first round

(2) Bobby McFerrin, “Don’t Worry Be Happy”
scrubbed
(15) Afternoon Delights, “General Hospi-tale”
283-149

Read the essays, listen to the songs, and vote. Winner is the aggregate of the poll below and the @marchxness twitter poll. Polls close @ 9am Arizona time on 3/11/23.

aaron burch on “Don’t Worry. Be Happy”

In 1988, I’m ten years old. I have almost no worries. I am—by both nature and circumstance—almost always happy.
I’m a good student, a good kid. I generally do what my parents tell me, follow rules, never really get in trouble other than sometimes picking on my younger brother too much. School comes easy, I get good grades. I play soccer and baseball, am a Cub Scout. My dad is my coach and my Scout leader; my mom packs me my lunch every, takes turns in the neighborhood carpool. They both go to PTA meetings, parent-teacher nights, generally dote on my brother and I.
We live in a small house with a big yard, kind of on the outskirts of Lakewood, WA. It’s a pretty idyllic neighborhood. We moved here for a handful of reasons, but one of those was to be closer to my grandmother, my mom’s mom. We go over to her house all the time: for family dinners, just to visit. She watches my brother and I when our parents go out for date night or do whatever else they do that means needing a babysitter.
My entire life is very 1980s Leave it to Beaver.
It is into this world and life that Bobby McFerrin releases his one and only hit single, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” The song is simple, kitschy, catchy, all in ways that could be described as cheesy, at best, and grating or obnoxious or worse as you move down from “at best.” The bulk of the lyrics are the title, sang and repeated over and over, between upbeat whistling. “Don't worry. (Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh) Be happy. (Ooh-ooh-ooh) Don't worry, be happy. (Ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh) Don't worry. (Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh) Be happy. (Ooh-ooh-ooh) Don't worry, be happy.”
The song comes accompanied with a music video that is funny, charming, lighthearted. Alongside McFerrin himself, it stars Bill Irwin, who I recognize from guest appearances on The Cosby Show and also as Ham Gravy in Popeye, which I didn’t really get, because it’s a Robert Altman movie and I’m ten, but also I loved, because it’s Popeye and because it starred “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”’s other star, Robin Williams. The three dance around, goof off, just generally seem like they’re having fun.
It is perfect for a ten-year-old in that maturing gap somewhere between kid songs and, let’s say as one example, Nirvana’s Nevermind, that is only three years away and will change everything, both in the wider culture but also personally. It is almost as if the song has been reverse-engineered to be aimed at me as its bullseye.
The song either captures or seems to inspire my entire ethos.

*

Warning: I’m not sure that I have much specific to say about the song itself, to be honest. If that’s what you’re looking for, my apologies. I like the song, but I wouldn’t say I love it. Certainly not like when I was ten, although even then, it was more a very popular song that was constantly in the ether that I liked and enjoyed than a personal favorite. I’ve barely thought about it in the intervening years. For the last few weeks, whenever I, sort of perversely, try to get it stuck in my head to make myself think about it for this essay, my brain keeps mis-queueing Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds (Don't Worry About a Thing).”
I don’t have much interest in researching it. I’m not that curious why he wrote it, under what circumstance, his thoughts about it or its popularity, either at the time or now, in reflection. When I think about or hear it, I smile, and I don’t really want to complicate it any more than that.
I also don’t have any interest in arguing for or against its merits. Love it? Great! Think it’s a horrible, obnoxious scourge? That’s fine, whatever. That has as much (more? Probably!) to do with me than the song or McFerrin. I don’t have much interest in arguing for or against anything. I generally avoid and have little interest in conflict.
“Here’s a little song I wrote,” the song starts. “You might want to sing it note for not. Don’t worry, be happy.”
It’s just a “little song,” no big deal! You “might” want to sing along… but you might not! That’s ok. Like what you like! Dislike what you dislike! Enjoy your life! We only have one. Don’t worry. Be happy!

* 

As I’m writing this now, I am about to turn 45. I went to the doctor this week, for the annual physical I hadn’t gone in for in three years. He asked me if there were any new medical issues in my family, and there are, I’ll be flying west in a few weeks when my mom gets a kidney transplant, but I knew that wasn’t what he was asking. “No, I’m not sure, I’m adopted and so I don’t know,” and he said he’d make a big note of that in my chart so he doesn’t ask again every time. Later, in the middle of small doctor-patient chat about my eating, drinking, and exercise habits, he reminded me, while rubbing his own similarly shaved, bald head, “Guys like us, we need to wear hats or at least sunscreen. Minimum 30 SPF. Every day.” At the end, he gave me a referral for the colonoscopy I am due for this year. Annual physical mostly as reminder of the tolls of aging.
I’m seven years older now than McFerrin was when he released “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” in 1988. I’m two years older than my dad was that year. I’m only three years younger than my grandmother was when I was born, only twenty-two years—less than half my age!—younger than she was when she passed away. 38, 43, 45… these ages all seem so old when you’re a kid. And 67? That was elderly, that was grandparent-y old!
Now, of course, I don’t feel old. Other than the Gastroenterology referral and reminders to take care of my skin, my physical showed me to be in surprisingly, enviably, good health. And 67 looks practically right around the corner. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it now, but I don’t think I’d so deeply realized until now how young that is, just how young my grandmother was when she passed away from cancer. I miss her all the time. More than anyone else. My ex had two grandmothers live into their mid-90s. That’s another thirty years! She would still be alive if she’d made it to that age. She would have seen me graduate college, start a literary journal, go back to school for my MFA. She would have loved that I became a writer. Would have loved the person I’ve become, that I grew into a life I love. Would have loved that I discovered a passion I didn’t even know I had until after she passed away, that I’ve pursued and chased dreams of that passion and built a life around these things I love and that bring me joy. I’m getting choked up now, thinking about how much she would have loved all of this.
I’ve been doing this more and more as I get older, calculating how old I am now vs. how old others were when vs. how old I was then vs. how old others are now. I do it so often, I’ve written versions of that sentence in at least three different personal essays. Maybe double that. I keep trying to find new ways of saying that same old thing. The calculus of getting older. The algebra of living a life.

*

In the last few years, I’ve gotten divorced, published my first novel, have settled into a job that for years I assumed was probably temporary, have figured out what it means to stay and make a life in the Midwest state I left my beloved Pacific Northwest and moved to for the woman who is now my ex. Like my job, a large part of me thought this Midwest life would be temporary, though I have now lived here longer than I lived in Washington when growing up. And then all of that shifted again when a global pandemic happened and changed what life meant for everyone.
After getting divorced, I joined dating apps, a kinda wild experience to discover in your 40s. I’ve been writing bios for short fiction published on online literary journals for twenty years but felt weird adapting that idea to dating. I included in my note about myself that I am “kind of a Mr. Peanutbutter,” mostly because it made myself laugh, the reason behind a surprisingly large percentage of my life decisions, but it ended up a kind of perfect little bio inclusion—something of an inside joke to those who had also watched BoJack Horseman; a conversation starter for those who hadn’t and asked what that meant. “You really like peanutbutter?” “No, he’s a character from BoJack Horseman. A kinda doofusy, good-natured Labrador retriever primarily defined by being always cheerful. He’s not great at dealing with conflict, but he mostly just wants everyone to be happy?”

*

Something else I’ve found myself doing more and more as I get older is think about the nature vs. nurture of a person. My novel is about two brothers who have little in common and not much of a relationship and, for various novelistic reasons, get pushed into trying to figure out why not. My own brother and I do not have much in common, we aren’t very close. I spent years saying that I never even thought about this, though every now and then someone would remind me of the central conflict in the novel that I’d spent so, so many years working on.
Why are we so dissimilar, why not as close as some siblings? Because some differences in our DNA formed two such different personalities? Because our parents raised us differently? Because I’m adopted and he isn’t and so our DNA is literally different?

* 

A few summers ago, I was at a writer retreat and fell into something of a monologue about my life. I like telling a good story, and think of myself as a good storyteller, and the weird positivity of my life has become one of my favorites to tell. It feels a funny counterpoint to most other writers I know. I sleep well, I have almost no anxiety. I am teased sometimes for being so smiley. I’m a Mr. Peanutbutter!
There is likely some part of this attributable to my DNA, to whatever factor of “nature” that I got from my biological parents. But, too, there is that “nurture” part of my upbringing, my childhood. “My parents,” I tell people. “They were almost obnoxiously loving and encouraging. SO supportive. It’s almost gross!”
From as young as I can remember, they supported and encouraged every interest my brother and I had. My dad couldn’t care less about sports, but he coached my little kid soccer and baseball teams, he took me to countless Tacoma Tigers and Seattle Mariners games growing up. They bought my brother and I art supplies for every Christmas, encouraging any and all artistic interests. They always encouraged us to pursue jobs and careers that would make money, noting that money often made life easier, but also if our interests lay elsewhere, we should pursue those! Enjoy life, they both told and modeled for us.
I was a little embarrassed and bored by this upbringing for a long time. Feared it made me less interesting; it gave me fewer stories to tell. Over the years, I’ve grown into not just appreciating my parents and this life they gave me, but enjoying the narrative of it too. A little like the life version of a writer starting out thinking they needed to become one kind of writer before figuring out their own voice. Which happened to me as a writer as well. Most of my stories are about nostalgia, growing up; they’re often quiet and earnest, without falling over into sentimental (hopefully). Blurbers and reviewers have said about my novel that it “no lie, makes you want to be alive,” “is a novel of substance by a large-hearted writer,” is “melancholy and hopeful”; “It’s a book about memory and the past refreshingly devoid of easy nostalgia,” “A beautiful, big-hearted novel,” “It feels both intimate and familiar; a work of wisdom and heart.” I hadn’t really thought of myself or my writing in these ways—I often wish I could write weirder, experimental, more out-there bonkers shit—but also these descriptions mean the world to me. I like this positive, hopeful, big-hearted writer and person I’ve become.

*

OK, a small handful of pieces of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” trivia, all of which could easily be found on Wikipedia, but I’ll share here lest you be disappointed to read all this about me and not have learned at least a little bit about the song itself.
Before being included on McFerrin’s fourth album, Simple Pleasures, and released as the album’s first single, the song was included on the soundtrack for Cocktail, the 1988 movie where Tom Cruise takes a job at a bar to help pay his bills and ends up becoming something of a famous, superstar bartender. (The 80s were wild!)
The song includes no instrumentation, made up entirely of sounds and vocal parts by McFerrin himself. It was the first and only a cappella song to ever reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
When it reached number one, jumping up from number four the previous week, it replaced Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” Two weeks later, it would be displaced at number one by Def Leppard’s “Love Bites.”(Again: the 80s!)
It would go on to win the Grammy for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.
George H. W. Bush used it as his official 1988 U.S. presidential campaign song, until McFerrin protested the use of his song, even removing it from his live repertoire to help make the point.
In 2005, 17 years after its release, Blender rated it number seven on a list of the “50 Worst Songs Ever,” writing “it’s difficult to think of a song more likely to plunge you into suicidal despondency than this.” A few years later, in 2011, it was number one on The Village Voice’s “The Seven Worst Songs Of All Time,” where they added, “This hard-to-listen-to easy-listening "classic" always makes me worry! And retch!”
My one piece of non-Wikipedia, more subjective trivia: there’s a moment, two minutes and sixteen seconds into the music video, where Robin Williams smiles into the camera in a close-up that is pure, contagious, mood-altering joy.

*

I’m not arguing in favor of this… ethos or mantra or personality or whatever you want to call it. In part because, as stated, I don’t really get into arguments. And in part because, well, that tendency toward never really getting into arguments has its downsides.
In that Blender list that cited “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” as the seventh “worst song ever,” they also drew special attention to the lyrics. “If your landlord is indeed threatening you with legal action, you should not under any circumstances follow McFerrin’s advice, which seems to involve chuckling at him and saying “Look at me, I’m ’appy” in a comical Jamaican voice.” It’s true, there are plenty of things in life, from struggling to afford living expenses to countless life and societal problems, both larger and smaller, that warrant worry, that should be reacted to with stronger, more actionable responses than just being happy.
Like reasons for moving, divorce is always a culmination of a lot of factors, though my inability to deal with conflict would be one of them. I hold things in, I don’t deal with them; I often hide from them under a blanket of prioritizing happiness over worry. Between a life full of lots of privileges and a kind of “live, laugh, love” mentality, I’m often not as empathetic as I could be, as I wish I were. I’m not great at dealing with grief. I wish I’d been more present, both physically and emotionally, when my grandmother passed away. There are other examples, though that’s probably the biggest. 

*

A few years ago, one of my writer friends told me I was “one of the only actual punks I know.” How much that meant to me when he said it, and how much I’ve thought about it since, and how much I’ve always wanted to be punk, to capture that energy, to be thought of as such, all probably disprove his point. All that on top of everything else about me that no one would ever see or describe as “punk.”
“But probably don’t see yourself,” he added, before I could say as much myself. “In ethics and drive and DIY,” clarifying and supporting his claim.
I’ve been thinking about that lately in relation to thinking so much about McFerrin’s 1988 single. If my closet full of J. Crew and my rule-following, boundary-avoiding rather than -pushing personality could be punk because of my DIY ethic and drive and because I generally tend to make decisions because they’ll entertain myself, couldn’t, too, a pop song that eschews instrumentation and encourages us to worry less and enjoy things more? In 1988, but maybe even more here in 2023? And in the culture at large, but maybe even especially in a literary landscape of tortured artists full of anxiety and terror, self-doubt and imposter syndromes?
So. I know I said I didn’t have much in arguing for or against the song, but here’s one claim to disprove. One argument for the song:
“Don’t worry, be happy”? Possibly the most punk one hit wonder of the 80s.

* 

A few years ago, I was contacted by an adoption finder, told that the mom who had given me up for adoption was looking for me. That is a longer, different story and essay, but what is important here: I had never reached out, never gone looking myself. I had never felt the kinds of abandonment issues I know some adoptees do, I’d never been that curious at all.
I don’t remember being told I was adopted, because I remember having always been told. And it was only ever presented as a blessing, a gift. Also that if I ever wanted to seek out my bio parents, they’d support me; and if I didn’t, they’d support that too.
I had never really worried about it; I’d been too busy being happy.
Being sought out, rather than doing the seeking, wasn’t something I was prepared for and it freaked me out. I didn’t do anything with this news for a long time but then, ultimately, two or three years after that initial contact, I finally reached out and sent my biological mom an introduction email. Since then, we have stayed in minimal though semiregular email contact—birthday and holiday well wishes, mostly; occasional big life updates. I told her when I got divorced; she emailed me the afternoon her eldest son (well, other than me) died in a car crash. I’m not sure exactly how old he was though, of course, younger than me. Younger than me now, younger than me then.
The algebra of life includes a lot of variables of grief, it turns out. I’m admittedly not great at solving for those. But I try, the best I know how. Be supportive—of everyone, but maybe especially those in your life, your family, both biological and chosen, your loved ones. Be kind to those around you. Embrace and spread and encourage joy. It feels cheesy to write it down like that, but I believe it. It’s maybe what I most believe in. It’s something, at least. Maybe it’s everything? Try to not worry about the things it doesn’t help to worry about? Try to be happy?

Aaron Burch is the author of a novel, Year of the Buffalo; a story collection, Backswing; and a memoir / cultural-appreciation / booklength essay about the novella that was the basis for Stand By Me, Stephen King's The Body. He lives and teaches in Ann Arbor, MI, tweets too much at @aaron__burch, and has a website that he updates too infrequently at www.aaronburch.net

kate bernheimer on “General Hospi-Tale”

I doubt I am the only survivor of the 1980s to have strong emotional memories of the Christopher Cross song “Think of Laura.” Surely there are others who played it from a cassette while they scribbled homework or feathered their hair with a Conair or spritzed some Love’s Baby Soft to cover up the fragrance of fear. Many mornings in Geometry class, my friend Debbie, whose home had the unfortunate street number “69” that boys would not let her forget, slowly turned her head toward me from her front row seat in the classroom, as I cowered behind her and tried to be as invisible as possible in one of the classes that I was failing. And as she gazed into my eyes, her eyes nearly brimming with tears, or so her expression was meant to imply, she mouthed a line from a song over and over.  Laura,  Laura, Laura. I can picture her clear as day now (brown eyes, brown bobbed hair, framed by perfect brown bangs). Laura—
Though the song “Think of Laura” by Christopher Cross was about a girl who had died in a campus shooting, we only associated it with Laura from the soap opera “General Hospital,” whose producers wove in bits of the tune whenever Laura appeared or was thought of or mentioned. I doubt I am the only survivor of the 1980s who finds this explanation of the song’s association with “General Hospital” very deficient:

“Think of Laura” was utilized as the theme song for an uber-popular couple thereupon known as Luke and Laura. This couple was like the Ross and Rachel of their day, albeit of daytime television. Luke (played by Anthony Geary) and Laura (played by Genie Francis) were one of the program’s most loved couples.

I mean, not really, unless I missed the plot of “Friends” where Ross brutally attacks Rachel in a disco where she is employed while a peppy Herb Alpert song (“Rise”) plays in the background. Before they become a couple. “The one where Ross rapes Rachel” and “The one where Rachel falls in love with Ross her rapist” are not episodes that I, anyway, seem to remember.
There is a lot to remember from the 1980s about how “to forget” was required—forget forgiveness, the edict was only “forget.” Supposedly, Luke and Laura hadn’t been planned as an ultimate couple when the assault plot was written, but over time, either their onscreen chemistry was so great or audiences liked them so much (individually? together? none of this makes sense) the writers had no choice—so are the demands of a long-running soap—but to keep them together. For years. Genie Francis, who played Laura, was seventeen years old when the character Luke attacked her at the disco; the filming experience sounds harrowing, and Francis has said she’d just as soon never be asked about that time, thank you very much.
I understand that, because I feel that way about high school. Sure, sure, it wasn’t all bad. Once in a while, like when I took the T downtown to my Solid Gold dance classes with my friend Marin (rainbow legwarmers, ripped sweatshirts, Sassoon knickers, ribbon barrettes), everything was okay. One of my favorite choreos to learn there, and I can still perform it today, was to 1970s “Bad Girls” (bad girl, sad girl, you’re such a dirty bad girl). Simulated rides on motorcycles, feather boa whippings, lariats, girl-on-girl fights broken up by mean, mean, dancing policemen (the jazz dancers from Boston theatre who were nicer than any boys I ever had met). It was great.  With lyrics and moves like that swirling about, is it any wonder a girl might have both Sylvia Plath poems and Grace Jones on the turntable?
I wonder when I heard the 1981 song “General Hospi-Tale” that was sort of a spoof—but also a replication—of the vibe of the moment’s vapid and totally danceable radio hits. “Let’s Dance” and “Oh Superman” and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and “Psycho Killer” were all in the mix, but we had no taste, or rather we had a massive super-abundance of it—we liked it all. “General Hospi-Tale” has an excellent, funky beat. Its spoken narration cleverly captures the ridiculous vibe of any soap opera plot—while fitting with the aesthetic of other radio songs. Well Sally died, Hutch survived, and no one got the gold.  That rhythm, so familiar—oh, I know! And the chicken tastes like wood . . . ba dum dum dum . . . another one bites the dust . . .  the decade’s poetics were strong.
“General Hospi-Tale” might have emanated from my brother’s bedroom one Sunday night as he listened to Doctor Demento, or it might have been on vanguard station KISS 108 FM’s Matty in the Morning, possibly introduced by Lisa Lipps herself, an influential deejay with an incredible voice, who actually wrote the song’s lyrics. I don’t have a visceral memory of it, not like I do with “Think of Laura.” The band was The Afternoon Delights—which, as one of the back-up singers, Suzanne Boucher, pointed out was not really a band, but a hired “session group working in and around Boston.” When I asked her how the group had been formed, I imagined late nights at The Rathskeller (where she did hang out) or after-parties in Brockton basements. My imagination was gently corrected. “Another musician Harry King was contacted by KISS 108 to produce this recording and since he was our friend and he knew we could basically sing everything,” the group was created, Suzanne explained to me.
To a definitely ridiculous series of interview questions I emailed to Suzanne, where I posed questions about where she bought her clothes in the 80s, what her favorite outfit was, what it was like to be a woman artist at the time, where the band went for coffee, where they rehearsed, whether she took the Green, Red, or Orange Line, what radio station did she like, what was her favorite song of the time, whether she was sorry that the only song people seemed to know from the record was a ”General Hospi-Tale” and not another song that I considered superior where I think she was, in fact, the lead vocalist (“Dancing for Pennies”)—man, that’s a great song!—underrated!—how being in a band with a radio hit had changed how friends or family treated her back then, who did their hair, did she have a day job to support herself as a singer, whether being in a band with a popular radio hit had in any way impacted her later career change, and if, during Lisa Lipps’ 1987 three-day disappearance, which had been so invasively speculated about in the news at the time, she had been gravely concerned for the beloved deejay, whom I had read was her friend . . .  but mainly, I repeated throughout the 3,000 word email—which provides a pretty good lesson, if I do say so myself, in How (Probably) Not to Conduct Interviews -- whether she had any memories about the song “General Hospi-Tale” and how it was written, she emailed me back these words:

The Afternoon Delights was the name management gave the group for the purpose of this recording. We were actually called TVS which stands for The Vocal Section. We were mostly a studio group that recorded commercials or did backing vocals on other people’s recordings. Our friend Harry King was asked to produce the song General Hospi-tale for Kiss 108 in Boston. Lisa Lips and Sonny Jo White wrote the song. Harry asked TVS to sing it. It was an ordinary afternoon of work for us which we never thought would lead to anything. I believe Blue Sky partnered with KISS 108 to produce the album and the tour. A couple of singer/dancers who worked on Broadway shows were brought in to give us more glitz and Rebecca and I were asked to train in choreography for a stage show to support the record. The team set us up with a photographer, stylists, and makeup artist and produced very slick advertising photos. Shortly the song began to chart on Billboard top 40 and I believe we reached 33. We were sent out to Hollywood to do television performances on Solid Gold, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and Entertainment Tonight. We also played in New York at the Copa Cabana and a club in Miami. After that the life of the song was over along with our tour. TVS is still performing today with the original members minus the late Rebecca Hall. TVS has been performing and recording around Boston for almost 40 years.

I am so grateful Suzanne took the time to share this history with me, the story that mattered to her. When she told me, in slightly different words, that I’d asked the wrong questions, she wasn’t being unkind, she explained.  It’s just that it hadn’t happened in the way I’d expected. I’ll admit that at first, I was disappointed. I thought she and I might have swapped stories of being girls in the 1980s. That by time travel, I’d finally go to the disco and be one of the girls.  But nothing is what we expect, most of the time, and it was a short few hours before all I wished was that Suzanne would send me the photos she was going to look for over the weekend.
In an 80s television appearance—Suzanne is the blonde—the group shimmies and snakes in high-waisted satin pants, sequined jackets, and iconic hairstyles (slick, feathered, permed). I know those moves, and if only I’d had such an outfit for Spinoff (which we all called Spinoffs, not sure why we added the s, and imagine it said with our Boston accents), the roller disco on Ipswich where boys from Revere would sometimes take some of our hands and skate with us for a few loops, perhaps to “General Hospi-Tale” itself, but I don’t remember. I hope that people will remember that “General Hospi-Tale” was performed by artists who were and remain extremely dedicated to music; I wish we could banish the phrase “one-hit wonder.” These are people with whole lives, and we can’t know what it was like – maybe not that wondrous for them. We can’t know what anyone has dealt with since that time in the 1980s.
Suzanne turned her house upside-down, she told me, looking for her “Afternoon Delights” photo album, but couldn’t find it. I think it’s something to do with the time the album is from, though I shouldn’t presume, I have learned. I just know that I have many, many times turned my house upside-down looking for something from the 1980s. A high school literary magazine. A note left on my windshield by Marin. A feather earring. A 45.
It’s difficult to write about “General Hospi-Tale” because of the time. I had just begun high school. There were a lot of things going wrong, as seems to be the way of the humans. No peace in the Middle East, which had always been rumored to come. John Lennon, murdered.  Racial injustice in Boston—a phrase which hardly does justice to the wrongdoings, the misconstrued protests, the harm. At the high school I mostly hate to this day, I sat at the Faggot Table (one step down from the Loser Table) and got spit on a lot. Did anyone ask who was circled and hunted? What arrow had been drawn in whose bow? In what classroom, what bedroom, what car? Didn’t I tell you Luke raped Laura, and later they married?
Laura, Laura . . . Debbie with her brown eyes, asking me.
And as it must be, the arrow is drawn at myself, with the ultimate question.  Did I ever ask a METCO student how their day had been?  Where do you buy your shampoo? Who does your hair? Who inspires your music, your drawing, your interest in science, your cooking? Where do you hang out? Do you drink coffee? Do you like butter, buttercups, cream? Do you have an afterschool job? Does anyone help you, or fail to help you?  What radio station do you listen to?  What’s your favorite song?

Kate Bernheimer is the author of two story collections, including How a Mother Weaned a Girl from Fairy Tales, three novels, and with Laird Hunt, the collaborative novella Office at Night —  a joint commission of the Walker Art Center and Coffee House Press. With her brother Andrew Bernheimer, she co-authored the design book Fairy Tale Architecture, and they recently co-curated an exhibition based upon it at the Center for Architecture in NYC. She has edited four fairy-tale anthologies of original work, including the World Fantasy Award-winning My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales. A new book, This Rapturous Form, is forthcoming with Coffee House Press.