In the Aeroplane over the Sea

I've been listening to this a lot.

What a beautiful face

I have found in this place

That is circling all round the sun

What a beautiful dream

That could flash on the screen

In a blink of an eye and be gone from me

Soft and sweet

Let me hold it close and keep it here with me

It popped up as we landed in Taipei, which was unsurprising because I've always managed to assign grave meaning to the music I hear at certain painful moments in life. This one was strangely fitting, I thought as I stared drearily out the window at the dreary Taiwanese sky.

And one day we will die

And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea

But for now we are young

Let us lay in the sun

And count every beautiful thing we can see

Love to be

In the arms of all I'm keeping here with me

Three days on the ground, enough to remember, revisit, and lose. Enough to say hello and goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye.

What a curious life

We have found here tonight

There is music that sounds from the street

There are lights in the clouds

Anna's ghost all around

Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me

Soft and sweet

How the notes all bend and reach above the trees

It is a dry, hard thing, this sort of grief. The leaving hasn't happened yet, and still, it has.

I could feel it then, and I can feel it now. I will never see them again. Not in their little apartment, where portraits, enshrined, hang proudly from the walls, stand on tables, covering every dusty surface not consumed by books and dust and the detritus of nearly a century of life. Not in my old home, here for the summer, pulling magic out of bursting suitcases, stringing together beads, stealing dustpans, cracking walnuts.

Just in photographs, the glossy ones from the infinite number of Kodak rolls developed at Wal-Mart, with the date stamped in pale pink dots across the backs, a neat stack of them in the blue-green-white resealable envelopes, thickly padded. Just in video tapes, from his giant camcorder I'd always needed two hands to lift, grainy but steady, that we used to just leave running on the television while my dad transferred them from their 8mm cassettes to VHS.

Just in memories, which so quickly have faded.

Now, how I remember you

How I would push my fingers through

Your mouth to make those muscles move

That made your voice so smooth and sweet

But now we keep where we don't know

All secrets sleep in winter clothes

With one you loved so long ago

Now he don't even know his name

When I first heard it, I thought it was just another lo-fi love song. It is, sort of. But I've come to hear it as a sort of eulogy.

What a beautiful face

I have found in this place

That is circling all round the sun

And when we meet on a cloud

I'll be laughing out loud

I'll be laughing with everyone I see

Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all

I stood behind my mother when we said goodbye.

"Don't cry," she said, but not to me.

I stood behind my mother and cried so she couldn't see.

But her mother saw, and, ashamed, we shed the same tears.

Devil Like Me

I never understood why he was so angry all the time. 

There was nothing to be angry about. 

We had a good house with stairs, no one hit us, and we had Funyuns waiting on the kitchen table when we got back from school.

There was nothing to be angry about.

My heart and soul were never mine to own,

What you care to die for?

What you care to die for?

But now I understand. I can't explain it. It's an itch under the skin, a bubbling--the well of expectation, never filled, growing deeper, deeper, and every action becomes failure. A righteous entitlement.

I am angry.

We die alone, we'll all die young,

What you care to die for?

What you care to die for?

We have long conversations on the phone in the dead of night after too much alcohol where we cry inside and our voices break and nothing seems to make sense, so we cling to each other because we know we, the two of us, at least, understand what it's like, even if we don't understand why.

Snow, snow glistens on the ledge, whiskey on the bed,

shake it out and light a cigarette

Miss me when you, you wish you weren't right.

Obsession runs in the family, it appears.

I can't stop this anger, I can't sit on it, can't bear the detonations in my chest every night, can't, can't, can't.

So I leave regret for the next day and numb, numb numb, numb the violence.

Shake me all out if I'm wrong, for you, for you.

Shake it all out when I'm gone, I, for you.

In the past month, I've written over 70,000 words about a man and a father that could have been. It took me about 30,000 words to realize I was writing about myself and what I wished so very badly I had, in some dark, embarrassed corner of my mind.

I write about people who have lost everything, who struggle and find a way through, surviving on the love of a family that's been found, never had.

Is the devil so bad if he cries in his sleep, while the earth turns,

and his kids learn to say, "fuck you,"

they don't, love you.

Hypocrisy, my mind cries.

Love, my heart whispers.

I want to leave. I want to leave. I want to wave goodbye and never return, but I'm still here, drowning, willingly.

I don't understand what's happening, but it's happening regardless, and I find myself reduced to an unwilling passenger, neglecting life and responsibility to dive deep into a world of imagination where my sense of loss is justified, where I have a father, a mother, people who've taken me in of their own accord.

Where I'm not a burden so much as a blessing.

Does the devil get scared if she dies in her dreams,

where the earth burns,

she cries 'cause she's nothing like you, is she like you?

Blessings are bullshit.

What'ch you want from a devil like me, devil like me?

You see the devil don't mean to be evil,

he just regrettably forgets to exceed expectation.

I'm on the verge of explosion. I listen to loud music and don't know why. I almost cried when Lou Reed arrived in the mail, and I placed that vinyl on my turntable, and, soulfully, I felt sweet nuthin'.

The last time I'd felt sweet nuthin', I was in a large bathroom in a hotel in Killarney, and I'd decided that throwing myself off a cliff would be the greatest "fuck you" in the history of my existence.

Holes riddled in your head, little bit of lead,

shake it out and line a silhouette

Sometimes, I think I might do something purely out of spite. I am a sick man. I am a spiteful man. I live from bottle to bottle. I only drink stout. It's strong, but not sharp. Rich, but not overbearing.

It's something old, familiar, and it reminds me of river banks and bare feet skirting cow pats, bare feet on gravel, pinching, gingerly.

It is memory.

Miss me when you, you wish weren't kind of glad.

Shake me all out when you're done, for you, for you

Shake it all out when I'm gone, I, you.

Of course, missing everything is only a part of it. 

I am Plato's man in the cave, dragged to the light and thrust back into the darkness, where shadows mock--No one believes you.

Well, I don't believe you either.

Is the devil so bad if he cries in his sleep,

while the earth turns

And his kids learn to say, "fuck you"

they don't love you.

I am so old. 

I am so tired.

I write all day, pounding, cursing, dreaming of distant worlds, a life away.

I run when I can't write anymore.

Today, the rain was like bullets against my skin, raw and red, furious.

Does the devil get scared if she dies in her dreams,

where the earth burns, she cries

'cause she's nothing like you, is she like you?

I like to think that I've reached the point where I can say I don't care anymore.

I think I did, years ago, and then I burst out the other side and found that, no, I've always cared. I always will. I will always care for him, bound as we are by blood and shared confusion, even as he carts around little black boxes of numbness, hard things, only a little grand.

It feels like my responsibility, the only one I have left in the world, and the only one I cannot bear to fail.

We're all we have left, and we cling, distantly.

What do you want from a devil like me?

am I like you?

Chaconne, Partita No. 2

I spent the first few hours of Christmas Day 2016 muzzily buzzed in a hotel bar overlooking the Santa Monica Pier.

"Very bougie," he said.

"The Ferris wheel is Christmas-themed," I repeated.

It lit up with a swirling red-nosed reindeer.

"Hah," he said, finishing off his second eighteen-dollar martini.

We spent the next few hours of Christmas Day 2016 in a 24-hour diner with cheap beer and some sort of food. He put his arm around me, and I leaned in because I felt like he needed it more than I did. I'm lying, of course.

"Stay over tonight," he said in the car between muttered ohgodshits and fuckfuckfucks.

"But all my stuff is already in your car," I said.

We stopped outside his apartment, and we didn't look at each other.

"I'll drop you off at your place," he said.

Ohgodshit. Fuckfuckfuck.

Outside my empty apartment building, I grabbed my guitar from the backseat, and he grabbed my bags from the trunk. We hugged.

"I love you," he said.

"I know," I said.

I started crying before I even got to my door. It's the first time I've been able to cry like that, loudly, and even then, I wondered at how strange I sounded, distant sobbing, choking breaths, just tears and tears in the worn family fabric that hadn't ever been whole to begin with.

Selfish tears.

It's still Christmas morning, though not for long.

Nothing much has changed.

I took my bike on a spin through Brentwood, and there was a little boy climbing onto a little red bike, his father carefully holding him steady.

"Nice bike," I said.

The father looked up, smiled. The boy, white knuckled, didn't.

I turned away.

Good Grief

What's gonna be left of the world if you're not in it?

It could have been a love song, Lucas thought as he crested the bridge, breathing ragged, wind gusting in his face.

He could feel the cord of his earphones sticking to his spine beneath his shirt, follow its cold lines splitting over the back of his neck to nestle in his ears. He usually ran without music, mind wandering, reaching out past the quiet strain of his lungs to a place of absent detachment.

But this morning, he'd awakened in an unfamiliar bed well before sunrise and lain awake, suffocating in the silence, and felt a crushing sense of loss that was as unsettling as the place of his birth.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

His solution, as always, had been to run. Pausing only to pull on a pair of socks and his trainers, he had, at the last moment, snatched his phone from the desk, threading the cord down his back in the grey light of the foyer before yanking the door open and sprinting out into a graveyard world.

The River Cam stretched out beside him, dark and silent, an unwanted reminder of just how far he'd come. There were no rowers this time of the day, no quiet whir of cyclists braving the chill.

He ran aimlessly, following the river north, gaining speed across the fields, nearly slipping at the footbridge over the tracks still standing only by the anger of its graffiti. Shadows loomed through the fog, foreboding monoliths before the sudden switch of a tail.

They'd come here often in the summer, gone for leisurely cycle rides up NCR 51 through Bottisham and Burwell and all the little villages on the way to Ely.

He gathered pace.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

They'd picked blackberries in the fall, stacked crates and crates of them on their bikes and sold them to the old man at Market Square for just enough to buy a pair of tickets to the latest festival. But they'd keep a small box for themselves, nick a couple of fizzy pops from Sainsbury's, and float down the river by moonlight in a stolen punt.

He crossed the river at the Green Dragon, ears pounding.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

He remembered how, in the winter, the sun would rise over the frosted scrub at Fen Ditton, scattering golden mist around his feet.

His trainers slipped on the dirt track, and he flung out a hand to steady himself.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.
Every stumble and each misfire, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

It was impossible to sum up their relationship. Then and now. Father? Best friend?

A sudden gust of wind rattled the houseboats in their moorings.

Either way, it was over now. Dead and buried like so many other things.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.
Every stumble and each misfire, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

But at the same time, he wanted to know.


Had that been family? Those four years of content? Was that family was? Contentment?

"I'm sorry," he gasped.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.
Every stumble and each misfire, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

Gravel shuddered aside as he flew north past the lock, past the broad intersection to Milton, north and north and farther north he ran.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

Not knowing was better.

He wished they'd never met.

Not knowing had always been better because not knowing had never come with this solid pain in his chest, this heaviness in his legs that would tug him back out across the sea.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

He couldn't get the track to change, stuck on endless repeat, tinny and small compared to the roaring fullness of his heart.

The truth was, he'd always known. Then and now.

Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.
Every stumble and each misfire, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.

It probably was a love song, Lucas thought as he came to a stop, hands on hips, straining for breath.

Warmth

When I joined the Air Force, the world started ending.

I'm sitting here with my hot toddy, thinking back. Hot toddies tend to do that, you know. Send you back somewhere warm, somewhere sweet, with bite.

I can see how it could have been selfish of me.

To throw my hands up in the air and say, "I give up! I'm sorry, but I'm through trying to be better." To give up pretending that everything was alright, and in doing so, obliterate the fragile thing that might have been a home.

But that's not quite right, is it?

"We worked so hard for you, and this is what you've done."

I left the Air Force for a number of reasons. Some were true. Most were not. I still can't sort it out.

All I know is that it's left me with a gaping what-if the size of a B-52.

And for that, there is anger. A feeling of entitlement, that something I was had been stolen.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

Before the Air Force, things weren't great, and it's not as if I didn't know that. But I'd found safety in my little world of responsibility, dutifully straightening myself out, congratulating myself for my responsibility and dutiful straightening out. I was a good person. Everyone was good people.

I'd thought I'd made the right decision, absolving obligation.

"There's nothing for you here."

But I'd failed to realize that that obligation was the cornerstone upon which the house stood. With that gone, how then could I possibly make the house a home?

"Why?"

So I went, heaping burning coals.

"Who gave you the right to ask questions?"

Righteously, I kept to the straight and narrower because I knew that if I even paused to think about the hurt, I'd never start again. I'd set myself on this path. I had. Alone. This was mine, all mine.

But, of course, things never work out that way.

Over the course of a few days, everything and nothing had changed. I was just a college student, grafting for the grade, keeping my head down, avoiding the track on Tuesday and Friday mornings, looking away when I passed anyone in BDUs.

I still exist in this strange in-between. It's easy to convince myself that nothing's changed. I get up early, shake off melancholy, go run, do my sets at the gym to AFPFT standards, do my weights, come back, check my email, ignore some, respond to some, and then go about my day.

But at night, I sit here with my hot toddy and dream about other things as the whiskey burns its way past a thousand pinched mirrors. I'm still trying to repay a debt I never owed.

And so the world's ended, and I'm left sorting through the fragments of what's left, salvaging what I might once have been. I might have liked writing at one point. Had I been a writer? I consume music like I run, endlessly, for no reason, with an unapologetic disregard for everything else. Had I been a musician? A runner? Or am I just another drunk, weaving through yesterday's headlines?

I have a responsibility here. Duty. An obligation. Somewhere.


"My mother always told me that when you have children, they will grow up and stab you in the back. And she was right. That's exactly what you've done."

Ease

My brother handed me my first drink. It was a gin-and-something.

I said no, thanks, because that's what I'd been taught to say during Red Ribbon Week in first grade when we'd strangled the chain link around the playground with scraps of red caution tape.

But

"Try it," he said with a grin.

"No, I don't want to," I said.

"Come on," he said.

"Okay," I said.

----------------------------------------

We used to smoke pot in the storm drain while other local idiots went and tagged the walls, the bald concrete melting our brains under scorching October sun. It was the cool thing to do--hitch a ride with someone who had a permit, Eminem shouting about his closet and rattling around in our empty chests, filling them with an anger that gave us a searing purpose beyond our despised upper middle class privilege.

----------------------------------------

On lazy Saturday mornings before we'd discovered anger, I'd crack open the door to his bedroom. He'd be awake, of course, waiting for me, the sunlight setting the beige walls glowing so it almost felt like the happy homes we'd see on Hallmark cards at Christmas. I'd crawl into bed with him, and we'd snuggle together under the covers for just a little bit, not talking, just resting, all angles and soft corners.

"Can we play Aliens?" I'd ask.

He'd pull the covers up over our heads, burying us in red-orange constellations.

"There's one over there!" he whispered loudly, pointing to something that might, in another world, have been an ink stain.

"Pew!" I whistled, thumb and forefinger extended, "Got it! Oh no, another one!"

"Don't worry," he said, "I'll help you."

----------------------------------------

I was embarrassed the first time condoms fell out of his wallet, like somehow I'd walked into the wrong room, that this wasn't the boy I'd shared a bed with, who'd taught me how to shoot a basketball, who'd animated our forks and spoons at mealtimes and made them masters of the pantomime.

"Smoked too much weed last night," he sighed, tossing it all into his top desk drawer and slamming it  shut.

I smiled weakly, turned around, and left, something acrid coiling around my nose hairs.

----------------------------------------

My first beer was a Guinness. I bought it with what might have been a fake ID, but then again, I might not have bought it at all. I chipped the edge of my desk trying to get the bottle open without a lever. I've always seen my life as a movie.

Hands shaking, I moved to the counter and sliced my thumb open on the cap when it came off. I ignored the blood when it oozed down the neck to my lips as I took the first pull.

There I had it. Independence.

----------------------------------------

I bought my first knife when I was twelve. It was the cool thing to do. Carry it around in my pocket at school, furtively pull it out in class and show my gang. The day I figured out how to carry it in my pocketless gym shorts was a proud one.

----------------------------------------

I sat crying on the floor in the handicapped stall for about five minutes, then got up, washed my face, and went back to class.

I walked in a haze for about three years, then decided enough was enough, before realizing that, no, it wasn't.

----------------------------------------

Heaviness is how I'd describe it. A heavy weightlessness chasing vapid dreams of satisfaction.

When I decided to go clean and straight, I knew I wouldn't be able to manage it. I knew from the start that I'd fail, like most other things. But I've lasted so long I'd let myself start hoping.

When I got the news at the train station, I knew that, yes, this was the end. I sat outside watching the afternoon sun die and knew my freedom was over. My train left, and by that time, I was miles away, searching out the last vestiges of genuine humanity in a bombed-out world of wars for the soul.

----------------------------------------

And how does it feel when someone lets you down

You've got a head full of thorns

When you should really be wearing a crown

But at least a crowded room will never seem empty

With a conscience always siding against me

Don't Look Back in Anger

The rain fell.
__________________________________________________


"How's the weather!?"

"Just right!!"

__________________________________________________


Lucas furiously blinked precipitation from his eyes.

__________________________________________________


"What's our favorite color!?"

"Clear!!!"

__________________________________________________


His borrowed dress shirt was too loose at the collar and fell over his wrists. His father would have disapproved of its faded polyester blend.

His other father, at least, the one he hadn't seen in nearly seven years.

His real father had pulled it off the clearance rack at Ross with a shout of victory.

__________________________________________________


"Does this mean I have to call you 'Dad' now?"

"I think we both know that's never going to happen."

"Okay, so why don't I just--"

"--I might not actually be your dad, but I sure am old enough to be. We are not going to be on a first-name basis."

__________________________________________________


His socks were soaked through, but he paid no attention.

He had endured worse insults to the body.

__________________________________________________


"These are ridiculous. What am I--how am I...? There must be some mistake."

"Nope."

"But these are girls' shorts! You can't possibly expect me to--"

"Man up, Luc."

"I am defending my masculinity and my modesty. These leave terribly little to the imagination."

"Well, it's not like there's much to see anyways."

"Coach--"

"--stop whining and get changed. God knows your pasty English chicken legs could use some sun."

"Contrary to popular belief, ultraviolet exposure--"

"--Course records weren't set in basketball shorts. Put those on, or you'll be racing in your boxers. I don't think anyone wants to see that."

__________________________________________________


But at the same time, he was aware of a distance, an opening chasm.

__________________________________________________


"Lucas, let me in!"

"Sod off!"

"Quit holding the door shut. It's not your fault, Luc."

"Bloody buggering-- How is this not my fault? I'm a smart person, or I thought I was, but I'm not. I'm just normal. Stupid. Stupid."

"This has nothing to do with being smart, Luc. Being smart doesn't mean you automatically understand everything, especially not people. You can't troubleshoot people."

"I disagree. People have inputs and outputs, just as does any black box. We don't necessarily require understanding of the internal computational processes, but we should be able to, within a reasonable margin of error, predict its activity. I should know this, and I should sodding be capable of evaluating and selecting appropriate response patterns without experiencing a bloody system overload!"

"Luc, just sit down for a minute, will you? Here. I'll shut the door. Let's talk, just you and me."

__________________________________________________


He'd never really known anybody to die before. Except his mother, of course, but it wasn't as if he'd had the opportunity to make introductions on the operating table.

He felt the presence of Anne Riley and her two children behind him, respectfully or resentfully allowing him to stand on his own before the open grave of someone who had loved him enough to let him be.

__________________________________________________


"I don't understand."

"Well, I can't say that I'm an expert on this topic."

"No, not about that. I meant--"

"--I know what you meant, Luc. I was trying a little humor to lighten the mood."

"Oh."

"Not funny?"

"...Well, I can't say that I'm an expert on this topic."

"That's my boy."

__________________________________________________


It was precisely this love that had gotten him killed.

__________________________________________________

"She kissed me," he blurted.

Uncle Rick raised his bushy eyebrows.

"I would congratulate you, but I don't think that would help right at this moment," he said.

Lucas moved his fingers restlessly. Thumb on forefinger. Thumb on forefinger.

"I don't--" he choked, drawing further into himself, feeling the traitorous tears well up again, the hopeless frustration, the shame.

Uncle Rick sat carefully in the large chair next to Lucas's. He waited, casually glancing around at the clutter of his office, the lines of golden trophies and banners draped across the shelves.

"I can't--"

Shouts from out the window facing the muddy dirt track, laughter.

Lucas slammed a fist into the arm of the chair.

"Why is this so difficult for me!?" he shouted, "Why can't I just--" he broke off, fingers twitching furiously, "Too much is happening right now."

They sat in near-silence for several long minutes.

Lucas drew a deep, shuddering breath and wrapped his arms around his legs, burying his face in his knees.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"There's nothing to be sorry about. I'm glad you came here."

Lucas scrubbed a trembling hand across his face.

"What am I supposed to say to her?"

Uncle Rick sat back in his chair.

"Cat's a smart, sensitive girl. I don't think you need to say anything, but it'll help her feel better if you do. She probably feels terrible."

Lucas winced.

"Our first kiss, and I ran away screaming."

Uncle Rick laughed, "Was it at least a good one?"

Lucas shot him a withering look.

"My brain short-circuited for most of it, and besides, it's not as if I've experienced anything comparable."

"That bad, huh?"

Lucas rolled his eyes weakly, slowly unfolding himself from the chair.

"I should probably go talk to her?" he phrased the statement as a request for reassurance.

"That would probably be a good idea," Uncle Rick replied.

Lucas trudged to the door, and right at that moment, the fire alarm began screaming.

__________________________________________________


Though unaccustomed to death, he was no stranger to violence. One of his earliest memories involved his father beating a shabbily-dressed man from the front walk of their sprawling house in Windsor with a red-hot poker.

Then, when he'd come to America, he'd put his boxing lessons to good use in fisticuffs and found himself summarily thrown out of boarding school and into juvenile hall.

But since he'd arrived in the sleepy suburbia that Richard Riley called home, he'd felt the fear leech from his bones, and with it had gone the anger, leaving only frustration and resentment, which were tamer beasts by far.

Now, however, fear snaked back down his collar like so many burst dams, like rain the color of red with a little blue.

__________________________________________________

The ceiling sprinklers kicked on, drenching them in seconds.

Cracking through the shrieking alarm came one pop, two pops, three pops, like bang snaps on the Fourth of July, but louder and faster and coming closer.

It wasn't Lucas's first time hearing gunfire. Neither was it Uncle Rick's.

"Get away from the door," Uncle Rick snapped, grabbing him--hard--by the arm and yanking him back.

His blue eyes flashed, and Lucas stumbled back against a shelf. Several trophies clattered loudly to the floor. Lucas froze.

"Under the desk," Uncle Rick hissed, shaking wet hair out of his eyes, "Now."

Lucas couldn't move. Uncle Rick shoved him to the floor. He dragged Lucas's chair, still warm from unspeakable frustration, to the door and wedged it under the door handle.

Because, Lucas knew, there was no lock.

Uncle Rick snatched up a massive trophy from the floor, trailing a spray of glittering droplets. Lucas remembered proudly hefting it above his head last season at the state meet. It was heavy, but Uncle Rick held it with one hand over one shoulder.

He used his other hand to push his own chair straight up against the desk, hiding Lucas from view.

Beneath the shrill alarm and the storming sprinklers, the door handle rattled furiously.

Lucas curled up tightly against the bulk of the desk and asked himself why Uncle Rick wasn't next to him under the desk and away from the door. He knew the answer, of course.

He tugged his phone from his pocket and dialed 911.

Angry pops shattered the little window on the door and fractured the window behind him. He heard tinkling glass, heavy feet squeaking through the rain.

"911, what's your emergency?" someone somewhere far away said in his ear.

"Help," he breathed.

The chair wedged under the door handle toppled over.

He held his breath.

The door drifted open.

__________________________________________________


He'd never heard a grown man scream before.

__________________________________________________


Uncle Rick didn't scream when he slipped in the false downpour and the gun coughed once, twice, three times. He didn't scream when the impact sent him to the ground, gasping for breath. He didn't scream when the gunman turned away, towards the fractured window behind the desk.

But the gunman pulled aside the chair in front of the desk, and Uncle Rick screamed, wordless denial.

Lucas looked up at the grey man with the gun and, without recognition, sobbed, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The ceiling sprinklers hissed.

Lucas closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he was alone, and the dead rain on the ground was the color of red.

__________________________________________________

SLAIN HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER REMEMBERED FOR (adj), (adj)

Today, at (cemetery name) in (city name), a small suburb of Los Angeles, a private ceremony was held for Richard Riley, history teacher and cross country coach, who was shot and killed in his office at (high school) by (an as-yet unidentified gunman? check with ABC aff.). There were no other casualties.

Mr. Riley was described by students and staff as (adj) and (adj), with an eagerness to teach that "brought out the best" in those he mentored. Last year, he coached the boys' cross country team to the state title, which, in an interview with the student paper, he called his "proudest moment." 

Local chief of police Alfred Munch(sp?) said that Mr. Riley's actions had "definitely prevented something worse from happening" and reported that, even after sustaining three gunshot wounds to the chest, Mr. Riley had used a "blunt instrument" to knock the gunman unconscious, a feat described by the coroner as "superhuman."

School officials have issued a statement saying that commencement will continue as planned next Thursday evening at (venue).

Mr. Riley is survived by his sister, Anne.

He had no children.

__________________________________________________