Newton’s Law

by Chris Conroy

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That’s what our man Pete - Pete with the rubber planet earth hanging from his rearview mirror of his 1987 Firebird - was thinking after he got punched in the face. A crisp jab from the tall woman with the crooked eyes and large nostrils; the same woman who earlier that night he had thought of - after handing her a napkin when the caviar slipped off her cracker and stained her white blouse black like old English ink - as a potential friend not lover; they had talked about Darfur and agreed that our country, the USA, should and could do more to help these people but then the conversation swayed to American Idol: how they, Simon and Ryan and Randy and Paula, with the help of many others, were raising like boat-loads of cash for the sick and dying children in Africa. Pete disagreed with her opinion of Sanjaya and that’s when she tagged him hard on the nose. His nose started to bleed and he put his hand to it and she said she was sorry, that she didn’t know what had gotten into her, that it was really her niece, her six-year-old niece with childhood diabetes who really loved Sanjaya, and then held out a napkin for him to take. He took it and laughed with tears in his eyes knowing he would do whatever it took to make this crooked eyed, large nostriled, hard-hitting woman... his wife.

6S

Chris Conroy, author of Trunks, writes after breakfast and before lunch.