dawn.”

That is precisely the day, the afternoon, the moment, Dawn Browning knew something about her feeling for Horace O’Leary.

It was the meeting of two long lost friends who seemed to have grown up next door to each other. Dawn was a well intentioned ear, always eager to help her protégé out. (She had been in TV while Horace was flying all over for free with the airline he worked for.)

Horace knew he had a lot to learn from Dawn about TV and Dawn, Dawn started to allow herself to fall for Horace romantically.

"She from around here?"

“No, she’d from Des Moines. Anything I need I can ask Dawn and it gets done. She’ll not only solve some issue, she’ll make me a plate of chocolate chip cookies and they’ll be waiting on my desk the next morning.”

“Sounds like she’s got a thing for ya. Office romance, it can backfire though,” I said.

“Dawn is as hard working as they come… and smart. They’re not dumb enough to give her a hard time in the office like they would me if I didn’t have her as a shield,” Horace said.

“No pun intended but it all dawned on me…I never loved Katie. I loved the pleasure of feeling sorry for her. Yes I had it right to be a giver with Katie, obviously unreciprocated. Dawn truly sees something in me that maybe I don’t.

"Yeah," I said laughing at his pun. “Do you feel sorry for Dawn?

“That’s the problem,” Horace said, “she’s kinda like a sister. That’s the problem.”

“You only go for the Katie’s of the world to see their reaction when you tell them they are beautiful,” I said.

Horace laughed.

“In Dawn’s case, that would backfire.” Horace replied a little angry with my supposition. “From Iowa but family before that from Denmark…” Horace paused trying to explain why Dawn’s looks didn’t make him nervous around her. “She’s certainly nice looking.”

Horace was trying to see Dawn in a romantic way, he just couldn’t.

“Oops, be careful I said! You might not drool over her…those are the ones you fall madly, truly, deeply in love with.”

Horace sensed I was trying to read him. He begged my pardon and left. As I watched him head out, I sensed he was the happiest life would ever make him. His little job did not pay that much but he could move out on his own. As I discovered, Horace never forgot his mother whom he loved more than anyone and visited her daily in the old house he grew up in. This new job paid enough for them to go on several pilgrimages. Their favorites were Holy Hill in Eubertus, WI and Champion, WI the only site in North America where the Blessed Mother appeared.

Several nights later I stopped in at the same bar on 111th street. A young girl was present, sitting by herself at the bar. She was very young, perhaps 23 at the most.

She wore her blonde hair short and dressed in the latest fashion, no tattoos. She did not try either way, but could not hide her Parisian model beauty. It was all in her strikingly blue eyes and high cheekbones.

You might guess she followed the latest trends with her hair, every other lock highlighted blonde. But her hair was a full blonde naturally. She wore it short to impress, not for practicality at her job. She didn’t have a job. She had other things to worry about than caring for her hair or keeping a job.

Even at first glance, one knew there was much to admire and attract and that a man would never tire of gazing upon her.

So of course it was odd she was alone. Somehow it seemed she was just recently the center of a group's attention, maybe that same very afternoon, and she’d likely even had a few drinks herself. I say that because if you looked closely, at roughly the same time you recognized her glamourous essence, and you could see her dress was a little tugged at, her hair slightly out of place, that she’d been feverishly biting her nails. She looked 'round nervously.

I would later find out she was also trying desperately to ignore a level 8 pain emanating from her stomach due to an illness called endometriosis. Women who experience it say it’s like a migraine in your stomach or like being wrapped in barbed wire for a day.

It only took a second glance to make her look at me and smile. She was out of money for a next drink and, as it turned out, out of money altogether. It upset me a little and my nurturing instincts kicked in.

As I would discover, this was Emily, a runaway from Northern Michigan. My first impression was to back away, mostly because of her age.

I was sure she was waiting for someone she knew. I decided to just concentrate on my drink when the next thing I knew she was sitting next to me.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Emily."

"Do you go to St. Xavier's?" I asked. (A local college for women who are interested in becoming nurses.) “You like a nurse.”

“Nope, school is not for me,” giving off a vibe that screamed, I’m-either-a-bum or-absolutely-adorable to you, and I need to know what you think right away.

Emily was just too young for her own good to be interested in “older guys” like me. She was a high school dropout. Physically able to attract any man instantly but unable to put a magical touch on a workplace like Dawn Browning or on a man like Katie Schmidt.

“I am a pharmacist,” I said. “I know quite a few of their graduates."

This information instantly piqued her interest. She sensed I must be solvent financially. Young 23 year old Emily was actually very attractive and would be even moreso when she grew older. She had high cheekbones and a classic kind of beauty. She didn’t overdo it at the mirror but must have spent a long time curling her long brown hair that went down to her hips, with a curling iron. She was slender and would look attractively curved well-proportioned body in any dress.

I didn’t fall for the charm of this penniless pauper-in-pain. Dating Emily struck me very much like adopting a runaway daughter. At very first glance, she looked mature for her age, just be all the makeup she wore. But there was no hiding she was 23 when she spoke. Her voice mimicked a 12 year old. I think she thought that was charming. It was scratchy and fried. That alone would annoy anyone. If I were her father, I’d have sensed she was unprepared for the rigors of life.

"Did you go to Community College?" I asked.

"What kind of question is that? Are you hitting on me without buying me a drink?"

I nodded to Maria who knew what she was drinking and brought her a long island iced tea. I could see all the while Maria made the drink, she was shaking her head from side to side.

Emily’s excessive use of makeup (while well done) completely transformed her. In her adolescence, just a few years earlier, Emily was an ugly duckling with a bad case of adolescent acne. Emily was in High School in northern Michigan. The oldest of five sisters, she bummed her way down to Chicago with what she could beg from her dad. The ultimate goal should have been the West Coast. She could have made it in LA as a model I thought. Because now a swan emerged.

What I did not know was she had terrible endometriosis, a brutal pain that originated in her stomach. The kind of pain that drives people mad and to suicide if not treated.

Emily was like a dancer who came to town with enough money to last even if she didn’t get a man out of the exposure. She drew attention from men easily. Demand for Emily at places like Maria’s grew more and more but Emily wanted more than stares which she got less and less satisfaction from. Construction workers, even when they wear designer jeans at night and make 100 bucks an hour, just aren’t much for interesting conversation.

"What do you do?" I asked as her drink arrived.

"Tell ya right after I smoke this outside, you wanna join me?"

I laughed, "that's alright, enjoy."

A few moments later she returned to the bar. She had her cigarette with a couple of those very workers still in their bright orange and yellow vests.

Suddenly their jokes weren’t funny.

“Those idiots,” she said referencing the guys she just had a smoke with. They talk so loud. It’s like, puhlease, I’m not a block away from you…”

"The meek shall inherit the earth," I muttered as I sipped my drink, utterly amazed Emily returned to the stool next to mine.

"What did you say?" Emily asked.

“Oh just thinking aloud,” I said.

“To answer your question, I uh, don’t do anythin’. I am thinking of studying massage therapy though.” I know this is your deltoid muscle though,” and she began to massage my shoulder. Her pain suddenly surged in her stomach and she instantly had to stop. She paused. "This guy I met in here, he told me he is gonna give me the life I deserve! My own boudoir! He told me that I never have to work again! After four weeks he changed his tune. Four weeks!” Emily said. What a laugh.

I meet guys in here all the time, so I know alot of people. But they aren’t, what did you say you were? A Pharmacist? Did I tell you I prefer older men?” She looked at me intently. An angel with a dirty face.

It struck me she might be angling for something. That she told anyone who would listen, all her life story, that everyone knew her, when her life story was without achievement and no one really knew her.

"Where are you from originally?"

"What is this? 20 questions?"

“She’s right,” I thought. I shouldn’t be talking to a child. By then her attempt at a childlike voice to charm me was by now annoying. It was getting late in the afternoon.

"Well, it was nice meeting you," Emily said thinking how could I resist her and not ask her up the street to another place that was open later. "Mind if I tag along with you? ...What about it? Pharmacist...I bet you got all the fun pills."

"Good night," I said and left.

Emily followed me out onto the street and asked me to forgive what she said. "To tell you the truth, I bet you’d make a great father.” I wondered how much she’d had to drink.

I heard her sobbing under the florist shop sign. She sensed that her tears might not work on me, like they did on many no doubt. I continued my way and never looked back.

Chapter 2

I swung round not much later that week to Maria’s to see Horace. For some reason, I was relieved he was alone at the bar. "How is Dawn?" I asked.

“She’s helpful as ever. I tell you, I swear this, she has literally made my job a success. I make phone calls all day asking for a videotape. I start the day in Boston and end it in Hawaii or even Guam but by the end of the day, I march right into Master Control and hand them the right program for 7pm or 8pm. I’m making a difference for millions of people in Chicago who are getting the episode they see listed. Doing Broadcasting!”

“Sounds like you lucked out,” I said. “What does Dawn do?” “She makes the log they use in Master Control, so she is very aware of how big my contribution is.

“If I have to do a log,” Horace replied, “it’s rare, and I run into a problem, I call Dawn on the phone and she either shows me how… or suddenly I refresh my screen and it’s all fixed! I tell you McGovorov, she is the best. With Dawn, I’ve got someone who is ten steps ahead of me and two ahead of everyone else AND she likes me!”

"Horace, I think I'd give her some serious thought, I mean if she is single?"

“Yes, she is single,” Horace said to answer my question. Then he slipped back into a kind of reverie. “Just her voice alone, full of compassion for anyone she talks to. She just wants to help,” he said.

“Just a helpful soul,” I said. “So why isn’t she here right now at Maria’s? Are you in the friendzone with her?” I asked.

Horace grew quiet.

The carefree feeling she instilled in Horace didn’t also equate to him wanting to kiss her. The dumbest and most ruthless rule in the universe, Horace had to be physically attracted to Dawn but wasn’t. This girl was, would be, is absolutely PERFECT for Horace. She was his age, had the same love for Public Television etc etc.

Dawn obviously had an attraction to him. She obviously laughed at his dumb jokes. And yet some Shakespearean rule was at play keeping Horace from reciprocating that emotion. Ironically their lack of Eros cultivated long happy conversations and allow them to really get to know one another. But that lack of a spark kept anything between them from igniting.

Suddenly Emily walked in, turned to Maria and ordered, "I'll have whatever they're having." She meant Horace and me.

Then she took out her purse and tossed 2 twenty-dollar bills on the bar especially carelessly.

Emily said to Maria, "I need a pack of Benson and Hedges too while you're at it." I looked at Horace who was beginning to drool at Emily (she was suddenly all dolled up) and thought, “Oh dear God in heaven no. He’s gonna fall for her like a ton of bricks.”

Suddenly Emily was 'rolling in dough'. I was surprised she ordered both Horace and I “a round”. She turned to me and seeing my incredulous stare, she laughed and said, "Yes, it's my money, no one gave me a cent of it."

I laughed to myself.

"Where is the beauty contest sign?" I asked.

"You're looking at the winner," Emily chimed in with a beaming smile.

"And you got first prize..." I asked.

“Yes Mr. Busybody, if you MUST know the gossip, I won 125 dollars and free makeup for life...” She laughed. “Knowin’ how to wear it, works every time,” she said and smiled at me. She was wearing that makeup too all of a sudden…and expertly. It truly enhanced her face.

If Emily somehow let Horace know she was in (stomach) pain, he would naturally sympathize with her at once. Unlike with Katie, but like with Dawn, Emily didn’t make Horace nervous in the least bit. Only Katie ever made Horace edgy, when she looked the most plain in the alley that day. We pause to draw any conclusions here, perhaps it’s as simple as Dawn and Emily wanted a relationship with Horace and Katie simply did not, making Horace bear down.

"Frank, not for the first time a pageant is won by just a smile and a pretty face..." Horace said.

“Thank you,” Emily said. It was important to Emily that her features made an impression, though the pageant was over, the stage disassembled, Emmie still looked like she was upon that stage. Emily looked to Horace and asked “What’s your name?”

“Horace O’Leary,” he said.

Emily made no attempt at dressing modestly, her silky top emphasized one thing.

"Thanks for the beer," I said to Emily.

"Frank," Horace whispered to me, “beat it will ya? She’s absolutely adorable.”

Emily hadn’t read even the first page of any of the novels Horace liked, much less the whole book. But this time Horace wasn’t relying on that out dated, totally ineffective form of courtship, finding some common ground that ends up in a man adoring her for it. I don’t know if it was the beer he had or what, but this time Horace would not rely on worship at all.

Emily quickly interrupted us. "You were hoping my father sold part of a forest in Northern Michigan and texted me I could look for a few new debit cards in the mail," Emily said to me beaming, her smile transforming her face.

"Seems like you spent that money pretty good,” I said. Emily was wearing alligator skin pointy toed high heels, a silky pantsuit and shiny earrings, not to mention carrying a Gucci purse.

Emily was almost 20 years younger than us. Horace or I looked more like her father than two buddies at the bar.

Horace said, “Congratulations on winning.”

Emily batted her eyelashes at Horace. Ten years ago, those false eyelashes would have drawn Horace to chuckle, even call her a circus clown. Now, however, maybe Horace’s duty to father children kicked in. Cupid had drawn his bow and Horace had a chest full of those arrows.

I took a long sip of the beer Emily bought us. Horace’s remained untouched in front of him. With all the maturity he could muster in his voice, Horace spoke. It didn’t matter what he said. Emily thought she even noticed his temples were grey. She loved that.

If she were as plain as a spinster, their perfection would have only have been ruined by Horace’s innate fear.

Emily took the cigarettes that Maria laid on the bar, grabbed up her shopping bags and paused. Sensing her lead, Horace took an attempt at a sip of his beer, and followed her out of the bar, leaving her two twenties, 40 dollars for items that cost maybe 18 on the bar.

"Hey Frank, hey I'll see you around...," Horace said to me as they rushed out, never to be seen again for over a week. Rush is the best way to put their exit. I was left at the bar, waiting for a refill, thinking of my talk with Horace in his parent’s basement the night Cam and he played pool for Katie Schmidt. Horace talked of how Katie would slow him down and make him pause. Emily would only “speed” Horace up.

I'll only add here that I am not the type to suffer fools gladly, however, with Horace I made an exception because I knew he had at least some moral compass left and strength most of the time to offset his lack of judgement.

I will say I never wondered about Horace more than that day. He made it to age 37 still as a simple, uncomplicated guy and he was running off with Emily to God knows where. Emily was quicksand. An attractive girl with issues, migraines or laziness or both but to her credit, someone who, if she sensed something was “off” about Horace, refused to acknowledge it but only because of her need to be married. A recipe for elopement and a recipe for a failed marriage.

Chapter 3

It was ten years since the famous altercation between Katie Schmidt and Cam Vamella in a bar that is now Maria’s. The night Horace “won Katie’s hand” in a game of pool.

She forgave Cam for that night and took him back conditionally. Cam had to get a real job and share the bills 50/50, start attending mass with her and of course, respect her complete freedom with regard to her appearance.

The false fingernails were gone. The makeup and high heels…out. Even the surgeon’s “bouncing breasts” were removed. The only vestiges of her former “glam” was incredibly bright white teeth and a sawboned new nose.

Cam obtained a post at the High School he (and Katie) graduated from as a coach of the freshman girls’ volleyball, golf and basketball team. I think he also was responsible for cleaning the locker rooms too but that may be just a rumor.

Katie saw a changed man in her boyfriend. According to my source, Cam actually saw the error of his ways and vowed to return the beliefs that his Catholic alma mater, and now employer, tried to instill.

The word was something like this: "Katie's boyfriend Cam is a teacher, maybe he's settling down and growing up."

Katie, meanwhile, took up an interest in glass making. Her favorite piece was a large colored glass vase that came out of the kiln perfectly shaped (almost by its own accord) and which she accidentally broke and painstaking put back together. The instructor told her all she needed to do is put the broken glass back in the fire and make a new one, but Katie liked the idea of repairing her masterpiece. So the vase symbolized her.

She placed the vase in a very prominent part of the apartment she and Cam shared.

After some time, Katie convinced Cam she was now the master and he was the slave in their relationship.

It was easier for Katie to bump into me as I took the Rock Island downtown every day. I got on at 115th and Western. Not far from their apartment on Hale. The 100 year old Metra train station in Morgan Park was kind of like a meeting place. One day a friend of Katie’s approached me as the train approached us. She looked like a model straight from the pages of a magazine. Glamorous. You could tell she just went home from her two bit job in the loop, dolled up at the makeup table, looked hot, hit Western Avenue and waited for Mr. Moneybags to buy her a drink.

I wondered how she recognized me and asked me if I knew Katie Schmidt. It did make me pause, that’s twice in one season a girl came up to me and asked me a personal question right out of the blue. That’s very unusual for our neighborhood.

Not long after that I bumped into Katie herself on the track platform at the Morgan Park Metra. A silk scarf covered the lower part of her face. She looked plain as day. She was waiting for a train headed for the Loop (downtown Chicago). I could not help but wonder if it was a coincidence. We both boarded and I took a seat in her booth. The seats a bench style and face each other. I took a seat opposite from Katie. She smiled.

“Excuse me,” I said knowing exactly who I was talking to. “Were you the same girl Horace O’Leary played pool for?

Katie blushed the famous modesty Horace dreamt of all his life.

“I believe people even refer to the bar to this very day as “the place those two dudes played for a girl’s heart.” “Yep,” Katie said. “I’m her.” That’s when I noticed, with her scarf pulled away, her slightly asymmetrical lips, perhaps from some plastic surgery that wasn’t holding up well.

Katie’s hair was shorter than the last time I saw it. This produced a professional affect, as if she'd taken a job where she needed to lose her pony tail for the sake of an immediate supervisor.

She did not look much different from how she looked at the famous pool match for her heart except for her shorter hair.

Some girls wear a lot of cosmetics to make it look like they aren’t wearing any, but Katie just looked natural.

She was secretary for an Actuary downtown but they were opening a branch office in our neighborhood on Western Avenue.

“I’m headed downtown for the last time I guess,” she said as the enormous blue engine suburban train inched forward and began to pick up speed. Her desk would be the first thing you saw when you entered the one level, stand-alone office building next to the Cork and Kerry pub. She would deal with the general public.

I would venture to guess she got the job because of her voice. How can I describe Katie’s voice? Not necessarily professional but very endearing and even charming. Some girls try that voice and come off sounding like a child. In Katie’s voice you felt like you were speaking to someone who could help you. Even in matters of the heart.

By the way, her voice hadn’t changed much over the years and I’m sure that’s how Horace heard her when they first met and the many times he called her late at night to profess his unrequited feelings for her.

I was dying to ask if she was still with Cam but kept my mouth shut.

“That was quite the pool match,” I offered. The only way I could get at her status with Cam was to ask about in an offhand way. "I've heard your boyfriend has reformed his ways."

"Cam? HA! No, yes he’s switched from hustling schemes to teaching, but…" Katie said and frowned, “I keep having a feeling he’s installing cameras in the girl’s locker room…”

“I heard he was working for his alma-mater.”

“When I ask him how his day is going he doesn't look me in the eye. People are calling late at night. It’s funny, used to be me getting all the late night calls…from your friend Horace." Then Katie turned red. "How is your friend?" she asked.

"Horace is now quite the bon vivant," I replied with a smile.

"What does that mean?"

"He is out living it up,” I said.

It was not lost on me that the girl of Horace’s dreams was asking after him.

Katie sort of giggled.

"Can you tell him I asked about him? Oh wait, maybe you better not, I know that would rattle him pretty good if anything."

"I will pass along your wishes. As exhilarating as his life is now, hearing you've asked about him would be quite a breeze of fresh air."

"Why is that? Has he won the lottery?"

"Much better, he's being pursued by a 23 year old beauty queen,” I said, “please note… sarcasm.”

"Horace? He must be 37 now. At his age, 23 is too young,” Katie said anxiously.

The peculiar look on Katie's face then was exactly, precisely what Horace fell for. It was full of concern and compassion.

"Well, Casanova should be back someday. He still has an address around the corner over Maria’s bar. His front room windows just opposite the glowing Old Style sign,” I said. “He didn’t request vacation-time as far as I know.”

Katie asked, “Are he and this girl… living together?”

I didn’t want to throw him under the bus. “He’s impulsive"

Katie frowned at the thought. "He is an innocent sort."

"Tell me, is Horace your type at all?"

"If he only were able to relax. To be honest, I flirted with Horace at first. The first day I met him I put my hand around his neck and pulled him towards me to kiss me.

At the last second he moved and kissed my cheek. At that point I knew…" Katie said.

“Maybe he had a cold and didn’t want to give it to you?”

“I hope his finances aren’t taking too big a hit from his 23 year old gal pal…,” Katie said.

"Funny, I sort of went down that road with Cam,

I put up with alot of immaturity for the way it felt to be together. Now and then when I hear a song, I still get that feeling. But mostly we are just finishing what we started as teen agers. I think if he met someone who swept him off his feet, he'd disappear.”

Katie was so forthright, I had to ask her, "Are you planning to marry Cam?"

"This week it will be 10 years without him hustling people at pool halls. I said I'd marry him if that condition was met….so…. he'll probably take me to Vegas to elope…eventually"

"Doesn't sound very romantic, just very tempting for an ex-gambler..."

"It's not romantic and it is tempting,” Katie said.

"Horace really saw something in you," I said.

“Horace doesn’t even KNOW me,” Katie said emphatically in her rather hushed tone. "It wouldn't have worked with Horace."

"It will work with Cam?" I asked.

"Dunno, but Cam has that way of reminding you life is a blast. Horace takes things so seriously. For all of Cam’s faults, he is exciting and fun. One quick-witted line form Cam and I’m still swept away and happy for hours, inspired even. We still manage to manufacture alot of fun,” Katie said. With Horace, it’s exhausting, for both of us.

Horace will listen to me all night. Cam doesn’t need to, just a few minutes and everything is sorted out," Katie said.

"You found love?"

"Yeah, I found love," Katie said unenthusiastically.

"It's the Southside of Chicago, man-made, littered sidewalks, smokestacks, mile wide rail yards and closed down factories. I would imagine it's natural for us to project that image on love too..." I said.

“You’re different, you’re who I would expect Horace to know,” Katie said and kind of giggled. “I never thought of it like that," Katie said.

"Horace is doing the exact same thing, I think he's found the joy of kissing too." I said to try and defend him, I didn’t know for sure. "You two have more in common than you think."

Katie laughed. "I'd like to talk with his new girlfriend. See if there is a tiger in Horace after all," she said.

"But it's all moot, what Horace has got...now, it seems will last. But maybe that’s because it HAS to if you know what I mean,” I said.

“That’s one thing that’s different from Cam about Horace. If he gets a girl pregnant, he’ll be there for life. I’m not sure I can say that about Cam. Just don't say anything about me asking after him ok?"

I admit it somewhat surprised at the new Katie.

I said something that also surprised her. "You're Mary to Horace. He once told me you are how he imagines the Blessed Mother to look."

"What?"

"You could save him just as easily as Our Lady could save him. Instead of wearing a miraculous medal around his neck, Horace chose to invoke you. That's what I believe,” I said. “He hears your voice, literally you have a pleasant voice.”

We arrived at the Gresham stop.

Chapter 4

Horace disappeared the night he left the bar with Emily. No one knew where he’d gone. Suddenly, as mysteriously as he left, he returned exactly one week later.

When I saw him I said, "I have ALOT of questions for you. Meanwhile, I can only assume Emily is a nun somewhere and you are back to watch some baseball with me and have a few Zwiec’s.”

"It's a long story my friend."

"What happened? How’s Dawn, you didn’t lose your job at the TV station did you? Did you? Horace did you elope with Emily?” I boomed and even Maria looked over at us.

"In the end, I see I expected too much of her,” Horace said blankly staring off into space.

"She is very young Horace, in ten years you will notice it, Horace?” I said.

"She is young and attractive. When I met her with you a week ago, we left here, and we even spoke of waiting for the marital embrace,” Horace said.

“Oh no,” I thought. “Horace, is Emily pregnant? She was looking for a well-spoken father figure, that’s all.”

She knew she was a treasure, not a toy," Horace said vacantly, as if he’d been to a Thailand prison instead of Michigan.

"Oh Horace, what the hell happened?”

"She wanted me to ask her to marry her..."

"What? You just met!” I pleaded.

"That’s right,” Horace said.

"What plans did you make? Do you need a divorce??”

"Emmie and I returned to her family's estate in Northern Michigan.”

“Did you get time off your job?”

“Dawn saved me my place at the TV station…miraculously…no I’m not married!

You wouldn’t believe where Emily is from! Frank, I’m not exaggerating her home is a modern lodge in the middle of a forest, it really is a chateau carved out in thick timber country, by Wolverine, Michigan. I met her parents, Peg and Jon. I was friendly and honest.”

“Your first date destination was her parents’ house?”

“We left here and we went there. All it really took for us was one look at Maria’s to know we were in love.”

“So your first date, you gassed up your car and went to her parents house…Northern Michigan is 8 hours from Chicago.”

“Not a house Frank, a lodge in the woods, just a few minutes from the straight of Mackinac bridge.

The drive up to Michigan was kind of awkward and took all day. I admit it was odd, the first date was our first dinner with her family. Her fam as Emmie called them.

Two strangers going to meet her parents!”

“Your huckleberry friend and you,” I said wryly. I knew he was being put on but couldn’t interject. His naivete and Emmie’s swindle. Or was it Emmie’s naivete and Horace’s swindle. “Her only hope was that you feel sorry for her, that’s how you feel love.” Horace ignored me.

“Emmie’s excitement rubbed off on me,” Horace went on. When we got there, my being so cordial with Jon and Peg allowed Emmie function with them for the first time since she was in junior high, I allowed her to get along with them because they accepted us as a couple.”

“Horace,” Frank said, “you’re about as cordial as a gold fish. Polite yes, honest yes, but your social skills leave a lot to be desired.”

I knew when ever anyone did anything nice for Horace, he had to make them not regret it, thus making them instantly regret it. This made Horace even odder. He’d laugh harder at their jokes. He’d say something when it was best to remain silent. He’d get tight. And Michiganders are known for their generosity. I knew it was a bad combination. For example, on a basketball court, until Horace made a play, he had an utterly blank expression on his face. Until he contributed points or rebounds or steals in a particular game he wore this dazed look of added pressure. I’m sure that’s how his face looked to Emily’s parents until he felt like they accepted him. What would he have to do to earn that? I don’t know? Catch a fish? Hitch the boat to their pick up?

“Well, maybe you’re right,” Horace said. They didn’t know what to make of things regarding their oldest daughter. I am sure. Her parents actually aren't much older than me. Jon was a kind of town handyman, Peg a stay-at-home mom.

Here I am, a 39-year-old bachelor from the Southside, suddenly thrust into their world, a chalet made of enormous logs in the remote woods of northern Michigan holding their oldest daughter’s hand, literally.

I couldn’t help but think Horace had a glazed look on his face the whole time. His glazed look was not from the 8 hour drive but because he was Horace and he wasn’t sure what to do (with Emmie’s affection).

I had to say something. “Let me get this straight, your first date was at her parent’s house?”

“That’s the technical definition of it, but really it’s more like a lodge you would see in Yosemite. You couldn’t get your arms around the individual wooden beams that stack up to form the walls. They all glisten with a kind of clear see-through varnish.

The ceiling timbers are even thicker and longer. The make the shape of large Vs every two feet. Over one wall they create an interior balcony where bedroom doors look down from. Over the other wall, they protect a giant stone fireplace.

From the turn-off at the nearest two-lane highway, it took half an hour to drive to the gravel parking lot by the lodge’s front door. It took longer if a herd of deer stopped your car. The trees were not soaring that far north, but for miles they stretched as thick as any forest primeval. All within the boundaries of the White estate. That’s Emmie’s family last name.

It’s very polite, gracious living.”

Horace took a sip of beer and laughed. “Anyway, that first week was a doozy. Each night at the dinner table with her family, with no talk of a wedding from me, Emmie’s neckline plunged lower and lower. Each day her eye makeup got darker and darker. She was all out to get me to marry her.”

“What did you do every day for a week up there?”

“I just wandered the estate…Emmie always bumping into me from behind if I stopped suddenly. If I could have taken those walks alone, I think I would have very much liked it. Emily insisted on joining me and she walked in 4-inch heels. I think she lost her footing every 20 paces.

It turns out her father was in debt way over his head. This enormous timber lodge was not paid for. Every daily purchase they made, groceries to soap, was on a different credit card. Jon had about 12 credit cards in his wallet. If one was maxed out, he just reached for another. In order to break even they’d have had to sell the land they were on….cut back immensely.

They were living on borrowed credit. The monthly interest had to be staggering.”

“But it was just the three of them, Peg, Jon and Emily?”

“Oh no, 6 of the cutest sisters you ever saw, they made Emmie look like the cleaning woman. Emmie also had five brothers besides her sisters and 127 cousins."

"That’s why they needed all that space," I thought aloud.

“The White family could populate a small town. Jon has 7 brothers and Peg has 9 sisters.”

“And they all had large families I see.”

“If the town is so small, where did they get the money to build this grand Lodge?”

“Grandpa Joe built it, he had an auto supply business in Detroit in the 60’s, he sold the business and holdings to General Motors in the 90’s and got a fortune,” Horace said.

“So all seven of Jon’s brothers live in rustic log cabin lodges too?”

“There’s just one lodge and they rotate it among the brothers, this month was Jon’s turn.”

“Ok, and so dinners were an affair, I bet they asked how much money you earn in Chicago?”

“That subject came up, I told them I was living in a one bedroom over a Polish deli and liquor store. That I was a clerk at a PBS TV station. But Emmie looked so happy, so they overlooked it. They were determined to let Emmie have whatever she wanted…keep her happy was the mantra I’m sure.”

“But you barely know each other. That’s why long distance relationships are a difficult way to start…”

“Peg and Jon got married after 2 weeks,” Horace told me he kept hearing.

“Oh no,” I said, “well at least you’d known Emily about one day at that point…Wait a minute? Are you and Emmie….married?”

“It was only normal for me to ask her to marry me,” Horace sighed.

“Do they know how much you earn? Are you even still employed?” I shouted.

I calmed down. I took a drink. “Horace,” I said and took a long breath, “I don’t think Emily can work a real job, you’re the breadwinner for you and her and…maybe a family.”

Horace looked at me like I was crazy to think Emily couldn’t work.

“Emmie gets nervous, she has stomach pains, but she can work.

Frank, it was really a wonderful week in Michigan. I needed to get out of the city! I stayed in one of the small cabins on the estate all to myself. It was right on a lake. Just outside the door was a fresh water lake that bubbled in the center. It was spring fed. You could bottle it or gaze at it.

Emmie snuck down to see me every night.”

The lake had a diving board. Ice cold ice-cold water and believed me those dips saved my soul! I cooled off after nightly visits from Emmie that would have otherwise gotten out of hand.

They could have charged $1,000 a week for the cabins to some family up from Southern Michigan. It had absolutely had every modern convenience.

“It’s so rushed,” I said trying to process all this.

“Oh relax Frank. When all his daughters are married off, Jon and Peg and all the brothers will sell the lodge and pay off all the debt…

At first, I wasn’t quite used to a pretty girl showing me so much attention. Emmie would sit with me on the couch by the great fireplace in their family hall and chew her fingernails.

“Horace, it’s all Eros, it’s all superficial at this point. How do stand her child like voice??”

“Nothing mattered, her voice didn’t bother me” Horace said. “Whenever I told her it was too soon to get married, she just laughed.”

"You were smart not to rush. You didn’t rush did you? Horace? Did you?

“She wasn't bluffing either, she just wanted to get married," I said.

“Well how happily are her parent's married?" I asked. "That will tell you alot."

“They had 13 kids in 12 years so…Nowadays, Emmie's mom has no idea the family is in debt whatsoever. She has no idea how close they are to bankruptcy. So I would say their marriage is the same as their finances, juggled with plenty of borrowed money," Horace said.

"Sounds like you had quite a week up there in the Great North Woods," I said.

Horace may as well not have heard me.

“Last Wednesday, Emmie and I sat on the porch of my cabin. The bullfrogs were in full throat.

I felt so happy. Emmie would not stop asking about getting married.

That night was different. Her stomach pains were at bay and she was massaging my face. Kind of like tracing the lines on my forehead. Then she pretended to draw a line on my throat with her chewed fingernail as the knife.

‘Marry me or else?’ she said and laughed. I was in more exalted and tranquil from that massage than from any Zywiec Frank. Finally I said yes.”

“Horace NO!” I shouted.

Emmie jumped up and grabbed my hand. We walked the unmarked trail back to the lodge. There were stars but no moon so it was very dark. A very real threat of black bears lurked and we didn’t have a flashlight.

In the warmly lit lodge, Jon was reading and Peg was doing dishes. “Dad, Horace has something he wants to ask you…

“Peg! Peg! Horace has a question for me,” Jon said alarmed.

I took it by then Horace’s ‘O’Leary Curse’ was in full effect. No way you ever marry a girl like 23 year old Emily so soon.

“Jon shook my hand vigorously. ‘Welcome to the family, welcome to the family, it’s about time you asked my permission!’

Two days later, just this past Friday, Emmie and I were walking down the main street in Gaylord, MI. Emmie was all dressed up. No different than when we walked the trails on her family’s estate.

By then I knew where things were in downtown Gaylord. The best restaurant, the fudge shop, the hot dog stand and the jeweler. I said to her mirthfully, we can make a left and have roasted Pheasant, all the trimmings and fine Michigan champagne, or….or, we can make a right and you get a ice cream cone and an engagement ring.

She replied immediately, as if she knew what I was gonna say, “I’ll take the ring!”

“You gave her a date then?” I asked.

Horace looked down. "The wedding date was everything to Emmie and sooner the better. God help the man who gives a Michigan girl a ring but doesn't mention the exact, precise wedding date. Of course I got cold feet.

Leave it to me to make things awkward! Well, actually I think Emmie sabotaged things to make me sick of her. No one could act like that and expect they were being reasonable. After a while, I realized our closeness, my staying up there, was pure temptation that no man could resist. I didn't think I had the discipline for it and so I gassed up the car, said goodbye to her family and to Emmie and drove back here," Horace said. “In the driveway she headed me off and jumped in front of the car. She was holding her overnight bag.”

"You brought her back to Chicago?" I asked.

“Yep,” he replied.

It killed me to think Horace would end up with a girl who just manipulated him. The thought flashed before me that Horace would end up with just about any girl except Katie.

"And that 8 hour drive from Wolverine, Michigan to Chicago gives you a lot of time to talk," he replied. “The first wedding date is for September…I’m hoping to push it back…”

Knowing Horace as I did, I wished to help him more than ever. I hesitated but I was sure “Emmie” was no good for him. I wanted to tell him that…but all I could muster was a cynical “you sure your credit cards won’t be maxed out by then?” With a people-pleaser like Horace I was afraid he’d marry a burden…but deep down I trusted him.

That's when the giant Tommy Newmanskis entered the bar.

"Hey guys, guess what? I am hearing voices. For a few days it was the weirdest thing, but now I am used to it... and I figured out exactly what they are and where they are coming from."

Chapter 5

Horace got up and went to the restroom. Tommy ordered a glass of water. “Tommy, we have a problem…” I said.

“Horace is with a girl who is no good for him. He doesn’t know what love it and he’s engaged to her.”

“I know this,” Tommy said. “Horace loves his parents.”

“Right but you don’t marry your parents. He is with a girl named Emily, I don’t think she thinks of the Eros side of things (except to wear a lot of makeup and show cleavage), and I think she just loves the idea of love, not Horace. The thought of their union is heartbreaking. They’re all wrong for each other.”

It's fine that Emily thinks she might carve out a small niche in the city, but it will be hard work for both of them. He has a girlfriend who wouldn’t take no for an answer, looks hot, but needs a migraine specialist and a therapist and a job.

Tommy we need to get Horace to think this all through before she’s pregnant and they have to marry.

I am not at all convinced Emily would work very hard for something that wasn't love, or could work, or was certified for work, or even had a will to make breakfast.

Horace might untangle what the other young men Emily's age couldn't because they were too full of testosterone and lacked experience in the world. But it can’t last between Horace and Emily, I know it,” I said. Tommy listened intently and then Horace came back to his bar stool.

I explained to Tommy, Emily would love whoever the wind blew in. Horace heard me and knew exactly what I meant.

“Hey, what are you telling Tommy here?” Horace asked.

“He was telling me you met a real beauty Horace…” Tommy said.

I couldn’t help but randomly think of Cam (Katie’s boyfriend) with Emily. I t was so obvious.

In a union between a Cam and an Emily, the rest of the unwashed masses, covered in tattoos and piercings are brought forth. It became clearer and clearer to me who was meant for whom. Between Katie and Horace, could a savior be born!

Yes, I understand there are two souls spread out in the world whose meeting saves them both.

Tommy looked much thinner, especially in the face. His glasses had gotten much worse for wear, he'd smashed them, not in a rage, but just carelessly.

Tommy's food pantry had gotten somewhat slim lately and it reflected on his waistline. The local church supplied Tommy and they were experiencing shortages. So, so was Tommy. He subsisted on canned beans and day old bread.

Tommy was saying, "...anyway the first voice is telling the second voice, 'isn't it exciting'? And the second voice says ’No, it isn't!'

…and the first voice in my head replies…

'We all get the chance to be so brave'

To which our second voice says

'To die!'

Then the first voice replies

'You certainly don't want to live forever do you?'

And voice number 2 says

'Maybe'

And the first voice says

'And then worry about things forever??

...we're not born into the elite of this world, we're the elite of the next...' These two voices in my head go on all night like that....finally one night I didn't hear them and I actually missed their banter...I was so happy when I heard voices again...

It’s then I knew anything I said to Tommy went in one ear and out the other. He must have just taken some medication or had too many diet cokes. He reminded the bartender for a courtesy plastic cup of water. He needed it.

"Do the voices ever speak on behalf of Jesus?" I asked him.

"No, never do," he replied.

"Do you ever see Jesus?"

"Well, Jesus does reveal Himself to me in certain ways, but not like a hallucination. You can see the Lord much more clearly when you seek him in other's hearts, or in the Bible, in any passages of the New Testament.

We have a Bible, it exists. Direct access to Jesus. Some people prefer to speculate what the Bible is rather than read it.

I prefer to read it. It has brought me unearthly peace and brother, I got a disease that offers no peace otherwise,” Tommy said.

“And meanwhile why do Muslims murder Catholic priests in Turkey and nuns in Africa? What are they afraid of? Must be because the New Testament is true!" Tommy said beginning to blush. His face began to turn crimson.

He drank his plastic cup full of ice water. He wanted to baptize us then and there with it. We sipped our beers.

"Hey Horace," Tommy said, "What’s new with this love of your life…Emily?" I was wrong, Tommy WAS listening to me.

"Really Horace, Tommy here reminds me what I needed to tell you. Do you ever think of Katie and Cam?"

"I haven't in a while. I faced facts when I was riding the CTA and I saw a sign, unwanted attention is harassment. A little harsh because it has to be. Anyway that CTA sign I saw changed everything for me. Katie doesn't want me," he said and laughed.

I had to take a different tactic. "Well think of it, who do you know that would be perfect for Cam?"

"Katie, because he lives off her generosity and she seems to love him."

"Imagine if Cam met Emily."

"Yes, with God all things are possible," Tommy said. By this time he'd drunk several cups of ice water.

"Then someone as superficial as he is, I suppose, would…, they would be perfect, she’s got that look he’d go for…but I’m sure he’s in love with Katie," Horace said.

"Someone like Emily would make Cam forget all about Katie," I said.

"I imagine they'd work out somehow, come to think of it,” Horace said.

Now I had a dilemma. Katie mentioned in passing to not mention we talked. If I disclosed that we had, she would find out and become hyper cautious. I had to figure out what to do next.

An epiphany truly came to me. “I think Katie has outgrown Cam and all that Cam needs is to realize is that he's outgrown Katie. And if a pretty young girl like Emily flirted with Cam, Cam could just snap his fingers and have a girl like Emily eating out of his hand.” I said.

“Hang on buddy, I may be dreading getting married to Emmie but I will never see her in the arms of Katie’s boyfriend ever,” Horace said.

"Emily is kinda young for Cam, right?" Tommy asked us.

“I couldn't do that to Katie," Horace said. "I do have a ring in my drawer, bought it for Emily, I picked it up at a jeweler in Gaylord, MI.”

“Horace,” I implored, “women are clever like cats, men should be cleverer than dogs."

Horace sighed. I knew I had him thinking about it at least.

“I need to escape Chicago. I'll buy a plane ticket for Siberia and find myself a pretty girl,” Horace said.

“You are going to Russia?” Tommy said.

“You have all you need here, a ring and a Russian Katie waiting to accept it," I said.

“I can’t let you go to Russia Horace,” Tommy said taking him seriously. “The laws are too strict there…”

“Frank,” Horace turned to me, “you really think Katie would leave Cam for anyone?"

I had to state myself bluntly….”Yes,” I said. “If she sees Cam is with another girl in front of her own eyes.”

Tommy stepped in at that point. "God wants you to return to repentance and regeneration Horace.”

I simply said to Horace, “You yourself told me Emily calls you cruel, a hypocrite, a cruel hypocrite. If you go on with her, you will become just that. And any other life without Katie will make you a monster. A life without Katie would make you wonder in your old age, why someone wasn’t lying next to you.

I’m guessing that ring you bought Emily cost a few thousand and once purchased it’s worth 600. Use it, but use it on Katie while she is still unmarried,” I said. “You were a better man when you loved Katie Schmidt,” I whispered and smiled.

“As long as you both shall live huh?” the giant Tommy mentioned, ever the preacher.

“I’ll never forget when I told her…”you’re beautiful in the alley behind mom and dad’s place. She grew so humble. But I gotta snap out of it! I’m engaged to Emily!!” Horace exclaimed.

“Yes, you do have to snap out of that mind set,” I gasped. “I know Emily would run to Michigan for the slightest pre text and leave you high and dry chasing after her.”

“That’s a long drive,” Horace remarked. Horace was at that age where he was still willing to forego all his dreams for her dreams. Still throw himself into whatever job or jobs it took to make his girlfriend cared for. In other words, he wasn’t thinking clearly. It made me think. “What’s the latest with Dawn Browning?”

“She is like glue,” Horace said quickly. “She hears me out on everything. She is patient and has a time or two done extra broadcast logs I couldn’t finish or she will double check my logs when I am about to turn them in and notice all sorts of errors I made…things I’d get fired over… Emmie doesn’t even let me talk about my job because she thinks it doesn’t pay enough.”

This got me thinking, I was not sure Katie was ready to for Horace, but Dawn was. They worked together every day. How to get Dawn to look like Katie? I didn’t believe Dawn would ever look like 23 year old Emmie. As for Katie, she may have been done being a martyr with Cam. I had a lot to figure out to save my pal Horace. “You have gold in the palm of your hand in Dawn, you know that, right?”

“Of course,” Horace said…

“But you’re with Emily and wish you were with…say Katie because Katie and Emily bring you pleasure and they are fun to look at…”

"Of course," Horace said almost dumbfounded. “I’m not sure though…try as I might, I just don’t see myself kissing Dawn.”

I have to make a confession here, and this is partly the reason I’ve written all this down.

My idea was simple, get Cam introduced to Emily The result of Emily and Cam flirting would open Katie’s eyes, and spare Horace.

I felt terrible for Katie just then. Maybe as deep an empathy as Horace felt for her back in the beginning behind the assembling factory she worked at 10 years earlier. I ignored my nagging guilt and kept telling myself, “Everything hinges on getting Cam to fall for Emily. Katie will find someone better and Horace will eventually (this could take decades), eventually see Dawn is for him!

Chapter 6

Cam had to pick up smoking because his brain had to have an outlet. He didn’t hunt or fish, he didn’t follow sports except to make small talk with the guys and let on he was a fan like them. He was the type who would go stark raving mad if he didn’t have Katie and his hair to comb. He didn’t like sports, he couldn’t understand the fascination in it. He once put ten dollars on the White Sox and for nine innings in a row they got hits, but never with men in scoring position. It seemed to him to be a racket. He liked to gossip though because it occupied his mind. He had this great vacuum to fill. I needed some luck. Find the time Katie and Cam were arguing and present the attractive Emily before him.

I had to find out when Cam would be around Ding Bats, the last pool hall on Western. I heard Cam frequented the place on Thursdays around 4pm.

I’d get Emily there first, around 3:55pm. Then Dawn and Katie to have lunch at Ding Bats, at the bar about 4:30, where they had a view of the tables, not the other way around. It would leave Katie either furious or turn on the teardrops or both. She had to be unaware of it. Then get Horace there last, about 4:45pm. Horace and Katie seeing Emily flirting with Cam might draw them together…or draw them apart further and if I coached Dawn on how to look (no lip gloss!!) it might, it just might bring Horace and Dawn together.

I thought about it, I agreed with Horace I guess, Katie is the idea, the form, the reason whole new suburbs exist. She is clever and she knows how to enjoy life. She has figured out where the best buys are, the best part of town to live in. She didn’t follow trends. Dawn is why cities function, she is smart too, takes a dime and gives you a dollar, and she made life economical and smart. Katie’s friends would have all admired her so much if she was with anyone but Cam. Dawn’s friends would all admire her so much just if Horace would open his eyes and marry her.

I texted Katie. She did not agree to meet with us anywhere under any circumstances. She was upset she said she was sorry we bumped into each other on the train that day and gave me a way to contact her. So it was on to Plan B.

I waited for Thursday, just so happened that was the same day Emily was unhappy with Horace’s effort in their relationship and I dragged them both over to Ding Bats. Horace was still engaged to her.

Now I just had to call the TV station and talk to Dawn. She was as surprised to hear from me, a complete stranger, as I was that they took Horace back at the TV station. Most likely due to Dawn’s adept intervention. I invited Dawn to Ding Bats. She agreed when she heard Horace would be there at 5:00pm. I never told her about Emily because I was sure Horace hadn’t.

Horace, myself and Emily found ourselves ordering drinks at Ding bat’s about 3:30pm. I sat Emily as close to the pool table as possible maybe 40 feet away from it. Fate was working on my behalf too, Cam was already there at his usual reserved pool table. The spider had his fly, the fly was any sucker just looking for a game. Cam was pontificating to him about how no one uses the side pockets on a pool table properly. “That’s where all the action is…” Cam said truthfully. “You can sink all the shots you need to win, if you just know how to use the side pockets.”

Somehow Cam had to notice Emily!

As Cam went on about the side pockets, he glanced up and beheld Emily White. Cue the saxophone. Cam’s testosterone wouldn’t let him take his eyes off her. .40 cents of eye shadow was all it took. Cam barely noticed Horace and me.

I bought a pack of Benson and Hedges and put them and another 40 dollars on the bar in front of Emily. She smiled like the kid she was. That’s when I gave Emily an excuse as to why Horace and I had to leave for a minute. She said something childlike about the juke box and we left out the front door. On the way down the alley, Horace said, “Are you sure I should be meeting Katie? I mean it took me a while to figure this out, but even the sweetest compliments are harassment if she doesn’t want them.”

III

Katie was not smiling when she saw Horace and I approach the front door of the Actuary where she worked and she had good reason. Any surprise at seeing Horace did not show on her face.

Katie evidently had a moderate medical procedure done to make her lips look fuller. It only succeeded in making them look slightly unnatural. The plastic surgery altered her smile so it could no longer win Horace's heart as it did so many years earlier.

Everything else she “had done cosmetically” was sort of hidden, her ultra-whitened teeth because she didn’t smile, her fuller bosom because she wore a loose blouse. But her eyebrows still stood out. Katie had gone to a professional to make her eyebrows look ultra-well defined. The perfection stood out because they were perfect, and perfectly unnatural.

Her eyebrows looked tattooed on. And yet for all that plastic cosmetic effort, Katie stopped wearing heavy dark eye makeup and extra wide hoop earrings like she did to attract Cam, she returned to looking more like the girl next door than the girl who had too much done.

Yet a decision had been made on Katie’s behalf by Katie and she seemed quite at peace about it. Suddenly Cam no longer had the appearance of a linebacker on the Northwestern University football team. Now he appeared to her exactly as he was, a pool sharp tricking any sucker who he came across.

Horace’s heart was pounding.

Horace was perfectly healthy, no head cold to pass on to Katie with a kiss, however he would’ve only kissed her cheeks European style had the chance presented itself. The original impression she made on him hadn’t at all faded, but she gained it only through common politeness that she now found tedious.

He stood before a girl whom he thought of every night for 9 plus years. This time, he told himself he was not getting his hopes up.

She her hair in a pony-tail. She wore a pink blouse and very little jewelry. That was all it took, Horace began getting his hopes up.

In a certain light you could see her perpetually broken out forehead should have been covered with makeup. I had no choice but wonder and even marvel at what my friend saw in her.

Horace wore a formal suit, incompatible even for his job at the TV station but certainly for this occasion.

"Where you off to? A wedding?" Katie’s teasing voice was meant to nullify Horace’s attraction, and it worked. Gone was the highly intelligent, yet soft and feminine voice Horace heard in the alley so many years ago when he first met Katie.

Horace's face turned red. Her approachable appearance, instead of allowing him to relax, put him in a trance. Suddenly it dawned on Katie, in the last 11 years, he never stopped dreaming of her, thinking of her or longing for her. She blushed and then, instantly, shrugged the feeling off.

Horace could not speak. Katie’s voice, an effortless ‘where you off to, a wedding?’, hit Horace like a drug, rendered him absolutely speechless. If he needed to embrace her, his paralyzed arms would not have been up to the task. Here he stood before a girl who needed a laugh in her life more than most people. And furthermore here was a girl who would laugh at anything. It did not take much. But Horace couldn’t think straight much less tell a joke.

"Well, what are you here for?" Katie was no longer teasing but dead serious and she asked this very matter-of-factly. She was polite because she and I parted on good terms but also very disappointed in me for disregarding her direct request to not mention anything to Horace about our chat.

Katie frowned and there could be no denying she had a lot on her mind. But there was something different about her, as if she’d made up her mind about Cam. She was free.

We looked at her puzzled. Then she dropped a bomb on us.

“My sister lost her baby. It was due in 2 weeks. All last week she went out and bought clothes for it. I said I didn't think it was a good idea to buy all that before the baby was born. I guess I'm superstitious.”

Horace swallowed and finally said. A beaten or humiliated man would not have been listened to just then. But for maybe the first time in Horace’s life, every word he uttered was heard. He was about to speak and Katie Schmidt really was listening. She was not just pretending to because she knew Cam was listening in on the other end phone extension. “Why or why,” she thought, “was this man so interested in me?”

The words finally left Horace’s throat. "A baby into the world changes everything. Even a baby that lives in its mother's memory. Our faith is tested. But we are not allowed to know why."

Horace just laid it out. Tore the bandages off and let that wound bleed.

Katie began to sob and let it out. Horace took her by the hand and then they embraced. “Cry it out,” Horace said. “Don’t keep it in.” They hugged for a long long time. Horace carefully kissed Katie three times each on each cheek, as Europeans do. If only she were born a few weeks later, a Taurus instead of a Gemini, the stars would have shined on these two.

Horace’s heart was in the right place and I knew he was going to ruin things, but I had to let it play out. This couldn’t end well! It struck me that we’d take Katie to Ding Bats, she’d see that Cam was back to his old tricks on the pool tables and maybe even give Horace a try!

“Look my break is over,” Katie said. “I better get back to work.” Katie paused. She gave Horace a thorough looking over and said sternly. “Look Horace, I know you seem to like me. That’s all you ever managed to tell me. You never once said anything different or replied to anything I said. As if you didn’t hear me. Because you like me doesn’t mean it is enough love for the both of us or that I’m somehow reserved for you.

A girl wants conversation, like what we just did right now. (she finally smiled a half smile) not just that I’m beautiful or that you love me.” She wanted to add, you have to move on.

This is where I also sensed Horace begin to rise above that label I and others and even he himself gave him, the fool. He actually had a conversation with Katie Schmidt, even if it was like meeting her somewhere in Europe and chit chatting about some Chicago restaurant on 103^rd and Cicero they both liked.

Before we knew it, Katie was back at her desk behind a large barrier that fronted a separate reception desk. She slightly sat up and repositioned her chair under her to face her slightly away from us.

Katie no longer looked “natural”, either due to the plastic surgery BUT SHE LOOKED AT PEACE deciding to leave the bitterness of years with Cam behind.

If for no other reason than to break the silence, I asked "Where is Cam?" I asked hoping to get Katie to investigate. Her reply showed me exactly how sharp Katie Schmidt really was. As I spoke, poor Horace glanced furtively at his prized, dream once plain girl Katie. If we were allowed to stay, I’m sure he would have continued those same sad, plaintive yet moving peeks at her. For hours.

"He's with some floozy not even worth mentioning. She probably is just like him. Never worked a day in her life. No idea where she is from..." Katie said. “Now you have to get out of here, I have work to do,”

“Like from a tiny little town of 500 named Wolverine in far northern Michigan,” I thought silently to myself.

III

Horace and I left Katie and walked back to Ding Bat’s bar at the end of the alley.

"Poor girl, her sister losing a baby,” Horace said lost in reflection on Katie. He was not stunned he just embraced the girl he dreamt of, he was not taken aback from their meeting….just now… in real life. He only thought of and felt bad for Katie’s sister. He felt love because he wanted to ease her suffering any way he could. If she’d have let him, he would have given her a neck massage.

Of the 3 types of girls…. Awkward girls like Katie, pretty girls like Emily and then a combination of the two, I have never met a combination of the two. Horace had made a believer of me, Katie wasn't so sickly looking, but rather cute. And yes, she was awkward in a way.

Back at the bar we heard a roaring voice…"Tolerance!" Cam boomed and we all heard him. "Very good. That you have it," he said directly to Emily at the bar at an otherwise empty Ding Bat’s.

“What is tolerance?” Emily said.

“It means that Long Island is gonna take a while to kick in baby!” Cam replied.

Emily batted her blue eyes at him and laughed. Every guy likes it when his cut-up makes someone laugh and in this case it was doubly effective because it seemed to bring Emily under his thumb.

We kept to the far far end of the bar, I didn’t want Cam making any connections between Horace and Emily. Emily did not see us.

I knew Horace still had feelings for his fiancé but at that moment, all his thoughts were directed to Katie. His one and only. Cam being attracted to Emily was enough. If he knew she was Horace’s fiancé, sham engagement though that was, he would have really put his hooks in her.

A side note, I caught a glance at Cam. Ten years after their pool match for Katie’s heart, he added a silly earing and smoking had caught up with his teeth and skin. Meanwhile Horace’s looks, despite a few binges here and there, had not yet given into age. He was a good, strong man. No doubt about it, between the two, Horace had physically drawn closer in looks to handsome Cam as the ladies called him.

Launched by Katie’s resurgence in his thoughts, Horace knew it was not going to work with his Emmie. Up to now he just ignored that fact. Now Cam was doing him a favor. Cam was actually performing a very delicate operation, with a hammer. He was showing Horace where Emily’s heart was, more than a glimpse. Horace’s balm, meanwhile, was the very girl who Cam lived with.

Horace may have served Emily like royalty until he was exhausted and yet he forgot or pretended to forget she was half a bar away flirting with, of all people, Cam.

Since they got back to Chicago, dinners between Emily and Horace were dull affairs, Emily more or less unable to cook and not going out of her way to even look presentable at home. Out at dinner, she would be texting her other girlfriends her age back in Michigan with Horace staring blankly ahead. Not because he wasn't hungry (he'd eat) but because he knew once his Emmie returned to her meal, they might actually have to make eye contact and risk realizing there was nothing between them of any substance.

Then he'd feel quite rightly, superficial himself. He knew what it was and it wasn’t love.

And to my way of thinking, Katie was not the absolute girl for Horace either. As much as he thought of her, she was not necessarily born under the right star for him. The Universe was against it. He needed to be with Dawn!

Dawn was the perfect girl for Horace! Someone who allows him to forget all his self-consciousness over his own shortcomings and yes, all the bullying he got in High School. Someone to hold hands with at Catholic mass (little did I know Dawn was a staunch Lutheran).

Seated as far from the pool tables as possible at Ding Bat’s, I knew what I’d see. As Horace looked down dejectedly over Katie’s sister losing her baby, Cam and Dawn sat next to each other by his reserved pool table. It was easy to see how far Emily had gotten with Cam, I mean how far Cam had gotten with Emily. They were perfect for each other. Cam in his mid-30’s was a prime candidate for a midlife crisis and here was baby Emily batting her eyelashes right at him. Emily was telling Cam jokes, Cam was telling Emily jokes and just then they went out the alley door for a smoke. It didn’t matter if they returned. It was no longer Emily’s motivation to make Horace jealous. She was getting only pleasure from Cam’s attention, Cam was taking only pleasure in the Eros he was feeling for Emmie.

It was Good Friday at 4:30pm. Stations of the Cross were at every church that afternoon at 3. A service recounting Jesus’ painful crucifixion would take place in half an hour.

Horace said, “Well, Emily can have whoever she wants. The ones you call plain, the ones like Katie Schmidt are forged in a mightier furnace.”

“Well then we just need to pray that Katie has a twin then,” I said.

“Why?”

“I think her twin’s name is Dawn,” I said.

Katie Schmidt remained at the reception desk after Horace and I went back to DingBat’s a few doors down. She liked this job because she could sit down whenever she wanted and lately she found she needed to. Seeing Horace by now, 10 years after he used to call her in the middle of the night, didn’t bother her as much as it would have even a little while ago.

In this job with the Actuary, Katie had plenty of time to think.

She wasn't smiling.

For Katie, everything changed and everything stayed the same. She made it clear to Cam, she did not want to stay together and live together without a public ceremony or covenant. She wished to be “married”. She needed to have a real heart to heart talk with Cam that night. If she knew he was with Emily just then…she would have truly exploded with rage.

Cam obviously saw her differently, how could he not? To him she took off a mask. He noticed her smile more. He missed her looking sultry. But subconsciously he treated her with more respect. His Eros style love for her was not “being fed” so to speak. He began to treat her like he’d treat the mother of his children. (They never had children til then by choice.)

All this weighed on Katie. Would he ever ask her to get married? Even elope? Just then her boss Harvey appeared over her shoulder and put a few folders on her desk to file. She needed the break from her reverie.

At last Katie smiled and even laughed as she filed. She thought of Horace wearing his silly suit. “Now he knows where I work”…she thought with a fright.

When she got back to the reception desk, she noticed Cam texted her.

He was texting her AS he was flirting with provocative looking, 23-year old Emily.

“Hey babe, I’m at work til late.” Read the text.

Katie’s boss Harv returned. She lowered the phone immediately but didn’t have time to put it away. "Katie, can I talk to you for a moment?"

“Sure”

“In my office.”

“Kathryn, how long have you been with us?” Because he caught her day dreaming and looking at her phone twice in the last few minutes, and because this office on Western on the far south side was brand new, she felt a quick rush of blood from her face and a mild pain in her stomach.

"I started downtown 8 years ago this June 19th," Katie replied.

"How would you feel about becoming a manager here?” Harv asked. “You’ll get a salary instead of an hourly, better benefits, think it over.”

The salary was a significant increase over her current one. Enough to offset her feeling she'd trade one set of problems in for another.

Just at this instant, Katie's shyness plastered her mouth like wallpaper. She turned bright red.

This was not so much because her boss was staring at her waiting for an answer. She worked at the company for 8 years without a single “write up”. It is because at just that moment, Katie realized she'd rather tell anyone her good news than Cam. And she felt a little bad at how she just treated Horace.

Her phone beeped indicating she had another text message. “Please excuse me Harv,” she said to her boss.

She took out her phone and saw it was Cam texting her. She hesitated but clicked it open to read it.

“Hey I am so sorry.” It read. She pondered what to text Cam back.

Part Three

Chapter One

Easter Sunday

Is Katie Schmidt gullible?

On one hand, Katie would give money to the Salvation Army kettle, be kind to strangers, take in an alley cat, but on the other have prolonged dealings with a dishonest person (like Cam). Were those days over?

I’d refer the reader to the real life of a famous TV actress from Portland, Maine. Ms. Phyllis Thaxter (1919 to 2012). She started out on Broadway at 20 years old. Got invited to Hollywood and starred in over a dozen movies. Back in New York, her husband became head of CBS TV network. Suddenly every girl who wanted to be on TV found their way to his casting couch and these nobodies had no problem throwing themselves at him. Phyllis ignored the rumors she was hearing as she forged a career on the big screen a continent away all the while staving off the flirtations of real stars like Gary Cooper and Robert Mitchum.

Phyllis knew her husband was committing adultery but stayed loyal.

Finally MGM broke her contract through no fault of hers (she contracted polio). She got well from the disease yet was forced to join the line of starlets throwing themselves at her husband to get on “Wagon Train”. The insult was just too much and she finally divorced him.

If you see Phyllis in her roles before the divorce (Alfred Hitchcock 1958) she still looks tense, but in her roles after she divorced her cheating, arrogant husband (The Fugitive 1964), she looks at peace and it’s no wonder. This is very similar to what Katie Schmidt was about to experience.

Just 40 yards or so from where Cam was busily texting Katie, Horace said to me. “Did you hear how her voice sounded Frank?”

If Cam knew Horace was speaking of Katie, he’d have exploded with rage.

“You mean how she looked Horace,” I said.

Horace insisted, “no her voice, it’s so pleasing. I barely paid attention to him. He needed to wake up to seeing his future was with Dawn.

As far as voices go, Dawn’s was natural, at least not like

Emily’s voice that sounded fried and raspy, or in other words, in her mind, alluring.

There was no use in telling Horace anything. He was wrong to pine for Katie and wrong to technically be with Emily. By then I he realized how beautiful Katie Schmidt, she must have decided she was leaving Cam.

“If men are bees,” Horace said. Emmie is a flower, Katie is the honeycomb," he said to me. The just as quickly he returned to his gaze and to his beer and said no more.

“And you must find your future with Dawn,” I said. “You have nothing in common with Katie and Emily like you have with Dawn. Your both in showbusiness!”

"Yes,” I finally admitted, “I DO see Katie is plain in a way that’s…lovely. It took me a moment to see what you see, but I think you are absolutely correct," I replied. "Humility is special.” (I had no idea I was seeing Katie undergoing the same transformation as real life Phyllis Thaxter when she decided to divorce her cheating husband. But what do you have in common with an Actuary vs a woman in your line of work, showbusiness. Forget Emily, she is just show and no business!”

III

Tommy had arrived at our end of the bar and I bought him a diet coke. For some reason he quoted Proverbs 23, Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, but the Song of Solomon Like the best wine . . . that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak.

I thought, wouldn’t it be great if Katie showed up, and found out what her Cam was really up to. The thought crossed my mind to even give Tommy 20 bucks to run up to the Actuary’s office and tell her to come to Ding Bat’s. Tommy was a courier by day. He’d have taken it as a regular commission.

Two cold beers arrived at my request. I paid for them.

And what is Katie doing? Working at this very moment, working on a holiday (Good Friday) so that she is no man's kept woman but in charge of her own fate. Katie, she understands that if you do not work, you do not eat. Unlike Emily who relies on her looks for everything because she is 23. Horace completely ignored Emily, although we could hear her scratchy voice across the room, he was lost in reverie for Katie.

“Horace, what about Dawn?” I suddenly boomed. “She’s no Emily, she doesn’t talk like a child with that “vocal fry” that Britney Spears so famously coined on her first album. Horace looked up, “there’s really nothing special about Dawn’s voice.”

“Yet Katie’s voice seems to drug you. Does Dawn’s?”

“Look Frank, I know what you’re getting at, kissing Dawn was like kissing my sister ok.”

I glanced at Emily and Cam. All Cam could see were Emily’s piercing blue eyes. She was dressed the way Katie used to dress, tantalizing. Just then Emily’s pains surged. A cigarette would help. She bummed one off Cam who was more than happy to oblige. They headed back for the street to smoke.

“Poor Katie,” I said. “I guess she and this Romeo Cam are still living together and she supports him. From the looks of what’s happening down at that end of the bar, it’s shocking,” I said. I had to get Horace thinking straight on the whole situation.

"Well, I have a mother who taught me two things, be humble and fear the Lord. It's high time I ignore this folly of mine. What has it gained me? I'm sitting here drinking in the afternoon? Is that a sign of self-respect?

My mom and dad taught me better. So it seems Emmie doesn’t need me, Katie never needed me," Horace said. "What do I even have in common with her? Katie is out of debt, Emmie has me back in red.

A smile flashed on Horace’s mouth. “Who needs that?!” Horace whispered.

Cam, you are welcome to Emily. Katie you are welcome to Cam. God Bless you Frank McGovorov. Whatever you did, whatever you said, it worked!" Just then Dawn Browning entered the bar. I knew it was her.

Dawn possessed a completely different look than either Katie or Emily. She was no beauty like Emily and a different kind of plain than Katie. She had a Danish face and wore very little makeup. Dawn was not unattractive and her appearance replaced Katie’s feminine plainness with a different sort of plain. Dawn had to have a flaw? Dawn was a professional. After 20 years at Chicago’s other PBS TV station, Dawn was earning well over 70,000 per year but still doing the same tasks she did when she started. She was reliable, helpful, and stable as a goat. Then it struck me, in Dawn came from a long long long line of tough hardworking Danes. “Hey Horace look up,” I encouraged him. “Who just walked in the bar?”

“D GIRL!” Horace said smiling.

Yes, I observed Horace becoming himself with Dawn right before my eyes, but not to kiss her. Just that he was a man with a peer and a friend, a patron and a protector in her. She, like Emily, definitely overlooked there was something “off” about Horace but unlike Emily, would go on overlooking it even after marriage. Was Dawn perfect for Horace? There was no spark physically. She was from Iowa, not Catholic, like he was, and he would go on, eventually, to attend mass every day. But I began to place my bets on her, if she could get past his temporary infatuation with “Emmie”.

Emily and Cam were sitting by the door to Ding Bat’s so it was a direct line to the street for them to walk to their smoke.

Emily and Cam were still in the alley smoking and they even shared a brief makeout between cigarettes. Emily thought Cam’s earring was the coolest. She asked to borrow Cam’s phone and she was so carefree with Cam she answered his phone when it rang. "Hello?" Emily answered in her scratchy overly affected voice.

"Who the hell is this? Cam?"

"Hey hon, it's me...I'm here," Cam replied as he seemed to struggle with something. Emily was asking in the background ‘who is Katie?’

"Who's there with you Cam?"

"No one...that must have been the radio you hear," Cam said.

"Do you have a girl over there with you?"

"What? Honey. What are you talking about, Of course not."

At that moment, Emily realized she wasn’t making anyone jealous and that Cam had a girlfriend if not wife. “You son of a…” Emily said.

"Cam, if I find that you have a girl over there," Katie was furious..."Your vacation is over!" Katie clicked off her phone in disgust. She knew what her instincts were telling her and that she guessed right.

A feeling of nausea overwhelmed Katie. She kept swallowing to relieve it. She had to go to a clinic.

Katie drove to the health clinic on Archer and shortly after, a smiling nurse told Katie Schmidt she was pregnant.

She drove home with a sheet of instructions for pregnant women, utterly befuddled and confused.

Cam left Ding Bat’s and went home, with a stop off at Maria’s on the way for a much needed Zwiec.

Chapter 2

Katie got home from the clinic about 5:30, she felt better and stopped to get groceries. She’d left some meat out on the counter to thaw. She was thinking of Cam the entire time she was shopping for their salad and a fresh loaf of crunchy French bread.

She didn’t know what to do. Part of her wanted to take the raise and find another place to live. How would she break it to Cam?

Cam, of all people, taught her about how to open up any conversation. Katie by nature would start talking to him in a good mood, cooperative as could be but change her tone when Cam replied with a passive aggressive tone.

Cam always told her, “That cute opening of a conversation is not effective.” He’d say “you’ve got to start out hard and tough, maybe even snap, THEN when you’ve got them on their heels a little, that’s when you’re nice. That way you’re much more likely not to regret anything afterwards you see?”

Katie suddenly again felt queasy. The clinic said it was an upset stomach and told her to get some Pepto-Bismol. The thought struck her that she was pregnant. Frightened, she called Cam, who was still at Maria’s, on the way home.

While all this was taking place with Katie, Dawn, Tommy, Horace, Emily and I sat at the bar at Ding Bat’s. Emily looked very jealously at Horace and Dawn seated next to one another. If I showed any interest in her at all, or if Tommy didn’t suffer from manic depression and was not a paranoid schizophrenic (you could tell he was suffering from something), she’d have openly latched onto to either of us.

Horace now had some leverage with Emily after her little attempt at making him jealous.

Emily was still getting over Cam was more or less married.

Tommy Newmanskis had long since finished his diet coke. (The drugs he took for his condition often left him feeling sluggish.) Tommy didn’t go to Ding Bat’s normally. He’d spent the 3 o clock hour at Stations-of-the-Cross at St. Cajetan’s Catholic Church nearby. Maria had already refilled it three times that afternoon and Tommy was feeling very stimulated.

I was happy, I felt my plan to show Horace to light of day had worked. Emily just smelled of smoke and looked hungry. “C’mon baby, let’s go out to eat,” she said.

“It’s no time to eat,” Tommy told her. “We’re recognizing Jesus sacrificing his own flesh for us at this very hour. We should sacrifice something.”

“Who are you?” Emily said trying to make herself smile.

“This is Tommy,… Emily, you remember him,” Horace said. I noticed just then that Dawn was up to speed on everything “Emmie”. There was tiny rub, Emmie was also Catholic and Dawn was very very Lutheran. Subtle but huge difference.

Horace felt as low as possible. I knew it, Tommy sensed it. His fiancé was flirting with the bane of his existence, Cam Vamella. She seemed to have no concern she was flirting in Horace’s presence.

What can be said of Emily? If you gave Emily a dollar, would you get back a dime? Emily’s track record (Emily cut class in High School and never went to even Community College) could all be rectified by finding one wealthy bachelor. But her reactions to life in general were all staged around her pain. The disease never left her calm and at peace. Though she came to the Big City, she ended up in the working class Southside where the aristocracy are busy cops and firemen. Chances are if she met wither of those types, they were just looking for a fun with her. So far all she’d met were Horace and Cam. A clerk who was nothing without Dawn and basically a married pool shark.

The giant Tommy said, “How you been brother?” and slapped Horace on the back.

Horace ordered a Long Island drink for Emily. Getting it free perked Dawn up to no end. I was fairly amazed he was so calm after her flirting with Cam. Before Dawn felt pranked on candid camera, I ordered her whatever she wanted.

“I’m not so good Tommy,” Horace said. Horace absolutely looked crushed.

Tommy began to recite the Old Testament from memory to console Horace. We all sipped our drinks except Tommy who recited perfectly by rote without skipping a thing.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

Nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by mankind,

A man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

He was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain

And bore our suffering,

Yet we considered him punished by God,

Stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

He was crushed for our iniquities;

The punishment that brought us peace was on him,

And by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

Each of us has turned to our own way;

And the LORD has laid on him

The iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,

Yet he did not open his mouth;

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

So he did not open his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

Yet who of his generation protested?

For he was cut off from the land of the living;

For the transgression of my people he was punished.

He was assigned a grave with the wicked,

And with the rich in his death,

Though he had done no violence,

Nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,

And though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,

He will see his offspring and prolong his days,

And the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

After he has suffered,

He will see the light of life and be satisfied;

By his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,

And he will bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,

And he will divide the spoils with the strong,

Because he poured out his life unto death,

And was numbered with the transgressors.

For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

“Thank you Tommy,” Horace said. That’s a very unique consolation.

“Here is the KEY,” Tommy said. The key is just to have a sense of humor about everything that happens to you, laugh in response to whatever they say about you. You remember that and you hold the key.” Tommy said. “Don’t take yourself so seriously!”

Dawn’s sweet pureness was by then a little rattled and she wondered why I invited her. Horace became rigid. He smiled when he saw Dawn but was not able to come out of his shell and I was completely to blame. I dragged him before the nightmare of Katie and Cam on my own. Everything backfired on me. All I seemed to be able to do was order everyone drinks they did not need. “Dawn,” I said. “It’s so nice you came out. Horace has told me so much about you and the TV station.”

Workers at TV stations are vaguely aware they work in rarified air, most of them would do it for free if they could. They realize they “work” at one of a handful of jobs in the city. They realize they made their childhood dreams come true. They were making a living at what they were passionate about, not just headed off to a job to pay family bills.

In that sense, Dawn was even more unique. As a wife, Dawn would support a guy like Horace by making him look good and useful in the office and the TV studio. Because of Dawn’s help at making broadcast logs, and because the station was short staffed due to budget cuts, Horace was given the opportunity to work in the studio as a videographer. It was so obvious how perfect Dawn was for Horace and how imperfect Katie and Emily were. Katie loved handsome Cam and his earring, just as Emily was infatuated by him (and she hadn’t even seen him dazzle her at pool yet.)

That’s when Horace tired his best to return the favor on Emily and flirt with Dawn in front of her. For a moment, it worked. “D girl,” he turned to Dawn and asked, “How goes it at work?”

“It’s truly amazing they took Horace back there after he ran off to northern Michigan?” I added. This infuriated Emily who was mad enough Horace wasn’t paying attention to her and had downed just enough of her drink to get relief and lower her inhibitions in speaking to Dawn.

“Yeah just what is going on? Emily said to Dawn with zero clue she should have been grateful to her. “Is there a thing between you two?” Emily said in full on sabotage mode.

Dawn may have been sweet and pure but she was full on Dane and possessed a thousand years of Danish toughness. “Oh Horace may not know where this is headed but…hem, I do,” Dawn said. All she needed to do was put her arm around him and Emily would have run off, or at least announce she and Horace were leaving and ran off to the bathroom to fix her makeup. Horace sat between his future and his recent past. Unable to get mad or happy or even to speak.

"Who the hell answered the phone when I called you this afternoon?" Katie screamed at Cam.

Of course she was happy she was a new mom and that’s why she felt nausea but she decided to take Cam’s advice and come out swinging.

"That was me babe...I guess I hadn't cleared my throat when I picked up the phone," Cam replied.

"Listen to me buddy, I’m…” Katie paused knowing Cam did not want to hear the next word… “Pregnant," Katie sat down, trembling.

"What? You're what??...." Cam said, his words trailing off.

Cam's mind was confused as well. "Hey, that's what we want...right?"

"That's what we have. And they offered me a promotion at work. A promotion means better Health-insurance for all the costs of having the baby.

All well and good except I know what went on with you and some floozy this afternoon you’re trying to be charming with. You love having your cake and eating it too.

Well your vacation is over. You need to shape up. By why should you? You've gotten away with it this long," Katie said. She was furious.

She wanted to sit on the couch and cry but she just went into the kitchen and poured a pop. Then she realized she couldn’t have pop.

“Babe,” Cam said struggling to be nice in response to Katie’s angry tone. “I do love you. We’ve been through a lot of years together. Maybe I never said it but I’m saying it now. Look, honey. I have to go somewhere. I will be back home tonight, I promise. I have to get some money someone owes me,” Cam said.

“Tell her I'm pregnant,” Katie said guessing he was lying about where he was headed. “Maybe she'll run before you do this to her too. Then again, if she's with you, she’s too stupid to do that.”

“Katie, I am the proudest papa in town,” Cam said nervously without any faith in those words.

“You realize you love me and you’re leaving? That’s a special kind of mental cruelty,” Katie said softly.

Cam walked out to Katie’s muffled sobs. He didn’t drink but this revelation Katie carried his child sobered him. He whispered to himself “I don’t think I can be sober for the next 18 years til the kid she’s carrying is grown.”

Chapter 3

The Saturday before Easter Sunday, when traditionally Christ can't be with us in Holy Communion but is in Hell saving the souls rotting there was Katie’s first day of knowing she was pregnant, she had relations with no one else, Cam had to be the father.

"A child is a gift from God," she reminded herself, unable to feel as happy as she should. God blessed Katie with a form of peace only provided for by the Holy Spirit.

"What if Cam came back? He would ask me to get an abortion,” she thought. He's out calling in an old bet just to pay for it now I think," Katie said and the peace dissipated.

“I want to marry a cad?” If only I could think straight. She knew when he left her alone, that was the only time she found peace.

The nature of their relationship suddenly shocked her.

“Katie," she thought, “you’ve got to get out.” She went to the couch thinking about all her chances to walk away that she squandered until the moment she was pregnant. Her teardrops started.

Out of nowhere, Cam returned.

“Katie, I need to talk with you,” Cam said. Katie arose, her heart pounding.

Cam paused. Katie was prepared to hear him out. She was shocked, he looked so handsome to her just then. Unlike he'd ever looked before to her. She couldn't have said anything if she wanted to. Later on, Katie would say Cam never looked so grotesque.

Cam spoke. "All my life my mom and dad gave me everything, I was cursed with this...I’m spoiled. You know the scene from the Twilight Zone where Rance McGrew is the TV cowboy who never loses a draw and never loses a fight…?”

Katie, shocked by his sudden candor, sensing the solution to all her problems just nodded her head yes.

Cam continued, “then suddenly they enter the Twilight Zone,” Cam said emphasizing the three words of the Title of the show. “It’s no longer a movie set but all real and the real Jesse James comes into the saloon and makes Rance shape up. THAT’s how it’s gotten with me and this baby is the real Jesse James! Hon, being spoiled has gotten me into so many situations. The girls calling and me not knowing it’s you…it’s YOU I love.

Well I thought about it, Rance was spoiled but he was also selfish. The way he acted on set, how rude he is towards the other actors and director, well I’m not selfish. I’m NOT. I’m not gonna be with selfish you...any more EVER.”

"My whole life,” Cam continued was one big temptation to do the wrong thing, to make the wrong choices. Can I be a saint? Probably not," Cam said.

"I’m not looking for a saint,” Katie said and pictured Horace in her mind. “Are you going to be the father of this baby or not? I am not asking you to marry me."

Cam didn’t hear what she said. He just kept talking. "I have had every chance to do the right thing. But my talents are...illegal."

Then Katie said something with an angry tone, "illegal or immature, selfish or not, you’ve got nine months to figure out if you want to be a stand up person…."

She no longer captivated Cam with her natural looking face. Her anger just now made her even ugly, not even plain. If you call looking natural - looking plain, so be it, Katie barely passed for plain nowadays, tired is more like it. Her plainness was gone forever with her youth.

"See, there you go, giving me all these changes. Let me finish please,” Cam said interrupting her. “Then I met you. Katherine. You did all I ever asked of you and more. You gave me "shelter” from temptations. You pointed me in the right direction.

You yelled at me for relapsing and playing pool.

You asked me to go to mass with you. You listened. You got me to do things I never could alone.

And we fought. We fight so much. Can a child in our home be a success?

Isn't it better, isn't it more ideal, if we are not seen fighting in front of a poor kid?" Cam said.

"Yes, if you grow up and get a job, not as a professional pool sharp. Then when you come home you will be too tired to argue with me. We'll all three have some dinner and go to sleep," Katie said.

"Katie, you don't understand at all. My whole life, my whole life, I have had to make a choice between what all my talents say you were born with and what is the right thing to do.”

“Thou shalt not gamble,” Katie said. “End of story.”

“I see the three kids and their mother lounging by the public pool and the kids are all saying, look how good daddy is at shooting baskets at the poolside basketball goal…he could have been a pro…but no…he’s gotta go to the factory every day and lucky if he gets to relax on Sunday at the pool…” Cam said.

“You really think highly of that face of yours huh?“ Katie said. And he really did look like more handsome to her than her biggest school-girl crush. He looked otherworldly handsome to her just then. "You had a job at the school. You told me you liked it.”

"Me and the high road, it isn't gonna last," Cam said.

"We've lasted."

"We have. We have lasted. We've lasted a long long time,” Cam said.

"I am not a robot, Cam. But I'm not pushing you to do anything. Just one thing I ask. We need to stay together like we have these last 10 years despite our differences. We need to stay together now more than ever. Make a leap of faith,” Katie said.

Cam sighed. “I haven't been able to tell you this. But the last few months, I was here in body only.” Katie looked at him. She finally saw an ape wallowing in vice and his own litter.

The female voice who picked up the phone when Katie called Cam at Ding Bats repeated in her mind aurally. Her stomach sank. Then something extraordinary, perhaps even peculiar happened. Instead of screaming, and perhaps bottling that emotion to no good result, Katie listened calmly. She internalized the hurt.

To this final insult, him preaching about being selfless as an intro to being selfish, Katie whispered to herself something like this, "...let it be to me according to your Word..."

Then Katie stood up and felt a sharp pain in her stomach. She doubled over for a moment, agonizingly straightened herself and made it to our table before she fainted and an ambulance was called.

III

Katie miscarried her baby.

Cam’s first reaction was genuine but only because it meant he was off the hook. "Honey, I am so glad you're ok," Cam said to Katie the next day in the hospital.

"Yeah," I'm fine,” was Katie’s lackluster, unbelievable reply.

"I'm really really glad," Cam said knowing she miscarried, “that you're ok.”

Katie paused. She measured her words carefully. She knew being pregnant was not any leverage with a fellow like Cam. "I have been made a manager with the Actuary. I can get by on my own financially."

Cam didn’t know what to think. “Are you breaking up with me?” He paused waiting and hoping to hear her say ‘yes’. He had no wish to be a father at 31.

Katie took a cup from her bedside and took a long drink of water from a straw.

On one hand, Katie certainly knew being single at her age with no real family meant oblivion.

As for Cam, he didn’t need Katie to explain further, he had rabbit in him. That rabbit in him never frightened Katie. If anything Cam excited her. He could reaffirm her whole existence in a single witty sentence. His “are you breaking up with me?” could be taken as a plea that they stay together after all.

Chapter 4

The next day was Easter Sunday. Katie wanted to go to Catholic mass more than ever.

She woke early about 7 am and created an Italian Antipasto platter loaded with fruits, vegetables, American cheese slices, cured meats and Peperoncino. She prepared a Polish ham and all the trimmings as well as defrosted two eclairs from the fridge. At 10:30 am they attended St. Christina Catholic Church on 111th Street at Homan. The elderly there noticed the size of the crowd that Easter, and said how every Sunday mass was that crowded in the past. The choir loft was jam packed, as well as the vestibules.

Despite doing no sacrifice for Lent, Cam was immensely proud of himself at the end of this Lent (he had no idea it was Lent). He was proud of himself for not pushing Katie down a flight of stairs to induce an abortion when she told him she was pregnant.

Cam dressed in the sharpest suit he owned and agreed to go with her to Holy Mass on Easter morning. His narcissism exploded as he passed by the holy water and strode up the main aisle at church. In a church full of off duty policemen and fireman and their families, Cam was better dressed than any of them. His narcissism was the only aspect of him that ever matured.

He considered the night before his finest hour. He didn’t even bring up the word “abortion”. He felt he allowed Katie to “take over” that Easter like a second mom of his.

Almost all the females at mass wore heels adorned with some sort of flower. Katie opted for a classy expensive black pair of boots, the kind she wore at work.

As they made it to the last two seats in a pew about halfway up the center aisle Katie noticed how kind the people were to one another, wishing each other Happy Easter and would think the beauty of the church lay in all the kind people who wished her Happy Easter.

Katie noticed the altar, all marble, black marble flooring and red marble walls on all sides. The altar, covered in pink, blue, yellow and white carnations and white lilies in decorative green foil containers looked resplendent in pastel colors.

Katie and Cam hadn’t been to mass in years and they could sense at once how something truly momentous was being celebrated by these folk.

By chance, Cam’s ears picked up during the first reading which mentioned the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Cam identified with that, he felt accepted by this God of theirs and could be proud of himself. Instead of being there, forced to this church to marry Katie, he was free as a bird! The thought made him shudder with a kind of joy.

Though Katie would not have a baby, a miracle did happen that weekend. Katie found great peace in that year's Catholic Easter mass. She found this peace even while sitting next to Cam with his chest puffed up though they just lost their child.

The calm Katie felt on that Easter was simple. She now knew everything she once feared had no hold on her at all. Katie knew she had the power to be on her own. She realized Cam, who had been in her life since she took that job in the factory behind Horace’s parent’s house, no longer needed to be in her life. It would be fitting for it to happen on Easter, the day Christians can shrug off the fear of death because of the Resurrection.

Celebrating Christ's Easter Rising was not lost on Katie. She experienced her own “rising” at that Easter mass. She now knew Whom to replace Cam with.

As the choir sang the words “the stone that the builders rejected” a few pews behind Katie, Horace snuck into mass from the tavern on 111th. Both she and Horace felt a power enter them. For Katie it was to carry on without Cam, for Horace it was to ask Emily to go back home.

As the priest vowed he’d keep his promise to a short sermon, Horace received a text from me that I was in the church with Emily and Tommy and we would meet him after mass by the altar. I myself hadn’t been to mass in years, and I didn’t know the etiquette is not to text during mass. I got no glances however.

The church seemed warm and alive.

(NOTE: Had she had the baby and had Cam held it in his arms, it’s even possible he’d have resembled a man someday. But at that critical juncture in his life, the "adolescent Cam" was much better fed than the actual 32 year old person, and therefore the adolescent side was stronger.)

Horace and Emily, Tommy and I bumped into Katie and Cam after mass under the statue of the Blessed Mother.

I couldn't speak to Cam for the simple reason I broke my biggest rule, never speak ill of someone to a third party, you can never look them in the eye when you need to. And I spoke ill of Cam to Katie.

Cam remembered us from the night before but had no idea Horace and Emily were united romantically. He chuckled to himself and smiled. Emily laughed upon seeing Cam.

Horace felt a strong sense of sympathy for Katie because he knew she was finally dealing with all Cam was incapable of. Horace always knew, if Cam went to Confession just once, ONCE, his mindset would move from “stealing” to “giving”, two confessions and he could go from “giver” to “pious”. That’s because a Sacramental Confession with a Catholic Priest removes a lifetime of sin and stain and the profound effect of that brings peace and willingness to forgive others, it brings out compassion. All the layers of sin are peeled back at once. Cam had only petty vendettas to ponder. Cam never forgave anyone.

Katie’s anguish and pain were palpable but there was also present a stoic calmness that she was not facing life alone anymore.

Katie came around to the idea that there was something worthwhile in Horace, something Quixotic and so unsuited for this world. But that’s as far as she ever thought of it. And if Horace was better described as Quixotic than Christ-like, it's also true he wanted to be like Joseph more so than Cam ever wanted to be a good husband and father.

Cam grew so edgy and fidgety for standing and sitting and kneeling for an hour that he had to have a smoke. Emily, ever dying for a smoke herself for the same reason, saw that as her chance to sneak out as well for a cigarette and joined Cam just outside church with a big smile.

Finally Horace and Katie were more or less alone at the altar at St. Christina. Those who loitered about after mass chatted away loudly and filled the church with ambient noise. Horace, still exalted and tranquilized from the beer he had before mass, heard none of the chatter. He only sensed his chance to stand next to Katie who looked just as plain as she did the first time he ever laid eyes on her. Horace kissed Katie on the lips, right before the Blessed Mother and right out of the blue.

The feeling he longed to experience for decades finally happened. An ice cube melted a few drops! Later Horace told me it must be what it’s like to kiss a nun on the lips!

Suddenly Tommy awkwardly approached them and took Horace by the shoulder and said, “please, (as if they were kissing like a new couple) no PDA.” Then Tommy said to Katie, “I don’t know you, but I’ve heard a lot about you from Horace.”

Katie replied, “I know you have. Horace here is actually kind of shocking,” Katie said. It’s been years and he still thinks of me so tenderly.”

That’s when I knew Horace kissed her, not the other way around. Tommy's words struck Katie and it showed on her face.

Tommy whispered to Katie, “It’s all alright, “God is sovereign. God is ultimately in control of everything that happens in this world, including right here on the Southside of Chicago.”

Katie looked up at the giant, Tommy and smiled.

Horace of course was struck by this first real kiss with Katie Schmidt! A moment he thought of for years because he missed his chance and because life dealt him another one.

Katie was not having a rebound from Cam. This was a one-off kiss. Still if Katie allowed Horace into her life after that, somehow, someway (for the record she never expressed if she enjoyed his kiss) she would elicit empathy and humility in his heart. Steadily, constantly reaffirming his faith in mankind. Horace would have straightened his act out, he'd have cared for her and if she became deathly sick, when he parted her company for the moment so she could pray or be bathed by her nurse, Horace would have went to another room and cried real tears.

III

Though they were officially broken up, and Katie had to drag Cam away from his cigarette with Emily outside of Church, she still didn't have the heart to throw Cam out on Easter Sunday. They went back to her place and had Antipasto platter and Easter ham and wine. She did break with him once and for all shortly thereafter though.

Cam waited til the very end to empty his side of the closet at Katie’s apartment. I call it that because Cam never paid a penny in rent in 10 years. He took his time, not so much so she’d have to kick him out, but because it would end his reverie of not having to work. He snuck out quietly and went to a bar up the alley to shoot pool.

I never heard from Katie again, but of course heard about her.

Tommy, Dawn, Horace, Emmie and I ended up at a restaurant on 111^th Street after mass. I paired off with Dawn and got the rest of her story.

Almost any observer would unequivocally see Dawn as perfect for Horace. For one thing, she really wanted him to succeed at his job at the TV station. She helped him avoid all the pitfalls there. For Horace that job was a dream come true. (Watching PBS TV was one of his first magical memories as a child.) Dawn shielded Horace at work, allowed him to write, to day dream, to be happy and carefree at a job she made him look good doing.

Dawn was THE girl alright, the girl who single handedly kept Horace’s employed when he ran “up north” to meet Emily’s parents on their first date. Dawn did all his work for him so his absence went un noticed…She remained Horace’s coworker, even when everyone was asking where Horace shipped off to, and wanted her to fink on him. She managed her department as efficiently as ever.

Dawn made no mistakes, except one, she fell in love with Horace. Even after that wretched afternoon at Ding Bat’s where she quietly sat through all of Emily’s drama, she still loved him.

Dawn’s other mistake, her only other mistake, was that she ignored anything would ever truly happen between Horace and Emily and thought Horace would see (Dawn’s) value and perhaps even move in with her.

Dawn swore to herself she’d never lord her win over Emily (if Horace chose Dawn) and she wouldn’t have.

Why shouldn’t it go that way? They shared so many moments of success at work. Dawn didn’t realize until too late that those successes were mostly only when Dawn lit a light bulb over Horace and he was off and running with his new idea.

I bought Dawn a beer. I think she decided at some point I was a dear friend to Horace and we would be in the same circle for the rest of our lives.

Even as late as that Easter night, she still held out hope Horace would see the light.

Seeing Horace with Emily, she was beyond disappointed. She would not let me see her defeat. (Oddly enough Horace was sitting by Emily but thinking of Katie!) It annoyed Dawn the most that she even tried for Horace and someone like Katie didn’t have to try for Horace and he was hers, someone like Emily did try for Horace and he was hers.

No one will ever know the depth of despair that Dawn and girls like her go through when they offer a man such a profound home and hearth and he just can’t kiss them.

The crushing blow for Dawn would come that summer when “official word” spread to almost all the other 359 other PBS TV stations in the continental US and Guam via a PBS system-wise newsletter that Horace was engaged…to an Emily White.

Dawn had contacts all over that system whom she called from time to time to order video feeds that were missed. She shared her feelings for Horace with colleagues all over the system who also knew Horace. Program Directors, Traffic Specialists, Operations Assistants, her friend Bonnie, at Wisconsin PBS whom she knew for years. She intimated that Horace doesn’t know what he wants but maybe, maybe he wants…her.

Dawn always said to that point that someday Horace would see what she saw, that they were more than just best friends.

That PBS professional newsletter, under announcements, reading, Horace O’Leary, WICC in Chicago, is engaged with Emily White, a gas station attendant, and they have set a date for their wedding. September 17, 20__ hurt.

Even stoic and calm Dawn Browning reacted with shame. She was not even angry at Horace, she was upset with herself. She never spoke to Horace again.

Dawn stayed at that public TV station until she retired at $75.00 an hour doing an entry level task. She ended up fulfilled with work, but never was as happy as she when Horace might come by her cubicle at any moment and they’d chat for hours about work or even gossip.

As for Tommy, I am convinced the medication he took was not enough to him out of an asylum without having the New Testament memorized. Tommy makes deliveries in his beat up American model car.

Well, it used to be American. It’s well past 300,000 miles (his roommate is a mechanic) so now half the care is replacement parts from Japan and may as well be Japanese. He is on his third diet coke by 10AM so he is a little jittery if I get a chance to talk to him but he is as happy. His smile is the most genuine in town.

Tommy’s the opposite of a nosey busy-body because somehow his faith reaches out to him and consoles him. If he hears gossip or bad news, he breaks down in prayer at once. This is absolutely foreign to me. I try to think outside the box, imagine a hundred different reasons why. Tommy merely reached for a hundred different verses in Scripture that assured him not to worry, that reminded him he had a powerful Patron.

Tommy sees parts of town completely differently than even the most devout people. For example, Beverly Park on 103rd Street is the Garden of Gethsemane to Tommy, the front lawn of the Fifth District courthouse in Bridgeview, IL is where the crowd demanded Jesus be crucified. Behind the courthouse is where Pilate lets the crowd have Jesus. A rose bush stands there to this day and from it, Tommy imagines a crown of thorns is fashioned.

A steep bridge in Blue Island, IL over a dozen parallel railroad lines is where Jesus drags the cross. Tommy imagines the very spot Jesus is consoled by His Blessed Mother, halfway up the pedestrian walkway of the bridge. Finally the park on the east side of the bridge in Blue Island becomes Golgotha in Tommy’s imagination. It brings to life what the Lord went through for us all, Tommy says, we rely on Christ in their times of suffering.

Chapter 5

Horace somehow got motivated to stop visiting the bars on Western and 111th street. You would think that would please Emily and it did.

Horace reminded her marriage still meant she had to go to work. Emily was bolting for the door upon even hearing those words. But she doubled down. Once while Horace was at work, Emily lazily got up from their bed and wrote ‘I love you’ in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. She cracked the mirror. Something superstitious Horace would not miss the symbolism of.

Ever-cautious Horace waffled and hesitated and pushed their wedding date in September back to March 17th the following year. Emily finally figured that trend was going to repeat itself. She realized the effort to get a guy to marry was more work than going to school and train to draw blood and be a nurse.

When Horace lobbied to move their wedding date…Emily went for a walk, found Cam at the pool hall and took him up on an offer for a cigarette at a motel outside of town on Route 6.

We regret to go into too much detail of that night. Cam felt unfettered by young Emily. He hadn’t been intimate with Katie for a while and spent all his sexual aggression on Emmie. If Emily wished she could have gotten Cam on rape charges, but she didn’t. She left Chicago.

Eventually Emmie mailed Horace back the $3,000 engagement ring from Wolverine, MI in a padded, sealed pouch. The ring Horace put on her finger in downtown Gaylord, MI when Emmie chose a ring and a dollar hot dog over the roasted duck and champagne dinner. Horace traded the same ring in on Wabash Avenue downtown for $300 dollars.

Was Emmie dedicated to anything? Emily White can’t be judged too harshly. She was a high school drop out with a well-endowed bosom. Once she made the decision to drop out of school, all her remaining decisions just kept sending her from the frying pan into the fire. Her flaw was that she tried to improve herself by attracting suckers with just her good looks and smile.

In the end, Emily got a job at a gas station in very remote Michigan. She got better at wearing makeup and attracted a trucker who was passing through for the Mackinac Bridge. She ended up riding with one across the country. The White family didn’t say much about her after that, except she was happy.

I visited the pool halls that Cam was known to haunt and can say with certainty, no one ever heard from Cam again. Maybe in the light of day he knew what he did with Emily in the motel room was a crime and he needed to drop out of sight.

Katie’s promotion at the Actuary allowed her to put some money aside.

She began attending Catholic mass weekly, then daily, then going to an Adoration chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed in a Monstrance. Believers sit and bask in the glow of the risen Lord.

Unbelievers are shocked by it.

Katie was not shocked.

Her hair returned to brunette and she began to wear a simple black hairpin that kept the hair from her eyes. Her main attractiveness burst forth much more effectively than ever.

Now, her chief form of attractiveness was her holiness. Katie didn’t recognize this however, she only noticed that without wearing makeup the flares of her nostrils were sometimes red as if she had a head-cold.

The most accurate image of her is illustrated on the cover of this novel, serene and peaceful, even orderly and especially living without Cam. It's how she looked in the end. Horace himself declared, “If she didn’t belong to God the day I kissed her in church, she was headed there.”

Her mask removed, Katie Schmidt’s astonishing natural beauty revealed itself.

As for Horace O’Leary. Our city’s Sacred Fool, it would take a whole other novel to describe what came of him. And perhaps I will someday. Today you would not recognize him.

The TV station which through Horace’s hard work moved up in the ratings, got so popular that it added three channels. Full time news, Japanese programs 24/7 and First Nations (native American programming). Christy B did the main station and as much as she could to program the logs for the other 3 but it ultimately fell on Horace. Dawn was not assigned to do logs. Without Dawn as a patron, Horace was forced to do things he wasn’t really good at, namely broadcast logs. Dawn’s covering for Horace, defending him, censoring and editing his work ended, her efforts weren’t there. She wasn’t talking to Horace or any of the sociopaths in Master Control who looked especially critically of Horace’s logs. They descended upon Horace like vultures from all sides and he was quickly out of work. Horace’s luck ran out.

With most of his nest egg in the messy wake of an Emily spending spree, Horace couldn’t make rent and slept for a while in his car by the park at 113th and Western. Fortunately, it was summer, however when he lowered the car windows, in came the mosquitos and he’d actually wished it was wintertime. But that is not why you would not recognize him. He is a changed man. For years he only thought of how his life didn’t prioritize his ageing parents. (Horace’s sister Loraine was Horace’s savior, she bore all their parent’s caregiving without a single complaint so her brother could live over Maria’s bar!)

Horace’s parents’ passed on but it seems the Lord, the same God I sort of finally discovered Easter Sunday myself after having been away for a long time, didn’t want Horace to wallow in guilt and shame over it. He realized providentially (I didn’t explain it to him) that he didn’t fail them. Whether he did or didn’t, it didn’t matter, what mattered is; Horace let it go.

He tried out a few adventures, a job at a radio station in Eagle River, a social worker on a tribal Indian Reservation, nothing clicked. The radio station job required an intrepid reporter, Horace was anything but intrepid. The job on the Reservation was another world and too much of a culture shock.

He managed to get a job and a room at the YMCA in Chicago on Irving Park and still plays basketball there every day even at the age of 59. He eventually found a better paying job and bought a home. He never managed to continue what he dreamed of becoming professionally at PBS but he remembered the 17 years there oh so fondly.

III

Horace’s “good Double”, a good version of Horace, prevailed after all. Horace’s mother and her intercessory prayers also triumphed. Her oft used phrase of advice, “turn over a new leaf” got through to Horace.

For now I shall say this, the famous literary creation Don Quixote was a fool, but very likeable. So much so in fact, everyone who came in contact with him, humored his whims. That phenomenon exists. For Horace, being liked was the rare exception, not the norm. If you asked Horace about how he was perceived, he would never bring up the obvious insults and resulting injury he was familiar with. If you reminded him what life put him through, he may not have forgotten Tommy’s good advice to not to take himself too seriously and…

“The thought of Calvary changes your perspective at once. No one was insulted more deeply than He,” Tommy would say.

Doctors would say Horace suffered from a frozen heart, and it was a catchy disease, he left more than one companion with the condition as well.

We began this story describing Horace as a fool. And he surely might have given us reasons to agree, even within just the telling of this story. However wise men say it is better to be single and live an uncomplicated life than to marry the wrong person. Even couples who firmly put the other first will surely run into bitter and angry disagreements over fundamental issues.

Today Horace lives an uncomplicated, healthy life. Horace realized he’s not the marrying type. Quite a feat of self-awareness actually. He does not live beyond his means and owns his own home. He is what I’d consider happy and content. He realizes his ideal girl may not exist at all. (Or she may be milking a cow in rural Mayo, Ireland or Bavaria, Germany.) In the end, Horace never allowed the foolishness of a forced marriage or a rushed marriage or a marriage to a “roommate”. His regrets are few.

Maybe Horace’s wisdom surfaced like a poignant blessing when he needed it most, and prevented him from ever marrying Katie, Emmie or Dawn.

I produced 35 hour long radio shows that chronicle the Irish band Thin Lizzy and they air non-stop in syndication from St. Patrick’s Day 2021 until present on terrestrial radio.

Author Bio:

Michael McKenna was born and raised on the Southside of Chicago in 1965.

From the age of 9, Michael listened to radio dramas. CBS’ Radio Mystery Theater hosted by E G Marshall aired at 11:00pm every weeknight on WBBM in Chicago. The series would profoundly impact him and lead him to study Broadcasting.

Michael caddied at Beverly Country Club from 1979 to 1987. He attended Marquette University as an Evans Scholar from 1983 to 1987.

In 2016 Michael began producing radio plays from stories he’d written over the years.

Ultimately he wrote and produced 38 radio plays with himself as the narrator.

Below are the titles with synopsis of the plays Michael wrote, directed and produced with multiple sound effects and all have aired numerous times on radio in Chicago and elsewhere. Every play is archived at Marquette University Archives in the Raynor Memorial Library, 1355 West Wisconsin Avenue, third floor. The best edits of the plays would be those entered into the archives in July of 2024.

My radio plays with short synopsis:

The Haunted Lighthouse. First radio play. Aired January 10, 2016 on WCEV AM 1450 at 8:00pm. A young man swims out to a lighthouse off shore from where he lives. Upon reaching this navigational aid, he frightens off the keeper and his family, why? Followed by Spirit Slips Away by Thin Lizzy.

Why Rome Never Invaded Ireland. A giant living on an island in Dublin Bay frightens off a garrison of Roman soldiers. Followed by Emerald by Thin Lizzy.

I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Love You. Two starlets appear at a talent agency for the same job. Featuring Southbound by Thin Lizzy.

Honeymoon in Siberia. Scott takes Susie to Russia for their honeymoon. Did they marry too quickly? Featuring We Will Be Strong by Thin Lizzy.

Entering the 7th Stage. A man takes a walk in the forest preserve outside Chicago and meets the Devil. Followed by Pressure Will Blow by Thin Lizzy.

How to Trap a Leprechaun. Counting his shiny money, Captain Farrell attracts a leprechaun. Followed by Whisky in the Jar by Thin Lizzy.

Wow! Signal. Two bungling SETI operators get contacted by an advanced extra-terrestrial race and they think it’s an ex-girlfriend pranking them.

Ghoul on the Air. An overnight Dee Jay gets a job at a remote radio station high in the Rockies. Followed by Killer on the Loose by Thin Lizzy.

Visitor. In Smolensk, 1953, Alexei’s wife is imprisoned for telling a joke about Stalin.

The Great Bank Robbery That Almost Wasn’t. Butch Cassidy considers backing out of his first bank robbery in Colorado in 1881.

Phone Call that Almost Blew up the World. Lisa and Jack are having trouble in their marriage. Jack is in charge of nuclear reactor and needs anger management intervention. Will he start a war with Russia to end his personal problems?

Radio Inferno. A desperado breaks into a radio station in Eagle River and demands to be put on air, so he can talk to the girl who is ignoring him but who loves the station. Featuring top 40 hits of 1987.

Without Warning. CIA operatives meet with lobbyists in the Pentagon to plan 9/11. A pen pal from Chelyabinsk pays the top CIA man a visit.

All the Rage. How did AC/DC’s Bon Scott die?

The Offer He Could Not Refuse. Living in exile in sunny Capri, Gorki dreams of his frozen homeland, Russia. He is invited to return by the Supreme Soviet Command as their VIP guest.

Haunted Skyscraper. Fresh out of Marquette University, Marvin Johnson signs a one-year deal with the Chicago Bulls and needs a place to live.

The Last Days of Edgar Allan Poe. How did Poe really die? We take you to his crypt the day after where he tells you himself.

The Night Elvis Bombed. In 1956 Presley was changing music and radio. Teen aged fans couldn’t get into his Las Vegas concerts and the conference goers and World War two vets wanted comedians and orchestra music.

The Count of St Germaine. Who was Phil Lynott? Some say he was born 3,000 years ago and couldn’t die.

Das Shamrock. Germany can win the war by not invading Russia. A wee leprechaun sees the danger in that and lands on the German Chancellors shoulder for a conference.

Soldier for the King. Pierre is sent to guard the fort at Starved Rock in 1681. His wife Sophie is left back in Paris in the shadow of a brand new Cathedral to ponder his fate.

The Bobby Band! A Spinal Tap look at a local rock band no one has ever heard of. Featuring the never heard on Final Frontier before Live and Dangerous.

Drifters! Two astronauts find themselves drifting way off course on a mission to Mars.

Other titles:

The Crippled Kaiser

The Stakes are High (dedicated to Marquette University’s St. Joan of Arc Chapel)

Allah is but a Nap

Alfred Bravehawk

Lost City of the Dolphingod

Robyn Hode in Barnsdale Stode

57 Kuchhausen

Wrigley Spectre

Beautiful Thief aka A Black Cat

Five Martyrs

The Alchemist

A Celtic Giant in Torshavn

Meet the Dagda

The Man Who Beat the Undertaker

Appendix:

(From page 28)

Somewhere there’s a Catherine in some alternate universe.

A Catherine Schmidt, who’s Katie’s twin but who does not feel unattractive.

She is comfortable drawing attention to herself. She talks out of the side of her mouth when she is monetizing passion or drinking to feel like god.

She is Katie’s age and of similar experience but unlike Katie, Catherine talks to earn, she monetizes her voice.

That voice is an affectation of her natural voice to emphasize her jokes.

She uses voices utterly unlike Katie whose normal speaking voice so lulled and tranquillized Horace’s heart. Catherine cannot mimic Katie who speaks calmly and without swearing. Catherine cursed and swore like a sailor to emphasize a feeling.

(From page 34) St. Columba (521AD - 597AD) was an Irish monk, founder of three major Abbeys in France. His harsh but fair rules within the Monasteries he founded led to detailed documentation of his faith. His detailed prayers (coupled with fasting) were known to be almost instantly answered without delay, from feeding his hungry monks to commanding wild animals.

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