HIS SON ON ONE SIDE and his grandson on the other gently pulled him back into his seat. Someone in the row behind muttered obscenities. A group of teenagers sitting together in the next row back looked up from their cell phones long enough to elbow each other and point and laugh. He was still slightly confused, even after they had him seated again. Then it came to him. It was a reaction, nothing more.

Later, as they exited the theater, his grandson asked, “How'd you like the movie, gramps?”

He shrugged, “It was okay.”

His son glanced at him. “They don't make 'em like they used to, eh dad?” 

“Oh, no,” he answered without hesitation. “Most of 'em are a helluva lot better these days. The special effects are really something.”

“The CGI?” his grandson asked.

WE CALLED HER SUMMER. She was hot. Summer warmed up a room by making the other girls jealous and many young romances were torn apart when boys couldn't take their eyes off of her long enough to notice their girlfriends walking out. Yeah, she was that hot.

Summer was my date to the senior prom and we dated until I left for college the following September. 

I dated another girl at school and felt guilty when I came home for Christmas break to find Summer waiting for me at my family's home. They had invited her over. It was almost too late to get her a present, but I slipped my brother some money and he dashed to a store for something while I entertained her. My brother was a good guy. I could always count on him. She “oohed” and “aahed” when she unwrapped it and made me believe that she was genuinely pleased.

Don't get me wrong. I was happy that she was there that Christmas. I just hadn't expected it, and I blurted it out at a New Year's Eve party at my friend Bob's house. “You haven't dated anyone else?” I asked when we slipped outside to cool off.

“No, have you?” she responded.

I said “No” but couldn't look her in the eye and she knew. 

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you just lie?”

“I didn't want to hurt you.”

GEORGE BEAT ON THE WALL. “I'm telling you, it was right here!” he exclaimed to the police detective and his partner.

The detectives remained stoic while the blue clad patrolmen loitering behind didn't even attempt to mask their snickers.

 The senior detective squeezed past George and examined the wall. “Right here, you say?”

“Yes, there,” George replied as the detective felt around the edges of the wall.

George's wife, Jane, scowled in the background, peeking past the two uniformed officers. The junior detective turned and looked at her. “You didn't see anything?” he asked.

Jane shook her head and snorted. “I've told you ten times, I wasn't here.”

The detective admonished her with a stern look. “Please, ma'am,” he said, “there's no need to raise your voice.”

Jane pulled her head closer to her shoulders and backed away. “Well, it's true,” she insisted. “You keep asking me. I wasn't here.”

“Your husband came to see the house with the realtor and you didn't accompany him,” the detective persisted.

“No.”

HILLARY BEGAN COLLECTING pets when she was six years old. They found her when she got a late start dumpster diving for her family one evening and the sun set before she could clear out. That's when the animals took their turn.

Dogs, cats, and rats took turns ferreting out food, and didn't take kindly to a child upsetting the natural order of events. All the animals felt that their sustenance was threatened by the little girl and advanced on her from all sides. 

Hillary was a smart little girl and pulled the lid shut on top of her, but it didn't fit well and the animals began wedging themselves through every gap. What little light penetrated the dumpster found its way to their eyes and they glared at Hillary from every side.

Backed into a corner, Hillary's hands grasped at everything in reach, searching for a weapon. All she found were rubbish and refuse, some bagged and some not. 

THE GOVERNMENT LIMO sped along the covered expressway from the suburban enclave for members of Congress to the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Representatives Harold Stonemeyer of Oregon and Gerald Birmingham of Alabama sipped coffee freshly brewed from the built-in espresso machine. Stonemeyer gnoshed on a bagel and cream cheese that he brought with him from his home.

“Got a late start this morning?” Birmingham asked, and nodded to the bagel when Stonemeyer responded with doubt in his eyes.

“Oh, yes,” Stonemeyer replied. “I was up late studying the new highway bill.”

Birmingham grunted.

“You finished it already?” Stonemeyer asked.

“Don't have to,” Birmingham replied, pausing for a sip of coffee. “It's my party's bill.”

“You're going to vote for it without reading it?”

Birmingham looked at Stonemeyer with paternal patience and smiled. “Of course,” he said, “You'll learn.”

“But, where's the money coming from?” Stonemeyer persisted.

Birmingham chuckled to himself. Damn freshmen are so annoying, he thought. “It'll come from the highway fund,” he replied and turned away to feign interest in the passing scenery. 

JEREMY BOARDED THE BUS parked outside the Smithsonian. He was among the last of his classmates and seriously considered sitting up front with the girls. They were only seventh graders, still gawkish, and not yet very appealing to a boy whose hormones were as yet blessedly diluted. Still, listening to their chatter would be better than joining the boys in the back and being teased because he failed. Damn, he probably was the only one who failed.

Unfortunately, Bob hurried up from behind and shoved Jeremy down the aisle. Before he could take a breath, he was shoved into a seat in the middle of the rowdiest section. Bob began to ask him the fatal question, but Jeremy was saved from answering as their chaperone, Miss Wode, clapped and shouted for their attention.

“Everyone take a seat,” the anorexic teacher commanded and gave the boys an especially stern look. “Quiet,” she added in a louder voice.

THE BOY SKIPPED along the wooded lane, the dried leaves crunching under his feet, until he spotted the old man up ahead and increased his pace. In moments he caught up, took the old man's hand, and looked up with a smile bursting across his face. The old man stopped and looked down, bewilderment clouding his expression.

“How?” he asked, but the boy's smile was his only reply.

The old man looked around as though lost. He tried to find something familiar in the landscape. The boy waited patiently at his side. Once again, he met the boy's eyes and asked, “Where?”

The boy tipped his head to one side, his smile dissolving into a mask of concern. He raised his hand and pointed in the direction from which he had come. “There,” he said.

THEY WERE DRESSED to the aces. Versace. Mccartney. Garavani. Accessories by Gucci. Bling – God, don't let them hear you call it that – by Belle Étoile, Chan Luu, David Yurman. Hair by April Barton, Sally Hershberger, Sharon Durram. And, don't get started on the shoes. Christian Louboutin. Alexander McQueen. They were tanned, slimmed, nipped, and tucked. They moved in their own circle daring anyone to join, daring anyone to not look. No one watched more closely than the two men.

The older man sat staring at the women unabashedly, the younger man at his side staring at the program he held in front of his face without reading it.

“What's the matter, son,” the old man laughed without taking his eyes off the ladies, “afraid they'll recognize you?”

A choking grunt was all the reply he received.

“So, what if they did?”

The younger man stood and placed himself between his father and the women, and the older man leaned to peer past his legs.

“Dammit, dad, they might recognize you,” the young man complained. “If they recognize you, they'll know it's me.”

The old man laughed louder and looked up at his son. “So what?” he responded. “So, they recognize you. What then?”

“They'll want to talk.”

“And?”

OLD MEN SAT on a motley collection of wooden chairs, some leaning against the wall, a few with their feet propped up on the porch railing. The boys sat on old crates or on the porch steps, listening to the tales the old men swapped. A soda cooler sat to one side, the hum of its compressor motor occasionally interrupted by a rattle belying the fact that the rubber bushings that it was mounted on were in need of replacement. An assortment of advertising signs framed the scene, the porcelain ones still colorful, the painted metal ones rusted and fading. The men drank beer and the boys drank Cokes or Nehi flavored sodas. Their bottles sweat the humidity out of the hot summer air regardless of whether their contents were hard or soft.

Occasionally the tales would pause as a car swooshed past heading south for Baltimore or north towards the thoroughbred farms in Worthington Valley. Other times it would be a truck grinding its way up the hill or using its engine compression to brake as gravity pulled it deeper into the hollow below. Some passing vehicles stirred a memory and a new tale would begin.

“Remember Hollings?” one of the old-timers prompted after a large, late model four-door sedan hummed past.

The other men grunted and muttered affirmation even if some didn't remember. Any boys whose attention had been flagging tuned in as though there might be a quiz later. Then began the chorus, like an ancient Greek play, wherein each old man was allowed to contribute.

“Yeah, Hollings, the Bromo king.”

“Big mansion, 'bout three north of here.”

Anyone who didn't have anything to add simply nodded and muttered assent.

JEFFREY LAY ON HIS BED surrounded by team pennants, books, and his collection of childhood trophies, solving algebra problems, when his mom stepped in the doorway.

“Jeffrey.”

“Uh, huh,” the boy responded without looking up from the equation.

“I need you to drive me to the drug store.”

Jeffrey dropped his pencil into the book gutter between his two pages of homework and hopped out of bed. “Okay,” he answered. His license was just three months old and he jumped at any chance to drive, even to take his mother on errands.

Jeffrey's mom headed downstairs while he recovered his sneakers from under the bed and put them on. He was half way down the stairs when doubt clouded his joy at getting a chance to drive. “You okay, Mom?” he shouted without knowing where she was.

Her voice filtered out of the hallway. “I'm fine,” she replied. “I just have...” 

Jeffrey filled his mother's pause with a word, “Mom?”

Within moments, she appeared in the living room. “Really, it's nothing,” she assured her son. “I just have an errand to run.” 

The boy stared at his mother, his mouth agape. She was dressed in her long camel hair coat. The netting from a wide-brimmed hat covered her face to the middle of her nose, and she was wearing sunglasses. She never wore sunglasses.