On my way to work, I see what I think is the first sign of next week's Democratic National Convention. It is a mini bus, or some largish vehicle converted into what resembles a mini bus, painted red and seemingly defaced with ominous words. But this ugliness is obviously intentional, designed to grab the eye as it does both mine. I can read, "You've been warned …" on one side, the rest of the words hidden from my view by the hood of a Dodge Durango. "Murder: Plain and simple," pronounces a quartet of words slashed across the back in large and angry black paint. "It's a child," written in a smaller, slightly spidery, but somehow just as chilling writing style on the vehicle's back left corner. An American flag and a state of Colorado flag have somehow been affixed to the front of the scarlet vehicle and they sprout up proudly from either side of the hood, which, even as I watch, lumbers through the green light like a slow-moving, still glowing ember from hell.

I'm convinced this is among the first of protestors gathering for the convention until I see a white sign waving through the air from the street corner. Holding it is a young woman – high school-aged young I'd guess though God knows in the last couple of years everyone under 25 looks to me like a secondary school student – in a blousy white shirt, loose jeans, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, face devoid of makeup and expression. The sign is large – three feet tall by two feet wide, I'd guess, with a picture that occupies two-thirds of its available space. It is a fetus, small enough that it lacks the details that make the viewer think 'baby' but big enough that, even curled and with the otherworldly umbilical cord floating away from its middle off the edge of the poster, it looks undeniably human. The head is too big, the eyes too large, too black and covered by thin pink skin that makes the fetus look alien, but still, our images of aliens are also vaguely human. Its mittenlike excuses for hands apparently clasped in what looks like prayer. Under the photo, the words: "8 Weeks! I Am A Life!"

This girl/woman is not alone. On the opposite curb stand a gaggle of protesters, at least a dozen, most of them younger than she and holding identical signs.

At first, I am annoyed by the abortion protesters. One, because I am pro-choice and two, because I think these children are too young to have minds of their own and someday may cringe at the memory of their juvenile selves standing on the corner of a busy suburban artery, fighting for a cause they did not then understand.

But the abortion protestors remind me I'd forgotten tampons. This on the heaviest day of my period. And in turn, that reminds me I'd also forgotten to take my anti-depressant, mood stabilizer and assorted vitamins. I will have to turn back and go home, a pain in the butt but better than a stain on my office chair. And so perhaps the protesters do me more harm than good.

They remind me, too, of my son's comment last Sunday morning, as we pulled away from my Unitarian church. My son, as you may remember, was baptized some months ago into some radical Christian church that refuses to label itself -- though it closely resembles Southern Baptist. Unable to reverse his ill-fated dip in the church hot tub, I opted instead to become religious about my own faith and take him there as often as practical.

I was trying, you see, to be subtle about the whole thing, to let him see for himself the differences between the two, the tolerance and hope expressed by Unitarians as opposed to the messages of damnation and fear pounded into parishioners from the pulpit of his father's church.

I was trying, but not always succeeding. Sunday morning was a case in point.

"Why do I have to go?" he asked. "It's not like I'm a Unitarian."

"Yeah, well you might want to be one someday when you realize Unitarians don't damn people to an eternity of fiery hell for their sexual preferences," I said.

So I'm not perfect. Try, try, try again.

At any rate, after the service, we spoke for a moment with a fellow church member and married friend of mine who was four months pregnant, and none too enthused. This was a fact she did not make secret.

"Of course Robby doesn't want to babysit," she said Sunday. "He doesn't want to spend that much time with a baby. Heck, I don't want to spend that much time with a baby."

She laughed, but as with most jokes, there was a kernel of truth in what she's said. OK, half an unshucked ear of truth. Having known her for years, I knew she was one of those women who would become over-the-top indulgent, thunderously lovestruck and peacock proud once she held her child for the first time.

As we drove back toward home, I mentioned my friend's reluctance.

"Yeah," Robby said. "Why doesn't she just, you know what they do, kill it?"

I was stunned on a whole series of levels by what he'd said, perhaps even more so by how he'd said it, so casually, as if this were a simple, logical solution.

"Robby, I don't think that was ever an option for her," I said. "And she really doesn't mean what she says. She's being sarcastic, you know?"

He nodded.

I was still flabbergasted. "You understand, don't you Robby, that that's a horrible decision for a woman to have to make? It's not something any woman wants to do. And even if they do, I think it haunts most of them their entire lives. It's a terrible thing, do you understand that?"

He nodded again, but looked as though, in the way of 12-year-old boys, he had already tired of the subject.

This was one of those moments where I always feel a failure as a mother. A big subject comes up, is dropped in my lap in fact, and I sit there, slack-jawed in my lack of preparedness. Surely there was more I should say, more a good mother would say. Where was maternal instinct at a time like this?

Shouldn't I have said something about the fact that the term "killing" wasn't appropriate, that the debates surrounding whether a fetus was a life, whether it felt pain, and at what point cells become a person was never ending? I should have explained that the choice to abort is not typically based on a woman's mood, but economic, societal, mental and physical health and other weighty concerns. That as difficult as legal abortion may be, the options women sought without it were far worse. That a baby is a precious gift and needs to be born into a world, and a family, prepared to honor it.

On a comparatively lighter note, was this also the perfect opening to a second round of sex talks? Something over which we'd already glossed more than a year ago when he'd said, "Mom, I know about sex." For this moment, at least, I had been ready. In fact, I'd been ready for years, having purchased a copy of "It's Perfectly Normal" when I read portions of it that a friend had given her daughter. "It's Perfectly Normal" gave a straight-up accounting of all-things sexual, including masturbation, homosexuality, STDs, and birth control. The book was illustrated throughout with equally no-nonsense graphics, and peppered with light, witty comments from a pair of cartoon animals who appeared to "watch" the book unfold from some invisible perch. Robby disappeared with this book for a couple of days and confessed to me later he'd learned a great deal. "What about?" I asked. "Girls' body parts mostly," he said. And that was that.

But "It's Perfectly Normal" had not touched on the subject of abortion. Neither, apparently, had his father's church.

In the end, I said no more on the subject. But still I wonder, if I did the right thing. If I'm missing, somehow, that mother gene that seems to make most women emit exactly the right words in situations such as those. After all, like my church friend, I had never intended to have children, never expected even to marry. These things seemed unnatural to me; clearly, I'd been half right, but perhaps my instincts then had been spot on.

Maybe this missing gene is why, when Robby was a baby and most mothers were struggling with 10-pound diaper bags, I was floating by them with a tiny purse that held, in addition to my keys, lipstick and cash, a single diaper and a bottle. Maybe it's why I typically trudge ahead of him, too impatient to wait, convinced he's dawdling and not merely shorter-legged than I. Even to me, this doesn't seem natural; I feel vaguely ashamed when I catch myself doing it. Is this why I don't call him daily when he's at his father's, as most of my single mother friends do with their children? "You don't call him to ask how his day was?" more than one of them has asked in disbelief.

Or could it be that as a true joint custody parent, whose time is split with her child is split almost in precise half with another parent, I'm used to being on my own? That my life is almost unnaturally divided between mom time and me time?

These questions probably don't bear as much reflection as the subject or abortion, or even my son's casual perception of the idea. Because they are what they are.

My son's been raised in a way that is not traditional, and maybe that extends even to the way I address issues with him. So far, I think he's turning into a pretty cool little guy. Besides which, in these days of divorced, single, blended, and same-sex parent families, rare is the child who isn't experiencing a nontraditional upbringing. Perhaps the simplest truth is that any kind of upbringing, as long as it's accompanied with lots of love and healthy doses of logic, is absolutely, perfectly normal.

Corporate America is a disease, I’m convinced, and a highly contagious one.

After two years of working in it, I count myself reasonably free of infection, mostly because I can still spot its symptoms from across a conference room table. The day I stop noticing is the day I fall victim.

Like John. I’m not sure how long he’s been infected but he’s clearly a terminal case. My guess is he’ll be part of the corporate world throughout his career, indeed that he wouldn’t survive outside it.

John is one of my favorite sales reps: Patient, polite, slow of speech, as genuine as the day is long, he’s the perfect personality for a career with seniors. John left a message on my voicemail while I was gone last week, an update on an event I’d coordinated for him.

“But hey, we can talk more about this when you get back. Enjoy your PTO!”

PTO? Enjoy my Planned Time Off? How about, “Have a nice vacation!” or even, “Enjoy your time off.”

I swear I felt a little stab of sadness, that my dear John was a corporate soldier, and so completely unaware of it.

The strangeness continues on a daily basis.

My new manager insisted I have a P-Card. The mysterious “P”, it turns out, stands for Purchasing. The P-Card is a company Visa used for business expenses. I received two, each with a separate account number – one by priority mail and the second by regular mail. I authorized the Priority Mail card; clearly, it was more important. The credit card company had no idea what to do with the second card.

“You’ll have to ask your manager,” the representative said. “We have nothing to do with that.”

“You’ll have to ask the expense department,” my manager said. “I have nothing to do with that.”

“Who at the expense department do I talk to?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I’ll have to ask someone at corporate.”

“Can’t I just cut up the second card?”

“No,” she said, spearing me with a look that told me I'd said something suspicious and strange.

“Well, what about my pass key? It doesn’t have garage access.” I held up the white rectangular piece of plastic I scanned past a red laser to gain entrance to the office each morning.

“I’m not sure about that either. E-mail Sarah.”

Sarah sat one desk from me. An actual person I knew. But my manager had asked me to e-mail her, and somehow, I thought this was an order. Speaking was not the preferred method of communication.

Her reply was prompt. “Talk to the management company, first floor.”

Neither of the two women on the first floor could help.

“That request has to come from your corporate office. Your manager will know.”

My manager did not know. It appeared I was doomed to boil in the parking lot forever, or at least until winter, when I would freeze.

This problem was forgotten, however, when yet another manager peeked over the wall of my cube.

“What you got going tomorrow?” he asked, corralling my co-worker as she walked by. “And you, too, what’s on your schedule?"

“I’m open,” I said.

“Me, too,” Debbie added.

“Great,” he said. “Let’s meet. 11 a.m.?”

We nodded in agreement.

“Alright. I’ll send an invite," he said, disappearing into his office.

In less than a minute, the e-mail popped into my inbox: an invitation from the manager to an 11 a.m. Friday meeting. Would I accept? Accept with comment? Decline? Decline with comment? Ignore?

I hesitated, debating. I could accept with comment and write, “OK, but I wish you would have talked to me about this before.” Or decline with comment, perhaps adding: “Sorry, something came up in the last eight seconds.”

In the end, I chose “accept,” knowing this was in the best interest of my bank account and my career. As we’d learned well in our online e-mail etiquette company-required training, every e-mail has the potential to destroy its sender. One of the worst symptoms of the Corporate America disease: no sense of humor.

Besides that, attending the meeting would log an hour or two onto my accumulated hours. And that would bring me another few minutes closer to that most-treasured of corporate rewards: Another round of PTO.

I haven't felt like writing in days, weeks, maybe a month or more. I suppose it's writers block. But while it's keeping my fingers still, I thought instead I'd reach back in time and publish here something I wrote a few years ago. This is my version of a true story, an incident a former boyfriend relayed to me in which he was involved. He is the man in the tale. This happened, he said, when he was in a period of depression, rarely leaving his home except to go to the occasional movie, otherwise holed up in his darkened apartment smoking pot, playing his guitar, speaking to almost no one.

He admits it was a horrible thing to do, admits he wasn't quite in his right mind. I could relate to the latter; perhaps that's why this didn't alarm me more than it did.

I wrote this shortly before we broke up, and let him read it. He did so without comment.

Should I have known after he told me this story that our relationship was doomed? Should I have walked away when he did? Or should I count myself lucky that we didn't end up together, bad as our breakup was? I asked myself all those things many times in the year or two after our breakup. Regardless, it is I think, a gripping short story. I hope you agree. Feedback always appreciated. -- JR

10-8-00 Losing Control
Jeanna touched the counter with one finger, running it along the length of its stainless steel surface, past the tomatos, the banana peppers, the chopped onions, noodled strands of Swiss, American and cheddar, the glass bottles of oil and vinegar, plastic containers of mustard and mayo.
No stray bits of lettuce littered the counter, the glass bottles shone from her recent ministrations, the mustard top was free of the hardened, dried tip it inevitably gained in the course of a day.
The yellow booths beyond the counter sat empty, their surfaces bare of even a crumb, no hint there of the three customers who’d sat at them during the past hour.
The mop leaned wearily against the corner between the kitchen and the hallway, its graying tentacles still bearing traces of suds from their recent journey across the Subway floor.
Jeanna sighed. It was all disappointingly spotless.
She glanced at her watch again, peered out through her plastic-framed glasses into the too-quiet, moonless night, flipped open the dog-eared People in a vain search for some bit of celebrity news she had not yet read.
She had barely ducked her head to the page when the door sucked open.
“Hey,” grunted a masculine voice.
Jeanna grinned, tugged hard on the hem of her yellow Subway shirt, making a vain attempt to cover her ample hips. She shoved her glasses, which had slipped a good quarter-inch down her nose while she bent to study the magazine, roughly back up to the bridge of her nose.
“Hi,” she chirped. “How ya been?”
He did not look up, only stared through the glass at the sandwich ingredients.
He was always dressed the same – black boots, blue jeans, black leather jacket. That and his height – which was somewhere well beyond six feet – and a frame that appeared to Jeanna to be extremely well-defined, lent him a slightly sinister aura she wanted to fear, but was drawn to nevertheless. She studied his thick, brown hair as he stared, with an unusual intensity, at the food. Then his eyes shifted gears, never stopping at Jeanna but sweeping up to the menu board. She didn’t stop her perusal – he appeared oblivious to her anyway – and let herself gaze at his face: the big, green eyes, the day’s growth of hair. It was a face she had never seen smile.
She blushed, feeling him take her in as she stared at his stubble. She had been wondering what it would feel like against her palm.
“Huh?” he asked, in a gravely tone that suggested his vocal chords had been forced into use after a long period of rest.
She cleared her throat. “I said, ‘How ya been?’ What cha been up to?”
Jeanna looked directly into his eyes then, and almost gasped aloud. The pupils were dilated wide, a thin line of green separating them from the bloodshot whites of his eyes.
He stared, unblinking, back at her, standing utterly still. Then, abruptly, he reached an arm toward his back pocket and his wallet, and dropped his eyes. “Movie.”
“Movie, huh?” she queried.
But he didn’t look up. He was tugging on his wallet, trying to free it from his blue-jeaned back pocket, a task that appeared inordinately difficult.
“I saw ‘Pulp Fiction’ the other night. God, it was so violent, I’m still having nightmares. I just hate movies like that, ya know. What’d you see?”
She waited anxiously, hoping this time he would utter more than a monosyllable, daring to think he would even smile. She suspected he had a wildly sexy smile.
He looked at her again, but this time he seemed to see her, Jeanna thought. Determined to ignore the eyes that cried of a sickness she could not identify, she smiled nervously.
“That wasn’t real violence,” he said, forehead crinkling with annoyance. “It was just a movie. Don’t you know it’s not real?”
She blushed again, pleased that he was talking – uttering what was for him a veritable speech – but taken aback by his words.
“Well, it was real enough for me. I mean, have you seen real violence?”
“You want real violence?” He looked up at her, and this time she could not avoid the eyes. They caught her so all-consumingly that she did not see the large hand swooping toward her temple. She felt something firm and barrel-shaped against her brow, and drew in a breath of air so suddenly that her stomach lurched.
“I’ll show you real violence,” he growled.
In her terror, Jeanna felt a wash of utmost shame because even now, she still felt a thrill at the sound of his voice, now so near her ear he could have been a lover.
“Real violence is when I say, ‘Open the cash register and give me the money, bitch, or you die.’”
Jeanna cried out, fumbling for the “open” button on the cash register, her mind torn away from thoughts of flirtation to the most basic of instincts – the will to survive.
The door sucked open again, and her eyes flew to it, her mouth opening to scream for ‘Help,’ to say, ‘Oh, thank, God.’
But all she saw there was him, his broad shoulders and frame filling the doorway for a second before he melted into the night. The last thing she noticed were his hands, hanging at his side. His finger, she realized with a sickening sense of equal parts relief and humiliation, had been the “gun” she’d felt at her head.
Jeanna’s hands flew to her face, knocking her glasses askew. She slid to the floor, sobbing.