17: Ohio

You weren’t even through with the first year of middle school yet, but you hated it. You knew you always would.

It wasn’t just its tweeniness, its in-betweenness. It was its teeniness, its pettiness, where all the prissy little girls gossiped about who was the prettiest.

It didn’t help that you were younger than they were, and smaller. Flatter-chested, too. Even the other ugly girls picked on you.

W was your only friend. He was new in town, but would have been an outcast anyway, since he was almost six feet tall already and overweight. The fact that his last name was Wiener didn’t help at all.

“Is it pronounced Weiner or Whiner?” Mrs. Malstrom had asked, as he stood awkwardly at the front of your homeroom class.

“It’s Veener,” he said, but everybody else was already laughing too hard to hear.

They all called him the obvious nicknames after that. He seemed pretty used to it.


You didn’t talk to him until the PeaceBuilders breakfast last month, where you two were the only kids whose parents didn’t come. Your mother had the early shift at Krogers. You weren’t sure what his deal was.

He was sitting at a corner table by himself, eating strawberry yogurt and drawing in his notebook. You snagged some Sunny D from the buffet table and walked over.

“Hey Veneer,” you said. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” He slammed his notebook closed.

You shrugged and sat down across from him without asking, took the last issue of Kick-Ass from your bag, and started reading, knowing that W was watching you.

The vice principal recited the Peacebuilder’s Pledge. Last month you were supposed to notice hurts and make amends. March’s focus was righting wrongs.

W pointed to your comic book. “That’s my favorite,” he said.

You met at the old Indian Mound that evening. It was the highest point in Norwood, and from there you could see the water towers, and just make out the middle school.

W was wearing a cape with a big picture of Spider-Man. It had crinkled edges that stretched when it billowed out in the wind.

“Are you wearing a sheet?” you asked.

“I brought you one,” he said.


After that you spent every afternoon together. School let out and you’d find each other on the grass by the front door.

When the bell rang, kids streamed in from both sides – the middle school on one and the high school on the other.

You and W picked a spot by the parking lot. There were some trees there to climb or sit under, and a guardrail to jump off. You’d decided to call your group The PeaceMakers, because W said it was like the PeaceBuilders, but tougher. You didn’t have superhero names. You hadn’t figured out who your nemesis was yet.

“Craig Brown?” W asked, as he tied his cape around his neck. It was a Monday, and you’d both just gotten out of math class, where Craig sat in the seat directly behind him.

You shook your head. “Kelly Thomas,” you said.

“I don’t know,” W said. “She’s not so bad.”

“You’re just saying that because you like her!” You pretended to gag.

He whirled around and started punching an army of imaginary Craigs coming from the other direction. The back of his neck was red. “Am not,” he said.

You were both quiet for a couple of minutes. “Sorry,” you said.

W smiled. “I call this one the Put Down Destroyer,” he said, grabbing an invisible enemy and spinning him around.

A couple teenagers were walking past to their car, and laughed. “Smooth moves, fatty,” the taller one said, and the shorter one gave W a shove.

In a flash, W grabbed him, twisted him, and threw him down. “This isn’t fat,” he said as the tall kid ran and the short kid lay dazed on the ground. “This is potential energy.”


The next day W got called down to the office during homeroom. He didn’t show up in class afterwards, and wasn’t waiting for you outside that afternoon. When Wednesday came and his desk was still empty, you decided to go looking for him.

You’d never been to his house before, though – he’d only pointed to it from the top of the Indian Mound. You couldn’t come over because his parents were “too allergic,” he’d said.

You tried asking the secretary for his address before lunch, but she told you it was “confidential.” You considered your options as you ate your tacos by yourself.

In math class last period, when Mr. Lewis was passing out homework, you raised your hand. “I can take Wiener’s,” you said. Behind the empty desk beside you, Craig snickered.

You took the homework and put it in your bag, and after the bell you went to the office again, and told the secretary that Mr. Lewis needed W’s homework sent home.

You pretended to be texting someone while she took a manila envelope and wrote out his address, and instead took a picture with your phone. “Can I help you with anything else?” the secretary asked.

The numbers were a little blurry, but you could make the street name out. You slipped the phone into your pocket and smiled. “No thank you,” you said.


The sky clouded over as you walked across town, and by the time you got to W’s street it was dark as dusk, like a cloud of dust had swallowed the sun up.

You stopped by a caved-in metal mailbox with W’s last name on it. There was a rusting car in the driveway. The yard was covered in a blanket of rotting leaves.

You wrapped your cape around you and crept up to the window. A man was sitting on a couch watching baseball on TV. You snuck around the back, looking for W’s room.

You knew you’d found it when you saw the Spider-Man sheets. They moved a little when you knocked on the window. He poked his head out when you knocked a second time.

Something was wrong. W’s lips were cracked and puffy. He had a dark purple circle around one of his eyes. He didn’t seem to see you, so you knocked again.

W shook his head and started mouthing something. He gestured frantically with his hands, then his door flew open and the TV-watching man stepped in. His eyes locked on yours. You ran.


When you got home your mother was making dinner. “Guess what, Katy,” she said as you closed the door. “I just bought our tickets to the Mother-Daughter Tea at the Flower Show! It’s this Sunday, and I have the day off,” she turned around as you walked into the kitchen, shivering but not sniveling. W was in trouble. You knew who your nemesis was.

16: Tennessee

Fluorescent lights illuminate a dingy kitchen. Tom is sitting at a folding table, typing on an old PC with his back to the foyer. The doorway abutting the table is boarded up. Cigarette butts spill from a Bakelite ashtray onto the tabletop, next to a bottle of bourbon and a single glass.

TOM. (Typing) … like a carnival magician, it seems real, but it isn’t. (Pause) It appears to be true, but. Uh. Shit. (He deletes his last sentence and starts again) Like an illusionist, who … (A door closes softly and Francis walks in dressed in an Arby’s uniform)

FRANCIS. (Coughs) You smoke too much.

TOM. Who are you, my mother? (He resumes typing, muttering too softly to be heard. Francis passes behind him into another room)

TOM. My play is really coming along. Thanks for asking. (He lights a cigarette and stares at the screen)

The muffled sound of a slamming door comes through the boarded-up doorway, followed by the tumbling of children running to meet their mother. She speaks with them for a few minutes before they run outside and the door slams again.

FRANCIS. (Returning to the kitchen in casual dress) Much better. Now, what do you want for dinner?

TOM. I don’t care.

FRANCIS. I know.

Francis opens the fridge, removes a couple Styrofoam takeout containers, spoons some leftover food onto a plate, and puts the plate into the microwave. It whirs for a few minutes, then beeps. Francis takes the plate out, sits down next to Tom, and starts to eat.

TOM. That smells like garbage. (He takes a drink)

FRANCIS. Oh? Did you want some?

TOM. Fuck you.

FRANCIS. Fascinating. Where ever did you learn the art of conversation?

Francis continues eating in silence. Tom pours himself another drink and lights another cigarette. Somewhere, music is playing. A woman’s voice begins to sing along.

TOM. Listen to her. Singing that goddamn song again. Dolling herself up for another goddamn gentleman caller.

FRANCIS. (Resting a hand on Tom’s shoulder) Tom, he’s her fiancé. (Running the other hand through his hair) You need to let Laura go.

TOM. Don’t touch me. (He stands suddenly and pushes Francis backward. The chair clatters to the floor) You freak. You mutant. Don’t you fucking touch me. (He raises his fist and steps forward) I left my job at the lab to be a writer, Laura left me for that asshole, and I can’t write worth a damn. Every day I hear my kids come home, but I can’t see them. Now all I have is you. And look what kind of woman you turned out to be.

FRANCIS. You never wanted me, Tom. (Standing slowly) You just wanted to get back at her. And you knew what you were getting into. (Francis turns to go) Now you don’t have anyone.

Francis walks to the door and opens it. In the driveway two young boys are playing, their laughter rings about the kitchen for a moment, then the door closes and they recede into the background again.

TOM. (Staring at the boarded-up doorway) We had it, Laura and me. The American Dream. The Nuclear Family. Now look what happened. What good is half a house in Oak Ridge? What’s left after you split an atom? Ashes. (He sits down). Ashes. Shadows on a wall.

The music starts up again in the other room. Laura begins to sing, and Tom puts his head in his hands. Smoke drifts up from the end of his cigarette, dappled by the last light of the golden hour passing through the curtains.

15: Kentucky

At the Creation Museum, the Third-Person Omniscient Narrator stood and watched. Plastic dinosaurs walked before His eyes.

He would have sat but He was non-corporeal. Also, there were no benches. Even the Cave Girl looked uncomfortable.

He stood, so to speak, in contemplation. If He hadn’t created chairs, did that mean they were the devil’s work? He’d seen some in the lobby by the gift shop.

There were no branches in the Creation Museum, so He retraced His steps. An iguanodon paced the Garden of Eden, but Adam was ignoring it.


In the lobby, the Palm Café proffered coffee and tacos. The Dragon Hall Bookstore demonstrated that dinosaurs and dragons were the same.

In the theater, “Men in White” explained how the “whole enchilada” was created. The light came before the sun. The universe sprang from a white hole. The world was formed in 6 days, 6,000 years ago.

The 60,000-square-foot Creation Museum was beautifully and intelligently designed. Its animatronic displays were constructed by Universal Studios.

Its message was that believing in an older Earth had led to abortion and Internet pornography. To illustrate, there was a wrecking ball labeled “Millions of Years.”

Many of the museum’s mannequins were modeled on the actor who played Adam in a movie that had since been banished from the program, due to his appearance in Internet pornography.

He knew this because He was omniscient. Also, Google and Wikipedia.


All cosmic irony aside, He literarily wept to see some white Christ crucified on three flat-screen televisions. It was comforting to think that everything happened for a reason.

In the Biblical Authority Room, the signs proclaimed “God’s Word is True,” and to prove it there were several prophet statues.

One of the statues looked like Count Leo Tolstoy. The towering weightiness of his scrolls. The moral authority of his bushy brows.

He was overcome, and changed the other two to look like Tolstoy, too.


On a lonely telephone-pole-lined road, across from some empty Kentucky scrubland, stegosaurus-topped brick walls mark the golden gates of the Creation Museum.

The Third-Person Omniscient Narrator was tired, but the museum was open until 6 on Sundays, so He drifted toward the topiary gardens. Maybe He could create something believable there.

14: Vermont

You called yourself a Rastafarian. You smoked pot every morning, grew your hair out and didn’t shower, put a big poster of Bob Marley on your dorm room wall.

That was so last semester. Now you’re into the activist scene. You grew a mohawk and bought thrift store clothing, covered your L.L. Bean bag in punk rock patches and sharpied slogans. Fuck the Police. Anarchy Forever.