Savage Tales

have rights."
    "I'm sure you do, but you arrived late –"
    "I had stomach problems."
    "Nevertheless, all room taken but one. And your roommate –"
    "Not supposed to have a roommate," said Phil. "My own room. My space."
    "Nobody uses Myspace anymore."
    Taehong Kim sighed. "Can you get him in or not? Because I'm ready to dump him proverbially in your lap."
    "You just sign right here, sir, and we'll treat the wheeled one sweet."
    Taehong Kim sighed, disappeared.
    Phil began to cry. "Nobody loves me. Nobody respects me. I don't know why I'm here."
    "Settle down boy," the college lad said. "You're here to learn."

    Phil struggled those first few months. Students jeered at him, left him socially ostracized, and his teachers failed to accommodate his needs.
    "I'm ready to pack it in," he said one day.
    "What are you talking about?" said Joaquin Linkselo, Phil's roommate.
    "I just can't take this," said Phil. "I'm getting out of here. I'll go back to my Korean foster father and get a job filling out surveys online. That's what I'll do."
    "You can't do that," said Joaquin.
    Joaquin Linkselo was a hip hop production major. He had worked his way out of the "ghetto" of his youth by running home from school each day as a boy, locking himself in his basement, and shielding the sounds of his brother and stepfather's crack smoking with the sickest beats ever to be churned out of by 12-year-old. But in doing this, Joaquin had neglected his other studies, and only been pushed through the system with high school diploma in hand to make way for more students, an ever-churning flow of braincream.
    On his first day of school at Clokey University he met his roommate Phil, and immediately knew he had a new tool in his arsenal to battle science classes. Phil had helped him, finding Joaquin's chemistry homework insanely easy. This had pleased Joaquin, and he vaguely liked Phil.
    The idea that Phil might vanish and leave Joaquin solo – unthinkable. Phil must stay. Joaquin would aid him.
    "You can't leave," said Joaquin.
    "You just want help with your science homework," said Phil.
    "I get you into parties. I bring you cheese puffs."
    "You took me to a party and loaded my lap down with beer."
    "You had to bring the chair. Why not use your lap?"
    "I felt dehumanized."
    "Well, you aren't."
    "What?"
    "Human. You're not human. Right?"
    Outside went Phil and it was raining. His wheels began to squeak. He wasn't sure if he was crying. Too much water ran down his face to tell.

    Fifty years later, Phil had a new wheelchair. One day he rolled it to the top of a cliff on his estate, overlooking the Pacific. He looked down on the smashing rocks hungrily awaiting his Hamlet-like sense of ennui. It would be so easy.
    "Don't do it, sir."
    Phil turned. The voice belonged to his butler, Joaquin Jr., son to his best friend from college. Every lisp of the young man's voice echoed the father, that long-forgotten soul who had vanished into the abyss of hip hop never to be seen again. His son was a splintered reminder of that lost soul.
    "Do what?" said Phil.
    "Don't jump. I could see it in your bones."
    "Nonsense," said Phil. "These legs are incapable of jumping."
    "You know what I mean. You want to roll yourself over."
    "And what if I do? No man can stop me."
    "Any man could stop you. You are not a challenge. But I'm asking you to stop. You're the only father I've ever known."
    Phil wiped a non-existent tear from his cheek. "Go on."
    "I know you're sad," said Joaquin Jr. "But everyone loses people. You need to turn to other people. Stop running from your problems."
    "Mayhap you're right. But the pain is so intense. I was alone for so long. You're too young to fathom such a vast gulf of time. To be alone and empty. And face that adversity."
    "Save the sob story. You had people. My father, for one."
    "Yes, and then I found my wife. My love. Just one month ago it was."
    "It was a nice wedding."
    "And a nice funeral, eh? And you can have another one – for me . I'm leaving."
    Phil looked over the cliff's edge. Yes, so scary. It's what I deserve.
    "Someone out there still needs you, sir."
    "I doubt it," said Phil.
    " She needed you. Maybe there will be another."
    Another. Another. A possibility. Something to hang onto. Well, it was getting cold. This scene had carried on too long. Best to postpone and have it out on a clearer day. A warmer day.
    "Oh, very well – wha –"
    Phil had begun to turn his wheelchair back toward the house but hit a small pebble,