Another manly animal

Excerpts from Masters of Time and Space: The Influence of the Hippopotamus in History and Modern Day, by Dr. Elmo Throbton

Hello investigators! This is Lee the Agent. Recently there has been some anti-hippo sentiment on this blog - even the insinuation that the hippo is not the manliest animal in existence. The hippo has long been acknowledged the most dangerous animal in Africa. This is fact. And, in the last fifteen years, they have actually invaded South America as well. In the interest of a balanced education, and in fighting the needless defamation of a certain mandrill, I have included here excerpts from a work which I stole from my local library. Enjoy.

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Chapter 1

Good morning, afternoon, or evening, dear sir of madam, and thank you for reading even this much (and hopefully the rest!) of this finely crafted academic work. My name is Dr. Elmo Elasmus Throbton, PhD, and it is my inestimable pleasure to be your guide on a tour through the history and modern life of the great African hippopotamus. These handsome creatures have been the object of my academic affection since I first started noticing the majesty of these animals, around my fateful entrance into the 7th grade. Since then I have been enchanted with biology, and especially with these robust stallions of the Nile - and beyond!

Many laymen, and even my somewhat unromantic colleagues feel that the hippopotamus is nothing more than a filthy, violent animal (or, as the dainty Greeks knew him, the Beast of the Nile). This is far from the truth. "Hippos", as they are colloquially known, are merely cruel and violent out of a well-founded sense of superiority over humans, crocodiles, riverboats, and all other objects of their scorn and brutality. Lord, how I long to be such a noble beast! Merely to find myself suddenly thrust somehow into the body of one of these enormous mammals for even a few ecstatic minutes would be more than enough of an experience for this scientist. Would that my humble, nightly prayers were answered. But, I digress.

To illustrate the vast influence the hippo has had on the world, particularly human society, I will begin the first subchapter of this ambitious 768-page work with a whirlwind tour which I have dubbed: Hippos in Time - the Long Tale of an Enormous Animal. Let us begin our far-flung journey in ancient Greece, where the mighty hippo consorted with those sandal-wearing boy-lovers from across the Mediterranean.

Many have speculated on the true history of the so-called Colossus of Rhodes, that mysterious and now missing wonder of the ancient world. In truth, the statue was not a representation of the Greek god Helios, but rather of the noble hippopotamus. Erected in an attempt to placate the hippos, those angry jungle-gods of the south that haunted nightly the dreams of young Greek slave-boys, the statue straddled the harbor mouth, terrifying with a stern look all those who dared enter the city. Oh, but that I could travel back in time and lie beneath such a beautiful work of art! But, again, I digress. Here's a fun fact: the hippo's teeth were made of real ivory harvested from the corpses of, according to Pliny the Elder, over one thousand elephants. The eyes of the statues were also made of ivory, out of truly hippopotean spite!

Sadly, the statue would later fall and be purchased by Persian fakirs who, according the Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta, used desert magic to animate it as a terrifying golem. For their impertinence in losing the statue, the Greeks were forced to submit their most beautiful women to sacrifice every at the hippo's hands (or hooves!). A muddled account of these events would later become the fanciful story of the Cretian minotaur.

Their encounter with the Greeks proved very sweet to our artiodactylan masters of the African jungle, and they would eventually engage in many such cruel interactions with human society. Our little tour takes us next to the city of Rome in the first century A.D., where the infamous emperor Caligula reigned supreme. Much has been made of Caligula's cruelty, hedonism, murderous tenancies, bizarre sexual practices, and so on. However, I must admit that I know very little of his supposed bi-sexual orgies, incestuous advances, and even (dare I say it) bestiality, having never had any approval whatsoever for sexual deviancy. But I digress.

Our knowledge of the involvement of the stately hippopotamus during this time actually owes chiefly to a very recent paper published by an associate of mine, Dr. Fernando Diviancia, who uncovered ancient texts mentioning the presence of a "pet" hippopotamus in Caligula's palace that appeared in 36 A.D.

Knowing that only a year later the emperor was aid to undergo an 'illness' that marked a definite change in his habits, I naturally investigated. Two years later I had confirmed what I always suspected. Just before his illness, during which time he was not seen by nearly anyone, a body, supposedly of a dead homosexual acquaintance of Caligula, was snuck from the premises and buried nearby. Although I cannot prove it, I would wager my entire collection of hippo memorabilia that the body was Caligula's own. And the man who returned to control of Rome? Clearly, he was none other that the "pet" hippopotamus himself using a clever disguise. Perhaps you, like my dour colleagues, have some doubts. If so, you need look only to his inhuman cruelty and surely you will begin to understand the truth. 450 scant years later, the empire fell. Coincidence? Or the fruits of a long-running hippo plot? You tell me.
Regardless, it can surely not be denied that Roman history is full of hippo's in the room. Ha ha. Another famous example is that of Nero, the pyromaniacal fiddler who...

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Compelling stuff. Unfortunately, those of you hooked on hippo fever will just have to wait until next time for more tales of these savage beasts.

Lee out.

Mantra of a Mandrill Man

I am a Mandrill. Truly a fiercer species hath never existed, including the hippo. Fuck the hippo.

(Mandrill, givin' you some lip)

Listen to what humans on the web say about me:
His face vibrant with color, a dominant male mandrill is a surreal testimony to the power of testosterone. Hormone levels four times higher than lower-ranking members maintain the dominant male’s scarlet nose, ridged electric blue cheeks and golden beard. To complete the effect, the rainbow colors of his face are echoed on his genitals. These powerful, heavily built members of the baboon family are highly social. A dominant male, his harem and their young roam the forest in search of food. Several family groups sometimes join together to form a horde of several hundred animals, which keep in contact with a continuous chorus of barks, grunts and crowing calls.

Our species, too, has a weaker sex. They are dull, like your Jane Austen:

The Mandrill is recognized by its olive-colored fur and the colorful face and rump of males, a coloration that grows stronger with sexual maturity; females have duller colors. This coloration becomes more pronounced as the monkey becomes excited and is likely to be an example of sexual selection. The coloration on the rump is thought to enhance visibility in the thick vegetation of the rainforest and aids in group movement.

I only have one beef with the information I've found about our glorious race of beings.

Wikipedia lists our conservation status as "vulnerable." As the manliest Mandrill man alive, I cannot accept someone considering me vulnerable. If I could, I would hunt down the author of that article and puncture his skull with my massive canine teeth. However, it could have been written by literally anyone with a computer, so I write this to you:

Please do not pity my species. As we blaze angrily toward our own extinction, the Mandrill desires to be seen as nothing less than the most hate-filled, powerful, feared species that has ever walked the planet. Call us "vulnerable," and you set us up for salvation. And salvation is for pussies.
(Mandrill, visionary)

The psychiatrist Thomas Szasz once said, "Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults." The first time I read this quote, years ago, it seemed like nothing more than prudent cynicism. Now, after years of searching for happiness in myself, in the company of others, in the experience of work well done, and in reckless drug use, I am starting to become convinced of the fully illusory nature of happiness.

Obviously, human beings need something to work for, and in recent years the standard "food and fucking" package that supported us from stinking caves up through stinking huts and, finally, stinking log cabins has finally worn a little thin. On reflection I started to wonder if the concept of Happiness, and not just the feel-good sensation, was just a carrot hanging in front of us on the bumpy trail from cradle to grave.

Since happiness is traditionally meant to be a result of a good life, I went looking through Wikipedia for something about morality. Apparently, although every language has words for good vs. bad in the practical sense (will help you pork and impregnate hairy cavewomen vs. will result in being eaten by wolves), the concept of good and evil shows up around 400 B.C. - a scant few centuries before a filthy carpenter walked on water and around the same time as the Greeks were figuring out the catapult and the Celts were building huts next to a stinking marsh and calling it London.

Before this time, the great aspiration in life was to have a lot of things, whether those things were women, horses, or worthless, shiny trinkets. 400 B.C. marks the first time happiness was advanced beyond owning stuff and knocking up wide-hipped women, so I figure it's a good point to mark as the beginning of the myth of Happiness.

Fast forward a couple millennia, and happiness is a serious enterprise. Everyone famous, from Einstein to the Dali Lama to Nicole Kidman, has a quotable statement on happiness to look at, usually in direct contradiction to one another. There are 73,261 self-help books on Amazon.com, and at least as many songs involving happiness, or the lack of it. Everybody wants to be happy and everybody has some generic, nonspecific advice to give you for it.

But, looking around me, I started to wonder if I knew even a single person who was actually happy. Nearly everybody I know has either exhibited or admitted to deep-seated fears, problems, and, particularly, feelings of their own inadequacy. As for those who don't? Maybe it's me, but I can't help but doubt that they have honestly figured out the secret to happiness. It seems like everyone around me is going through a confusing period of self-doubt and reassessment, and hitting a new decade of problems and aging (read: dying) hardly helps. Is it me? Am I just projecting my doubts, fears and self-loathing onto others? No shit, yes, but that can't be all that it is.

Various Buddhist gurus teach that to find happiness, one must stop searching for it, that happiness is not found at the end of a long journey but at its beginning, and etc. While this is nothing I couldn't have learned watching the Sphinx from Mystery Men, it is the exact opposite of what I've been doing actively for the last five years, and without considering it for the last 20. And since that shit hasn't worked, I briefly but seriously considered this passive eastern method. But I can't do it. I just can't convince myself to sit and wait for happiness to knock at my doorstep, especially considering that I've failed even to receive greasy pizzas using this method. I'm not going to waste my life staring at my navel because the blue bird of happiness couldn't find my street.

So what's left? Catapults? Hairy women? Hairy wolves? I'm out of ideas and out of space. Just like every other post about my anxieties, this one has no conclusion and no real message. So, I'll just cut it off here so we can get back to the action, and so I can get back to shelving books. Thanks for reading. Masturbation and buffoonery will be resumed shortly.

Diary of a Chronic Masturbator, 4-6-08

Much as I'd like to think after nineteen and a half years of junkyard dogging that I'd be able to say I know myself, I clearly don't. I thought when I masturbated this morning, it would relieve that growing pressure at the back of my skull. I'd gone nine days, I told myself. Nine days feels like a year when you're normally smoking three packs a day, if you catch my drift.

It all started as a bet that we brazenly copped from Seinfeld. My motives were misguided and muddled. I should have been in for the sake of competition, the desire to prove to my peers that I was the most manly. Instead, I just wanted an incentive to cure my own disgusting habits. In that context, nine days was more than enough.

But now that I've done the dirty deed, I feel like a man who's come in last place. Because once I admit that Mark didn't put his heart into the contest, it's apparent that I did come in last place. I'd lost sight of the competition and I regret it. My desire to be the best may be nothing more than a desire to have my ego stroked. Yet to bottle up this desire is to be able to push myself to greater things.

Therefore, I demand a second act. Although I am formally eliminated from the contest, I have begun Phase 2: a contest with myself. The stakes are higher than a mere ten dollars here. I risk sending my ego into a freefall from which it will never recover.

Needless to say, I plan to chronicle my adventures and misadventures here at FI. Stay tuned for further entries in Diary of a Chronic Masturbator

The primary objective, or: How I learned to stop worrying and love my balls

In my first blog post, I'd like to clarify my objective on this blog. In reading on FI and its predecessor, HB, I noticed an extremely positive trend: masculine chest-pounding.

Let's look at Lee the Agent. Over the years this scholar has pushed masculinity to an extreme. In his final post on HB, he describes a character holding a satchel with just a crowbar, a coil of rope, and a revolver. Now add a bottle of Jack, and that's my overnight bag! A recent story of his featured a character carrying around what sounded like a delicious prostitute fillet. Lee the Agent, as Ludacris might ponder, what you got in that bag?! Bravo, sir.

Since writing a final post on HB in which he pondered how to achieve alpha male status, the Junkyard Dog has found a way: satire! A recent story showed hilariously how a couple who discouraged their son to join the Army got their just desserts when their son was killed, his body never returned to them. His corpse is America's property now, bitches!

Don't worry Junkyard Dog, many great writers have grappled with this issue before. Chuck Palahniuk, notable author, and my hero (second only to this guy), had a serious crisis on his hands. He, sadly, was a faggot. Now, I know what you're thinking. You read a book by a faggot? Doesn't that make you a faggot? Hold on, gentlemen. Palahniuk's characters are almost always twenty to thirty-something men searching for some way to achieve masculinity while they aggressively fuck women. This is honorable. For years I've been proclaiming that even if you are gay or some kind of minority, you can always work your way to earn respect among the ranks of true men, by sanitizing your identity to appear more like us. We'll still ridicule you endlessly for where you come from, but you're a good sport, right?

Other authors have tried but failed to achieve the task of manhood. Don't be fooled by weak losers like Earnest Hemingway. He drove an ambulance in World War I. Seriously, Ernie? War's for killing, and one of the few true arenas of masculinity we have left. If you're not gonna fight, don't ruin the fun for the rest of us.

In books like For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway's main character falls in love with some Spanish ho, a "rape victim" who clearly wanted it from the rambling fascist armies. Although I can forgive this character for falling into the trap of love, I can hardly forgive him for statements like when he claims the earth moves when he makes love to this woman. Well the earth only moves for me about a minute after sex, relative to the burning tires of my Chevy Camaro as I escape the scene.

To pick up where Hemingway lamely left off when he woke up one morning and ate his breakfast out of a shotgun, I will solve your crisis of masculinity. I have been doing some reading and have solved my own, with the help of literary heavyweights like Tucker Max and Maddox. Seriously, having an X in your name is awesome. So without further adieu (believe me, that is the last French word you will find in my posts), I present my first tip for great men.

I've been sleeping in my clothes a lot lately. This is a recipe for manliness. Watch any action movie, and you will notice that the hero does a lot of things with his clothes on that a normal man does with his clothes off, like swimming or having a conversation with a woman.

While some may find doing these things uncomfortable not stripped to their bare caveman essentials, I think it shows a certain machismo. A man needs to be constantly pretend to be civilized so he can trick the rest of society, i.e. women, children, and faggots, into serving his manly needs.

You may think I'm over-analyzing this trend. After all, action heroes need to keep their clothes on so movies where they rip people's spinal columns out through their throats are safe for the whole family. But consider the trend's implications.

People often argue that Jeff Buckley's death was a suicide, because he drowned after going to swim with his clothes on. I say he was trying to be manly to make up for his ninny, whining "rock" albums. Now you may say, hey, Jeff Buckley was a beautiful person, a talented musician with a four-octave voice range! I say people who use words like "octave" ought to be punched in the voice box. And you're right, Jeff was a great guy. It takes a true hero to rob the world of such "talent."

So while the male norm used to be trying to remain pantless and shirtless at all times, I say keep your clothes on. Yeah, it may show true disgust for the woman you live with when it's six oclock at night and you still aren't dressed, letting the milk from you frosted flakes dribble down your bare chest and into your boxers as you watch Two and a Half Men (isn't Charlie Sheen the coolest?). But she'll be even more freaked when you refuse to take your clothes off, even during coitus. It says, hey, I never let my guard down, especially not for you, bitch.

And you'll always be ready in a true test of masculinity, like if a minority tries to rob you in the middle of the night. You'll be sharp and intimidating in a full suit, looking like you just came back from your high-powered job and ready to start a fight. Plus, then he has no way of ridiculing you for your inferior-sized junk, which hey, man, is just genetic and can't be helped. But don't worry, that's what these tips are for.

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I Guess You'll Do
a country love song by Dan Panno

Weeeeellll

I saw her walkin’ over she was lookin’ pretty fine,
She said she wouldn't do me even if she were mine,

So I went on to the next one and I looked at her and said,
Would like to take a drink with me or give me some...

Head on to the third one, I was lookin’ pretty desperate,
Began to talk to her before I realized I’d messed up,

It was then that I realized she wasn't lookin’ good,
But I figured it wouldn’t be so bad if I made her wear a hood,

Iiiiiiiiiii saaaaaid,
Well I guess you'll do!
Come on into the loo,

We'll get all down and dirty,
Even though your hole is thirty,

Cause I Guess you'll do!
Dear God let’s drink more brew,

I'll need all kinds of therapy,
Just because your face is scarin’ me…

(Here's when we go into a talking part)

"What? You have a sister?"

Weeeeeell
I guess you'll do...too!
Everything’s better in twos,

Your face should be a goddamned sin,
At least you don’t have a…twin?

The Renaissance Man

The news came in intermittent bursts of ringing telephones. The Freeman-Parker household had received two phone calls from the military that evening.

“You would think,” Mr. Freeman-Parker began, “that they would think that we would get the point. ‘Your son didn’t come back from the skirmish. We can’t find his body. Blah blah blah.’ I get it already!”

Ms. Parker-Freeman, busy darning a pair of socks, paused to look at her husband. There were creases on her face that Mr. Freeman-Parker did not recognize.
“Tom hasn’t telephoned in three days,” she said, “Do you think…”

“Preposterous,” said Mr. Freeman-Parker, “The boy is in North Carolina, not Tehran. He doesn’t have the brains to concoct such absurd fictions.”

Mr. Freeman-Parker rose from his chair, hoping the telephone would not ring again. The thought of it made him feel light-headed. He walked out into their study room, a room which contained no less than thirty-seven clocks. The clocks were neatly ordered, nestled into crannies between picture frames, looming above windows. The nine digital clocks were stacked in columns of three on top of a black oak dresser. Between two potted plants that hung from the ceiling stood a seven-foot high grandfather clock, its gold pendulum paused in anticipation. Mr. Freeman-Parker, sometimes unable to sleep late at night due to a general excitement about life, would often enter this room just to calm himself with the resonant quarter-hour gongs of the old grandfather clock.

“It’s eleven-twenty-three, my dear,” Mr. Freeman-Parker announced, returning to the reading room, “Perhaps it is time we retire.”

“Yes, but will those awful men ever stop calling?”

Mr. Freeman-Parker moved over to the wall and removed their fire-red phone from its jack.

“All they’ll be calling is a hole in the wall.”

The night was notable only because the couple did not make love. Despite their aristocratic pretensions, Mr. & Ms. Freeman-Parker both shared the viewpoint that the human being was inherently sexual, a device intended to harness the finer sensualities of life. For this worldly couple, there was a certain understanding that the primary needs of mammals were nothing more than sex and food. And thus this proto-aristocratic family, a lawyer and a doctor, respectively, ravished themselves with the tastes of fine wines and exotic cheeses. In the bedroom, they explored position after position, the thirst for discovery never satiated. It had to do with a unique comprehension of privilege, an understanding that they possessed things that other people would sell their souls for. Why be the man who has everything except happiness?

Their lone child, Tom, never seemed to partake in their refined philosophies and ways of doing things. He was by all accounts an average student and preferred Big Macs to haute cuisine. As a result, there was always a disconnect between parents and child. It was probably nothing more complicated than teenage rebellion, a desire imparted upon Tom by his peer group to do things 'differently.' But because the Freeman-Parkers had everything, especially happiness, they assumed their child was ill when just after high school graduation, he informed them that he was off to join the Army.

"We hate the military," pronounced Ms. Parker-Freeman.

"If I wanted someone to die for my country, I'd do it myself," offered Mr. Freeman-Parker.

Tom, his eyes pointing at the ground, said only "Someone has to keep the country safe."

"Well, Tom, this is where college would really help with your uninformed outlook," said Ms. Freeman-Parker. "Our country is perfectly safe. War is only valid if the very existence of our country is being called into question."

"The Civil War, perhaps, is an example?" said Mr. Freeman-Parker, now openly reading the Wall Street Journal.

"I’d say the Revolutionary War is the only example. The Civil War would have re-shaped the country, divided it into two, but us Northerners could still have had our piece of the pie."

Later that week, after Tom had long since packed his bags and departed for the train station, the Freeman-Parkers continued to politely bicker about what qualified as a just war. They came to no solid conclusions besides one: the Iranian war was the most unjust of all.

* * *

A few weeks after Tom’s departure from the household, the fire-red telephone had begun to ring. The sound of their landline was as obnoxious as any cell phone. It buzzed with a low, flatted sound, like someone blowing through a tuba with a small, dead animal inside.

“Parker-Freeman residence,” answered Mr. Freeman-Parker.

“Hello… Dad,” said Tom, on the other line, a tremor in his voice.

Mr. Freeman-Parker sighed and walked over to his plush white chair, telephone in hand.

“Hello Tom.” If there was any tension in his mind, he failed to show it.

“I didn’t expect they would let make you any calls from Guantanamo. It’s of course nice to hear from you as always. Shall I fetch your mother? She seems to miss you.”

“No, Dad. I wanted to tell you, you were right about the Army.” Tom hesitated. “I’m at my training base. Camp Wahooie in North Carolina. Well, to tell the truth, I ditched about six hours ago.”

“What did you expect?” Mr. Freeman-Parker interrupted. “There’s a reason rich men don’t send their children off to war anymore and it’s not because of money. It’s because our sons are weak and bloodless, pampered with luxuries from a young age. I’m not surprised you’re failing to keep up.”

“It’s not that, Dad. Why don’t you put Mom on the phone?”

“I guess it takes a woman to know a woman,” said Mr. Freeman-Parker before passing on the phone to his red-faced wife. She was flapping her wrists excitedly.

“Oh Tom!” she cried.

Mr. Freeman-Parker slid open the glass door that led out to the deck. The wood was dry and chipping. It was unlike him to leave it in such a state. He would have to lay a new coat of varnish. He walked down the red side steps into his yard. The grass was kept at six inches’ length at all times during the summer. He liked to keep his feet cool and enjoyed the intermingling of nature with his skin. He walked over to an oak tree, a member of the surrounding forest that had snuck within twenty feet of the house. Leaning against its reassuring trunk, he thought about his ceaseless quest to make himself a superior human being. He felt he had rather succeeded. Tom did have potential. But the military was a dead end. Even if Tom became a general, he could hardly hope to be a Renaissance man.

Ms. Parker-Freeman stomped onto the back porch.

“You know, darling,” she said, her teeth gritted, “you nearly convinced him to return to the base. He told me he wanted to stick it to you.”

“He never sticks to anything. He dallies, but he drifts.”

“Tom didn’t leave because he couldn’t cut it, dear. He left because he feels like let us down.”

“He should feel that way. I am let down.” Mr. Freeman-Parker put a comical frown onto his face as he flopped to the grass, intending to appeal to his wife’s sense of humor.

“I know we said remorse is for the proletariat,” Ms. Parker-Freeman began.

“As is anger, sadness, depression, any negative feeling at all.”

“But I told him that this time, at least, we were wrong. I told him I regretted the imposition I put into his life. I told him that we should have been willing to hear what he had to say.” She shrugged her shoulders, not knowing what to expect from her husband, who as always, showed not even the slightest sign of perturbation.

Mr. Freeman-Parker, still sprawled in the grass, sighed.

“When’s he coming back home?”

“In a month. He says he’s going to visit some friends on the coast.”

“Perhaps I’ll write him a sonnet. Somewhat romantic, somewhat conciliatory. It should serve much better than an apology.”

“Maybe you should get your head out of your ass,” Ms. Parker-Freeman retorted. She immediately put her hand over her mouth. It was her reaction any time she engaged in a faux pas. Mr. Freeman-Parker said nothing, but began to pluck individual blades of grass from the ground.

* * *

During the month of July, the Freeman-Parkers received daily phone calls from Tom. He seemed eager to talk to both of them, even dear old Dad, who he had so frequently appeared to detest during his last year at home. He told them lavish tales of his and his friends’ adventures on the North Carolina shore; sailing on the Atlantic Ocean at dusk, counting seagulls and skipping stones into the shallow rock pools near the coast. Every anecdote pleased Mr. Freeman-Parker especially, who was convinced that his son was beginning to lead the enriched life that he himself led.

Meanwhile across the country, Army reserve units were being called to fight the new war in Iran. As there were still plenty of troops in Iraq, the military was stretched more thinly than ever. With the political climate unwilling to support drastic measures like the draft, trainees with zero combat experience were packed into helicopters and dropped onto the Arabian desert with canteens of water and thirty-five pounds of gear. Even the baby-faced troops at Camp Wahooie were summoned into action, enlisted to shore up defenses in Tehran. Although Mr. Freeman-Parker was beginning to believe that his son might even have benefited from seeing combat, assuming of course, that he returned promptly home to attend university after the war, Ms. Parker-Freeman was grateful that her boy was safe with his starched-white friends on the Atlantic seaboard, friends who were heirs to a lighthouse fortune.

One evening, as Mr. Freeman-Parker read that day’s Wall Street Journal and as Ms. Parker-Freeman worked furiously on a pair of maroon velvet socks for Tom’s Christmas present, their phone began ringing. Ms. Parker-Freeman motioned her husband to sit down, then got up herself and answered the phone. She listened calmly to whatever the person on the other line was saying, adding nothing herself. Had Mr. Freeman-Parker been observing her and not his stock portfolio, he might have noticed that she looked rather pale. Yet by the time she had set the phone back onto its receiver, she was wearing a cheery smile.

“I say, dear,” she said, “the military must never have taken our son off the rolls.”

"What's that?"

"They're saying he's gone missing."

"Like I always say, military men are only good for polishing shoes and shaving their beards. Let someone else keep the books."

The obvious hung in the air between them all that night, even as they mercilessly severed the phone from its hook. Yet neither would admit to its portent.

* * *

At around six thirty the next morning, Ms. Parker-Freeman awoke to a sharp knocking on the door. Still naked, she rushed to the door, pulling a silk bathrobe around her body. She groaned as she entered the vestibule, where through the front windows, she could clearly see the jacketed figures of two military men. Both wore rows and rows of badges, flags, and pins, meant to connote their high ranks. She had to admit, there was a certain gravitas to their presence. The man on the left had to be pushing seventy, yet he held his body firm and strong, staring into her front door without appearing to blink. The man on the right, was younger, perhaps in his forties, black. As soon as she opened the door, the man on the right began to speak, his voice stern and rich.

"We don't normally do this, ma'am -"

"But we felt that you must be in great denial to ignore our calls."

"Tom was under my command, ma'am. I'm Col. Alonzo T. Jackson." He proffered his right hand. She shook it, expecting a firm, officious handshake, yet his grasp was tender and light. A man you could die for. The thought raced through her head.

"If you don't mind me asking, Colonel Jackson, what do you, as a black man, think you're getting from the military? What did this country ever do for you, besides to treat you and your ancestors like animals?"

The older man winced. Col. Jackson stared coolly into her eyes, his expression unchanged.

"Your son is missing, Ms. Parker."

"Freeman-Parker," she corrected instinctively.

"We don't expect to find his body." Jackson put his hand on her wrist, holding it with affection.

"Tom quit the Army," she said, but she found herself beginning to weep. The other man put his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm truly sorry," he said, “Tom was one of the most courageous soldiers I’ve ever had the pleasure to command.”

Mr. Freeman-Parker’s denial was harder to shake. It certainly unnerved him to wake to the sounds of Ms. Parker-Freeman sobbing, to have his eyes open to the vision of two stern-faced officers flanking his shrieking, beloved wife. He had never seen her cry, not on their wedding day, not when Tom was born. Crying was allowed in the Freeman-Parker household only if it indicated some cathartic joy.

“Mr. Freeman-Parker. My name is Genl. Richard Woodward,” the older officer said, holding out his left hand.

Mr. Freeman-Parker shook the hand firmly and then shook the hand of Col. Jackson.

“What seems to be the matter, gentlemen?” he said. He was putting on a façade, even he could tell, but he was in unknown territory.

Col. Jackson clenched his fists as he began to speak.

“Your son, Tom. We believe he was killed in battle in Tehran, about seventeen hours ago.”

Without a change in expression, Mr. Freeman-Parker continued his questioning.

“What would he be doing in battle? He left the Army after his first week. He said it wasn’t what he expected.”

“If you don’t mind me saying, sir, nothing has been what we’ve expected these days. We’ve rushed privates into battle and seen more and more casualties each day.” It was Woodward speaking, his hands held in front of his waist.

“But Tom was special. He knew how to lead men. He was prepared for all contingencies,” offered Col. Jackson.

“Except death.”

Mr. Freeman-Parker shook his head. His wife walked over to him and lay her head on his shoulder.

“It’s all true, Edgar. They took our boy.”

Edgar. He barely recognized his birth name. Mr. Freeman-Parker held his shaking wife then, staring wide-eyed out of the bedroom window. After some time he became aware of the animalistic sobs escaping from his chest. He could not control them.

"We'll be holding a military funeral in three weeks," said Genl. Woodward.

"It will give us time to see if anything changes," added Col. Jackson. "But I wouldn't get your hopes up."

Col. Jackson walked over to the Freeman-Parkers and patted Mr. Freeman-Parker on the shoulder hesitantly. Genl. Woodward shook his head and the two departed from the house, leaving the Freeman-Parkers to wallow in despair.

* * *

Mr. Freeman-Parker had always been of the opinion that grieving over death was an act borne of selfishness. Certainly the person who was dead would have no opinion regarding their death. No, it was us left behind who cared, it was we who were unable to fathom that we would never see our loved one again. He had tried to tell his wife as much but she had stared at him, her eyes wide and red. Now he spent most of his days lying in a plastic lawn chair on the back patio, attempting to distract himself through his favorite hobby of bird-watching. He was deeply ashamed that the military men had witnessed him shedding tears. Through a shapely pair of black binoculars, he gazed out into their backyard, a yard that dropped off quickly into dense forestation. The bluebirds and red-breasted nuthatches were nowhere to be found. In their place were what appeared to be thousands of black grackles shrieking mindlessly at some perceived slight. Through the distorting perspective of the binoculars the birds seemed enormous and terrible. He leaned back in the lawn chair and collapsed onto the porch, the angry canopy of trees staring into his face through the portal of the lens as night descended on the Freeman-Parker household.

He awoke to see his wife peering into his face. Tom’s funeral was in three days.

“Edgar,” she said, “you’re wrong about death.”

“Oh, but I’m right. It’s past time to stop moping.”

“We don’t have to be ashamed of being human, is all I’m saying. We’re allowed to miss our boy. We’re allowed to think about what we could have done differently.”

He reached out his hand and placed it delicately on her cheek. She smiled.

“No,” he said.

She grabbed his hand and threw it off her as if it were diseased.

“Fuck you, Edgar. Fuck you.”

As Ms. Freeman-Parker opened the door to the patio, she thought of something that she knew would breach her husband’s impressive defense mechanisms.

“I’m going to let the other doctors at the practice know something,” she said, almost sneering with rage. “I’m going to let them know to call me Dr. Parker.”

* * *

The sky was a pastel gray, the sun buried behind a constellation of clouds. Mr. Freeman knelt in the patchy earth of the graveyard, his hand held tremulously above his heart. He produced a small velvet bag from his front pocket.

"It's time, Mr. Freeman," the mortician said.

Mr. Freeman. The absence of his second surname, the sundering of his beloved hyphen. Gone. His eyes were as dry as always, but his fingers began to shake. His body trembled. With a jerk, Mr. Freeman gently laid the bag into the small rectangular pit that had been carved out of the ground. Tom’s body had never been recovered.

Guns fired into the air as a marching band began to play taps.

"We are here today to honor a fallen comrade," Col. Jackson began. Mr. Freeman ceased to listen, the world dissolving into a tuneless hum.