Critical issue in global health ( water and sanitation in poor Essay

Critical issue in global health ( water and sanitation in poor countries ) - Essay Example With this financial situation, poor people can barely sustain three meals a day, hence, food on the table remains the priority and all other concerns fade in the background. The same problem persists throughout the world because governments of poor countries lack the resources to build infrastructure and implement programs that would finally address the dilemma. When one looks at the figures such as the case in India, the water and sanitation problem is approaching the scale of a humanitarian crisis. This is particularly true in case of urban centers such as Mumbay. Half of its population lives in the slums and shanties, which are typified by severely limited supply of water, bad sewage disposal, unclean public spaces, aggravated and are further aggravated by severe population density (Digby et al., 2000, p. 273). According to Dash (2000), there is one water tap for every 381 slum dwellers, only 30 percent of these communities have community latrine to the point that people are forced to defecate in the open, while less than that percentage have some semblance of garbage collection system (p. 256). The situation is also true in many parts of Africa. As a matter of fact, the problems were responsible for devastating illnesses such as typhoid and dysentery (Offiong, p. 60). For countries living in abject poverty, the priority is food security. It appears to be the most immediate and critical concern because hungry people means restive population. In India, for example, food security remains the top concern of public policy because that is what matters to the electorate. Politicians promise to focus on it as people are more at risk of dying from hunger than from disease due to poor sanitation or from unclean water. Indeed, human development reports confirmed that access to clean water and most especially sanitation receive less attention because it is a low-priority in national policy-making and that the responsibility is

Sales Ethics Is an Oxymoron Essay Example for Free

Sales Ethics Is an Oxymoron Essay Conversely, Sales management ethics is the specific component of business ethics that deals with ethically managing the sales function as sales manager’s priorities is to supervise the relationship bonded between the customer and a salesperson by ensuring that the relationship between the customer and salesperson is an honest one. Making the right decision can be very difficult for instance a majority of people would agree that honesty is an important ethical principle. Take in consideration an honest salesperson that have to meet ends of a looming end of month quota and is required to close one big deal to avoid falling short of the number. Will that salesperson fall short or will he or she undertake measures which may be unethical to reach those numbers. Sales Ethics provide aid in helping to shape a beneficial outcome for the concerning parties and stakeholders. Are salespeople more unethical than anyone else? It is proven that Sales managers and salespeople are not more likely to engage in unethical practices than are people with other marketing and management jobs. In reference to (Gene R. Laczniak and Patrick E. Murphy) significant questions are needed to be answered before taking action: is it legal? Will it infringe any regulations or laws enforced by the organisation? Does it contradict moral obligations that are specific to a certain organisation body? It is not always simple to act ethical and to oblige with the regulations denoted by the organisation. ‘It is possible to teach ethics and ethical behaviour; however can these be learnt and be easily enforced within an organisation? ’ You either are or are not (Isnt Business Ethics an Oxymoron? 2008) Hence, some agree that sales ethics is an oxymoron. Acting ethical can be extremely expensive; one of an organisation’s main goals is to maximise profits; if they do not meet breakeven equilibrium point whereby profits equal to costs of production; a loss is incurred dispelling them to be unfit to compete in the market. The organisation making a loss would go bankrupt and would have insufficient capital to fund any operational circumstance unless they borrow the capital from banks which can be very risky depending on the organisation’s liquidity. Striving for a 100% in ethical commitment and regulations in order to be valid is impossible to achieve. Another aim of an organisation is to minimise costs as much as possible, acting ethical may increase costs of production creating a challenge for the company as a whole. When Salespeople are poised with the challenges that may seem impossible to achieve, giving up is the first response. On the other hand, it is not negative to strive for perfection in ethical standards; however to demand a 100% can sometimes bring about an opposite; an uncharted cause of actions that may apply pressure on the employees and stakeholders which may result in a destructive consequence. Additionally; research conveyed that age is positively related to ethical behaviour among sales managers; older sales managers tend to make more ethical decisions and relatively high levels of relativism are associated with less ethical decision making among sales managers. Relativism demonstrates the process whereby an individual reaches moral decisions based on their actions they view to be acceptable when they provided a particular scenario. On the other hand, relatively high levels of idealism are associated with a lower likelihood of hiring a controversial job candidate. Idealism conveys a set of principles where individuals determine morality; a set of standards expected to be abided by with no exceptions or excuses. This is an example of moral philosophy; which deals with systematic methods whereby individuals recognize and resolve decisions having moral content (Hair, J. F, Anderson, R. A, Mehta, R, and Babin, B. J. ) Businesses strive for perfection, an impossible standard which the organisation can only work towards but can never achieve; hence this is the perception viewers may argue upon business ethics being an oxymoron. Conversely; Sales ethics is not an oxymoron because perfection is the impossible to achieve; that doesn’t mean organisations should give up; instead they should strive for the best possible solutions to the obstacles encountered. ‘These solutions aren’t always perfect, but they often represent the best we can achieve. ’ (Johannes, B. 2002) It can be difficult to apply business ethics but nobody and no organisation is perfect; striving to achieve a higher level is the best perception organisations can enact in order to reach several goals set by the organisation. One of the most important stakeholders of sales is the customers. ‘The first sale is always the hardest’ claims (Hair, J. F, Anderson, R. A, Mehta, R, and Babin, B. J. ) if sales people do not sell their product or good, they cannot earn the income to source the needs they require such as shelter, food and water. Therefore the relationship established between the customer and the sales person is vital to the organisation’s employee and employers as a whole. This is where a boundary spanner is introduced; someone to perform his or her job in the boundary between a company and a customer. The salespeople represent the company to the customer and the customer of the company. The sales managers have a unique role in maintain an ethical work and sales climate as it is their duty to make sure morally corrupt individuals are not employed by the firm to put a check on any system providing an incentive for immoral behaviour and are also responsible for the way the firm’s sales force treats its customers. And most importantly; to comply with the sales ethics and standards expected by the organisation. Therefore it is essential to classify the linkage between the customer and organisational company because when making a sale to the customer as they hold certain rights and when there has been a violation of these rights; customers are entitled to claim damages because ‘Customer is always right’ Firstly, customer Vulnerability denotes a fact when customers are at some sort of disadvantage to the company. These include: Ignorance (lack of some vital knowledge, product knowledge, needed to participate in a fair exchange) Naivete (lack of experience or the ability to conduct a transaction or negotiate terms of fair deal) Powerlessness (a lack of either competition within a marketplace or sufficient assets with which to be persuasive) (Hair, J. F, Anderson, R. A, Mehta, R, and Babin, B. J. ) Customers have the right to information and should not be provided with the disadvantages posed by the sales department because this is a breach of sales ethical standards. Consequently, standards conveyed by the company must be enforced and clear to all the stakeholders and the company itself. A code of ethics must be established and enforced within the company; Code of Ethics expresses the values of a firm by specifying in writing specific behaviours that are consistent or inconsistent with those values. These codes must not only be adopted, they must embody the values truly epitomized by the top management sector (Rastogi, Aseem). There are 4 basic types of code of ethics: Company code that defines the ethical boundaries for employees. Professional codes that define ethical boundaries for occupational groups such as advertisers, marketing researchers, sales representatives, doctors, lawyers, accountants. Business association codes that define ethical boundaries for people engage in the same line of business; examples include codes established by direct selling association of America and by the American Association of Advertising Agencies; advisory group codes implemented by the government agencies and other special interest groups for aid purposes. Codes often list employee behaviours that the firm does not condone or accept. Each industry is confronted with somewhat unique ethical situations. Therefore it is extremely important to create an Ethical Work Climate which demonstrates the way employees perceive the organisation culture along with the significant code of ethics. Culture also plays a major role whereby when culture is very strong, employees will tend to share the same perceptions, on the other hand, when a culture is not as strong or identifiable, perceptions may vary considerably from one employee to another. The organisational climate, specifically it’s the way employee’s view their work environment on moral dimensions is extremely significant in achieving the set of moral and sales ethical standards expected. Isnt Business Ethics An Oxymoron? Personally I disagree with the statement of sales ethics being an oxymoron because it is unrealistic to impose such an unrealistic standard on businesses or anything else we do. We should examine each and every ethical policy and question ourselves how do we improve from here? Is the current code of ethics adequate enough? How is the training regime like? Are the stakeholders being treated well enough? I do not believe that sales ethics is an oxymoron due to the fact that we are humans. We all make mistakes, everyone is not perfect; however if we strive for excellence; this is the best outcome we can possibly achieve with fantastic results. We need to extract sophisticated methods which may connect the values we seek to the business organisations; that way school of businesses and top companies are able to support the conceptual framework of continuous improvement in sales management; thus increasing effectiveness and efficiency to boost business ractices. Even if the possible seems impossible, giving up is never an option; there is no dishonour in being less than perfect, if everyone was perfect; this world would never have existed; there is always room for improvement and everyone should strive to get better. The answer is inevitably indeed we can always strive for excellence, sales ethics is not any oxymoron, and it’s an opportunity.

Gender Discrimination Of Black Women Sociology Essay

Gender Discrimination Of Black Women Sociology Essay It is illegal, selfish and unlawful to discriminate people because of their gender or race when it comes to the institution of employment. This includes; recruitments, transfers, trainings, layoffs, incentive packages, promotion, job classifications, salaries/remunerations, terms of work and retirement benefits. This is what the federal law says in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Hagen, 2011). It was passed in 1964 and has not changed yet. Meaning, it is still the indispensable law on discriminatory procedures. This law is binding to all employers (state, private, employment agencies, NGOs), regardless of their setups. Besides the federal law, the California State Law, FEHA, is quite clear and specific about gender discrimination at work (Fair Employment Practices Guidelines, 2005). Like the state of California, many other states and nations strongly forbid sex and race discriminations when it comes to the work-place. Well, according to the latest statistics, the gender and race discrimination is still as alive and active in the U.S as it was before the passing of the law in 1964. The country continues to reflect unreasonable and illicit discrimination of women in the work force. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (USBLS) reveals that women working within the same environment, and doing the same job as men, earn much less compared to their colleagues (Gregory, 2003). Further to this, according to the World Economic Forum on Gender Disparity (WEFGD), there is no nation in the world that has managed to eliminate gender or race discrimination in the workplace. The purpose of this paper, however, is to look at the gender discrimination of black women in the work force and how it differs from black men and white men and women in the workforce. In order to do this, this work begins by looking at the general discrimination of women, and how it becomes more specific when it comes to black women in the work force. It also looks at the gap between black women and black men in the work place. Thirdly, it looks at how the discrimination of black women differs from black men and white men and women in the work force. And lastly, the paper concludes with a summary of the contents discussed in the entire paper. General discrimination of women The gender gap between men and women is obviously huge, and deeply historical. The disparity is even scarier when one pictures the conception of boys and girls in the developing world. Boys are seen as insurance to the family, with much expectation that they will one day get a job and support their family. It is also seen as their birth-right to inherit their familys property. The situation is not the same with girls. Girls are seen as expenses to the family. In some environments women even moan when they discover that they have conceived a girl. The world is perceived to be for men, while women belong at home. Its no wonder in India when a baby-girl is born she is received as the servant of the household. Clearly, the discrimination of women in the society is a disturbing reality. With the perception of men as insurance and women as household servants, women cant stop themselves from feeling inferior. Everything shows they are. Their identity has been forged by the discriminatory structures of the society. One thing that the male dominated society is slow to learn is that women have a place in the social and economic development of the society. The devastating effects of women discrimination in one way or the other comes round to men (William, 2012). While most developed countries, like the U.S, cunningly try to play everything right, they cannot help conceal the fact that gender discrimination is real and kicking in the workplace. When it comes to promotion, job classification, sexual harassment, working terms etc, the United States is evidently on the spot (Gregory, 2003). According to the research by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), one in every five girls is uncomfortable with her gender. They feel girls are more restricted when it comes to freedom, education, employment opportunities, and security matters. They also believe that women are more likely to be harassed and victimized by their employers than are men. But despite all the international laws, including the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), prohibiting all forms of inequalities, gender discrimination remains a serious social setback (Blanchfield, 2010). Besides, it is a reality that most women continue working in employments stereotyped as female occupations. It is also a damn veracity that women in the same job categories as men earn much less than their male colleagues (Drydakis, 2012). Apparently, women earn 23 cents less for every dollar a man earns. Even when it comes to promotion, few women make it up the ladder. Then there is the issue of harassment. Women are constantly harassed and intimidated in their workplaces (Ferriss, 1971). Most employers do not take into consideration issues such as pregnancy and family responsibility (William, 2012). If they do, the pay reflects it all. Well, somebody might argue that women do not negotiate sound enough with their employers for better salary as men do. That might be true, but evidences from women who have tried negotiating for their pay are found to have met bitter reactions. It is even true that most women who negotiate for their salaries during interviews are more likely to be dro pped than men who employ the same tactics. And lastly, there is nothing more frustrating than to be discriminated first of all, because you are a woman, and secondly, because you are black (Feder Brougher, 2012). This is what black women go through. Discrimination of black women in the work force African American women have greatly progressed when it comes to education and taking up tasks that were once reserved for men and possible white American women. In fact, in the black American community today, women are more professional and educated than black men. However, these women still have it rough when it comes to securing places in the work force. For those who happen to find jobs, they are constantly faced with challenges of either gender or racial discrimination, or even both (Gregory, 2003). Black women blame their predicament on three reasons. One, they are discriminated because they are black. Two, they are discriminated because they are women. And three, they are discriminated on the grounds of the combination of the two (race and gender). In addition to the twin vulnerabilities, African American women live in neighborhoods that are miles away from the employment opportunities. They also earn much less compared to what the black men and white women and men earn (Perlman, 1994). There is also the existing negative stereotype of African American single mothers (Bobbitt-Zeher, 2011). Way before the federal law on gender discrimination was passed in 1964, single black mothers were totally under-respected and disregarded in the society. In actual fact, they earned less salary and received minimal benefits compared to what the white single mothers earned and received. Apart from the few changes that were brought about by the legislation of 1996, which prohibited discrimination against single mothers, this mentality literally lingered on to todays workplace. For instance, as of 2007, the poverty rate for African American children from single mother families was at 49.4 percent compared to 42 percent of white American children from single mother families. Nothing much has polarized the discrimination of black women in the last few years than the anti-poverty policy introduced by George W. Bush. This policy, also called the marriage initiative, assumed that single mothers were poor because they were not married. Well, this has worked well for white single mothers who moved into marriage with their husbands from wealthy backgrounds. But the same cannot apply to the black single mothers. They are not married primarily because of the poor economical prospects, and not vice versa. Getting married isnt the solution, but getting good jobs. Unfortunately, this is where the problem is. Worse still, white employers would rather employ black men than hire black women in their work force. It is much worse for black single mothers. A combination of race and gender discrimination of black women in the work force is perhaps the worst social inequality, especially if it is coming from the society that is supposed to champion equal human rights for all. Like the white women, the black women find themselves between very odd situations, especially if they have to make decisions based on the available options. Here is a professional woman with all the academic qualifications looking for one of the best jobs on the land, but the society says no, your place is the stereotype female jobs. In fact, with all the qualifications you wont earn as much as men do. Then there is the issue of harassment and unequal treatment at the workplace (Sanchez-Hucles, 1997). This is the situation most women find themselves in. Much to the wound, black women have also to bear the racial discrimination. Like black men, they face the negative stereotypes from the white race which limit their ability to be fairly employed in the work force. In many ways, they find themselves excluded from working in most of the enviable jobs and organizations. Besides, black women also have to deal with oppressive attitudes that deny them equal opportunities in the workplace. This double vulnerability (gender and race) is the reason behind the discrimination of black women in the work force (Ferriss, 1971). The Impact of black women discrimination The discrimination of black women in the work force is a significant social setback and its consequences directly impact on the society, especially on the black families. It is a reality that black families in the United States mainly generate their family income from their wages. Unlike the white American families, which largely generate their income from inherited and well established firms, the black community has to go and look for job opportunities to get their income. Little known is that black women are also the major income providers for their families. When there are limited economic prospects and labor market opportunities for black women in the work force, the entire black families suffer the consequences, so is the national economy (Roscigno, 2007). How black women differ from black men While both the African American women and men suffer from the racial discrimination, it is the women who are on the worst end, given the negative gender disparity in America and elsewhere in the world. Despite great progress that African American women have gained, especially in education and occupational status, they are still considered inferior to black men, and white men and women. Worse still, in the workplace, black women are paid much less than black men. A research conducted in 2005 showed that black women earned only eighty seven cents for a corresponding dollar earned by men. By 2006, over thirteen percent of African American women were poorer compared to only seven percent of black men (Alkadry Tower, 2011) There is also the aspect of job security. Most employers are so relaxed when it comes to employing black women. They would rather have the black men around than employee black women. There is no better way to explain this except on the line of gender discrimination and a little bit of racial prejudice. It is also astonishing to see black women, who are generally more educated and in high professional positions than black men, earn much less than they do (Sanchez-Hucles, 1997). Black women and white men and women in the work place Like with the research on black women compared to black men, statistics carried out in 2005 showed that white women earned 15 percent more than what black women earned for the same job. This was narrowed down to 85 cents for black women for every 1 dollar earned by white women. They also showed that black women earned 67 cents for a corresponding dollar earned by white men. When this data was reviewed in 2006, a high percentage of 13 of black women were found to be poor. Only 4 percent and 7 percent of white men and women respectively were found to be poor. This revealed the extent to which discrimination on black women had negatively impacted on their livelihood. It is also shocking true that for every black woman employed in the work force; two white women are equally hired. The other difference between black and white women is explicit when it comes to finding their first jobs. Observably, young African American women get their first jobs after a long struggle. It is not so with the white women; they get their first jobs within a shorter period (Perlman, 1994). Conclusion Despite all the developments, especially on laws prohibiting inequalities of any nature, gender and racial discrimination are still significant social realities. The United States, particularly, continues to reflect unreasonable and illicit discrimination of women in the work force. But it is not just women. Black women are the most affected with this negative stereotype in the workplace. In reality, African American women face up to the same issues as white women, and so are the African American men and white men. However, factors such as gender, race and social stereotypes have made it so difficult for black women to feel equal with the rest of the categories. In addition to carrying the burden of searching for a job and putting up with the discriminatory issues at the workplace, black women also have an extra baggage of dealing with the economic insecurities among African American men. While white women rely on their white men for economic support, black women face the realities o f dealing with their own economic situation. It is high time the states, and in deed the entire social setup, came up with policies that would help black women overcome the predicaments that have been unfairly and unlawfully imposed on them by the societal structures. The black women, just like the white women, black men and white men, have the right to freedom, equal job opportunities, education and security. They need to be respected and protected from harassment and victimization at the workplace.

History On Amazing Grace :: essays research papers

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound..." So begins one of the most beloved hymns of all times, a staple in the hymnals of many denominations. The author of the words was John Newton, the self-proclaimed wretch who once was lost but then was found, saved by amazing grace. Newton was born in London July 24, 1725, the son of a commander of a merchant ship which sailed the Mediterranean. In 1744 John was impressed into service on a man-of-war, the H. M. S. Harwich. Finding conditions on board intolerable, he deserted but was soon recaptured and publicly flogged and demoted from midshipman to common seaman. Finally at his own request he was exchanged into service on a slave ship, which took him to the coast of Sierra Leone. He then became the servant of a slave trader and was brutally abused. Early in 1748 he was rescued by a sea captain who had known John's father. John Newton ultimately became captain of his own ship, one which plied the slave trade. Although he had had some early religious instruction from his mother, who had died when he was a child, he had long since given up any religious convictions. However, on a homeward voyage, while he was attempting to steer the ship through a violent storm, he experienced what he was to refer to later as his "great deliverance." He recorded in his journal that when all seemed lost and the ship would surely sink, he exclaimed, "Lord, have mercy upon us." Later in his cabin he reflected on what he had said and began to believe that God had addressed him through the storm and that grace had begun to work for him. For the rest of his life he observed the anniversary of May 10, 1748 as the day of his conversion, a day of humiliation in which he subjected his will to a higher power. "Thro' many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'tis grace has bro't me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home." He continued in the slave trade for a time after his conversion; however, he saw to it that the slaves under his care were treated humanely. In 1750 he married Mary Catlett, with whom he had been in love for many years. By 1755, after a serious illness, he had given up seafaring forever. He decided to become a minister and applied to the Archbishop of York for ordination.

Black House Chapter Fifteen

15 BY EVENING, the temperature has dropped fifteen degrees as a minor cold front pushes through our little patch of the Coulee Country. There are no thunderstorms, but as the sky tinges toward violet, the fog arrives. It's born out of the river and rises up the inclined ramp of Chase Street, first obscuring the gutters, then the sidewalks, then blurring the buildings themselves. It cannot completely hide them, as the fogs of spring and winter sometimes do, but the blurring is somehow worse: it steals colors and softens shapes. The fog makes the ordinary look alien. And there's the smell, the ancient, seagully odor that works deep into your nose and awakens the back part of your brain, the part that is perfectly capable of believing in monsters when the sight lines shorten and the heart is uneasy. On Sumner Street, Debbi Anderson is still working dispatch. Arnold â€Å"the Mad Hungarian† Hrabowski has been sent home without his badge in fact, suspended and feels he must ask his wife a few pointed questions (his belief that he already knows the answers makes him even more heartsick). Debbi is now standing at the window, a cup of coffee in her hand and a puckery little frown on her face. â€Å"Don't like this,† she says to Bobby Dulac, who is glumly and silently writing reports. â€Å"It reminds me of the Hammer pictures I used to watch on TV back when I was in junior high.† â€Å"Hammer pictures?† Bobby asks, looking up. â€Å"Horror pictures,† she says, looking out into the deepening fog. â€Å"A lot of them were about Dracula. Also Jack the Ripper.† â€Å"I don't want to hear nothing about Jack the Ripper,† Bobby says. â€Å"You mind me, Debster.† And resumes writing. In the parking lot of the 7-Eleven, Mr. Rajan Patel stands beside his telephone (still crisscrossed by yellow police tape, and when it will be all right again for using, this Mr. Patel could not be telling us). He looks toward downtown, which now seems to rise from a vast bowl of cream. The buildings on Chase Street descend into this bowl. Those at Chase's lowest point are visible only from the second story up. â€Å"If he is down there,† Mr. Patel says softly, and to no one but himself, â€Å"tonight he will be doing whatever he wants.† He crosses his arms over his chest and shivers. Dale Gilbertson is at home, for a wonder. He plans to have a sit-down dinner with his wife and child even if the world ends because of it. He comes out of his den (where he has spent twenty minutes talking with WSP officer Jeff Black, a conversation in which he has had to exercise all his discipline to keep from shouting), and sees his wife standing at the window and looking out. Her posture is almost exactly the same as Debbi Anderson's, only she's got a glass of wine in her hand instead of a cup of coffee. The puckery little frown is identical. â€Å"River fog,† Sarah says dismally. â€Å"Isn't that ducky. If he's out there â€Å" Dale points at her. â€Å"Don't say it. Don't even think it.† But he knows that neither of them can help thinking about it. The streets of French Landing the foggy streets of French Landing will be deserted right now: no one shopping in the stores, no one idling along the sidewalks, no one in the parks. Especially no children. The parents will be keeping them in. Even on Nailhouse Row, where good parenting is the exception rather than the rule, the parents will be keeping their kids inside. â€Å"I won't say it,† she allows. â€Å"That much I can do.† â€Å"What's for dinner?† â€Å"How does chicken pot pie sound?† Ordinarily such a hot dish on a July evening would strike him as an awful choice, but tonight, with the fog coming in, it sounds like just the thing. He steps up behind her, gives her a brief squeeze, and says, â€Å"Great. And earlier would be better.† She turns, disappointed. â€Å"Going back in?† â€Å"I shouldn't have to, not with Brown and Black rolling the ball â€Å" â€Å"Those pricks,† she says. â€Å"I never liked them.† Dale smiles. He knows that the former Sarah Asbury has never cared much for the way he earns his living, and this makes her furious loyalty all the more touching. And tonight it feels vital, as well. It's been the most painful day of his career in law enforcement, ending with the suspension of Arnold Hrabowski. Arnie, Dale knows, believes he will be back on duty before long. And the shitty truth is that Arnie may be right. Based on the way things are going, Dale may need even such an exquisite example of ineptitude as the Mad Hungarian. â€Å"Anyway, I shouldn't have to go back in, but . . .† â€Å"You have a feeling.† â€Å"I do.† â€Å"Good or bad?† She has come to respect her husband's intuitions, not in the least because of Dale's intense desire to see Jack Sawyer settled close enough to reach with seven keystrokes instead of eleven. Tonight that looks to her like pardon the pun a pretty good call. â€Å"Both,† Dale says, and then, without explaining or giving Sarah a chance to question further: â€Å"Where's Dave?† â€Å"At the kitchen table with his crayons.† At six, young David Gilbertson is enjoying a violent love affair with Crayolas, has gone through two boxes since school let out. Dale and Sarah's strong hope, expressed even to each other only at night, lying side by side before sleep, is that they may be raising a real artist. The next Norman Rockwell, Sarah said once. Dale who helped Jack Sawyer hang his strange and wonderful pictures has higher hopes for the boy. Too high to express, really, even in the marriage bed after the lights are out. With his own glass of wine in hand, Dale ambles out to the kitchen. â€Å"What you drawing, Dave? What â€Å" He stops. The crayons have been abandoned. The picture a half-finished drawing of what might be either a flying saucer or perhaps just a round coffee table has also been abandoned. The back door is open. Looking out at the whiteness that hides David's swing and jungle gym, Dale feels a terrible fear leap up his throat, choking him. All at once he can smell Irma Freneau again, that terrible smell of raw spoiled meat. Any sense that his family lives in a protected, magic circle it may happen to others, but it can never, never happen to us is gone now. What has replaced it is stark certainty: David is gone. The Fisherman has enticed him out of the house and spirited him away into the fog. Dale can see the grin on the Fisherman's face. He can see the gloved hand it's yellow covering his son's mouth but not the bulging, terrified child's eyes. Into the fog and out of the known world. David. He moves forward across the kitchen on legs that feel boneless as well as nerveless. He puts his wineglass down on the table, the stem landing a-tilt on a crayon, not noticing when it spills and covers David's half-finished drawing with something that looks horribly like venous blood. He's out the door, and although he means to yell, his voice comes out in a weak and almost strengthless sigh: â€Å"David? . . . Dave?† For a moment that seems to last a thousand years, there is nothing. Then he hears the soft thud of running feet on damp grass. Blue jeans and a red-striped rugby shirt materialize out of the thickening soup. A moment later he sees his son's dear, grinning face and mop of yellow hair. â€Å"Dad! Daddy! I was swinging in the fog! It was like being in a cloud!† Dale snatches him up. There is a bad, blinding impulse to slap the kid across the face, to hurt him for scaring his father so. It passes as quickly as it came. He kisses David instead. â€Å"I know,† he says. â€Å"That must have been fun, but it's time to come in now.† â€Å"Why, Daddy?† â€Å"Because sometimes little boys get lost in the fog,† he says, looking out into the white yard. He can see the patio table, but it is only a ghost; he wouldn't know what he was looking at if he hadn't seen it a thousand times. He kisses his son again. â€Å"Sometimes little boys get lost,† he repeats. Oh, we could check in with any number of friends, both old and new. Jack and Fred Marshall have returned from Arden (neither suggested stopping at Gertie's Kitchen in Centralia when they passed it), and both are now in their otherwise deserted houses. For the balance of the ride back to French Landing, Fred never once let go of his son's baseball cap, and he has a hand on it even now, as he eats a microwaved TV dinner in his too empty living room and watches Action News Five. Tonight's news is mostly about Irma Freneau, of course. Fred picks up the remote when they switch from shaky-cam footage of Ed's Eats to a taped report from the Holiday Trailer Park. The cameraman has focused on one shabby trailer in particular. A few flowers, brave but doomed, straggle in the dust by the stoop, which consists of three boards laid across two cement blocks. â€Å"Here, on the outskirts of French Landing, Irma Freneau's grieving mother is in seclusion,† says the on-scene correspondent. â€Å"One can only imagine this single mother's feelings tonight.† The reporter is prettier than Wendell Green but exudes much the same aura of glittering, unhealthy excitement. Fred hits the OFF button on the remote and growls, â€Å"Why can't you leave the poor woman alone?† He looks down at his chipped beef on toast, but he has lost his appetite. Slowly, he raises Tyler's hat and puts it on his own head. It doesn't fit, and Fred for a moment thinks of letting out the plastic band at the back. The idea shocks him. Suppose that was all it took to kill his son? That one simple, deadly modification? The idea strikes him as both ridiculous and utterly inarguable. He supposes that if this keeps up, he'll soon be as mad as his wife . . . or Sawyer. Trusting Sawyer is as crazy as thinking he might kill his son by changing the size of the boy's hat . . . and yet he believes in both things. He picks up his fork and begins to eat again, Ty's Brewers cap sitting on his head like Spanky's beanie in an old Our Gang one-reeler. Beezer St. Pierre is sitting on his sofa in his underwear, a book open on his lap (it is, in fact, a book of William Blake's poems) but unread. Bear Girl's asleep in the other room, and he's fighting the urge to bop on down to the Sand Bar and score some crank, his old vice, untouched for going on five years now. Since Amy died, he fights this urge every single day, and lately he wins only by reminding himself that he won't be able to find the Fisherman and punish him as he deserves to be punished if he's fucked up on devil dust. Henry Leyden is in his studio with a huge pair of Akai headphones on his head, listening to Warren Vach? ¦, John Bunch, and Phil Flanigan dreamboat their way through â€Å"I Remember April.† He can smell the fog even through the walls, and to him it smells like the air at Ed's Eats. Like bad death, in other words. He's wondering how Jack made out in good old Ward D at French County Lutheran. And he's thinking about his wife, who lately (especially since the record hop at Maxton's, although he doesn't consciously realize this) seems closer than ever. And unquiet. Yes indeed, all sorts of friends are available for our inspection, but at least one seems to have dropped out of sight. Charles Burnside isn't in the common room at Maxton's (where an old episode of Family Ties is currently running on the ancient color TV bolted to the wall), nor in the dining hall, where snacks are available in the early evening, nor in his own room, where the sheets are currently clean (but where the air still smells vaguely of old shit). What about the bathroom? Nope. Thorvald Thorvaldson has stopped in to have a pee and a handwash, but otherwise the place is empty. One oddity: there's a fuzzy slipper lying on its side in one of the stalls. With its bright black and yellow stripes, it looks like the corpse of a huge dead bumblebee. And yes, it's the stall second from the left. Burny's favorite. Should we look for him? Maybe we should. Maybe not knowing exactly where that rascal is makes us uneasy. Let us slip through the fog, then, silent as a dream, down to lower Chase Street. Here is the Nelson Hotel, its ground floor now submerged in river fog, the ocher stripe marking high water of that ancient flood no more than a whisper of color in the fading light. On one side of it is Wisconsin Shoe, now closed for the day. On the other is Lucky's Tavern, where an old woman with bowlegs (her name is Bertha Van Dusen, if you care) is currently bent over with her hands planted on her large knees, yarking a bellyful of Kingsland Old-Time Lager into the gutter. She makes sounds like a bad driver grinding a manual transmission. In the doorway of the Nelson Hotel itself sits a patient old mongrel, who will wait until Bertha has gone back into the tavern, then slink over to eat the half-digested cocktail franks floating in the beer. From Lucky's comes the tired, twanging voice of the late Dick Curless, Ole Country One-Eye, singing about those Hainesville Woods, where there's a tombstone every mile. The dog gives a single disinterested growl as we pass him and slip into the Nelson's lobby, where moth-eaten heads a wolf, a bear, an elk, and an ancient half-bald bison with a single glass eye look at empty sofas, empty chairs, the elevator that hasn't worked since 1994 or so, and the empty registration desk. (Morty Fine, the clerk, is in the office with his feet propped up on an empty file-cabinet drawer, reading People and picking his nose.) The lobby of the Nelson Hotel always smells of the river it's in the pores of the place but this evening the smell is heavier than usual. It's a smell that makes us think of bad ideas, blown investments, forged checks, deteriorating health, stolen office supplies, unpaid alimony, empty promises, skin tumors, lost ambition, abandoned sample cases filled with cheap novelties, dead hope, dead skin, and fallen arches. This is the kind of place you don't come to unless you've been here before and all your other options are pretty much foreclose d. It's a place where men who left their families two decades before now lie on narrow beds with pee-stained mattresses, coughing and smoking cigarettes. The scuzzy old lounge (where scuzzy old Hoover Dalrymple once held court and knocked heads most every Friday and Saturday night) has been closed by unanimous vote of the town council since early June, when Dale Gilbertson scandalized the local political elite by showing them a video of three traveling strippers who billed themselves as the Anal University Trio, performing a synchronized cucumber routine on the tiny stage (FLPD cameraman: Officer Tom Lund, let's give him a hand), but the Nelson's residents still have only to go next door to get a beer; it's convenient. You pay by the week at the Nelson. You can keep a hot plate in your room, but only by permission and after the cord has been inspected. You can die on a fixed income at the Nelson, and the last sound you hear could well be the creaking of bedsprings over your head as some other helpless old loser jacks off. Let us rise up the first flight, past the old canvas firehose in its glass box. Turn right at the second-floor landing (past the pay phone with its yellowing OUT OF ORDER sign) and continue to rise. When we reach the third floor, the smell of river fog is joined by the smell of chicken soup warming on someone's hot plate (the cord duly approved either by Morty Fine or George Smith, the day manager). The smell is coming from 307. If we slip through the keyhole (there have never been keycards at the Nelson and never will be), we'll be in the presence of Andrew Railsback, seventy, balding, scrawny, good-humored. He once sold vacuum cleaners for Electrolux and appliances for Sylvania, but those days are behind him now. These are his golden years. A candidate for Maxton's, we might think, but Andy Railsback knows that place, and places like it. Not for him, thanks. He's sociable enough, but he doesn't want people telling him when to go to bed, when to get up, and when he can have a little nip of Early Times. He has friends in Maxton's, visits them often, and has from time to time met the sparkling, shallow, predatory eye of our pal Chipper. He has thought on more than one such occasion that Mr. Maxton looks like the sort of fellow who would happily turn the corpses of his graduates into soap if he thought he could turn a buck on it. No, for Andy Railsback, the third floor of the Nelson Hotel is good enough. He has his hot plate; he has his bottle of hooch; he's got four packs of Bicycles and plays big-picture solitaire on nights when the sandman loses his way. This evening he has made three Lipton Cup-A-Soups, thinking he'll invite Irving Throneberry in for a bowl and a chat. Maybe afterward they'll go next door to Lucky's and grab a beer. He checks the soup, sees it has attained a nice simmer, sniffs the fragrant steam, and nods. He also has saltines, which go well with soup. He leaves the room to make his way upstairs and knock on Irv's door, but what he sees in the hallway stops him cold. It's an old man in a shapeless blue robe, walking away from him with suspicious quickness. Beneath the hem of the robe, the stranger's legs are as white as a carp's belly and marked with blue snarls of varicose veins. On his left foot is a fuzzy black-and-yellow slipper. His right foot is bare. Although our new friend can't tell for sure not with the guy's back to him he doesn't look like anyone Andy knows. Also, he's trying doorknobs as he wends his way along the main third-floor hall. He gives each one a single hard, quick shake. Like a turnkey. Or a thief. A fucking thief. Yeah. Although the man is obviously old older than Andy, it looks like and dressed as if for bed, the idea of thievery resonates in Andy's mind with queer certainty. Even the one bare foot, arguing that the fellow probably didn't come in off the street, has no power over this strong intuition. Andy opens his mouth to call out something like Can I help you? or Looking for someone? and then changes his mind. He just has this feeling about the guy. It has to do with the fleet way the stranger scurries along as he tries the knobs, but that's not all of it. Not all of it by any means. It's a feeling of darkness and danger. There are pockets in the geezer's robe, Andy can see them, and there might be a weapon in one of them. Thieves don't always have weapons, but . . . The old guy turns the corner and is gone. Andy stands where he is, considering. If he had a phone in his room, he might call downstairs and alert Morty Fine, but he doesn't. So, what to do? After a brief interior debate, he tiptoes down the hall to the corner and peeps around. Here is a cul-de-sac with three doors: 312, 313, and, at the very end, 314, the only room in that little appendix which is currently occupied. The man in 314 has been there since the spring, but almost all Andy knows about him is his name: George Potter. Andy has asked both Irv and Hoover Dalrymple about Potter, but Hoover doesn't know jack-shit and Irv has learned only a little more. â€Å"You must,† Andy objected this conversation took place in late May or early June, around the time the Buckhead Lounge downstairs went dark. â€Å"I seen you in Lucky's with him, havin' a beer.† Irv had lifted one bushy eyebrow in that cynical way of his. â€Å"Seen me havin' a beer with him. What are you?† he'd rasped. â€Å"My fuckin' wife?† â€Å"I'm just saying. You drink a beer with a man, you have a little conversation â€Å" â€Å"Usually, maybe. Not with him. I sat down, bought a pitcher, and mostly got the dubious pleasure of listenin' to myself think. I say, ‘What do you think about the Brewers this year?' and he says, ‘They'll suck, same as last year. I can get the Cubs at night on my rah-dio ‘ â€Å" â€Å"That the way he said it? Rah-dio?† â€Å"Well, it ain't the way I say it, is it? You ever heard me say rah-dio? I say radio, same as any normal person. You want to hear this or not?† â€Å"Don't sound like there's much to hear.† â€Å"You got that right, buddy. He says, ‘I can get the Cubs at night on my rah-dio, and that's enough for me. I always went to Wrigley with my dad when I was a kid.' So I found out he was from Chi, but otherwise, bupkes.† The first thought to pop into Andy's mind upon glimpsing the fucking thief in the third-floor corridor had been Potter, but Mr. George I-Keep-to-Myself Potter is a tall drink of water, maybe six-four, still with a pretty good head of salt-and-pepper hair. Mr. One-Slipper was shorter than that, hunched over like a toad. (A poison toad, at that is the thought that immediately rises in Andy's mind.) He's in there, Andy thinks. Fucking thief's in Potter's room, maybe going through Potter's drawers, looking for a little stash. Fifty or sixty rolled up in the toe of a sock, like I used to do. Or stealing Potter's radio. His fucking rah-dio. Well, and what was that to him? You passed Potter in the hallway, gave him a civil good morning or good afternoon, and what you got back was an uncivil grunt. Bupkes, in other words. You saw him in Lucky's, he was drinking alone, far side of the jukebox. Andy guessed you could sit down with him and he'd split a pitcher with you Irv's little tte-? ¤-tte with the man proved that much but what good was that without a little chin-jaw to go along with it? Why should he, Andrew Railsback, risk the wrath of some poison toad in a bathrobe for the sake of an old grump who wouldn't give you a yes, no, or maybe? Well . . . Because this is his home, cheesy as it might be, that's why. Because when you saw some crazy old one-slipper fuck in search of loose cash or the easily lifted rah-dio, you didn't just turn your back and shuffle away. Because the bad feeling he got from the scurrying old elf (the bad vibe, his grandchildren would have said) was probably nothing but a case of the chickenshits. Because Suddenly Andy Railsback has an intuition that, while not a direct hit, is at least adjacent to the truth. Suppose it is a guy from off the street? Suppose it's one of the old guys from Maxton Elder Care? It's not that far away, and he knows for a fact that from time to time an old feller (or old gal) will get mixed up in his (or her) head and wander off the reservation. Under ordinary circumstances that person would be spotted and hauled back long before getting this far downtown kind of hard to miss on the street in an institutional robe and single slipper but this evening the fog has come in and the streets are all but deserted. Look at you, Andy berates himself. Scared half to death of a feller that's probably got ten years on you and peanut butter for brains. Wandered in here past the empty desk not a chance in the goddamn world Fine's out front; he'll be in back reading a magazine or a stroke book and now he's looking for his room back at Maxton's, trying every knob on the goddamn corridor, no more idea of where he is than a squirrel on a freeway ramp. Potter's probably having a beer next door (this, at least, turns out to be true) and left his door unlocked (this, we may be assured, is not). And although he's still frightened, Andy comes all the way around the corner and walks slowly toward the open door. His heart is beating fast, because half his mind is still convinced the old man is maybe dangerous. There was, after all, that bad feeling he got just from looking at the stranger's back But he goes. God help him, he does. â€Å"Mister?† he calls when he reaches the open door. â€Å"Hey, mister, I think you got the wrong room. That's Mr. Potter's room. Don't you â€Å" He stops. No sense talking, because the room is empty. How is that possible? Andy steps back and tries the knobs of 312 and 313. Both locked up tight, as he knew they would be. With that ascertained, he steps into George Potter's room and has a good look around curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought him back. Potter's digs are a little larger than his, but otherwise not much different: it's a box with a high ceiling (they made places a man could stand up in back in the old days, you had to say that much for them). The single bed is sagging in the middle but neatly made. On the night table is a bottle of pills (these turn out to be an anti-depressant called Zoloft) and a single framed picture of a woman. Andy thinks she took a pretty good whopping with the ugly stick, but Potter must see her differently. He has, after all, put the picture in a place where it's the first thing he looks at in the morning and the last thing he sees at night. â€Å"Potter?† Andy asks. â€Å"Anyone? Hello?† He is suddenly overcome with a sense of someone standing behind him and whirls around, lips drawn back from his dentures in a grinning snarl that is half a cringe. One hand comes up to shield his face from the blow he is suddenly certain will fall . . . only there's no one there. Is he lurking behind the corner at the end of this short addendum to the main corridor? No. Andy saw the stranger go scurrying around that corner. No way he could have gotten behind him again . . . unless he crawled along the ceiling like some kind of fly . . . Andy looks up there, knowing he's being absurd, giving in to the whim-whams big time, but there's no one here to see him, so what the hey? And nothing for him to see overhead, either. Just an ordinary tin ceiling, now yellowed by age and decades of cigar and cigarette smoke. The radio oh, excuse me all to hell, rah-dio is sitting on the win-dowsill, unmolested. Damn fine one, too, a Bose, the kind Paul Harvey always talks about on his noon show. Beyond it, on the other side of the dirty glass, is the fire escape. Ah-hah! Andy thinks, and hurries across to the window. One look at the turned thumb lock and his triumphant expression fades. He peers out just the same, and sees a short stretch of wet black iron descending into the fog. No blue robe, no scaly bald pate. Of course not. The knob shaker didn't go out that way unless he had some magic trick to move the window's inside thumb lock back into place once he was on the fire escape landing. Andy turns, stands where he is a moment, thinking, then drops to his knees and looks under the bed. What he sees is an old tin ashtray with an unopened pack of Pall Malls and a Kingsland Old-Time Lager disposable lighter in it. Nothing else except dust kittens. He puts his hand on the coverlet preparatory to standing up, and his eyes fix on the closet door. It's standing ajar. â€Å"There,† Andy breathes, almost too low for his own ears to hear. He gets up and crosses to the closet door. The fog may or may not come in on little cat feet, as Carl Sandburg said, but that is certainly how Andy Railsback moves across George Potter's room. His heart is beating hard again, hard enough to start the prominent vein in the center of his forehead pulsing. The man he saw is in the closet. Logic demands it. Intuition screams it. And if the doorknob shaker's just a confused old soul who wandered into the Nelson Hotel out of the fog, why hasn't he spoken to Andy? Why has he concealed himself ? Because he may be old but he's not confused, that's why. No more confused than Andy is himself. The doorknob shaker's a fucking thief, and he's in the closet. He's maybe holding a knife that he has taken from the pocket of his tatty old robe. Maybe a coat hanger that he's unwound and turned into a weapon. Maybe he's just standing there in the dark, eyes wide, fingers hooked into claws. Andy no longer cares. You can scare him, you bet he's a retired salesman, not Superman but if you load enough tension on top of fright you turn it into anger, same as enough pressure turns coal into a diamond. And right now Andy is more pissed off than scared. He closes his fingers around the cool glass knob of the closet door. He squeezes down on it. He takes one breath . . . a second . . . steeling himself, getting ready . . . psyching himself up, the grandkids would say . . . one more breath, just for good luck, and . . . With a low, stressful sound half growl and half howl Andy yanks the closet door wide, setting off a chatter of hangers. He crouches, hands up in fists, looking like some ancient sparring partner from the Gym Time Forgot. â€Å"Come outta there, you fucking â€Å" No one there. Four shirts, one jacket, two ties, and three pairs of pants hanging like dead skin. A battered old suitcase that looks as if it has been kicked through every Greyhound Bus terminal in North America. Nothing else. Not a goddamn th But there is. There's something on the floor beneath the shirts. Several somethings. Almost half a dozen somethings. At first Andy Rails-back either doesn't understand what he's seeing or doesn't want to understand. Then it gets through to him, imprints itself on his mind and memory like a hoofprint, and he tries to scream. He can't. He tries again and nothing comes out but a rusty wheeze from lungs that feel no larger than old prune skins. He tries to turn around and can't do that, either. He is sure George Potter is coming, and if Potter finds him here, Andy's life will end. He has seen something George Potter can never allow him to talk about. But he can't turn. Can't scream. Can't take his eyes from the secret in George Potter's closet. Can't move. Because of the fog, nearly full dark has arrived in French Landing unnaturally early; it's barely six-thirty. The blurry yellow lights of Maxton Elder Care look like the lights of a cruise ship lying becalmed at sea. In Daisy wing, home of the wonderful Alice Weathers and the far less wonderful Charles Burnside, Pete Wexler and Butch Yerxa have both gone home for the day. A broad-shouldered, peroxide blonde named Vera Hutchinson is now on the desk. In front of her is a book entitled E-Z Minute Crosswords. She is currently puzzling over 6 Across: Garfield, for example. Six letters, first is F, third is L, sixth is E. She hates these tricky ones. There's the swoosh of a bathroom door opening. She looks up and sees Charles Burnside come shuffling out of the men's in his blue robe and a pair of yellow-and-black striped slippers that look like great fuzzy bumblebees. She recognizes them at once. â€Å"Charlie?† she asks, putting her pencil in her crossword book and closing it. Charlie just goes shuffling along, jaw hanging down, a long runner of drool also hanging down. But he has an unpleasant half grin on his face that Vera doesn't care for. This one may have lost most of his marbles, but the few left in his head are mean marbles. Sometimes she knows that Charlie Burnside genuinely doesn't hear her when she speaks (or doesn't understand her), but she's positive that sometimes he just pretends not to understand. She has an idea this is one of the latter times. â€Å"Charlie, what are you doing wearing Elmer's bee slippers? You know his great-granddaughter gave those to him.† The old man Burny to us, Charlie to Vera just goes shuffling along, in a direction that will eventually take him back to D18. Assuming he stays on course, that is. â€Å"Charlie, stop.† Charlie stops. He stands at the head of Daisy's corridor like a machine that has been turned off. His jaw hangs. The string of drool snaps, and all at once there's a little wet spot on the linoleum beside one of those absurd but amusing slippers. Vera gets up, goes to him, kneels down before him. If she knew what we know, she'd probably be a lot less willing to put her defenseless white neck within reach of those hanging hands, which are twisted by arthritis but still powerful. But of course she does not. She grasps the left bee slipper. â€Å"Lift,† she says. Charles Burnside lifts his right foot. â€Å"Oh, quit being such a turkey,† she says. â€Å"Other one.† Burny lifts his left foot a little, just enough for her to get the slipper off. â€Å"Now the right one.† Unseen by Vera, who is looking at his feet, Burny pulls his penis from the fly of his loose pajama pants and pretends to piss on Vera's bowed head. His grin widens. At the same time, he lifts his right foot and she removes the other slipper. When she looks back up, Burny's wrinkled old tool is back where it belongs. He considered baptizing her, he really did, but he has created almost enough mischief for one evening. One more little chore and he'll be off to the land of dreamy dreams. He's an old monster now. He needs his rest. â€Å"All right,† Vera says. â€Å"Want to tell me why one of these is dirtier than the other?† No answer. She hasn't really expected one. â€Å"Okay, beautiful. Back to your room or down to the common room, if you want. There's microwave popcorn and Jell-O pops tonight, I think. They're showing The Sound of Music. I'll see that these slippers get back to where they belong, and you taking them will be our little secret. Take them again and I'll have to report you, though. Capisce?† Burny just stands there, vacant . . . but with that nasty little grin lifting his wrinkled old chops. And that light in his eyes. He capisces, all right. â€Å"Go on,† Vera says. â€Å"And you better not have dropped a load on the floor in there, you old buzzard.† Again she expects no reply, but this time she gets one. Burny's voice is low but perfectly clear. â€Å"Keep a civil tongue, you fat bitch, or I'll eat it right out of your head.† She recoils as if slapped. Burny stands there with his hands dangling and that little grin on his face. â€Å"Get out of here,† she says. â€Å"Or I really will report you.† And a great lot of good that would do. Charlie is one of Maxton's cash cows, and Vera knows it. Charlie recommences his slow walk (Pete Wexler has dubbed this particular gait the Old Fucks' Shuffle), now in his bare feet. Then he turns back. The bleary lamps of his eyes regard her. â€Å"The word you're looking for is feline. Garfield's a feline. Got it? Stupid cow.† With that he continues his trip down the corridor. Vera stands where she is, looking at him with her own jaw hanging. She has forgotten all about her crossword puzzle. In his room, Burny lies down on his bed and slips his hands into the small of his back. From there down he aches like a bugger. Later he will buzz for the fat old bitch, get her to bring him an ibuprofen. For now, though, he has to stay sharp. One more little trick still to do. â€Å"Found you, Potter,† he murmurs. â€Å"Good . . . old . . . Potsie.† Burny hadn't been shaking doorknobs at all (not that Andy Railsback will ever know this). He had been feeling for the fellow who diddled him out of a sweet little Chicago housing deal back in the late seventies. South Side, home of the White Sox. Blacktown, in other words. Lots of federal money in that one, and several bushels of Illinois dough as well. Enough skim available to last for years, more angles than on a baseball field, but George â€Å"Go Fuck Your Mother† Potter had gotten there first, cash had changed hands beneath the proverbial table, and Charles Burn-side (or perhaps then he'd still been Carl Bierstone; it's hard to remember) had been out in the cold. But Burny has kept track of the thief for lo these many years. (Well, not Burny himself, actually, but as we must by now have realized, this is a man with powerful friends.) Old Potsie what his friends called him in the days when he still had a few declared bankruptcy in La Riviere back in the nineties, and lost most of what he still had hidden away during the Great Dot-Com Wreck of Double Aught. But that's not good enough for Burny. Potsie requires further punishment, and the coincidence of that particular fuckhead washing up in this particular fuckhole of a town is just too good to pass up. Burny's principal motive a brainless desire to keep stirring the pot, to make sure bad goes to worse hasn't changed, but this will serve that purpose, too. So he traveled to the Nelson, doing so in a way Jack understands and Judy Marshall has intuited, homing in on Potsie's room like some ancient bat. And when he sensed Andy Railsback behind him, he was of course delighted. Railsback will save him having to make another anonymous call, and Burny is, in truth, getting tired of doing all their work for them. Now, back in his room, all comfy-cozy (except for the arthritis, that is), he turns his mind away from George Potter, and begins to Summon. Looking up into the dark, Charles Burnside's eyes begin to glow in a distinctly unsettling way. â€Å"Gorg,† he says. â€Å"Gorg t'eelee. Dinnit a abbalah. Samman Tansy. Samman a montah a Irma. Dinnit a abbalah, Gorg. Dinnit a Ram Abbalah.† Gorg. Gorg, come. Serve the abbalah. Find Tansy. Find the mother of Irma. Serve the abbalah, Gorg. Serve the Crimson King. Burny's eyes slip closed. He goes to sleep with a smile on his face. And beneath their wrinkled lids, his eyes continue to glow like hooded lamps. Morty Fine, the night manager of the Nelson Hotel, is half-asleep over his magazine when Andy Railsback comes bursting in, startling him so badly that Morty almost tumbles out of his chair. His magazine falls to the floor with a flat slap. â€Å"Jesus Christ, Andy, you almost gave me a heart attack!† Morty cries. â€Å"You ever hear of knocking, or at least clearing your goddam throat?† Andy takes no notice, and Morty realizes the old fella is as white as a sheet. Maybe he's the one having the heart attack. It wouldn't be the first time one occurred in the Nelson. â€Å"You gotta call the police,† Andy says. â€Å"They're horrible. Dear Jesus, Morty, they're the most horrible pictures I ever saw . . . Polaroids . . . and oh man, I thought he was going to come back in . . . come back in any second . . . but at first I was just froze, and I . . . I . . .† â€Å"Slow down,† Morty says, concerned. â€Å"What are you talking about?† Andy takes a deep breath and makes a visible effort to get himself under control. â€Å"Have you seen Potter?† he asks. â€Å"The guy in 314?† â€Å"Nope,† Morty says, â€Å"but most nights he's in Lucky's around this time, having a few beers and maybe a hamburger. Although why anybody would eat anything in that place, I don't know.† Then, perhaps associating one ptomaine palace with another: â€Å"Hey, have you heard what the cops found out at Ed's Eats? Trevor Gordon was by and he said â€Å" â€Å"Never mind.† Andy sits in the chair on the other side of the desk and stares at Morty with wet, terrified eyes. â€Å"Call the police. Do it right now. Tell them that the Fisherman is a man named George Potter, and he lives on the third floor of the Nelson Hotel.† Andy's face tightens in a hard grimace, then relaxes again. â€Å"Right down the hall from yours truly.† â€Å"Potter? You're dreaming, Andy. That guy's nothing but a retired builder. Wouldn't hurt a fly.† â€Å"I don't know about flies, but he hurt the hell out of some little kids. I seen the Polaroids he took of them. They're in his closet. They're the worst things you ever saw.† Then Andy does something that amazes Morty and convinces him that this isn't a joke, and probably not just a mistake, either: Andy Railsback begins to cry. Tansy Freneau, a.k.a. Irma Freneau's grieving mother, is not actually grieving yet. She knows she should be, but grief has been deferred. Right now she feels as if she is floating in a cloud of warm bright wool. The doctor (Pat Skarda's associate, Norma Whitestone) gave her five milligrams of lorazepam four or five hours ago, but that's only the start. The Holiday Trailer Park, where Tansy and Irma have lived since Cubby Freneau took off for Green Bay in ninety-eight, is handy to the Sand Bar, and she has a part-time â€Å"thing† going with Lester Moon, one of the bartenders. The Thunder Five has dubbed Lester Moon â€Å"Stinky Cheese† for some reason, but Tansy unfailingly calls him Lester, which he appreciates almost as much as the occasional boozy grapple in Tansy's bedroom or out back of the Bar, where there's a mattress (and a black light) in the storeroom. Around five this evening, Lester ran over with a quart of coffee brandy and four hundred milligrams of OxyCon tin, all considerately crushed and ready for snorting. Tansy has done half a dozen lines already, and she is cruising. Looking over old pictures of Irma and just . . . you know . . . cruising. What a pretty baby she was, Tansy thinks, unaware that not far away, a horrified hotel clerk is looking at a very different picture of her pretty baby, a nightmare Polaroid he will never be able to forget. It is a picture Tansy herself will never have to look at, suggesting that perhaps there is a God in heaven. She turns a page (GOLDEN MEMORIES has been stamped on the front of her scrapbook), and here are Tansy and Irma at the Mississippi Electrix company picnic, back when Irma was four and Mississippi Electrix was still a year away from bankruptcy and everything was more or less all right. In the photo, Irma is wading with a bunch of other tykes, her laughing face smeared with chocolate ice cream. Looking fixedly at this snapshot, Tansy reaches for her glass of coffee brandy and takes a small sip. And suddenly, from nowhere (or the place from which all our more ominous and unconnected thoughts float out into the light of our regard), she finds herself remembering that stupid Edgar Allan Poe poem they had to memorize in the ninth grade. She hasn't thought of it in years and has no reason to now, but the words of the opening stanza rise effortlessly and perfectly in her mind. Looking at Irma, she recites them aloud in a toneless, pauseless voice that no doubt would have caused Mrs. Normandie to clutch her stringy white hair and groan. Tansy's recitation doesn't affect us that way; instead it gives us a deep and abiding chill. It is like listening to a poetry reading given by a corpse. â€Å"Once upon a mih'nigh' dreary while I ponnered weak ‘n' weary over many a quaint ‘n' curris volume of forgotten lore while I nodded nearly nappin' sun'ly there came a tappin' as of someone gen'ly rappin' rappin' at my chamber door â€Å" At this precise moment there comes a soft rapping at the cheap fiber-board door of Tansy Freneau's Airstream. She looks up, eyes floating, lips pursed and glossed with coffee brandy. â€Å"Les'ser? Is that you?† It might be, she supposes. Not the TV people, at least she hopes not. She wouldn't talk to the TV people, sent them packing. She knows, in some deep and sadly cunning part of her mind, that they would lull her and comfort her only to make her look stupid in the glare of their lights, the way that the people on the Jerry Springer Show always end up looking stupid. No answer . . . and then it comes again. Tap. Tap-tap. â€Å"‘Tis some visitor,† she says, getting up. It's like getting up in a dream. â€Å"‘Tis some visitor, I murmured, tappin' at my chamber door, only this ‘n' nothin' more.† Tap. Tap-tap. Not like curled knuckles. It's a thinner sound than that. A sound like a single fingernail. Or a beak. She crosses the room in her haze of drugs and brandy, bare feet whispering on carpet that was once nubbly and is now balding: the ex-mother. She opens the door onto this foggy summer evening and sees nothing, because she's looking too high. Then something on the welcome mat rustles. Something, some black thing, is looking up at her with bright, inquiring eyes. It's a raven, omigod it's Poe's raven, come to pay her a visit. â€Å"Jesus, I'm trippin',† Tansy says, and runs her hands through her thin hair. â€Å"Jesus!† repeats the crow on the welcome mat. And then, chipper as a chickadee: â€Å"Gorg!† If asked, Tansy would have said she was too stoned to be frightened, but this is apparently not so, because she gives out a disconcerted little cry and takes a step backward. The crow hops briskly across the doorsill and strides onto the faded purple carpet, still looking up at her with its bright eyes. Its feathers glisten with condensed drops of mist. It bops on past her, then pauses to preen and fluff. It looks around as if to ask, How'm I doin', sweetheart? â€Å"Go away,† Tansy says. â€Å"I don't know what the fuck you are, or if you're here at all, but â€Å" â€Å"Gorg!† the crow insists, then spreads its wings and fleets across the trailer's living room, a charred fleck burnt off the back of the night. Tansy screams and cringes, instinctively shielding her face, but Gorg doesn't come near her. It alights on the table beside her bottle, there not being any bust of Pallas handy. Tansy thinks: It got disoriented in the fog, that's all. It could even be rabid, or have that Key Lime disease, whatever you call it. I ought to go in the kitchen and get the broom. Shoo it out before it shits around . . . But the kitchen is too far. In her current state, the kitchen seems hundreds of miles away, somewhere in the vicinity of Colorado Springs. And there's probably no crow here at all. Thinking of that goddamn poem has caused her to hallucinate, that's all . . . that, and losing her daughter. For the first time the pain gets through the haze, and Tansy winces from its cruel and wiry heat. She remembers the little hands that sometimes pressed so tidily against the sides of her neck. The cries in the night, summoning her from sleep. The smell of her, fresh from the bath. â€Å"Her name was Irma!† she suddenly shouts at the figment standing so boldly beside the brandy bottle. â€Å"Irma, not fucking Lenore, what kind of stupid name is Lenore? Let's hear you say Irma!† â€Å"Irma!† the visitor croaks obediently, stunning her to silence. And its eyes. Ah! Its glittering eyes draw her, like the eyes of the Ancient Mariner in that other poem she was supposed to learn but never did. â€Å"Irma-Irma-Irma-Irma â€Å" â€Å"Stop it!† She doesn't want to hear it after all. She was wrong. Her daughter's name out of that alien throat is foul, insupportable. She wants to put her hands over her ears and can't. They're too heavy. Her hands have joined the stove and the refrigerator (miserable half-busted thing) in Colorado Springs. All she can do is look into those glittering black eyes. It preens for her, ruffling its ebony sateen feathers. They make a loathsome little scuttering noise all up and down its back and she thinks, â€Å"Prophet!† said I, â€Å"thing of evil! prophet still, if bird or devil!† Certainty fills her heart like cold water. â€Å"What do you know?† she asks. â€Å"Why did you come?† â€Å"Know!† croaks the Crow Gorg, nodding its beak briskly up and down. â€Å"Come!† And does it wink? Good God, does it wink at her? â€Å"Who killed her?† Tansy Freneau whispers. â€Å"Who killed my pretty baby?† The crow's eyes fix her, turn her into a bug on a pin. Slowly, feeling more in a dream than ever (but this is happening, on some level she understands that perfectly), she crosses to the table. Still the crow watches her, still the crow draws her on. Night's Plutonian shore, she thinks. Night's Plutonian fuckin' shore. â€Å"Who? Tell me what you know!† The crow looks up at her with its bright black eyes. Its beak opens and closes, revealing a wet red interior in tiny peeks. â€Å"Tansy!† it croaks. â€Å"Come!† The strength runs out of her legs, and she drops to her knees, biting her tongue and making it bleed. Crimson drops splatter her U of W sweatshirt. Now her face is on a level with the bird's face. She can see one of its wings brushing up and down, sensuously, on the glass side of the coffee-brandy bottle. The smell of Gorg is dust and heaped dead flies and ancient urns of buried spice. Its eyes are shining black portholes looking into some other world. Hell, perhaps. Or Sheol. â€Å"Who?† she whispers. Gorg stretches its black and rustling neck until its black beak is actually in the cup of her ear. It begins to whisper, and eventually Tansy Freneau begins to nod. The light of sanity has left her eyes. And when will it return? Oh, I think we all know the answer to that one. Can you say â€Å"Nevermore†?

Dulce Et Decorum Est Essay

World War One was a time of divisions, not only between countries but between the different people within one country. In many western countries the propaganda convinced young men to enlist to portraying war as a great adventure and the German’s as an imminent enemy – The Huns. But as news came back from the Western Front and Gallipoli, there was a sense that the war was not glorious, the dirtiness, the sheer loss of life was beginning to be revealed through poems such as Dulce et Decorum Est. However, with enlistment numbers dropping, the image of a noble, adventurous war needed to be reaffirmed and this can be found in Who’s for the Game, by Jessie Pope. In this poem, Pope, affirms messages of jingoism as righteous and justified. She describes England as â€Å"up to her neck in a fight† and that the right course of action is to â€Å"grip and tackle the job unafraid† using sporting allusions to make the war seem like a game. For example, this â€Å"game† is â€Å"played†, the enemy is â€Å"tackled† as a rugby player would attack an opponent, and the entire war is just a â€Å"show†. One could take a â€Å"seat in the stand† and â€Å"be out of the fun† or â€Å"toe the line†. This sporting imagery, suddenly removes the idea of war as a bloody, dirty, nightmarish suffering and transforms it into an exciting prospect. It attacks the reader’s sense of manliness, affirming Edwardian notions that men prove themselves under fire in war and also the chivalric notion of helping your country, personified as a woman stuck in a fight and also the idea of leaving fellow soldiers behind by not joining in the fun. On the other hand, Dulce et Decorum Est, uses realism and hellish imagery to portray the war the way it is. The first line immediately strips the soldiers of all dignity, likening them to â€Å"old beggars† who had â€Å"turned†¦backs† to the enemy trenches. They were â€Å"bent double† and â€Å"cursing through sludge† and â€Å"drunk with fatigue†. The image of defeat, is portrayed through the soldiers being â€Å"deaf even to the hoots of gas shells dropping softly behind. † These men no longer see any true value in living, their hellish nightmare of â€Å"haunting flares†, â€Å"thick green light† and the mention of â€Å"the devil’s sick of sin†. Shows war to be an atrocity not fit for humanity. There is no sense of a â€Å"red crashing game† or any sense of â€Å"fun†. Suddenly, the reader wishes they did have a â€Å"seat in the stand†. Apart from the depiction of warfare, the idea of a noble death or death in war is conflicting in these two poems. Whereas, Jessie Pope omits any mention of death or suffering, Owen goes into immensely graphic, borderline gratuitous detail of the gassing of a man. He describes the man â€Å"flound’ring like a man in fire or lime† who was â€Å"drowning† in a â€Å"green sea†. The unceremonious word â€Å"flung† describes the way a corpse is disposed. The individual human has been reduced to an object, a corpse that has no real value, and is a burden. Pope, creates an image of injury in war as honourable and respectable. The idea of returning â€Å"back with a crutch† as a heroic sentiment. Of the man who took a bullet and survived. She makes it seem as though there is no real risk of going to war, there is no graphic imagery and any mention of the bad aspects of war is referred to in opposites. It won’t be a picnic† but from this the reader cannot conjure the image of war as a nightmare, as a hell the way that Owen does with his description of the â€Å"hanging face† engaging the visual senses of the reader, the sound of â€Å"blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs’ the smell â€Å"obscene as cancer† and one can almost taste the â€Å"vile incurable sores†, â€Å"bitter as cud† on their own â€Å"innocent tongues†. This activation of four major sense immerses the reader in the almost unbelievable scene of war. Even the soldiers in there half trance sate, march â€Å"asleep†, unable to comprehend their situation. Thus, the audience of Jessie Pope’s poem is most likely the â€Å"children ardent for some desperate glory† described in Dulce et Decorum est. Desperately glorious. Perhaps that is the best way to describe how Pope conceives war. Furthermore, the poems contrast with this idea of patriotism. The quote found on war memorials and that ends Dulce et Decorum est, is attacked in Owen’s poem whereas it is affirmed in Jessie Pope’s inspirational call to action and invocation. Wilfred Owen describes the idea of â€Å"pro patria mori† as an old lie. As untenable to anyone who has had any experience of real war. We must consider that Jessie Pope probably never visited the front line and never experience a man dying on her â€Å"guttering, choking, drowning† on his own fluids. The title of Owen’s poem is ironic, as the entirety of the poem seeks to disprove this notion. If we examine what Jessie Pope uses to make her poem such an effective example of propaganda, of making the idea of â€Å"pro patrai mori† noble, we see the anaphoric repetition of the who question. Of engaging the reader directly, of making the reader feel ashamed for not helping their â€Å"mother country†. She uses ctive verbs such as â€Å"tackle† and â€Å"grip† to add to this idea of excitement which is absent in the soldier’s poem. Which is absent in truth. In conclusion, we see the whereas Jessie Pope attempts to obscure the truth about the futility and atrocities of war, Owen, a soldier gives us a confrongtingly realistic portrayal of the death of just one man in a retreat on the western front. Whereas Jessie Pope affirms ideas of jingoism, Owen shows how the soldiers on the front line couldn’t care less. Whereas Jessie Pope inherently affirms the idea of dying in war as manly and noble, Owen shows us how unceremoniously and graphic real deaths in war are.