Nostalgia Equals 20 to 30 Years Ago

Q: I have written a novel loosely based on my life, much of it set in the sixties through eighties. My agent has tried and failed to make a book deal she says because the publishers feel that the book needs to be updated a few decades and set in the eighties through the millenium. They want it to be more current, especially since the focus of the book is not really about those decades, but about my life and family events, which just happened to occur during those decades.

My agent agrees with the publishers who have rejected the book; thus, I am in the process of re-writing it to be more current, although with some misgivings. What do you think? Should I set my book in recent decades to make it more current?

A: If you have a publisher who is willing to make a deal based on an update and the update does not ruin the book, then go for it.

It seems that most publishers want novels that are set in present day unless there is a very good reason for setting them in the past. This makes sense, I suppose, because readers are more likely to buy books that are current.

Nostalgia does sell, however. These days people seem to be interested in the seventies and eighties. The sixties are still popular. Every now and then we get a few books set in the fifties and forties, but not so much anymore. Books about the fifties were very popular back in the seventies and eighties.

Here's something I was told by a writer friend. I do not know if this is a hard and fast rule (and I myself do not follow it)--but here it is; if the year itself is irrelevant to the plot, always set your book in present day: and if you must set it in the past, set it 20-30 years ago.

He argued that setting it 20-30 years ago will attract the "nostalgia" readers. The most active book buyers, those in the 30 to 50 age range, will be attracted to a book set during the good old days when they were teenagers and young adults.

Ten years ago is too recent--you might as well update it and make it present day. The people who were teens to young adults ten years ago, are still young adults, and as they are still getting their careers in order they are not yet in that place where they will yearn for the good old days.

Forty, fifty and more years ago is too far in the past--you might as well update it and make it present day. The people who were teens to young adults forty and more years ago have most likely already fallen in love with cherished classics (and specific writers) who feed their need for nostalgia--it will be hard to supplant them.

I do not know if I agree with this, and I am still mulling it over, but there you have it.

Thanks,

Preston

Should I Show It to My Friends?

Q: I’m currently writing a novel, and I asked my close friends to read it and let me know what I could do to improve it.

1. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I would like for this novel to appeal to teenagers and adults, without being too graphic, and have some elements of realism to the characters and plot (even though it is a paranormal novel).

2. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

H.D.

A:

1. Finish writing the book before you show it to anyone.

2. Join a writers group or take a creative writing class.

3. Read as many books in that chosen genre as you can.

4. Don't write down to children and teenagers. They will see your con coming from a mile away.


Thanks,

Preston

Check Out This New Story

The following four posts have been published in reverse order for your reading ease.

The novel is called "Every Boy Should Have a Man," and it is a finalist for the Florida Writer's Association Royal Palm Literary Award.



Enjoy.

Thanks,

Preston

Every Boy Should Have a Man

"Every Boy Should Have a Man"
Copyright © 2009 by Preston L. Allen




He was not unusual because he had a man.

In those days every boy had a man or wanted one.

He was not unusual because he had a man that talked.

With the boom in mining and the approaching war, they were breeding more talking mans, and many boys—at least those born to well to do families—had mans that talked.

What made this boy unusual was that he was born to a poor family and he had a man that talked.


* * *


He was playing in the bramble after school one day when he spotted the man.

“A man!” the boy exclaimed.

The man said, “Hello there.”

“A man that talks!” the boy exclaimed.

He did not look like a wild or dangerous man, so the boy fashioned a leash out of string from his sack and led the man home.

He played with him in his room until just before his mother came home. He told the man, “Don’t say anything or I will be punished.”

The man, who seemed to have understanding, said, “Okay.”

Then the boy put him under the bed.

The mother came home, and then the father. The man under the bed said nothing, and the evening ended with night as it always did.


* * *


In the morning before the boy left for school, he checked under his bed.

“I’m hungry,” the man said.

“Hungry?”

“At the place where I was before, they fed me.”

“What do you eat?”

“I don’t know. What do you eat?”

The boy went out into the kitchen and brought back his meager breakfast which his mother had left for him and gave it to the man. The boy watched as the man ate.

The man ate everything.

The boy’s hungry stomach growled as he watched.

The man looked up from the plate he had licked clean. “Now I’m thirsty.”

The boy came back with water and watched as the man drank. Then he put the man back under the bed and left for school.

After school the boy raced home and checked under his bed. The man’s snore was a steady buzz.

The boy shook him until his eyes drooped opened. “Come on, let’s play.”

“I’m hungry again.”

“Uh . . . okay.”

The man followed him around as the boy checked the house for food. Sometimes when the boy turned, the man would be inspecting some object in his hand—mother’s prize glass bowl, a dish towel, the shiny tin of cooking oil, the small singing harp—and the boy would invariably order the man to put the thing down and he would do so obediently, for he was an obedient man.

Opening a cupboard, the boy discovered the scraps of meat his mother had hung to dry. The man took it from him and devoured it quickly. But afterward he was playful and talkative. All in all, the boy was having a good time, though he worried what would happen when his parents found that the scraps of meat were missing.

Just before his mother got home, the boy put the man back under the bed and prepared for the worst.

His mother would be wroth. She would yell and scream and threaten with punishments severe. But he would stand his ground. He would cry, “But mom, every boy should have a man. All the other kids have one. Why can’t I? It’s just not fair.”

Maybe it would work. Maybe.

That evening when his parents got home, they were in a grand mood, having stopped off at the festival and come back with sacks full of food. At the festival there is lots of food and everyone is free to eat. No one is supposed to eat to excess or put the food in sacks and take it home, but his parents were known to be poor and so the authorities, as usual, looked the other way.

The evening became night, the boy’s mother did not mention the missing scraps of dried meat, and the boy went to bed believing that he had gotten away with it.

Under the bed, his man was talking. He was saying silly things and singing silly songs: “Fly me to the moon. Fly me to the moon. Pick a nice fat one. Fe, fe, fe! Victory!”

The words made no sense, but the boy listened enchanted until he fell asleep.

The next morning, the boy raced home after school to be with his man, but he found his mother fussing around the kitchen. His mother almost never came home early.

Before he could say a word to her, she scolded, “Let me see this man of yours.”

The boy didn’t know what to say. She didn’t look angry, not exactly, but she continued to scold: “What have you been feeding him? All of our food? I was saving that meat. They don’t eat that. He’s going to get sick and make a big mess. And when your father finds out, what do you think he’s going to say? You know his temper. You didn’t steal this man, did you?”

He led her into his room, and bid the man come out from under the bed.

The man came out shyly. First his head popped out, then his limbs. He unfolded himself and stood to his full height. He was tall—almost as tall as they were.

He was a big man, but thin. His ribs were showing through his skin. He hadn’t been eating properly since even before the boy found him, and they lose weight so fast when they do not eat.

His hair was matted with dirt, bramble, and what looked like bird droppings. He smelled liked feces. He looked like a well-bred man, so the mother didn’t imagine that he had messed on himself—but she knew that somewhere under the bed was a pile of his droppings that she would have to find and remove before the whole place smelled like a zoo.

The boy’s mother took the man out back and washed him down with water and a soapy sponge. The man shivered as she dried his body with the fluffy towel grandmother had given them. He had brownish skin, with areas around his elbows and knees darker than everywhere else.

She scratched his head with one of her combs, and when she had the hairs on his head under control, she tied the ends of them with little bits of colored cloth.

She clipped the long hairs on his loins with clippers of brass and then pinched his loins into a pretty red pouch she retrieved from her room.

The man was very pretty after the mother was done with him—him with his new hair cloths and fancy loin pouch. Very pretty. He looked like the man of a wealthy family now.

Then the mother went out to the market and returned with food for the man—a handful of vegetables and grains. She explained to the boy: “This is what they eat.”

“But he ate all the meat that I gave him. He seemed to like it.”

The mother shook her head. “They are not cannibals. Eating of his own flesh will make him sick.”

She put the food in a bowl and set it before the man, and she and the boy watched as the man ate. He was a well trained man, who ate without spilling. The boy pet the man’s head as he ate.

The mother, caught up in nostalgia, remembered the man her family had owned when she was a girl.

She told him, “I had a man when I was a little girl.”

“I love my man,” the boy said, playfully pinching the man’s ear as he ate.

“He’s a very fine man, indeed,” the mother observed. “I loved my man too, when I was a little girl. But my father, your grandfather, he didn’t like him at all.” The mother spoke in a calm, sad voice. “When I was about your age, I got my man. We found three of them aimlessly wandering around the schoolyard. Juveniles with no adult that we could see. They were part of a litter, we guessed, but they did not all look alike. Two were pale and stout—one was brown, and he was tall like this one, though not so handsome. The teacher decided to put our names in a hat. The first name she drew was mine. I chose the brown one. He had dark brown skin and coal black eyes. Because there was a lighter spot on his cheek, I called him ‘Bright Cheek.’ I brought him home on a leash that the teacher gave me. My mother took one look at him and shook her head. Your father is not going to like this one bit, she warned. But I begged and pleaded, so she cleaned him up, fed him, and then sewed pretty cloths for his hair and a pouch for his loins. That same one there that he is wearing.” She pointed to the pretty red pouch his man was wearing. “Then we placed some bedding on the ground so that he would have a place to sleep. When my father came home and saw the man, he started yelling right away and did not stop until the morning. No mans, he kept yelling. I hate mans, they are messy and smelly and they carry diseases, he said. I cried and cried. The only reason the man was even allowed to stay the night was because the weather was cold and there was a law about cruelty to mans. When morning came your grandmother got up and prepared the man and she helped me take him back to school. The teacher put the names in the hat again, all except mine, and I watched as another girl won my man and took him home. I cried and cried.”

“I’m not going to let father give my man away!” the boy shouted.

“Well, we’ll just have to keep him under the bed until I can talk to your father. I’ll try to talk to your father.”

“I’m not going to let father give him away! I’m not going to let anybody take him. I’m going to keep him forever and ever,” said the boy with the resoluteness of the innocent. “And I’m going to call him Brown Skin!”

The boy hugged the man’s neck as he spoke. The man looked at the boy with what could pass for understanding. The mother noticed and a horrified look appeared on her face. She said to the boy, “Can he talk? Is he a man that talks?”

The boy, who was usually very truthful, saw the look on his mother’s face and told a small lie: “No. He can’t talk.”

The mother seemed to relax after that, her pleasant smile returning.

And she began to pet the man, who was already being hugged and pet by the boy. She was smiling, but she muttered under her breath and mostly to herself, “Only the wealthy own mans that talk. We don’t need that kind of trouble.”


* * *


It went well for two more days—days in which the boy played with his man that he kept under the bed and the mother considered different approaches to talking to the father about the secret guest in their house.

On the third day, the boy, overcome by an adventurous spirit, decided to take the man out for a walk. He warned the man not to talk, of course, and the man agreed.

He was a man with perfect understanding.

They went to the market. They went to the square. They went to the field where other boys—the sons of wealthy families—were walking their mans. Everywhere they went, the boy received compliments for having such a fine, handsome, pleasant-smelling man.

Then they went to the green hill where boys were flying kites and workers were setting up for the next festival.

The mayor, who had come to inspect, was there with his wife. The mayor was no expert on festivals. Another election was coming up and he was not really there to inspect, but to collect votes.

The mayor’s wife, an avid lover of mans, spotted the boy and his man and came straightway over. “That is a fine man you have there,” she announced.

The boy, who enjoyed receiving compliments, did not detect the false appreciation in the mayor’s wife’s voice, and he answered boastfully, “Yes he is a fine man. He is the finest man in the world.”

“Where does he get such fine cloths for his hair?”

“My mother made them. She is clever with her hands,” the boy said. “She makes all of our clothes.”

“And does your man speak?” the mayor’s wife said, her voice at last revealing her true emotion, anger. “Does your clever-handed mother make fine conversation with your man that talks?”

“No,” the boy heard his mouth say. “He does not talk.”

The mayor’s wife held him firmly by the shoulder and shook him as she spoke, otherwise he would have taken his man and run away from here. He wanted to run away from here.

“And from where did your clever mother steal this man that talks?”

“My mother did not steal him,” said the boy, trying to pull away.

But the mayor’s wife gripped him ever more tightly. “From where did your clever mother steal my man that talks?”

The boy stammered, “He doesn’t talk. She didn’t steal him.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Now there was a big commotion, and a crowd had gathered, the boys with their kites, the workers with their tools, and even the mayor bustled over.

The mayor proved to be more civil than his wife, because he did not want to scare off any potential votes from among the gathered workers, but the law is the law and theft of property is against the law. His wife, who still had firm hold on the boy, had so many of them at home that he did not actually recognize this one as the man who had gone missing a month and a half ago, but the man could talk and the boy was obviously poor.

That was evidence enough.

It did not help that the man kept shouting at regular intervals—”I want to stay with the boy forever and ever.”

So his mother was called for.

At this point the boy was admitting that the man was not his, because he did not want his mother to get into trouble. He admitted that he had found the man wandering in the bramble.

But the mayor’s wife was demanding justice. There was talk of arrest and punishments severe.

The boy’s mother became distraught. The mayor, again trying to resolve things in a civil fashion, called for the boy’s father.

The father appeared with his head hung low. He was wearing the uniform of his labor. The father was a loader.

The mayor’s wife was issuing threats in a voice that had become hoarse from shouting, the mother was weeping softly with her hand on the boy’s head, and the boy was holding the man’s hand, or rather the man was clutching the boy’s hand and repeating, “I like the boy. I want to stay with the boy forever and ever. I like the boy. I like his mother too.”

The mayor pulled the father away from them and addressed him. “Do you understand what is going on here?”

The father answered sadly, “Yes, I do sir.”

“My wife has every right, you know?”

The father sighed, “Yes, I know she does.”

“Do you have any idea the trouble you and your family are in if she pursues this? And you are completely in the wrong on this.”

The worry lines on the father’s face were multiplying as he nodded helplessly.

“But,” the mayor whispered, “she does tend to blow things out of proportion.”

“Does she?” asked the father.

The mayor pressed a finger to one of the dirt-caked buttons on the father’s uniform. “Now we have an election coming up. There are big things that I would like to do. Big things for everyone. And I need votes. Everyone’s votes. Yours. Your neighbors. Your fellow loaders. I have big plans for everyone, but my wife—she blows everything completely out of proportion.”

The mayor put a hand on the father’s back. Turning, they faced the mother, the boy and his man, and the mayor’s wife, who were all in the exact same postures the mayor and the father had left them in.

The mayor’s wife’s mouth was still flapping, but now they all looked exhausted, even the man.

The mayor cleared his throat. “Now your boy. He looks like a fine boy. I believe him when he says he found the man. Who would be so unwise as to steal a man from her? Her mans run off all the time. She has too many of them. She loves them to death but she can’t keep track of them. Frankly, I think she talks so much she scares them off.”

When the mayor laughed, it was a politician’s laugh, a laugh that put everyone at ease. The father laughed with the mayor, and became at ease.

The mayor slapped him on the back like an old friend. “Go home, you and your family. No harm was done. The man looks healthy enough. Your boy took good care of him. You have a fine boy there.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the father.

“You’re a union man, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes sir. I am.”

“Good! I’m all for that. Talk to your fellows. I sure could use their vote.”


* * *


They walked home in silence, the father, the mother and the boy.

The boy could only imagine the great embarrassment he had caused his father—how terribly the mayor must have scolded him. He could only imagine the elaborate punishments that awaited. In his little hands were the pretty red pouch and the colored cloths his man had worn; in his heart, there was only sorrow.

When they got home, the father said nothing to the boy.

At mealtime, it was a good meal, made up of that which was left over from the festival. The father was still wearing his unwashed loader’s uniform as they ate—he never wore his uniform at the table, but he said nothing. He ate his meal in silence. The mother and the boy—they ate their meals in silence.

After mealtime it was evening, and evening turned to night in the silent home.

That night the boy dreamed of a great festival that went on and on forever and ever, and everybody had a man.


* * *


In the morning, the boy went to school and when he came home his mother was home from work early again.

He worried that something was wrong—that perhaps he had done something wrong again—but the sadness that he had seen on her face the day before was gone. She was cheerful again. He nevertheless was suspicious because it was not like her to be home at such an early hour.

When he got to his bedroom, he jumped for joy. There was a man on his bed.

It was not as big as the man he had found who had run away from the mayor’s loud wife, nor was it as fine looking.

Later he would learn that it was also not a man that talked.

Nor was it one bred for the mines.

Nor was it a man that only a wealthy family could afford.

It was just an average run of the mill man, and he loved it already. He ran and threw his arms around her neck.

It was a female man.

It was a female man with colored cloths in her hair, the red pouch covering her loins, and a note tied up in the red ribbon around her neck.

As his smiling mother looked on through the doorway, the boy opened his father’s note and read the words which retold an eternal truth:

“Every boy should have a man. You’re a fine son. Love father.”

His Female Man

"His Female Man"
Copyright © 2009 by Preston L. Allen




The boy was happy with his man.

His man was fast. She could outrun all the other mans in the neighborhood.

His man was a good fighter. She could beat any other man in the neighborhood, but he did not let her fight too often because his mother did not approve of man-fights, which she considered cruelty to mans. His mother would be so angry after a fight that she would threaten to give his man away if he fought her again.

His man was loyal. She went everywhere he went and cried every morning when he left her at home to go to school.

His man was ferocious. She showed her teeth whenever a stranger came too close to him. To calm her down, he would pet her on the head and kissy-coo her. “Down girl, down,” he would kissy-coo until she became calm, and even then she would keep one eye on the stranger. His female man did not trust strangers.

And though she was a man that could not talk or sing, she was a musically gifted man they discovered when she picked up mother’s small singing harp one day and began to pluck the strings.

At first they were amused that the female man was trying to make the harp sing. The singing harp is a difficult instrument to play, even for someone like mother who had had music lessons as a child, but after a few moments of amusement and mirth, mother exclaimed, “Wait, I know that song! I know what she’s trying to play.”

The mother got up from her knitting, took the singing harp from the man, and plucked a few strings to show them, and the harp sang: “In the heart, in the air, hear the joy everywhere—.”

Of course, they all knew the song. They had all learned it as children. They sang the song along with the singing harp that mother played.

But then the father said, “Maybe it was just coincidence. I know nothing about music, and sometimes when I touch the harp by accident as I pass, I will hear something that reminds of a song I know. Give it to her and see if she can do it again.”

So they gave her back the harp, and the female man set her fingers against the strings. They leaned toward her with expectation.

She looked at them with innocent eyes.

She had bright green eyes and fine, red body hair. There were frecks of rusty-red color on her face and her shoulders, and a few of them on her chest too. Her arms were covered with rusty-red frecks, like rusty-red sleeves on a shirt. And that is why the boy named her Red Sleeves.

“Play it,” said the boy, petting her. “Play. Show them.”

She looked at him with her mouth open. There were a few tiny frecks above and below her lips, too.

The mother said, “Come on, girl.”

Leaning back in his comfortable chair and hiding his knowing smile behind the day’s paper again, the father let out a laugh. They heard him say: “Coincidence.”

“Play,” said the boy. “Come on, girl, play.”

“Maybe she’s hungry,” said the mother. “Maybe she’ll play if she eats something.”

The mother got up and went into the kitchen.

“Play,” kissy-cooed the boy.

From behind his paper, the father said, “She’s a good fighter, though. If your mother wasn’t so nervous about it I know someone, a professional, who could train her free of charge. Then we could enter her in the big fights at the festival. Against what they’ve got, she would place at least third. That’s pretty good money.”

The boy said, “First place. She can lick anybody’s stinky old man.” The boy kissy-cooed, “Come on, girl, play for me. Show them you can do it.”

The father lowered his paper and began to say to the boy, “If we didn’t tell your mother, maybe we could sneak off to the . . .”

But the mother came back from the kitchen with a snack for the man. A big leafy stick of green vegetable. The man took the vegetable and devoured it.

“Play,” said the boy, rubbing the man’s stomach. “Show them you can play.”

The father chuckled. The mother leaned in close for almost a minute and when nothing happened, she got up and went back to her chair next to father where she had left her knitting.

And the singing harp began to sing: “In the heart, in the air, hear the joy everywhere. Shall we call, shall we sing, of the joy everywhere—.”

The boy was clapping and laughing excitedly. “See? See? I told you!”

The mother said, “Whoever owned her before must have taught her to do it.”

The father said, “She knows all the words. She’s better than the trained man at the circus. She must be worth good money.”

“Whoever owned her before must have sat with her and trained her. Where did you get her?”

“She was a take-in. The kennel boss said her owners gave her away. But they were poor.”

“How old is she?”

“Her license says she’s 15.”

“In man years.”

“She was born five years ago it says, so yes, she’s 15 in man years.”

The mother got up and went over to the female man playing the singing harp and watched her nimble, rusty-red-frecked fingers as the instrument sang, “In the heart, in the air, hear the joy everywhere, in the heart, in the heart, in the heart—.”

The mother said, “It’s nice. That’s the way my music teacher taught me to play it.

That’s the way I play it. Repeat the heart part three times.” She rubbed the man’s head. “I don’t think she’s stolen. Sometimes the take-ins are stolen. Do you think she’s stolen?”

The father said, “She didn’t cost much. I don’t know.”

“Maybe they were trying to get rid of her because she was stolen,” suggested the mother. “Only the wealthy can afford a musical man.”

Folding his paper in his lap, the father said, “Maybe they didn’t know she was musical. Maybe that’s why they sold her so cheap. They didn’t know. Her license looks real. It’s not easy to fake a man license, is it?”

They both looked at the man playing the singing harp and at the boy who was looking up at them with worry in his eyes. The mother inhaled a deep breath and said to the father. “Well, she may be stolen. What are we going to do?”

The father got up and patted the boy on the head. “She’s ours now, and we’re going to keep it like that. We just won’t tell anybody that she is a musical man.”

The boy smiled, the mother let out a relieved breath, and the father squatted on the ground with his family and listened enraptured as the female man made the small singing harp sing.

The father mused, “She must be worth some good money.”

The female man knew ten songs that they had all learned in their early childhood, she played them one after the other, and this made them all very happy.


* * *


When the boy would take his man out for a walk, he would try to follow his mother’s wishes and avoid the field where the boys from wealthy families walked their mans, but sometimes the temptation was too great.

His man was the best fighter and the wealthy boys, showing off their loudly-talking talking mans in their expensive hair cloths and fancy loin pouches, needed to be taught a lesson that only the biggest, bravest, strongest, most ferocious man in the whole wide world could teach them.

The rules were simple. No leashes. No biting. No gang-ups.

The boy lay on his side with his head propped up on his elbow, yawning as he watched them. His female man had already beaten six of them in a row, and this last one was about to cry surrender. She had this last one by the neck. She could snap his neck easily if she wanted, but she was content to hold his neck under one arm and punch him in the face with her free hand.

The boy knew it was time to go home before his mother began to worry about them, but he hated to call a fight in the middle, especially a slaughter like this. He would make up an excuse to tell his mother.

The other wealthy boys hooted and cawed, encouraging the one that was getting slaughtered. The poor boy lying on his side smirked at this. Nobody ever hooted and cawed for his man. Though she was the best, she was the man of a poor boy. But this would teach them a lesson. Six in a row, and soon to be seven.

His man was punching the face of the man of the wealthy boy. The wealthy boy’s man’s face was puffy and red. The female man landed two more hard blows. The wealthy boy’s man’s face was now dripping blood as well as tears.

That was enough. The wealthy boy tapped the poor boy on the shoulder. “We surrender.”

The poor boy said, “No. He has to say it.”

The female man landed another hard blow. Two teeth fell out of the wealthy boy’s man’s mouth.

“But maybe he can’t talk,” said the wealthy boy to the poor. “He gets frozen when he’s scared and he can’t talk! We surrender! We surrender!”

The poor boy snorted. “All right, girl. Let him up.”

She released the wealthy boy’s man and he fell on his face crying out, “Thank you. Thank you for sparing my life.”

As his victorious female man came running over to him, the poor boy turned to the wealthy boy and laughed. “See? He can talk. He’s not frozen at all.”

The wealthy boy, who was a little bit taller than the poor boy, stretched to his full height and stepped toward him. His friends balled their fists and stepped toward the poor boy too. “You think that’s funny?”

The poor boy’s female man showed her teeth and hissed at them dangerously, and they stepped back.

The poor boy laughed. “Watch out. She gets angry when people I don’t like get too close to me.”

The wealthy boys and their beaten mans took another step back, and the poor boy and his female man passed through them and headed for home. They heard bad names being shouted at them as they walked.

Cheater.

Bully.

Poor Boy.

Stupid Oaf.

Fraidy Fraidy.

Pinhead.

Trash Eater.

Dimwit Oaf.

The boy turned his head to show them the big smile on his face and to stick out his tongue at them, but really it made him sad to be called such things. He was not a bully or a cheater—his man was just better than everybody else’s. And he couldn’t help it if his parents were poor. They were still the greatest parents in the whole wide world.

He began to run so that he could get away from the things that they were shouting and that he was hearing. He ran until he heard a different sound, which was music.

At the far end of the field, only minutes away from his neighborhood and home, there was another boy—a wealthy boy—sitting on the grass while his mans, three of them, sang to him.

Each man had a different appearance, so the poor boy guessed that they were not from the same litter. The first man was tall and brown with hair that grew in a circle around his head, the second man was shorter with a very round belly and his skin was pale, and the third man was short and round and pale like the second, but his brown eyes were large and nearly lidless. All three of them wore blue cloths in their hair and matching blue loin pouches.

The three mans were singing in a way that was very pleasing to the ear. It was like the trained mans he had once seen at a circus, the way they sang. One voice was high-pitched, another was low-pitched, and the last was somewhere in the middle. It sounded like the music of worship.

The wealthy boy did not seem mean or arrogant, so the poor boy sat down on the grass and listened to the singing mans dressed in blue.

His female man seemed quite affected by the music; her eyes were closed as she listened, and her hips moved back and forth. The boy shouted a command, and she sat, but even while sitting, she kept moving her hips.

The wealthy boy smiled at the female man. “She likes it. Maybe she is in heat.”
The poor boy said, “What is in heat?”

“I’m not sure,” the wealthy boy said, “but I used to have a female man who acted like that when they sang, and my parents said she was in heat. And then they had her fixed.”

“What is fixed?”

“I don’t know,” laughed the wealthy boy. “But after she came back, she cried every time they sang. I think it has something to do with babies.”

“Babies?”

The wealthy boy pointed to her moving hips. “She’s a female man. She can have baby mans.”

The poor boy hadn’t thought of that, but he liked the idea.

“She’s the best fighter in the whole world. She’ll have lots of fighting baby mans.”

The wealthy boy nodded. “I saw her fight. She’s very good.”

The poor boy nodded. “She’s the best in the world.”

“Is she going to fight at the festival?”

“My father wants her to, but my mother says no because it’s cruel.”

“She should fight. She’s good. She would win.”

“She beat seven mans in a row. She made them bleed. She knocked their teeth out.”

The wealthy boy grinned. “Yes, I saw her do it.”

The poor boy said, “Would you like her to fight one of your mans?”

The singing mans had stopped singing for some time now, and two of them were sitting on the grass listening to the boys talk.

The other one, the one with the lidless eyes, was missing.

The wealthy boy shook his head. “No,” he said in answer to the poor boy’s challenge. “These are not fighting mans. Plus yours would hurt them. They are very sensitive and delicate. The circus pays us to have them sing.”

The poor boy laughed and said, “Coward.” But he said it in a way that was friendly and not mean, and the wealthy boy understood and laughed along with him.

“My sensitive and delicate little mans would be eaten alive,” laughed the wealthy boy.

“She would eat them for lunch,” laughed the poor boy.

“I didn’t know mans were cannibals,” snorted the wealthy boy.

“They only eat sensitive and delicate mans,” snorted the poor boy. Then he said, “Where is your other man? Isn’t one of your mans missing?”

The wealthy boy said, “And where is your man?”

The poor boy turned to the empty space beside him. His female man was gone.


* * *


They found them about a dozen yards away on the other side of a small hill. They were entangled in such a way as the poor boy had never seen. The man with the lidless eyes was riding on the back of his female man, who was making a breathy, shushing noise.

The poor boy said to the wealthy, “What are they doing?”

“I don’t know,” said the wealthy boy, “but I don’t like it. I think she’s hurting him.”

“But he’s on top.”

They watched for a few more seconds and then the man with the lidless eyes contorted and began to groan. The female man closed her eyes and yelped, burying her face in the grass. The two boys had seen enough.

They raised their hands, shouted harsh commands, and spanked their mans until they got them separated.

Then they replaced their mans’ loin pouches, said goodbye to each other, and went each to his own home.


* * *


That evening, the boy was wroth with his female man.

When she came to him with big apologetic eyes, he shook his head. When she came to him and rested her head on his chest the way she did when she wanted to be pet, he pushed her away.

When she brought the small singing harp into his room, he said, “Okay, girl, you want to be friends again? Okay. Good girl.”

And in the boy’s bedroom his female man played the small singing harp and made it sing. He did not know why, but she was playing the same song over and over. He did not recognize the tune, but it was a beautiful tune. Evening became night, and eventually the boy fell asleep.

It was only the next day as he was on his way to school that the boy realized the song that she had been playing was the song he had heard the three singing mans singing earlier that day at the field.


* * *


She began to change after that, but the boy did not notice until a month later.

Her diet had changed. She was eating more often—she was stealing their food. She would even steal a piece of dried meat from the cupboard once in a while, which was cannibalism. She was gaining weight.

He took her to the field on a day when there was no school, and she lost two fights in a row.

He spanked her to make her fiercer. He made her growl and show her teeth. He sent her into two more fights and she lost them both. Four in a row. That had never happened before.

“Maybe you’re sick,” he told her as he walked home holding her hand. Her eye was bruised, her nose was bleeding, and as they walked they were pelted with pebbles and provoked with jibes and hoo-haws from the wealthy boys who had triumphed at last over the poor boy and his mighty champion fighting man.

As tears fell from her emerald eyes, the boy promised her, “You’re sick, but when you feel better we’ll be back. We’ll teach those guys a lesson.”

But the tears kept falling from her eyes. He had never seen her like this.

He gave her what he thought was ample time to heal—a week—and he took her to fight again. But she had lost all interest in fighting and refused to do it.

Without lifting a hand to her own defense, she let the other mans pummel and scratch her until she was shedding tears and the boy was forced each time to stop it by crying surrender. It was another bad day at the fights. She lost three in a row that day.

The wealthy boys cackled with glee as the poor boy walked his badly beaten fighting man home.

She was playing the small singing harp every evening in his room—the same song they had heard the three singing mans sing that day at the field.


* * *


When he went into the backyard to feed her one morning before school, she was not there.

He went to her sleeping tent under her favorite tree, and she was not there. He went back into the house to look for her because on evenings when it was cold, she would come into the house and sleep under his bed or under the couch in the grand room near the fire. She was not in the house.

He said to himself, “Now I hope she didn’t jump the fence again.”

Puzzled, he went back outside, and she was in her tent as if she’d been there all along. She was grateful for her food, which she devoured, and then she held out her bowl to him for more.

And he replenished her bowl with vegetables and grain.

As he watched her eat, he said, “I see you’re very hungry. I guess you jumped the fence to go look for food. Don’t do that. The authorities will pick you up. You’ll get in trouble. If you’re hungry, come into the house and wake me. Okay?”

To make her understand, he knocked on the wooden fence that ran the perimeter of their backyard and nodded his head.

“Don’t go over the fence,” he repeated.

She looked at him with understanding, and he went inside and left for school.

The next morning when he went to feed her before school, he caught her climbing down from the fence and ducking into her tent. She had just returned from wherever it was she had roamed that night.

He spanked her and spoke harshly to her. When he set out her food, she still had tears in her eyes, but he was losing his patience.

“You’re going to get us in trouble! Don’t force me to tie you up or lock you in the house!” He pounded the wooden fence. “Don’t go over the fence! I know you understand me!”

She looked at him, then went back to her food.

He went into the house and came back out with an extra bowl of food and set it beside the first. “Now give me a hug,” he said to her.

He held open his arms and she came for her hug. He lifted her for her hug. She is getting so heavy, he thought. He kissed her cheek, pet her head, and put her back on the ground.

“You’re my best friend in the whole world,” he told her.

She looked at him with perfect understanding.

She went back to her food and he left for school.

When the boy got home from school that day, his mother had left a note: “Meet me at the kennel.”

He checked the backyard. His female man was gone. He threw down his school bag and ran to the kennel.


* * *


They had put his female man in a large cage with other mans.

She was not the only female, but she was the biggest of the dozen or so mans in there, most of whom were screaming at the top of their lungs or running around in circles like mad mans.

One man, a man that talked, was saying over and over, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. I would never ever do it. I didn’t do it. Please believe me. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”

His female man ran to the front of the cage as soon as she saw the boy and he reached in and pet her on the head. “It’s going to be okay, girl. Don’t worry. Mother and I will get you out of here.”

The boy turned to watch his mother, who stood a few feet away talking to the boss of the kennel.

The kennel boss had a long oval face and eyes that were set far apart. He was munching a green leafy vegetable as he talked to the boy’s mother. The mother was doing a lot of head nodding as her mouth opened and closed. The kennel boss inhaled a large green leaf into his mouth and crunched it between large, crooked, unpolished teeth.

“It’s out of my hands,” he explained to the mother. “When the man becomes a danger to society, then the law has to step in.

“I assure you,” said the mother, “it is all a misunderstanding. She is the most gentle of creatures. She is well mannered and well trained. She is a danger to no one. Mans get out of their yards all the time and wander. It is their nature. This is no reason for them to be destroyed.”

The boy grabbed his female man’s hand through the bars of the cage when he heard that. Destroyed.

The leaf-munching kennel boss raised a finger. “I did not say that she would be destroyed. I never spoke those words. I just said that putting her down is one of the options, and not even the most desirable or most common of options. It all depends on the injured party—whether or not they want to pursue it. But the charges are serious. A home was broken into. A child was bitten.”

The boy reached his arms into the cage and hugged his man. A child was bitten.

“You see,” said the mother, “it is words like that which scare me. You should not use words like that. They frighten people. We love our man, and I assure you that she is incapable of doing the things you claim she has done.”

The kennel boss shoved the entire vegetable into his mouth and crunched it. “I didn’t claim anything. I simply read the record to you.”

“But she is incapable of—.”

The kennel boss cut her off. “Ma’am, I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but you are like so many owners of mans. You look at your man and you are incapable of seeing him for what he is. Man is a predator, first and foremost. He is good at two things. Hunting and making baby mans. He is a carnivore. He is a predator. He is a cannibal. That’s right. He is no different from us. And don’t look down at me because I do this job, ma’am—I have degrees in animal science. I am educated. Times are hard, so I have to work here, but I am no pinheaded oaf. I have seen the studies that they keep from regular people like you and your family. We keep mans from eating meat because we are afraid what they’ll do if they get a taste for it. Remember, ma’am, we are meat too. I know some of them can be trained to talk, and some of them have interesting talents, and they make good pets because they’re so small, but basically they are wild beasts and should be left to roam the forests for us to hunt. It wasn’t too long ago that they were our top food source. What was so wrong with that, huh? You don’t look rich—I bet you eat your fill of man, right? The meat is plentiful and inexpensive. I know I love to eat man. But I don’t want man to eat me or my kids. I know what I know, and that’s why I would never have one as a pet. Not around my children. But these rich guys, they want us all to turn vegetarian and bring man into our house as pets. Vegetables are nice—I like vegetables—but man is meat and meat is good to eat. Like my mother used to tell me, ‘Stop playing with your food and eat it.’”

The kennel boss grinned.

The mother said, “You are a stupid oaf.”

“Well, we’ll see who the stupid oaf is when the injured party gets here.”

The kennel boss picked up a tin cup and slurped whatever liquid was in it and gargled it to help suck free the strands of green from the vegetable that had gotten stuck between his ugly teeth. The mother turned away.

“Don’t worry,” the boy comforted his man, “mother and I will free you.”

The boy hugged his female man through the bars, and the frantic little man man proclaiming his innocence ran over to them and grabbed one of the boy’s hands and kissed it.

“I didn’t do it, kind sir. I didn’t do it. Free me too when you free her, sir. I didn’t do it. It is all a mistake. They have the wrong man. You and mother must free me, too. You must. You must. You and mother. You must.”

Just then the kennel boss came over and banged the cage with the tin cup, and when the frantic man didn’t move, the kennel boss slammed the cup against his head.

Pock!

The frantic man released the boy’s hand and retreated to the safety of the center of the cage, holding his head and crying, “It is a lie. It is a lie. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”

The kennel boss said to the boy, “Take your hands out of the cage, boy. They may look pretty, but some of these mans will snap your fingers off.” He pointed to the frantic man proclaiming his innocence in the center of the cage. “That one there,” the kennel boss said, “maimed his master, a boy about your age. He ate two of his fingers. Don’t let him fool you. His kind has a reputation for turning on their masters. Now scoot. Get away from that cage.”

The boy ran to his mother, who put her arms around him. “It’ll be okay.”

Tears were rolling out of his eyes. “She didn’t do it, mother.”

“Okay. Okay,” said the mother.

Tears were rolling out of her eyes too.


* * *


The injured party arrived at last. It was a wealthy boy wearing expensive clothes and his equally well-dressed father.

The cruelly smiling kennel boss said to the mother, “They’re here. That’s them,” and then walked over to them.

The wealthy boy and his father lingered at the cages at the front of the kennel, pointing to this or that man with delighted chuckles and sighs of amazement at the sheer beauty and diversity of the caged mans. Seeing them, the mother felt better about their prospects for success and she thought to herself, luck is on our side: the injured parties are lovers of man.

Suddenly her son exclaimed, “I know him!” He pointed to the wealthy boy.

“Where do you know him from?” asked the mother.

“From the field. He has three singing mans. He is my friend.”

“What were you doing at the field after I told you not to go back there? Fighting the man again after I told you not to go back there.”

“Yes, mother,” the boy quietly admitted.

“Well,” she said, “maybe it will work out.”

The wealthy boy and his father had finished admiring the caged mans, and in fact had selected one for purchase, though they already had several of them at home, the wealthy father kept reminding.

“I just love mans,” they heard the wealthy father say.

The boy and his mother watched as the kennel boss removed the selected man from its cage, leashed it, and filled out the forms and had the father of the wealthy boy sign in various places.

The mother and the boy watched and waited. It surprised them when the wealthy boy and his father said thanks and goodbye to the kennel boss and then exited the kennel without a word to them. They looked at each other. What is going on?

The kennel boss was sweeping up with a broom and humming an unattractive tune.

The mother, now enraged as well as duly insulted, stormed over to the kennel boss and demanded an explanation. The kennel boss finished his sweep of the entire kennel floor, finished humming his awful tune and then went to the main cage and unlocked it, reached in, and took out their female man.

The boy took his female man and hugged her. She was happy to be out of the cage and happy to be hugged.

The kennel boss said to the mother as she signed the release form in the designated places, “His boy says he is a friend of your boy, so no harm done. It was only a scratch anyway. But they do have a few demands. You will pay to have the latch on their door repaired, or they will have her thumbs removed. You will build her a proper kennel with a secure lock to keep her at home, a secure lock which they will inspect upon completion, or they will have her thumbs removed. Finally, you will surrender the baby man or mans as soon as it or they are born.”

“What baby mans?” the confused mother asked.

The boy hugging his female man looked up, confused.

The kennel boss had refilled his tin cup and now he took a long slurping sip from it, gurgled, and gave the stuff caught in his teeth another good suck through.

“Your man is pregnant, in case you didn’t notice. Like I told you, they are only good for two things. Hunting and giving birth. She has been sneaking out of your yard to go be with one of their mans. She was in heat and now she is pregnant. Her litter belongs to them.”

The mother said, “That is the very heights of cruelty to mans. I will not sign to have her give up her children.”

“But you have already signed, Madam Pinhead Oaf!”

The laughing kennel boss snatched up the papers the mother had signed and waved them in her face.

When she lunged for them, he pushed them into a drawer, locked it, and ordered her and the boy to take their man and leave.

A Proper Kennel

"A Proper Kennel"
Copyright © 2009 by Preston L. Allen




The sermon that day was about loving all creatures great and small, and the boy, who often fidgeted and yawned in church, sat still and listened attentively to the sacred speaker’s words.

It seemed to the boy that the sacred speaker, who was also his history teacher at school, was addressing the message especially to him as they kept making eye contact.

That had never happened to him before, or at least he had never noticed.

“And now we come to the mans,” the sacred speaker said. “Of all great nature’s creatures, he is the most like us in appearance and habit. There are those among us who are more educated and more intelligent than I am, and they say that the mans are related to us. In truth, they are like unto us in appearance. Their life span is but a third of ours, but the stages they go through are similar to ours. Like us, they are hunters. Left on their own in the wilds, they dominate the other creatures, hunting and harvesting them as they see fit. They can use simple tools. They can build shelter, of a sort. Indeed, some among the educated say that mans are related to us. I don’t know anything about that. I know only that great scripture says that we have dominion over them as we have dominion over all of the beasts. This does not mean that we are to abuse and mistreat them. This means that we must be wise stewards of the land and all the creatures in it. We must not abuse them when they are our pets. We must not over hunt them in the wild. We must make sure that their natural habitats in our forests and our swamps and our mountains and our frozen places and our deserts are protected from over hunting and from the encroachment of our civilizations. Just the other day, I took my son on an adventure. I took him to the southernmost end of our continent, just before the place where the great ocean touches the sandy shore and to the west, to the west where flows the river of grass. And we did walk in our water shoes to the very end of our civilization where the land became more water than soil. We were in the swamp of the crocodilians and the mans. We were in the swamp of the Eternal Glades. There were birds aplenty, amazing aviators and hunters these—wading with legs like long reeds in waters four to six feet deep, these feathered fowls of the water and the air hunted with long snake-like necks and sharp sword-like beaks the abundance of fish swimming in schools around their submerged feet. There were enormous turtles there with leathern shells and varicolored faces, sunning themselves on the rocks, as they watched the hunting of the birds. There were creeping creatures, furry rodents scurrying up the trees and slithery snakes making their way through the grasses. There lurked by the hundreds the large somber scavengers in black, the hunchbacked and hooked faced vultures. And there were other birds, hundreds of other birds, flitting through the sunlit skies, loudly singing their various songs, loudly singing their cacophony of joy—joy at being alive—alive, yes, alive and happy to be in that moment right then and there in that holy tabernacle of nature. In this wet place, in this place of water and soil and grass, life abounded in all of its diversity. We watched from a safe distance and with respectful caution the lesser master of the food chain of that bio-region, the proud and awful crocodilians, the giant swamp lizards, the le-gators. Among all the creatures that walk on land or swim in sea, the le-gator possesses the most powerful bite. We were warned by the guide that the le-gator will eat anything that it can catch, including my son and myself if we were not careful. And while it looks slow and ungainly as it drags its large bulk out of the swamp to sun itself on the shore, we were warned by the guide that it has amazing and surprising speed, which was demonstrated when a le-gator, seemingly at rest on the shore, accelerated suddenly and caught and ate a large white-feathered bird which had been standing a seemingly safe ten yards way just a second before it was attacked and devoured. When the le-gator finished its feathered meal, it roared loudly, a roar that set the birds to flight, and it slunk its bulk back into the water and swam out to the middle of the pond, its eyes and nostrils the only parts of its dragon-serpent body above the waterline. The guide explained to us that the le-gator, which was once hunted almost to extinction by our kind, is now plenteous again in the swamplands of the Eternal Glades after strict laws prevented hunting and poaching of the magnificent beast. The le-gator, as powerful and ferocious as it is, has but one enemy in nature, and that enemy is man. But where is man, the master of the top of the food chain? my son and I wondered as we watched the great crocodilian swim leisurely away. Then the guide said, Look over there! They burst through the trees—about a dozen of them—carrying long sticks sharpened on stone. These were not mans that we have as pets. These were not mans that we see in zoos or who perform for us at our circuses and festivals. These were feral mans—wild mans in their natural environment—with their lithe, naked little bodies covered in dirt and mud. The foul stench of them reached across the pond to us, and we had to put our hands over our nostrils. They were the breed with lidless eyes and pale skin, though it was hard to judge the skin pigmentation with all of that dirt and filth on it. One of them had a length of rope, which he flung around the neck of the great swimming crocodilian that had just consumed the bird. As a team they hauled the big le-gator up onto the shore—it took all of them pulling on the rope, for the le-gator was a monstrous creature that was easily the size of any three of them put together and it fought against the rope, twisting and turning, whipping its tail dangerously and snapping its mighty jaws. But there were no casualties of the swamp mans that day as the nimble creatures danced out of the way of the dangerously whipping tail and snapping jaws. They stabbed him many times with the pointed sticks and the le-gator began to weaken. Now the le-gator, in desperation, turned to the swamp again, hoping to escape into the safety of the water. His legs clawed the muddy shore helplessly. The mans stabbed him a few more times with the sharpened sticks, and the le-gator with a mighty roar yielded his life to death. For a moment, they looked down at his body with a kind of quiet reverence. Then they dragged it into the forest and were gone. Man is indeed dangerous in his beauty, invention, and skill. He sits at the top of the food chain. He is a top predator, as are we. But unlike us, man is not wasteful. He does not eat more than he needs. He does not hunt for sport or industry. He gives back to nature as much as he takes. He seems to have understanding. He is at one with his environment.”

The boy nodded his head. The sacred speaker seemed to nod back.


* * *


On his days off, the father would call the boy out to the backyard and they would work on the proper kennel that he was building for their female man. Until it was built, she would sleep in the house.

The proper kennel was six feet tall and seven feet on each side. It would take up most of the backyard. It was made of wood and steel mesh. The roof was made of aluminum. When it was finished, it would have two windows of glass—one that looked beyond the yard, and one that faced the window of the boy’s room.

The work was not difficult but time-consuming and costly because of the legal constraints.

The father complained to the boy one day as they were working, “It would not be so bad if the authorities did not come by everyday to check on our progress. There is wood that is less expensive we could use. We could chop down a tree, but they won’t let us. Chopping down trees is against the law. Trees are protected by the law! We must use these expensive, store-bought boards to build a house for a man—a pet! I guess that’s just fine if you have the money to throw away. And the roof does not have to be made of aluminum. We have old boards lying around the yard that would make a perfect roof, but it will not pass inspection. And the proper lock—where will we find the money to pay for a proper lock? And then turn around and pay for the lock on the door she broke on the home of the wealthy! Where are we going to find the money? Everything is about money. I am a loader, I make very little money. But here I am building this expensive house for a man! If she were not pregnant I would kick her for the mess she has gotten us into. If she were not pregnant, I would put her to fight at the carnival. If she were not pregnant, I could sell her as meat and pay for this expensive house I am building. And when the litter is born, can I sell it and make back some of my money? No. Instead I must surrender the litter to the wealthy and his son! I could surely save a lot of money by just allowing them to remove her thumbs. I surely could. I surely could save a lot of money if I sold her for meat and then moved us all into this expensive house of hers that we are building. I surely could. I would be better off if I lived as a pet. The government protects pets! What about protecting people?”

The boy, with tears in his eyes, passed the boards and the nails as his father labored and complained.

His female man, watching them, sat on the grass with her legs folded beneath her and drummed her thumbs on her expanding ball of a stomach.

The boy rubbed his red eyes and wondered at his female man drumming her pregnant stomach with her thumbs.

Did she understand what his father was talking about? That her thumbs would be removed to prevent her from breaking into houses and other mans’ proper kennels?

He looked at her face, which seemed to have understanding.

She seemed full of fear as she drummed her thumbs; she seemed full of fear and indecision.


* * *


“When I was a boy,” the sacred speaker said, “there were almost no mans left in the swamplands of the Eternal Glades because they had been hunted almost to extinction. They were hunted for food, of course, and captured alive to be sold as pets, for they are easily domesticated and are loyal to their owners. I was told that back in those days, their number fell from several millions to less than a few dozen in the swamplands. But stricter laws, which banned hunting out of season and which declared vast areas of the swamplands as a natural preserve for the mans, have brought their numbers back to a sustainable level. The last post-hunting season count put their number at close to half a million, which is a good thing for us, because without mans the swamplands were dying. The swamps were drying up. The water was disappearing. The le-gator number was increasing, which meant the number of birds was decreasing, which meant the number of fish was increasing because there were no birds to feed on them, but they were sickly fish because the water was drying up. The swamplands smelled of death and decay. You see, man is not only a hunter that keeps the le-gator numbers in check, but a specialized herbivore that removes millions of pounds of deadly vines and weeds which clog the waterways of the swamplands. He eats on these plants, which help in his digestion, and he also uses them to build his home. Man keeps the deadly weeds and choking vines in check. Man keeps the swamplands alive. Man is an essential part of the ecosystem of the swamplands. Man brings life.”

The boy bowed his head and made a reverent sound.


* * *


In the last week of the female man’s pregnancy, the boy put on her leash and took her to the circus to see the fighting mans.

These were professional fighting mans, and the fights were exciting, with lots of punching and scratching and biting. Biting was legal in professional fights. His female man watched each fight with interest.

At the end of each bout, he would point to the winning combatant and say to her, “Oh, he’s not so tough. You could beat him, couldn’t you?”

And she would nod her head and punch the air.

As they were leaving, they passed the stands where the singing mans were singing, and he felt a tug on her leash. He told her, “Okay,” and she led him to the sound of music.

There was a man playing the singing harp, after that two female mans came on and played a colored flute and banged on a tinny drum, and finally the three singing mans in blue came on.

The boy and his female man leaned toward the stage to get a better look as the mans sang. Indeed, it was the three singing mans owned by the wealthy boy they had met at the field.

The one with the lidless eyes, the one who was the father of her litter, waved his fingers at the boy’s female man and she waved back.

As they sang, his female man shed tears and pouted.

When it was over, he went to the place off to the side of the stage where the owners were collecting their mans after the performance and putting their leashes on.

The wealthy boy who owned the three singing mans in blue saw him and said, “They were good, weren’t they?”

“They were very good,” the boy answered.

“Has your father finished building the proper kennel yet?”

“Yes, he finished it last month. She sleeps in it every night. She likes it a whole lot.”

He did not tell the wealthy boy that because of the cost of building the proper kennel their meals of late had been meager and many nights he had gone to bed with a grumbling stomach.

The wealthy boy was nibbling on a meat stick as he leashed his three singing mans. The poor boy watched the meat stick, his hungry stomach grumbling. The wealthy boy caught him watching the meat stick, and the poor boy turned away.

The wealthy boy said, “Here, you can have one.”

He opened his sack and the poor boy saw inside, where there were meat sticks and candy rolls and sweet breads and every treat that a boy at a circus could ever want. The wealthy boy reached into the sack and withdrew a meat stick and passed it to the poor boy.

The poor boy thanked him and pushed the meat stick into his own empty sack and said, “I’ll save it for later.”

The wealthy boy passed him a sweet bread from the sack. “Friend, you’re at the circus,” he reasoned most kindly. “Eat something now.”

The poor boy tore open the sweet bread and popped a piece of its soft sugary inside into his mouth.

As they ate their circus treats, the wealthy boy and the poor watched their mans.
The one with the lidless eyes was talking to the poor boy’s female man. They listened as the one with the lidless eyes told her, “I will always be here. You never have to worry about that. I am your song bird forever and ever.”

“The silly things mans say,” said the wealthy boy.

“I once had a man that talked.”

“Did you really?”

“I only had him for a week. He belonged to the mayor’s wife. He was a runaway. I had to give him back. But then my father bought this one for me.”

“She’s beautiful,” the wealthy boy said. “I like her hair cloths. Where did you get them?”

“My mother made them,” the poor boy answered.

And they watched their mans and heard when the one with the lidless eyes sang to the female man, “There is no reason to fear. I will always be here.”

She made a cooing sound and touched his face with the back of her hand.

“There is no reason to fear,” he sang, holding a high, beautiful note until she touched his face with her hand.

The wealthy boy said to the poor, “I think we’re going to have to separate them before they go at it again and we get in trouble.”

“Yes,” the poor boy agreed. “It’s time for us to get home anyway. Thanks for the snacks.”

The wealthy boy waved it off. “It’s nothing. You want some more?” the compassionate wealthy boy said.

“If you don’t mind,” the poor boy said.

And the poor boy opened his sack, and the wealthy boy dumped all of the treats that were in his sack into the poor boy’s sack. They shook hands as friends.

Before they parted, the wealthy boy said to the poor, “I’m sorry about what my father’s doing to you and your man, and I hope we can always be friends.”

“Friends forever and ever,” the poor boy said.

Then he and his female man left the circus grounds and went home.


* * *


“In the icy frozen regions of the north, we hunted the mans of the snow until near extinction. Then we began to notice that the great white beos were vanishing too—and the great northern deer, and the great white wulf. The only creature on the increase was that pest, that vermin, the great white rat. It seems that the mans of the snow kept the great white beos in check. Left to their own devices, the great white beos over hunted the great northern deer—without the deer, the great white wulvs also began to decline in number, and then the beos, too, as they were eating up their entire food supply, the deer! So, we emptied our zoos and re-introduced the mans of the snow to the icy frozen regions of the north. Twenty years later, their number is again close to what it used to be, and not surprisingly the great white beo, the great northern deer, and the great white wulf have returned to plenteousness. The only creature whose number has declined is the pest, the great white rat. We did not create our own world. Great nature was set in motion by a lord wiser and mightier than we. He created nature and set it into perfect balance. And in the frozen north, the mans of the snow are important to keeping the rigid line of balance on the scales of that ecosystem. Without balance, there is death and decay. Remove mans and the ice melts into bloody water. A world without mans is a world without us all.”

The boy nodded his head, quietly mouthing the sacred speaker’s words: “Great nature. Balance. Perfect balance. Without man . . . without us all.”


* * *


The baby man—there was only one—was born with much wailing and pain.

She was born at night—she was, like her mother, a female man—and the boy stayed by his window peering at the candle in the window of her proper kennel until the cries of a mother’s agony were replaced by the sweeter cry of the newborn baby man.
As soon as he heard that, the boy ran outside and into the proper kennel where they all were gathered.

His mother was holding the baby female man in her arms and kissy-cooing at her, and his smiling father was looking over his mother’s shoulder and kissy-cooing too. His father hadn’t mentioned anything about the cost of anything since she had gone into labor 13 and a half hours ago.

His father said, “She’s beautiful. She’s absolutely beautiful. The miracle of birth.”

“She’s beautiful like her mother. She has red hair like her mother,” the boy’s mother said.

The boy pushed between them to see the tiny being in his mother’s arms. He exclaimed, “She’s got eyes like the singing man and frecks all over her face like her mother!”

His female man made a weak plaintive sound in her throat and held out her arms.
The boy’s mother placed the baby in the arms of the female man, and she held her child and kissed its face and nuzzled its wisps of bright red hair. She smiled contentedly as she kissed her child.

The boy and his family watched the female man and her child, and she fed her child, and a sweet sound came from its chest, and it rested its head on its mother’s chest and went to sleep.

In the morning, before the sun arose, she came into their house and took the small singing harp from its pedestal. They followed her back out to the proper kennel and watched as she played the harp for the child.

The harp sang a familiar lullaby: “Go to sleep, go to sleep, all is well, all will be well when you awaken, sweet one.”

There were tears in the boy’s mother’s eyes, and his father held her. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry, sweet one,” he told her.

She said through sighs, “I sewed some cloths for the baby’s hair. For when she has more hair.”

“Perhaps they’ll allow her to keep them,” the father comforted.

“But will they allow her to keep the baby?” the mother sobbed.

It was early in the morning, before the sun, and the father went to work, then the mother, and then the boy looked in on his female man and her baby man one more time and then locked the door of the proper kennel and went to school.


* * *


“In the western forests, we hunted the mans of the forest until near extinction. They were not the most appetizing, but they made the best pets. They had the gift of language and mimicry. They could work in the mines. They could be bred with other man-forms to produce singing mans, and musical mans, and art mans, and thinker mans. The tygas began to disappear. Then the Olyphant. Then the red breasted sparrow. Then the spiny roos. And you can guess what we did to solve the crisis in the western forests. We put things back the way they used to be. We had to apologize to great nature for our error. We had tampered selfishly without considering the consequences of our actions. We look at great nature and we see chaos and disorder. But seeing is a way of not seeing. We think that we can go in and straighten out the randomness and bring order. Build a bridge there. Build a dam here. Remove this life form in large numbers here because it looks prettier over there. Destroy all of these creatures we find here because they are a nuisance and won’t be missed. Seeing is a way of not seeing. It is a paradox, but true: the randomness and seeming chaos of great nature brings vibrant life in all its various forms; the order and straightening out our society imposes on great nature brings death and decay. Disorder is life; order is death. For whatever reason, we are cursed to have to learn this lesson over and over again. It is no surprise to you, I am sure, that to solve the crisis in the forests, we brought back the forest mans. Soon the tygas were back and then the Olyphant, the red breasted sparrow, and the spiny roos. The lesson here is take what you need from great nature, but don’t over take. And don’t fix great nature—it isn’t broken.”

“Don’t over take,” the boy who owned the female man said.


* * *


That evening as the boy, his mother, and his father were eating their dinner, there was a knock at the door.

The boy opened the door and there was his friend, the wealthy boy, and his father.
There were several other people with them, many of them looking important in uniforms or professional clothes. There were documents in their hands to be signed, and his father signed the documents wordlessly. His mother sat at the table, sighing with her head in her hands.

After the signing was done, one of the professionals asked, “Where is she?”

The boy’s father said, “She’s in the back with her mother. There is a proper kennel in the back.”

The professional asked, “Do we need light?”

“There is light back there,” the father said, and he led them through the grand room to the back of the house.

The wealthy boy walked side by side with the poor boy. He kept his hand on the poor boy’s shoulder. He told him, “You can come over everyday to see her. You can bring your man over everyday to see her. So it will be like your new home, except that it’s at my house. You can visit anytime you want, I promise.”

When they got there, the door to her proper kennel would not open. She had propped something against it so that it would not open. They could hear the baby man crying inside.

The professionals looked inside the window. She was crouched down low and to keep them from entering, she was pressing against a plank of wood she had broken off one of the inside walls and angled against the door.

One of the professionals nodded his head and the other smiled. “Smart little female man,” they said admiringly.

Then they pressed against the glass of the window, and when it broke, they reached inside and grabbed her.

One of them muzzled her, while the other one picked up the baby and handed it to the wealthy boy’s father.

His mother was weeping, his father stood there with a hand over his mouth, and the boy held his muzzled female man, who was reaching desperately for her child.

The boy shushed her gently and told her, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

When it was over, the boy stayed with her in her proper kennel until she had stopped crying.

When she was finally asleep, he went back into the house and into his room where he sat by the window and stared out into the backyard.

He fell asleep that night sitting up in bed by the window that looked out onto her proper kennel.

The candle was no longer burning.


* * *

When he got up the next morning, before he went to school he brought out her food, but she did not seem interested in eating.

He went to school and when he went out to see her, she was asleep and he did not want to wake her so he went back into the house.

As they ate their meal that evening, his mother said, “I think it is so cruel to take her baby like that. In my head, I keep hearing the baby crying so sweetly. It makes me so sad.”

The father said, “Well, she’s just an animal. She’ll probably forget all about it in a day or two. They’re not as attached to their children as we are.”

The boy jumped up from the table and ran out through the back door, shouting, “I hear the baby too, but not in my head!”

His father shouted after him, “Where are you going?”

They listened, but now there was silence in the back—there was not even the sound of the baby’s crying in the mother’s head.

The boy came back in holding the baby.

His female man walked in beside him.

His mother gasped.

The boy explained, “We should have fixed the glass window in her proper kennel, father. She broke out and went and got her. When I looked in on her after school she was sleeping, but I thought I had heard a baby. She had hidden her in there somewhere so that I wouldn’t find her.”

His father said, “Well, now this is bad. She broke out of her proper kennel and she broke into their house again. This is very bad.”

“They’re coming again. You know that they are coming,” said his frantic mother.

“How much more of this can I take?”

“What are we going to do?” said the boy.

“There’s nothing we can do now but wait,” said his father.

The female man had her hands out and the boy placed her baby gently into them. The baby made contended sounds as it received milk from its mother.

There was still food on the table, but nobody was eating as they watched the female man nurse her baby and then rock her to sleep.

There was still food on the table, and after a while the boy’s mother got up and cleared it off the table and put everything away.


* * *


It was three days before they came.

This time they took both the baby man and its mother.

When they brought her back late that night her eyes were red from crying and both her hands were bandaged.

The professional who brought her back had papers for father to sign and instructions on what was to happen next. “You will be billed for the broken latch on the house she burgled. You will be billed for the medicals of those she bit. She bit the father, the mother, and their boy. They are nice people. They don’t deserve this,” he lectured. “And this is the bill for her medicals.” He handed the father a folded card and a bottle of medication. Then he said to the father, “This is the medication for her hands. Do not remove the bandages for two days. Then when you remove them, rub this ointment generously on the place where her thumbs used to be. The doctor says that she should be back to normal in about a week. One thing is for sure, she won’t be stealing other people’s property anymore.”

They all heard the sound and looked up. The weeping female man was in the grand room plucking the strings of the small singing harp, but without thumbs she could not make it sing properly.

The small singing harp sang, “Baabveee, baabveee, baabveee, baabveee.”

It almost sounded like a song they knew, but they could make out neither the tune nor the words.

She never touched the small singing harp again after that night.

The wealthy boy continued to be the best friend of the poor boy, but his father would not let him keep his promise to have the female man come to visit and nurse her child.

He explained, “My father says that she is dangerous. It would be bad to have her around the baby man. She might try to harm it.”

After that she became dejected and depressingly sad, though she lived another year—one full man year, which was roughly one third of a regular year—before the boy found her unmoving and unbreathing on her bedding in her proper kennel.

When they buried her in the back yard beside her tent, the boy cried out, “O Red Sleeves, O Red Sleeves.”

There was a medical name for what had taken her life, a coronary thrombosis, a heat attack.

But the boy believed, and always would believe, that she had died of a heart that was simply and irreparably broken.


* * *


“We are the rulers of this earth, which the great creator did give us to rule. On earth there is none greater than we. That which we envision we can build. That which we desire we can have. All that we desire we can have. But should we have it all since we can have it all? Should we take it all? And if we take it all, then what becomes of it? And after it is gone, and there is no more, what becomes of us? No creature on earth can say us nay. We as wise stewards of the earth are the only creatures that can say us nay. We must learn to say us nay,” the sacred speaker said.

And the boy lowered his head to hide the wetness in his eyes.

His Musical Man

"His Musical Man"
Copyright © 2009 by Preston L. Allen





The wealthy boy kept his promise and he and the poor boy remained best friends forever.

After his friend’s female man had died, the wealthy boy told him, “The baby man is yours. You can come to my house everyday and watch them feed her.”

And the poor boy did visit everyday, for now he had no man of his own to love and his father possessed no discretionary money to buy him another.

At the wealthy boy’s house, the poor boy was treated with a respectful sadness, even by the wealthy boy’s father, who regretted originating the cruel, though legal actions that had led to the sad ending. Each time the poor boy visited, the father sent him home with a gift of food or silver for his parents, which the poor boy always accepted with a cautious reluctance.

But the poor boy was not there for the generosity of the wealthy father nor even the loyal friendship of the wealthy son. He was there for the infant baby man of his female man.

Each day she grew to look more and more like her mother, with the red frecks on her face and arms growing rustier, and the red of her hair becoming more lustrous.

The man’s year is three times faster than the regular year, so at the end of the first year the poor boy had watched the baby man go from cradler to toddler and utter her first words. She was a man that talked as had been her lidless-eyed father before her.

In the second year, the poor boy watched her grow from toddler to precocious childhood as she began early to display her natural gifts.

In his grand room, the wealthy boy’s father had many instruments of music, enough for an entire orchestra, and the child man reached for the drums and the colored flute and both the small and large singing harps, each of which she did play, for she was a musical man as had been her mother before her.

The music she played was always bright and cheerful.

In her fourth year, when she was four in regular years and a budding pre-pubescent of 12 in man years, the child female man did become more melancholy, as did her music, as she went into heat and began to attract the attention of the other mans in the wealthy house.

The wealthy boy, who was 12 in regular years and who would have been 36 in man years, did not want her to be fixed as his father had threatened. He told his friend the poor boy, who was also 12 in regular years, “My father is going to have her fixed, but I have a plan. Why don’t you take her and let her live at your house? You still have the proper kennel your father built for her mother, don’t you?”

“That’s a great idea,” said the poor boy, beaming. He shook his friend’s hand and embraced him.

When his father came home, he found the boy pounding nails into the proper kennel in the backyard, and he asked him, “What are you doing?”

“I’m fixing it up. I’m getting a new female man.”

“The one with the red frecks? The one who is the daughter of your old female man?”

The hammering boy nodded.

The father said, “How are we going to pay for it?”

The boy stopped hammering nails. “It’s not that much money—she’s not a baby anymore and she’s house broken domesticated. It won’t take that much. Anyway, I’m going to use some of the money I earn down at the mill.”

The father nodded. Down at the mill. The boy worked with him as a loader for a few hours everyday after school. The boy was a hard worker, not like some of the other goof-off boys who worked at the mill part-time. The father was proud of his son, who had a good work ethic.

He said to him, “Very good, but if you ever run short, just come to me. No problem.”
The boy went back to hammering nails and the father went back inside the house.

When the boy got to his wealthy friend’s house, only the wealthy father was at home and he bid him come in. They passed through the great house and to the back where the proper kennels were set up. The kennel door was already open, and he reached inside and she came to him. She was pretty with her red hair in bright green hair cloths and her loins in a green pouch.

As he leashed her, he said, “You’re going to live with me now.”

She answered, “Yes, they told me.”

The look on her face was not exactly joy, and he said to her, “You don’t want to come live with me?”

“I like you very much. I guess it will be okay.”

The boy glanced up at the wealthy father, who shrugged, and then he said to the little female man. “I thought you liked me.”

“I like you just fine.”

“But . . .”

“But,” she said, “that place is where my mother died.”

“I liked your mother very much,” he told her.

“Yes, they told me. But you’re very poor. Will I be able to eat everyday?”
The poor boy flinched.

The wealthy boy’s father smiled.

“Yes,” the poor boy insisted, “we have enough food for you. You will eat everyday. I am working a job to make sure that you are well fed. You will eat better than we do. Does that answer all your questions, little man?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“What now?”

“Instruments.”

“We have a small singing harp.”

He saw the look on her face. One small singing harp?

He said, “It’s the one your mother used to play . . . and I will work to purchase new instruments for you. In time you will come to own every instrument that exists. I promise.”

It was a promise they all knew that he could not keep, so the wealthy boy’s father added, “And what he does not own, he is free to borrow from me.”

She nodded agreement at that, but the look on her face . . .

“What now?”

“Nothing.”

“What? Tell me,” the poor boy said.

The red-haired female man sighed and hid her face in her hands.

“What?” he said. “What?”

She blushed. “Well, it’s just that I have someone here that I like. Will I be able to see him from time to time?”

“No,” the boy said.

“No.” The wealthy father shook his head. “No man mans for you. That’s why we’re sending you away. We’re sending you away to keep you out of trouble. If we don’t send you away, then we are going to have you fixed.”

Now she was sobbing in big gulps. The poor boy rubbed her head and she looked at him through her tears. “What does that mean? Fixed? I’m not broken, am I?”

The wealthy father called the poor boy over and he said to him, “I have some more things for you. Some food for her. Some cloths for her hair. A few leashes. And some things for your parents.”

The poor boy shook his head. “I’ll take the things for her and the food for her, but you don’t have to give us anymore money. You have already done enough.”

“Take it, please,” the wealthy boy’s father said. “I feel badly about what I put you through. I think about it all the time. You’re a nice boy, my son’s best friend, and your parents are nice people. I was rather unkind when first we met and I acted selfishly. So take this last bit from me and give it to your parents.”

And the poor boy took the silver and gave it to his parents.


* * *


When he got her home, his new female man seemed reluctant to go out to her proper kennel. Instead, she stayed in the house, exploring the rooms. When she finished exploring, she picked up the small singing harp and made it sing:

“In the heart, in the air, hear the joy everywhere—.”

The boy said, “That song, your mother used to play that song.”

“I know,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“She told me.”

“But how did she tell you? She’s dead.”

“She’s still with me. She’s always with me, telling me things.”

He pondered what she said. For a while, the boy believed her words and pondered their significance. Then he realized he was talking to a man that talked. Sometimes they spoke sense, but more often than not a talking man spoke nonsense phrases that had the appearance of being sense. The boy knew that nothing that is dead can still be with us. But he smiled and decided to play along with her.

“What sort of things does she tell you?”

“She tells me that you are very nice and she loved you very much. You took very good care of her. You stood by her side.”

“Hmmm. Very nice. What else does she tell you?”

“That you are correct. She died of a great sadness.”

The boy was uncomfortable playing this game. He was starting to have a strange feeling. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

“She told me.”

“But she is dead.”

“She is with me now. Right now at this moment. I am filled with her.”

He looked at her, and her green eyes had strangely darkened.

“She says that it was cruel of them to take her baby away. She was a mother, but not a mother. It was cruel of them to remove her thumbs. It made her a cripple. She had hands, but no hands. She could no longer play the small singing harp. She wept every night until the night she died.”

The boy was weeping. “Does she tell you any good things?” he sobbed.

“She tells me good things, but those good things are for me alone, and not to be shared.”

“Okay.”

“But she does not want you to weep.”

“I can’t help it. I miss her. I’m sorry how she died. I wish I could bring her back and save her life.”

“Wait, I do have a good thing that I can tell you.”

“Okay.”

“She touched the heart of the father of the wealthy boy. He is afraid of me. He is afraid of you. That’s why he gives you money and insists that you take it.”

“Really?”

“She tells him to do it. He is afraid that she will kill him. But she can’t do that. She is dead. It doesn’t work that way. There is no need to fear the dead.”

“That’s very funny,” the boy said, and he laughed a small laugh.

“I want those instruments in his house. I want every instrument in his house. He is afraid and he will give them to you if you are patient and ask for them one at a time.”

“Okay,” said the boy, laughing. “We will take all of his instruments. Hahaha. One at a time.”

His female man laughed with him, and then she said, “I will tell you a good thing that my mother told for me alone and not to be shared. She trusts you. I trust you. So I will share it with you.”

“Okay.”

“This world will die one day.”

“What does that mean? Is that true?” He peered into her green eyes, which now were as dark as a forest blackened by fire.

“This world will die one day and all of this shall pass away. But I will not die here. I will die somewhere else.”

“What does that mean?” said the boy.

“I do not know,” his female man said, “but that is what my mother told me and she does not lie.”

And then she finished her song:

“In the heart, in the air, hear the joy everywhere. Shall we call, shall we sing, of the joy everywhere? Come, my friends, let us sing, of the joy everywhere. There is joy, there is joy, there is joy everywhere.”


* * *


And the day became evening, and his parents were home, and they were happy to have a singing man in the house again. She made the harp sing for them as they ate their meal in happiness, and when evening became night, she slept under the boy’s bed.

This went on for several weeks.

When the boy asked her if she wouldn’t be more comfortable sleeping outside in her proper kennel, she told him, “Because I am afraid. Bad things happen to mans in proper kennels in this neighborhood. From what I see, some of them are desperate in this neighborhood. They are so poor and so hungry. To you I am a man, but what do you think I look like to them? Food. I could be stolen and eaten. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“No,” the boy told her.


* * *


In four years, when the boy turned 16, his red-haired female man the daughter of his beloved female man was eight in regular years, but 24 in man years.

And in that year, the boy found a girl who was about his age and they began to spend more time together, and in the natural course of things he began to spend less time with his female man.

He would get up in the morning and feed her, then rush off to school, then after school he would work his hours at the mill, then he would come home and feed her, then get dressed up and go out somewhere with the girl that he was in love with.

There were smiles all around, but there was a strain too.

One evening as he dressed, his 24-year-old man said, “You know, I created a new song for you. Would you like to hear it?”

He said, “That sounds like a great idea. When I get back, you’ll play it for me.”

“Going out again?” she said.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”

He was prepared for a fight.

She surprised him this time by saying: “Have fun.”

When he got back that night, he was too worn out, he told her, to listen to the song and he fell asleep right away. She played the new song to an audience of herself, then folded herself under his bed and went to sleep.

In the morning when they awoke, she asked him if he would like to hear the song she had created for him.

He said, “Sure. Play it.”

She sat down with the small singing harp in her lap and began to make it sing, but there was a noise from beyond the room. Someone was at the door. They went out there and opened the door. It was the girl he was in love with.

She said, “I came by to walk to school with you. Hey, that’s a man! She’s cute. Is that a singing instrument thing she’s got? I always wanted a musical man, but you know my father could never afford one. All we ever had growing up were regular old run of the mill mans. How did you guys get so wealthy?”

“We were blessed,” the boy said. “She can talk too.”

“Well,” the girl said, “she must cost a lot. Tell her to say something. I love the way they talk. I see them all the time at the festival and the circus. Tell her to say something funny.”

The boy looked down at his man, and she grumbled, “Okay, so now I’m a circus performer.”

The girl looked at the boy, then back at the man, then back at the boy. “Is that it?” she said. “Is that all she can say?”

“She can say more than that, can’t you girl?” he said, winking at his female man.
She scolded, “Hurry on your way to school, little children, before you are late.”

The girl said, “That is soooooo cute! I love the way they talk. Can I bring my little brother over to play with her?”

The boy said, “Well, I’ll have to ask my parents.”

His female man quipped, “Well, maybe you should ask me. The answer is no. Goodbye now. Have fun at school, children.”

The girl said, “That is soooooo cute! You are soooooo lucky to have her. She must be worth a lot of money.”

The boy, sensing his female man’s shortening temper (she was known to bite on occasion), nudged his girl to the door and they left for school.

His female man was named Red Locks because of the red hair on her head, but it was often his opinion that they should have named her Red Mouth because of the sassiness with which she sometimes spoke to him—and the painful bites she sometimes gave him.


* * *


When the boy came home he fed his man, and the harp was in her hand as he dressed to go out again. He promised her, “Tonight when I come home, you can play the song you created for me as many times as you like. I will listen.”

“Will you?” she asked.

“I promise.”

“Will you?”

“I promise, promise, promise,” he said.

“Okay, I’ll try to wait up. If I’m asleep wake me,” she said. “An artist has to have her sleep, you know?”

He pet her head. “You’re still my favorite girl, okay?”

That made her happy and she waited up well into the night for him, but when the hours grew too long for her determined but limited constitution, she fell asleep.

His female man awoke with the next day’s sun. She pouted as she dressed for school.

“You did not wake me last night like I asked you to.”

“Who is the man and who is the master!” he fired back.

She shook her head from side to side and clucked her tongue with sadness as she set the small singing harp on her lap and played the song he hadn’t asked her to play:

“The way you treat me, the way you treat me, the way you treat me, my heart is unclear. The way you treat me, the way you treat me, the way you treat me, my heart is soooooo unclear.”

He sat down on the ground beside her. “That is beautiful,” he told her because the tune was cheerful and he hadn’t really been listening to the words. “You are the best musical man in the whole wide world.”

She said, “I have to be honest with you. I don’t like your girl and neither does mother.”

“Why don’t you like her?” he said.

“Mother says that she is not good for you.”

“What makes her say that?”

“She is hungry. She thinks you can feed her.”

He said, “Oh, I see. But your mother is wrong this time. I am a poor boy. I can’t feed anyone. She is with me because she loves me. She is beautiful. Don’t you think she is beautiful?”

“This girl is beautiful like a poisonous flower. Her beauty is there to draw you to the poison.”

He laughed. “Oh, but wait. This is my man and my dead man talking to me. Hahaha. What a pinhead I am! For a moment there, I was almost listening to you. I have to go to school now. Goodbye and thanks for the lovely song.”

He reached to pet her head and she grabbed his finger and bit it.

“Ouch! Sneaky man!”

“Listen to me!”

“You bit me! I should muzzle you, you sneaky little man!”

She put her hands on her hips. “You will do no such thing, you big oaf! How dare you threaten to put a muzzle on me. Ask her about her brother. Mother said to ask her about her bad little brother!”

Then she took the small singing harp and she dove angrily under the bed. And he kissed his finger where she had bitten it and left for school . . . with an odd little smile on his face.


* * *


After school, the boy went to the mill to work his hours.

After the mill he came home and ate a meal with his parents while his musical man played—the drums this time.

Over the years they had acquired most of the orchestral instruments in the wealthy boy’s father’s house because of his fear. But she had never played the drums at mealtime before.

She drummed to make you want to shake your hips.

His father looked up from his plate. “She’s drumming tonight. It’s nice, though.”

His mother said, “She’s very talented.”

His father said to the boy, who now wore no smile on his face, “You and your girl aren’t going out tonight?”

The boy shook his head no.

“What happened?” his mother said.

The boy shook his head. “At school, we had a fight . . . sort of a fight.”

“Well that happens. That’s nothing to worry about. That’s nothing at all,” his mother said. “When your father and I were young . . .”

“Leave him alone. Let him eat,” his father said.

And his female man drummed to make you want to shake your hips.

In his bedroom that night, he told his man, “She says her brother, her little brother, has been recently released from incarceration. He is a thief. The authorities have him on their list. But that doesn’t mean that you are right. He may be bad, but she is my girl. She wouldn’t do things like that. Not to me.”

“They are hungry in this neighborhood.”

“But she loves me, I know it.”

“She is hungry.”

“No.”

“The way she looked at me . . . she says I am worth a lot of money. You know if they sold me for meat how much they would get? You know if they sold me to a circus how much they would get? I play every instrument. I can talk. I should be owned by the wealthy who know how to protect their possessions. In this neighborhood, it is only a matter of time.”

“So you want me to sell you to someone wealthy? For your safety?”

“No. I want to stay forever and ever with you. But you should never have brought her into our house.”

“You’re crazy,” he said.

“I’m crazy. I’m a crazy man.”

“You’re my favorite girl,” he told her.

“You’re not so bad for an oaf,” she told him.

She laughed and went under the bed.

He laughed and went to bed. He lay in his bed for many minutes, laughing, laughing, thinking, while his dying laughter turned into something else.

He took in a deep breath and then let it out. He got up and looked under his bed where she awaited. Her lips met his.

“Oh,” he said, his heart filling with confusion.

He went back up to his bed. She was under his bed. Beneath him. Anytime he wanted her. His pet. His favorite girl. This animal.

Evening turned to night and night turned to morning.

A morning that followed a sleepless night.


* * *


In the morning he brought her meal and she played him a friendly tune on the colored flute, a tune that made him feel as cheerful as bright pink melting into light blue.

She did not speak of the kiss. He did not speak of the kiss.

He left for school. After school he worked his part-time hours at the mill.

When he got home the authorities were there. His mother was crying. His father was angrier than he had ever seen him before. His house was turned upside down. Everything was out of place. All of the larger musical instruments were missing. All of the smaller musical instruments were damaged or completely destroyed.

“What happened?” the boy asked.

“Someone broke in and stole our man,” his father said.

The boy said to his father, “I know who did it! If we hurry, we can get her back!”

The authorities gathered around as the boy told them about the girl he was in love with and her brother who had recently been released from incarceration.


* * *


The brother denied it of course, but they traced the missing instruments of music, and the clerks at several of the hot shops identified the brother as the one who had sold to them, earlier that day, this instrument or that.

The penalty for theft of a man was more severe than the penalty for theft of any other property, so the little brother of the girl the boy loved continued to deny having stolen the female man.

He said, “I’m really sorry about what I did, but I didn’t steal no mans from that house. Maybe as I left the door open, she snuck out of the house and ran away. Don’t they run away all the time?”

They checked all of the local public kennels, and no one would admit to having purchased a red-haired female man from the brother of the girl the boy was in love with.

When the boy got permission from the authorities to check the inventory of all local public kennels he did so, but his female man was nowhere to be found.

A sympathetic kennel boss from one of the local kennels took the boy aside and told him: “You have to understand how it is, son. I see that look on your face and I can only imagine the pain you’re feeling right now, but what I’m going to tell you is as true as the day is long. She is in one of two places. She is in the mines or she is with a circus. These days most missing mans are never recovered. It’s not like before when there were ample mans to go around. A man would run away and someone would find him and bring him home or bring him here. My shop used to be stocked with as many talking mans as dumb ones. But with all of these new environmental laws protecting the natural habitats of the mans and no laws protecting the natural rights of working people to earn a living in the mines, every talking man is worth his weight in silver. Cheap labor is the law of the land. Whoever stole your talking man got rid of her within minutes—and a musical man no less. Circus or the mines, and I am betting the mines. Most of my customers of late are buying them to sell to the mines. Only the wealthy are using them as pets anymore. People are too hungry these days. I do not have one single talking man in my shop right now. I take in maybe three a week and they are gone within minutes. Your man would have to be pretty dumb and pretty dull to be a pet, but the smart ones—straight to the mines. Thieves know this. Business is good for thieves these days.”

The boy went home with the horrible vision in his head of his sweet, sarcastic little red-haired female man working in the mines. He cried all the way home. He cried all night.

“O Red Locks, O my little Red Locks!”

In the morning he got up and dressed for school and then he went. After school he went to the mill and he worked his part-time hours. After work he and his father got with hammers and other tools and they tore down the proper kennel in their backyard.

It was a very long time before the boy went on another date with a girl, and he never again owned a man.

It hurt too much.

I Have Ideas But Not Enough Time to Write a Novel

Q: Hi Preston L. Allen. May I call you Preston? Many years ago I was in an MFA program but left it after a year to get married and start a family. I have since published several short stories in literary magazines and have a pretty good idea for a novel, but with the time constraints on my life due to full time employment and raising two children I find it impossible timewise to complete such a lengthy prose work. After two years of working on the book, I have a completed outline and a mere thirty pages of prose. I read your blog on "getting up early in the morning and working on the book every day." That does not work for me. I teach high school English and am too tired to get up so early. I need more time. Writing takes time. Where can I find more time?

Thanks, J.O.

A: At the rate you are going, in twenty years you will be on page 300 and the book will be completed. And it will probably be a great book because of all of the time you spent working and thinking about it. It will be your masterpiece. Your Magnum Opus. A book like that is worth waiting twenty years for.

On the other hand, you should clean out your emails if you want motivation to write your novel.

What?

Clean out your emails.

This week my English Department email account started bouncing back emails. The account was over full. I was way beyond the limit. I had over 3000 emails that needed to be deleted.

SO I began to delete old emails, but since some of them were important things that I needed to keep for a variety of personal and work related reasons--I opened a WORD file and began cutting and pasting the old emails into it.

I only went back a year and a half, which was enough to free up space so that I could use the system again.

A year and a half . . .

I only went back a year and a half--and I filled a WORD file that is 390 pages long, a page count that is longer than any novel I have ever published.

In other words, I wrote, in one year and a half, at least enough email prose to fill a good sized novel . . .

How much email prose have you written?

How much Myspace prose?

How much Facebook?

How Much Text Message?

How Much Twitter?

Maybe you aren't the kind of writer to rise at 5 a.m. But are you the kind who will email yourself, each day, a few paragraphs from your novel in progress?

The key is to steal some writing time from time that you ALREADY spend writing.

Your new novel will be ready in a year and a half.

I hope this helps, J.O.

Thanks,

Preston

What part of writing do you hate

Q: What part of the writing process do you hate?

A: There is no part of the writing process that I hate. I love to think about stories. I love to write stories, even long ones like novels, that may take years to complete. I love revising stories, even long ones like novels, that may take years to revise. I like doing research for stories I plan to write. I like workshopping stories with my friends who are writers and readers. I like getting feedback about my stories, even negative feedback. I like giving feedback. I like working with editors.

If there is a part of the process that I like least it would have to be trying to read my handwritten comments and fixes, and transfer them from the page to the computer. In truth, I do not dislike that part of it either, per se, but it has become more difficult because of my ever weakening vision.

Thanks,

Preston

Rejection

Q: How do you deal with negative criticism as a writer? Does it hurt?

A: Now, I have been fortunate. Knock on wood. Most of my criticism has been positive.

To answer your question, yes, negative criticism hurts. But it is a part of being a writer, and an important part. It keeps you on your toes. It keeps you performing at a high level. It keeps you from getting comfortable and slacking off.

Furthermore, you have to put it all into perspective. We writers get rejected a lot. Rejections hurt a lot, and we get rejected a lot. So when we are reading a piece of negative criticism of something of ours that was accepted by a publisher and is published and in print, it is but one defeat after a string of many successes. In short, it is a victory to find oneself in a position to even be the object of negative criticism.

And here is something else, criticism, any kind of criticism, means that you are being read, and that is not a bad thing.

Thanks,

Preston