“Good you are back, Royal. Neighborhood no same without you.”

“Thanks, Yakov, and thanks for coming out so late.”

The last stop on the bus route was a Wawa near Newark, and if not for Yakov, I don’t know what I would have done.

“I no sleep nights anyway,” he said.

I put my bags into the back of his old Lincoln Town Car, and we drove through the Holland Tunnel as I told Yakov all about Ohio, and Yakov told me the latest gossip about our neighbors, and described the general mood of the city.

“…also, I know many people who will not leave homes now for fear of Birdzilla.”

“What’s Birdzilla?”

“What, Royal, they have no newspapers in Ohio?”

“I didn’t see many. We’re supposed to be isolated so we can focus on recovery.”

“Well, I will tell you, research lab in New Jersey has been cloning pigeons for years. This is proven. But some say lab has received military funding to clone biggest pigeon possible, and yes, they have success. But now pigeon has escaped, and somewhere at large in greater New York area.”

I tried not to laugh but I couldn’t help it. I should mention, Yakov is 87 years old, an immigrant from Poland, and most of his news comes from supermarket tabloids.

“I hate to say this, Yakov, but you’ve become so old and gullible that you’ll believe anything.”

“Oh really, well tell me mister smarty pants. You believe, yes, Dolly sheep is clone, and yes, you believe deadly virus escaped lab in China to kill millions of people. Clone Wolly Mammoth? Yes. Clone extinct Dire wolf? Yes. But no, you will not believe giant pigeon escapes lab in New Jersey.”

“Maybe it’s not completely impossible, but unless it comes from a reputable news source, it probably didn’t happen.”

“But Royal! They do not wish to cause panic. And have you heard of the X-tube?”

“You mean You Tube?”

Again I laughed. I could tell that Yakov was getting mad, but I couldn’t help it.”

“Yes, I meant You Tube. Many videos of Birdzilla on You Tube.”

“What you fail to realize, Yakov, is that anybody can make a video about anything these days, but that doesn’t mean it actually happened.”

“Well then what…”

Before Yakov could complete his thoughts, he noticed something in the road ahead. And within a split second, he turned pale as his mouth fell open.

“Well then, what is that!”

He pointed forward and I couldn’t believe my eyes! An enormous pigeon was perched on the elevated tracks that crossed Tenth Ave. It was sixteen feet tall. It weighed more than an elephant, and as Yakov drove closer, I could see the purple-green iridescence about it’s neck, the crazed look in its pearly eyes, and when we were only a few blocks away, the monster twitched its head the way a regular pigeon might twitch before snatching something from the ground.

I was terrified.

“Don’t get any closer Yakov! It’s dangerous!”

“I’m sorry Royal, I must have better look.”

He continued to speed toward the overpass where the big bird was perched. At this hour we were nearly alone, and I could hardly breathe, wondering if I was going to die on this lonely street, attacked by a colossal pigeon. However, Yakov, slowed down for a red light, and I used this chance to make a run for it. I hopped out of the car, tripped on the curb, but in the next instant, I was up and dashing down the sidewalk away from the pigeon. After running twenty yards, I met with two black guys who were stepping out of a club, and I tried to save them.

“Don’t go any closer. It’s Birdzilla! He’s come!”

At first they laughed. They were big guys, well dressed, and carrying big leather cases, so I guess they were musicians, and when they saw how frightened I was, they tried to calm me.

“Take it easy, man. It ain’t real. It’s just a statue.”

“A statue?”

“Yeah, like art. It’s been there for months.”

I looked back and the bird was perched in stillness. And by now, Yakov, had parked the car and was stumbling toward me, pointing his finger, nearly doubled over and red-faced with laughter.

“It’s okay, Royal. I make funny April Fools’ joke.”

“What?” asked one of the musicians.

“I tell Royal, giant bird is real and has made escape from science laboratory. And he believes! He says: no don’t go closer! It’s dangerous!”

“But- but, I saw it move.”

When I said this, all three of them fell to pieces.

One of the musicians slapped his hands together and stumbled off sideways, with big lurching steps, as if he were going to collapse. The other guy laughed so hard he had to hold his belly. At one point he puts his arm around my shoulder, as if he was going to say something conciliatory, but he was laughing too hard. He tried to offer me a cigarette, but his hysterics caused him to shake, and he dropped the pack on the sidewalk and kept laughing while walking in circles.

I’d like to point out that this little prank of Yakov’s happened two hours after April fool’s day, so technically, it didn’t count. I’d also like to mention that this statue­­­ — which I now know was created by Ivan Argote and was installed in October — was extremely life like. Anybody who saw it would think it was real. Anybody who had been cloistered on a farm in Ohio and had been mislead, as Yakov had misled me, would have ran for their lives. So really, it wasn’t funny. But still, Yakov yucked it up with his new buddies, while I glowered in the passenger seat, growing impatient as I waited for Yakov to come back to the car, and finally Yakov returned wiping the tears from his eyes.

“You know, Royal, you must be getting old and gullible to fall for that!”

For a moment, it seemed as if his laughter had petered out, but now it renewed with fresh vigor. He slapped the dashboard. Eventually he managed to calm down and drive a few blocks, but he started laughing again and had to pull over. He got out of the car and told a complete stranger what had happened. He promised that he wouldn’t tell anybody else, but the next day he told our doorman. He told everybody in our building, so instead of saying, “Hey Royal, how was Ohio?” they all said, “Hey Royal, seen any big birds lately?”

When Yakov ran out of people to tell, he bought his very first computer so he could tell people online. He downloaded software so he could create videos of me running away from a giant pigeon. In truth, the incident might have been the best moment in Yakov’s life. He actually looked ten years younger. And now that time has passed, I wonder if I would do anything different. If I could go back in time and rob the old guy of his finest hour, would I still do it? And I’ve decided that yes I would, in a heartbeat, I wouldn’t think twice.

Pigeon was originally published in The Haven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Once again I had passed out at a brothel in Chihuahua and woke up naked on the sidewalk. I hate it when that happens. I’m always embarrassed by my body and ashamed of my behavior, but on this occasion, a kind lady soon took pity on me. She brought me home, where I managed to call my mother, and after a stern scolding from mom, she agreed to send money so I could fly home, but it was just barely enough. I had to shop around and compare flights, and eventually, I found a small carrier called Jesùs Ayùdame, which offered discounts on a red-eye flight to Denver, but as it turned out, the flight was far more harrowing than being naked on the streets of Chichuahua.

Since we departed after midnight, most passengers fell asleep, but I’m apprehensive about air travel, and I couldn’t shut my eyes. Instead, I stared out my window, and around two in the morning, I watched the co-pilot as he left the cockpit to use the only bathroom in the back of the plane. A few minutes later, he tried to reenter the cockpit, but for some reason, he couldn’t. He kept pulling on the handle of the cockpit door, but it wouldn’t budge, so he started to knock and kept knocking, until the other pilot inside opened the door for him. For a moment, they both shrugged and scratched their heads while examining the lock, and then the older pilot took a small screwdriver from his shirt pocket and made an adjustment. He seemed confident that he had fixed the problem, and to demonstrate, he shut the door and tried to open it. But he couldn’t. And now both pilots were locked outside with nobody at the controls to fly the plane.

Like I said, I’m afraid to fly, and my eyes widened as I watched the pilots try to break down the door. One of them frantically rammed his shoulder against the entry until he hurt himself, and then the other pilot tried to kick in the door, but nothing worked, until a flight attendant ran down the aisle with a fire axe and chopped a hole through the entrance. The plane began to list and turn to a horrifying degree, just as the older pilot climbed through the broken part of the portal, and after a few terrifying moments the plane straightened, and once again the cockpit door opened from inside, and finally, the other pilot entered.

Of course several of the passengers had woken up during the commotion, and one of them asked the flight attendant what happened.

“Oh-um… it’s nothing,” she said. “We were just testing the ax to make sure it worked.”

I thought the worst was over, but when we landed the plane bounced and skidded on the runway, and once again, I held my breath and almost cried. A few moments later, we disembarked, and I was so thankful that I fell to my knees and kissed the aluminum floor of the gangway. I promised myself that I would never do this again, that from now on I would only fly on big, established airlines — and I didn’t care how much it cost my mother.

Discount Airline was originally published in The Haven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Once again I was unemployed and behind on my rent. I guess I should have double-downed on my efforts to find a job, but instead, I drove north to a lake in the Catskills and spent a relaxing day lounging in my hammock.

Once I arrived, I knew I had made the right decision. After all, the weather was lovely. I was alone in the peaceful solitude of the parkland; sunshine was sparkling on the water while warm breezes swayed the pine trees, and after I strung up my hammock, I lay back and began searching for birds with an old spyglass that I had found in my mother’s attic.

Most likely, Mom had picked up the device at a garage sale. Before that, the brass telescope had probably decorated the walls of a seafood restaurant, but still, it worked reasonably well, and before long, I was focusing on a yellow finch, and then spotted a scarlet tanager.

Few things will make me happier than bird watching. Few things will make me happier than a good pastrami sandwich, so I had brought two from Katz’s Deli, and I whiled the hours swaying, eating, napping and then looking for more birds. I didn’t think the day could get any better, but around two o’clock, I spotted a mysterious, unmanned rowboat drifting toward the center of the lake.

I figure the boat had drifted away from one of the posh vacation home on the developed side of the lake. A breeze was pushing the ghost vessel straight towards me, and once it reached my side of the lake, I planned to hop in and row back to look for the rightful owner. Maybe I would get a reward, which I could put toward my rent, but as it turned out, my reward was more immediate.

When the rowboat was only thirty feet away, I realized that the vessel was not unoccupied — not at all! — because two naked women rose up from the bottom of the boat, as if the boat did not really have a bottom, but a mystical portal to the land of buxom bosomwonders. All the while, the sides of the vessel had concealed these nude passengers: one a blonde with an hourglass figure, the other a jiggley redhead, and I could hardly believe my earthly eyes. I thought I had been alone on this side of the lake. I guess the women had thought the same thing, but even so, they looked around to see if the coast was clear, and failing to see me in the shadows, they laughed and took their time as they tied their tops back on.

Once they were covered, they rowed back to the opposite shore, where once again they de-bikini-ed, and laid on the bottom of the boat to sunbath and drift… and when they neared my hammock, they again rose, tied on their tops and rowed back to their starting point. This little show repeated itself three times. Each time the girls seemed happy and relaxed, and as for myself…well, I felt blessed by the Lord.

After all, when your having an absolutely perfect day, and another perfect situation lands on top of that… well, it must mean something– like seeing a shamrock or a rainbow-– and I thought the meaning was a message from God, an assurance that he liked me, that everything was going to be okay, and I would soon find a job and pay my rent, because Jesus had my back, and these nude women were His way of saying so.

But apparently, I’m a poor soothsayer, because instead of good fortune, an angry husband came my way. He walked right past my hammock, and failing to see me, he stood at the edge of the lake and raised both hands to the side of his mouth and hollered at the rowboat.

“Karen! Hey Karen!”

The girls were about to complete their fourth drift across the lake but when Karen heard her name, she cautiously peeped her head above the side of the boat, and seeing that her husband was calling, she sat up and shouted back.

“What ya want?”

“We want to go home! Everybody’s been looking for you.”

“All right, hold your horses.”

She reached for her top as the husband turned to march back the way he had come, and that’s when he saw me, lying in my hammock still clutching a telescope.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” I said.

The husband didn’t say anything. For a moment he narrowed his eyes, and then he sneered and balled his fists. I knew the big guy was in a bad mood, and yes, I had seen his wife naked, but the way he behaved was absolutely uncalled for.

It’s hard to drive yourself to the hospital when you’re dizzy from a head slap, but it’s nearly impossible, when you have a brass telescope stuck in your behind. Still I managed, but I had to wait nearly four hours for a specialist, so it wasn’t until midnight that the doctors removed the uncomfortable object.

It came out with a pop, and like I said, I thought the spyglass was just a decorative toy that my mom had picked up, but the proctologist really took an interest. He cleaned it off, and then held the telescope to the light so he could examine the etchings with a magnifying glass.

“Say, this is quite an antique you had in your keyster. I’ll give you a thousand dollars for it.”

So I managed to pay my rent after all.

The day had gone from good, to great, to horrible, to not so bad… and I realized that life is like that, a lot like the weather in Portland, always changing, so if you’re depressed and worried, and don’t like what’s going on, just take a deep breath and wait, because things are bound to change. That’s the way of the world, and that’s my take away.

Spyglass was originally published in The Haven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Yesterday I was delivering a pepperoni pizza to a ritzy apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and just as I left the building, another deliveryman went in carrying a bundle of birch poles and branches. The parcel was wrapped in brown paper and tied up with old-fashioned twine. Outside, a delivery van was parked by the entrance, with “Magical Birch” printed on the side-door, along with the slogan: “fine decorative birch delivered from forest to home.”

Well, who knew you could start a company by delivering birch wood!

I found this very inspirational. I’ve always wanted to start my own business, but most businesses don’t make sense to me. In fact, if banking needed my approval, it never would have begun.

“Absolutely nobody is going to give you large sums of money just because you promise a tiny return….” that’s what I would have told the first financier.

I would have told Mark Zuckerberg to forget about it, that people just don’t care what their friends are doing…and years ago, a young millennial told me she had started a soft where company, and I said “how nice,” but in truth, I never really understood what soft where is. Is it like soft serve? Was this girl telling me she had opened an ice cream stand?

But birch wood — that I can relate to! I’m an outdoorsy guy and if people want wood, I can bring it. But what I can’t fathom is why anybody would want birch tree parts in their house. Perhaps some reader could explain, and while while you at it, could you tell me about soft where?

Entrepreneur was originally published in The Haven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My therapist Sanjay is a really good analyst, but he’s always spoiling my dreams and delusions of grandeur. Once, I thought that I was psychic. Another time, I believed that aliens were secretly performing kinky experiments on me, and another time, I thought that angels were trying to befriend me. Each of these misconceptions made me feel special, but then Sanjay, being Sanjay, would pick apart my poor logic and misguided notions, until finally my fantasy fell apart and only the humble truth was left standing. I suppose that was for the best, but still, I was disappointed, and maybe a little resentful — and because of this grudge, I bubbled with joy, when finally, I swayed Sanjay toward the unbelievable.

“I have something important I want to share,” I said, as I marched into his office and took my usual place on the couch. “I know I promised to lay off the porn, but last week, I discovered a website devoted to nude women who juggle bowling bowls. Who knew? I never imagined that big muscular girls would turn me on, but I got so carried away that hair actually began to grow on my palms.”

Sanjay rolled his eyes and huffed with that heavy here-we-go-again type of sigh.

“Royal,” he said, “you know as well as I do that growing hair on your palms is just an old wives tale that — holy shit!’

I held up both hands, and it looked like I was palming two long-haired guinea pigs.

“Royal, how long has this been going on?”

“Well at first I was embarrassed. I didn’t want anybody to know, so I shaved my palms to keep it a secret. But then I noticed how the new hair was soft and silky. The longer it grew, the more sensual the touch. And now, when someone holds my hand, they can’t let go.”

“This is medically impossible.”

“Do you want to feel?”

“No, I do not. Royal, sit down! Don’t you dare put your hairy palms on my face, or I’ll… my, that does feel silky.”

For a moment, Sanjay was like everyone else. He couldn’t get enough. He closed his eyes and nuzzled his cheek against my hand, until he eventually pulled himself together, and then pulled on the hair to see if it was real…and once he was convinced, he called a research lab in New Jersey.

“They want to examine you, Royal. They will provide transportation and pay five hundred dollars for each hour of testing.”

All my life, people have been telling me that I might grow hair on my palms, but what they don’t tell you is how nice it can be. The people at the lab went gaga when they saw me. They were fascinated by the scientific aspects, and the lab was associated with Procter and Gamble, who felt they could make a mint if they discover the secret to my silky soft hair. And so everyday, a limousine came to pick me up. The lab hired real nude women to juggle bowling bowls in front of me, and all I had to do was watch them and masturbate while pretty lab attendants gathered data.

Finally I had found my dream job.

Everybody wanted to hold my hand. The lab attendants, the jugglers, the limousine driver, even the president of Proctor and Gamble. But then, just as mysteriously as it started, the hair began to fall from my palms. The lab hired more jugglers, and told me to ejaculate three times a day, thinking it might reverse the hair loss, but instead my vision became blurry.

“That’s it, I’m through,” I told the lab director. “What good are nude jugglers if you can’t see them?”

“Royal, it is impossible to go blind from excessive masturbation.”

“Oh yeah, what’s your professional opinion on hairy palms?”

With that, I was going to storm out of the office, but instead, I walked into a wall. Still, I made an exit, and for the first time in my life, I quit masturbating. The lab wouldn’t give up though. They sent the jugglers to my home, along with several strip-o-grams, and they even got AOC to come over and yell at me, but still I wouldn’t masturbate. Eventually my eyesight improved, but the hair kept falling from my palms, and soon, I was just like everybody else.

One day, I stopped by the lab just to say hi and chew the fat, but they wouldn’t let me through the door.

“Go home baldy. We don’t have time for dirty masturbators.”

That really hurt my feelings, but eventually, I discovered a superpower greater than my once hairy palms. After all, lots of athletes age past their prime and become depressed, and lots of celebrities lose their fame and turn suicidal… but I had lost a lot, and by the next day, I was over it. Holding everybody’s hand was becoming a nuisance. All my life I had harbored delusions of grandeur, trying to convince myself that I was special, but I now realize that ordinary is more to my liking, and now, when I tell Sanjay that I was abducted my aliens, he frowns and wonders if it might be true — and that alone is priceless.

Naughty Boy was originally published in The Haven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For almost a year, I had been working in the stockroom of a company that distributed auto parts, and during that time I failed to forge a single friendship. The people I worked with seemed nice. I knew that several of them would meet after work to drink beer, or go bowling, and occasionally there would be a barbecue, but I was never invited to any of these events. Of course my feelings were hurt, but rather than nurse resentment, I resolved to make myself more likable.

Every morning, I would be the first to arrive at the office, and when the other fellas arrived, I’d slap them on the back and tell them funny jokes and stories. I’d whistle and wink at the female employees and pay them sexy compliments, and whenever I had to pass wind, I would first ask someone to pull my finger, and then blamed it on the dog. Nobody ever laughed at these fart jokes, but I assumed that several people were amused. I expected overtures of friendship to commence any day … and sure enough, Bob from accounting invited me to grab a cup of coffee after work.

“That would be great, Bob. You might find this hard to believe, but you’re the only friend I’ve made here.”

“Well, that’s not what this is about.”

“Oh, what is it about?”

“You’ll see.”

After work, Bob and I walked side by side down the avenue until we arrived at the coffee shop. Bob held the door open for me, and I walked in to discover that several other people from work had already gathered. Amongst them were two neighbors from my apartment building, and my cousin, Henry, from Fort Lauderdale.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“Royal, this is your intervention,” said Bob from accounting.

“Sit over here in the center,” said Sally the receptionist. “We all have something important to say.”

I sat down like they asked, but I was completely gob smacked, so surprised that my hands started shaking.

“You guys are making a big mistake. I know everybody probably says that at an intervention, but I swear, I hardly drink and I don’t take any drugs.”

“Well,” said Sally, “this is sort of an intervention in reverse.”

“You see,” said Henry, “we would like it if you took a dangerous amount of drugs.”

“And drink as much as you like,” said Bob.

“And if an overdose, or an accident should put you to rest… well, all things considered, it’s probably for the best.

“It would certainly be best for us.”

“Keep in mind, we all care about you.”

“But in a negative way.”

I was indignant. I gritted my teeth and stood up so fast that my folding chair fell over.

“I don’t believe you people! Do you know how hard I tried to get you all to like me? I spent a fortune on whoopie cushions and plastic vomit. Every night I stay up late racking my brain, trying to think of some cute little thing I can say so you would all think more favorably towards me. And this is the thanks I get!”

My face was turning red, until Sally also stood up and took a step towards me.

“Royal, I didn’t know you wanted to be liked.”

“We all thought you were a hopeless idiot, and that taking chances with drugs might be the best thing for you.”

“But maybe,” said Bob, “just maybe, we’re the idiots here.”

We all talked for a long time that night, and they agreed to be nicer to me …and on my part, I promised to stop trying to be funny all the time. But it wasn’t easy.

The next day I arrived at work and felt naked and vulnerable. For weeks I hardly said anything to anybody, but eventually, I began talking about the weather and current events, and if anybody asked “what’s up?” or “how’s it going?” I would describe whatever happened to be on my mind.

I told them about things that made me happy: like kissing my dog Crazy Bitch. I told them about things that really worried me: like having a small penis. And I told them about memories that had been with me for years: like the time I went to New Orleans and stuck my head through the balusters of a wrought iron balcony, so I could shout down to the people in the parade, but my head got stuck, and someone had to call the fire department to get me out.

And you wouldn’t believe it, but when I admitted these things to my coworkers, they acted as if I was saying something fascinating. Sometimes they asked me to repeat the thing I just mentioned so they could write it down. I sensed that they were laughing at me, more so than with me, and since I wasn’t really sure why they were laughing, I found it irritating. They began to call me up at night just to have a conversation. They were always inviting me out to meet their friends, and eventually it became such a bother that I quit the office and found another job as a night watchman. I learned that I’m much happier in solitude. I also learned that people who long for lots of friends are usually people with a poor social life, and those who do indeed have lots of friends know that it’s best to keep contact to a minimum.

Intervention was originally published in The Haven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Years ago, I tried to find work in an office, and to make myself more employable, I took a course in photocopying. Mind you, photocopying was big in the nineties. I had to learn all the settings for color printing, booklet printing, reducing, enlarging, watermarking, collating, stapling, and hole punching. It was a lot, and normally I’m dimwitted when it comes to technology, but for some reason, I took to photocopying the way a salty dog takes to the sea. After a few lessons, I could photocopy with one hand tied behind my back. I was the fastest in my class, and if photocopying could be measured in running speed, I would have been a cheetah.

Finally, I had found something I was really good at, but when I finally found a job at a law firm, all they would let me do is shred old documents. The task was dull and repetitive, but worst of all, my photocopying talents were being wasted. It was heartbreaking to be so close to a Xerox Machine and yet so far, but I told myself to be patient, that one day my chance would come, and indeed, one day it did.

“Hey you!” said a newly made partner. “Can you make photocopies?”

“Can Chubby Checker do the Watusi?”

“What?’

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I can make photocopies.”

“Then make twenty copies of this, and put them in the fancy leather binders — and then deliver the original back to me with your own hands. Be careful, you are now holding the keys to a gold mine!”

He ran off, shouting the names of the other partners, and my heart was pounding now that my opportunity had come. All the other copiers were out to lunch. I could make the copies so fast that heads would spin, so fast that the hirer-ups would hear about it and invite me to bar mitzvahs and barbecues. I fell into a daydream as I imagined the praise and the attaboys. In fact the daydream was so warm and wanted, that it consumed my mind, while my body moved forward on auto pilot, following the same motions it had been following for weeks… and one page at a time, I fed the document into the shredder.

I didn’t realize what I had done until my hands were empty. In fact, it was that very empty-handedness that broke the daydream and made me feel as if I had just wet my bed — the same twilight horror of knowing that your own thoughts led you to something humiliating and contrary to the way you wanted to be — and for several seconds I kept staring at the confetti that had once been the keys to the goldmine, trying to make time run in reverse so I could undo what I had done. But it didn’t work. Time kept flowing in its usual way, and eventually I had to find the lawyer who had given me the assignment.

“Well?” he said, impatiently.

“I couldn’t make twenty copies.”

“How many did you make?”

“Almost one.”

“Almost?”

“Yeah, I kind of shredded it.”

“Shredded what?”

“The document you told me to make twenty copies of. I know it sounds strange, but I had been shredding documents all week, and I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I shredded it. “

For a moment the lawyer looked lost and forlorn, as if he was starring down the same rabbit hole that had just swallowed my own dreams. He gave a little nod, as if he were going to forgive me, but in the next moment he lunged like a lunatic gorilla. I ran and kept running until I was outside the building and kept going south until I had reached the East Village.

I stayed out all day and night, walking the streets, trying to come to terms with my lost dream of being the best photocopier in New York City. Past midnight, I drifted home and found a solitary message on my answering machine.

“You’re fired. Don’t even think about coming back here.”

It was from human resources. The message was so obvious, and so puny that it made me smile. Of course I had been fired. My mistake had cost the law firm a fortune. They were big and influential; they had caused big businesses to collapse and brought millionaires to their knees — but the worst they could do to me was end my employment, and by comparison, I felt powerful. I took a beer out of the refrigerator and drank it on the couch. I played the message again, and finally found the consolation I had longed for.

The Best Photocopier in New York was originally published in The Haven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Watch your mouth mister, and leave the kids alone.”

“Me? But they…They! It wasn’t my fault!”

I told him about the eggs. I pointed to the raw yolk that had ran down my shirt and was still rolling across my tummy… and why wasn’t he going to do anything about that?”

“Because those kids go to school across the street. That place over there, and nobody fucks with the Academy of Ethics and Morality.”

Of course I had heard of the academy. It was the most expensive grammar school in the country. The most privileged and elite scions sequestered their kids in that ivory castle. In fact, they had so much influence, that every Christmas the school’s director received a fruitcake from the Masons and the Illuminati. The police commissioner stationed an officer at every corner to protect the students from whatever threats might be, and I realized, that if I was going to solve my problem with the boys, I would have to solve it myself.

The following week I went to the park early and hid in the bushes. I squatted there for two hours but finally the masochistic midgets showed up with eggs in their hands and grins on their faces. They took their usual positions beside the bike path. They giggled as they waited for me, but little did they know, I was sneaking up behind them, and when the moment was right, I let’em have it with a JXR Adult Super Soaker.

I ordered it online for this very purpose. The trigger released compressed nitrogen which rapidly moved water from a three gallon backpack into double tubes, resembling the barrels of a shotgun. Over here the Super Soaker is sold as a toy, but the device is standard equipment for the fire department Lithuania — and within minutes, all four boys were soaked to the skin. They gaped at me with shocked and forlorn faces — and I swear, it was the best moment of my life! Whoever said, “it is better to rise above then sink below” didn’t know what they were talking about.

“Take that!” I said.

I stuck out my tongue, made faces, and called them names. I danced around in a circle with both arms in the air, shaking my hands like Bob Fosse. I gyrated my hips, turned around to moon them… and only when a police officer tackled me to the ground, did I realize that I had gone too far.

“I told you to leave the kids alone!”

“But­­ — “

“No buts, you’re coming with me.”

He hauled me off to the hoosegow, and for almost a week, I did not see a judge or a public defender, or the light of day. I was beginning to worry. I told the guys in lockup what I had done, and they all shook their heads with sadness and sympathy.

“I hate to tell you this, but you ain’t got the sense God gave a termite. Everybody in New York knows that you don’t fuck with the Academy of Ethics and Morality!”

Through the grapevine, I heard that one of the boy’s father was a Federal Judge. I was told to prepare for the worst, and in the end, I was sentenced to sixty hours of community service. Maybe that doesn’t sound too bad, but my only task is to pick up the trash around the Academy of Ethics and Morality, and now the four boys have me right where they want me.

They litter the sidewalk with stinking heaps of the foul garbage, because they know I have to pick it up. And when I bend over, one of them leans out of a third story window and shoots me in the ass with a BB gun. It feels like the stiletto sting of a queen bee. I howl and grab my heinie with both hands, and when I look up, I always see the same four faces laughing and jeering. They wave and give me the finger, and all I can do is grit my teeth and bear it. I’ve been shot in the ass seventeen times now. My poor bottom is so bruised it looks like the retarded lovechild of a plum raped by a venereal disease, and each time I arrive for community service, I remember the days when the boys would only throw eggs to taunt me — and I guess what they say is true — that you never recognize the good days until they’re over.

Bad to Worse was originally published in The Haven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Take some deep breaths,” he said, “drink some water, and when you feel ready, just say the first thing that comes to mind.”

“Okay… well, I think I was almost raped by a wild turkey.”

“Go on, I’m listening …tee-hee-hee”

“Sanjay are you laughing?”

“No Royal, I assure you, I am not laughing. It is just a facial tick I suffer at this time of year, due to allergies. Please go on.”

“Well, I brought some left over bagels so I could feed the turkeys and when I ran out of food, the turkeys got really aggressive. One of them jumped on my head and knocked me over, and then he kept pouncing on my behind.”

“First of all, you should not be feeding turkeys. When you feed wild animals they loose their fear of people and become dangerous. Second of all, it is very unlikely that a turkey pounced on your behind with sexual intentions. That is not the way of animals.”

“Don’t dogs hump legs? Don’t dolphins hump tourists who try to swim with them?”

“Well, dolphins are a different story. If you told me you were raped by a dolphin, I would believe you. But not a turkey. ”

“Sanjay, I have turkey ejaculate on the seat of my pants.”

“That is impossible because …tee-hee-hee.”

“It really seems like you’re laughing.”

“No, no, I am not laughing. Listen, turkeys do not even have external penises.”

“How do they make little turkeys?”

“They have a small penis inside a cloaca. In order to receive the semen of a turkey, you would have to have a female cloaca on your buttocks, which you do not have.”

“So what is this?”

I stood up and bent over to show him the stains on the seat of my pants.

“That most likely is the resin which falls from the pine trees at this time of year. Many employees have lunch on the benches outside, and return to inside of the building with bottoms stained much the way your bottom is stained. If you please, touch the marks on your rear-end, and then smell fingers, and you will see they smell pleasantly of pine.”

He was right, but still I was traumatized.

“Okay, maybe the turkey didn’t sexually assault me, but it still assaulted me, and I still feel humiliated.”

“Well, perhaps take comfort in the fact that you are not alone in this humiliation. In my homeland of India, this problem is common, not with turkeys of course, but with monkeys. Monkeys are sacred to Hindus, and so people feed them for good luck, and because of this, monkeys have lost all fear of humans. When they are not offered food they demand it by the stealing of groceries, or the snatching away of lunches, or by breaking into homes and raiding kitchens. Not long ago the deputy mayor of Delhi was on his balcony when a troop of monkeys climbed the tall building and tried to raid the dignitary’s home. He put up a fight, but the monkeys got the better of him, and threw the poor man off the balcony, thus ending his life… so you see, Royal, getting roughed up by a big turkey that hops on your heiney, is not so bad by comparison.”

Sanjay kept talking, and by the end of our session I felt better. In fact, I felt so much better, that I bought a bag of Doritos, and on the way out, I fed them to the wild turkeys to show there were no hard feelings. I stood by my car, in case the birds got rowdy again but this time, instead of turkeys, I was nearly attacked by the wild Italians of Staten Island.

“Hey Jackass,” one of them shouted from his front steps, “those turkeys are making a mess. They’re blocking traffic, shitting all over the place — and your feeding them?”

He charged as several other guys rushed out of their houses clutching baseball bats, and even though I escaped by driving off, I was really worried when I returned the following week. I figured the same guys would recognize me, so I brought pizza and beer to make a peace offering. Turns out those guys weren’t such bad fellas after all. We had so much fun, that I brought food the following week, and the week after… so instead of feeding birds, I’m now feeding Italians, which seems to make everybody happy, except for the turkeys — but you can’t please everybody. That’s what I’ve learned, that, and the fact that turkeys have internal penises.

Wild Turkeys was originally published in The Haven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

First of all, she has a crazy amount of energy — hence her name — and even though she’s seven-years old, her hyper, puppy, playfulness has hardly diminished. At any given moment, she might attack me with teeth and claws, and as a result, most of my clothes have tears and holes in them. All of my furniture has been chewed to the point of ruin. I plan to replace the damaged items once my dog grows up and slows down, but so far, that hasn’t happened. When unleashed in Central Park, she’ll chase squirrels for an unbelievable length of time. It’s not uncommon for her to chase a squirrel straight up the trunk of a tree, though at the height of seven feet, gravity takes over and brings her back down. Because of her tree climbing ability, my neighbor insists that she’s a Belgian Shepard, but I think that Crazy Bitch is the lovechild of a coyote, because of her second unique feature: a fearlessness of heights.

Once, my heart stopped as I watched her run at full tilt across a pine tree that had fallen across a ravine in Bear Mountain State Park. The ravine was at least a hundred feet deep, and if Crazy had fallen, she would have been crushed on the rocks below, but she dashed across the tree bridge without blinking. And a little while later, she chased a squirrel to the edge of a precipice that was so high and sheer, that you could see for miles across the Catskills. I think the squirrel was being strategic. I think the squirrel was deliberately leading Crazy to the edge so the little critter could climb down the steep face of the cliff, while Crazy would sail out into the abyss and meet her end. Once again, my heart leapt and I screamed, but at the last moment Crazy came to an ass-dragging stop that raised a cloud of dust, and once this dirty nimbus cleared, I saw Crazy wagging her tail, ears perked as she leaned her pretty head out over the cliff — a cliff so high and scary, that I could only approach the edge on my hand and knees — and this brings me to the third distinctively-distinct quality of Crazy: while undaunted by heights, she’s absolutely terrified of confinement.

For house training purposes, I once put her in a kennel, but she howled and whimpered with such sorrow that I never put her in a cage again. Another time I left her in a basement while visiting my sister, and Crazy chewed her way through a wooden door in order to escape. After that, I tried leaving her in my sister’s backyard, which is fenced in, but there’s no such thing as a fence that will hold her. She’ll either jump over the top, and if the top is greater than five feet, she’ll dig underneath, even if it takes all day. After hours of training, I’ve taught her to accept the confines of my apartment, but she does so grudgingly, and if given the chance to escape, she’ll take it.

Once, I was napping on the couch, and Crazy was asleep on her dog-bed when someone buzzed my apartment from the sidewalk. I wasn’t expecting anyone so I tried to ignore the sound, but whoever it was kept buzzing, until I finally got up and pressed the “Talk” button on my intercom.

“What!” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“Your dog is on the ledge!”

“What?”

“Your dog is outside your window on the ledge!”

I thought this person was insane, but when I looked to Crazy’s bed, it was empty — and when I looked to the window, I noticed that it was open eight inches. The ledge was less then two feet wide, so it seemed impossible that my dog would squeeze through such a narrow opening and willfully step onto a ridge that was six floors above Lexington Ave, but still, I stuck my head outside… I looked looked left, and then looked right — and there was Crazy Bitch! Calmly sitting on her haunches like a gargoyle between apartments

“Dear God!” I said. “ Don’t fall!”

She glanced at me. Her ears were perked and with a look of fearless delight she stared down at the crowd below her. And what a crowd it was! Hundreds of people had gathered on the sidewalk, so many that the mass had spilled out into the avenue and was blocking traffic. Some drivers had got out of their cars and taxis, and were shading their eyes as they looked up to Crazy. Some people in the crowd were weeping. Some were wringing their hands. Someone had come up with a bed sheet, and four people were grabbing the corners to stretch out the fabric, hoping to catch Crazy in case she fell. All this had formed while I was napping. Half the people outside were on their cellphones calling 911, and below me, I could see the guy who had buzzed my apartment; he was still on the sidewalk pressing a button beside the door, and I could still hear him through the intercom behind me in my apartment.

“You have to do something! Your dog is on the ledge!”

“Please, Crazy Bitch,” I said with tears in my eyes. “Please come to me!”

Normally, she doesn’t listen, but she did this time. The ledge seemed too narrow for a four-legged creature to turn around, but she turned on a dime. She ran along the ledge like she was running on a beach, so fast that I didn’t have time to move, so she squeezed in through the window, over my head and shoulder, and then ran down my back to dash across the apartment and drink some water from her bowl. Apparently, being out on the ledge had made her thirsty. She lapped up a lot, and while she drank, I glanced back at the crowd. They had all gone wild with joy. All of them, jumping up and down, complete strangers hugging each other, shouting “hurray” and “thank God,” while the drivers honked their horns as if the Yankees had just won the World Series.

Crazy Bitch was even more energetic than usual. She ran a circle in the living room, she charged to pounce at my chest and then grabbed my shirt with her teeth and tore it down the front. It was my favorite Yoda t-shirt. For a moment Crazy looked reproachful because she knows I don’t like it when she ruins my clothes, but this time I squatted down to hug her. She was safe, she was inside, and she was mine — and that was all that mattered.

Drawing a Crowd was originally published in The Haven on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.