I threw the bottle of 151 at the concrete wall of the building, watching it shatter into a dozen jagged pieces of exploding glass and liquor.


I bellowed as loud as I could, the horrifying sound of my voice echoing through the complex of run-down buildings of the public housing project I lived in, all around me.   I lay back in the unkempt grass, tears streaming from my eyes, choking on my own tears and bile.  I was sixteen years old, and having the very first bottle of 151 I had ever had, a bottle that now lay in pieces on the side of my home.  The lights were off inside.  Nobody was home.

Nobody was ever home anymore.

Not even me.

I rolled over into the red dirt and pulled my knees up to my chest.  I had no idea what was about to hit me.  I'd never had 151 before... but that night, when I bought the bottle, I wanted to drink myself into oblivion and 151 was the strongest liquor that Jimmy had on hand.  I had no idea where pulling out the flame arrester and drinking half the bottle at once would take me.

It felt like somebody had punched me in the gut.  But I didn't care.  I'd been punched in the gut endlessly.  By Derrick.  By Anton.  By Tee.  And all the other guys that used to beat the shit out of me until I learned to fight and knocked one of them out.  I wanted this though.  I wanted to feel this.

I was numb.

All I could think about was Katie in Peter's arms.  Wherever they were, in the backseat of his fancy car.  The fucking BMW that his dad bought him for his sixteenth birthday that cost more than my entire family would make in two years.  Peter, who treated her like shit, who belittled her, who tore down everything that I built up in her, who she loved so much that she just took it.  Peter, who sent her crashing down; but whose smile and words could brighten her day when mine had no longer had effect.  Peter, who took my Katie away from me.

I knew what he was doing to her.  Every time I saw her, she looked worse and worse.  And yet, with everything she did to please him, I knew he still didn't really care.

I'll wait for you, Katie.  It meant nothing.

The swirling maelstrom began to overtake me.  I felt like I was melting into the earth in endless repetitions of counter-clockwise motion.  I'll make something of myself, Katie.  We'll run away together, Katie.  I opened my mouth and coughed up bile into the dirt.  Am I dying?  I couldn't breathe.  I didn't care.  I was a puddle of flesh on the dirt now, slowly melting into the ground.  It was my fault.  I should have been a man.  I should have told her.  I tried to say her name.  I couldn't. 

I stopped breathing.








Illyana was everything Katie wasn't.  Everything good about Katie, Illyana was the opposite.

Illyana was the only person I knew who was possibly more fucked up than I was.  She was mean to me, called me a pussy, and liked throwing things at me.  But she understood me better than anyone else ever did.  Katie accepted me.  Illyana knew me.

I opened my eyes, and watched Illyana doing a line of coke off of her marble coffee table.  And I closed them again, sliding one of her Persian sofa pillows over my face.

I opened my eyes, and felt Illyana's hands on me, dragging me out of the grass and onto the back seat of her Mercedes-Benz.  And I closed them again, as she clenched my jaw with her hand to stop me from vomiting all over the leather.

I opened my eyes, and felt Illyana's arms around me, holding me snugly from behind on the floor.  And I closed them again, realizing that she had placed a faceless, legless amigurumi bear in my hands.

I woke up with a jolt, feeling ice water splashing on my face.  I opened my eyes, and through the haze I saw the blurred sight of the projection TV repeating the laserdisc movie Illyana and I had been watching earlier in the night.  She was crouching in front of me in her lacy black Yves Saint Laurent dress, her sharp knee touching my forehead, so close I could see the intricate stitching in the lace against her pale, thin thighs.

"This is why you have problems."  Illyana said, her long black slavic hair falling down her jaw and in front of her exposed collarbones.

"What?"

"Who taught you this shit?"  She cracked back the slide of my .45 halfway and tilted it at me, exposing the empty chamber.

My mouth agape, one eye open, I stared up at her.  She pulled back the slide all the way, chambering a round, and dropped my nickel-plated pistol on my forehead.

"Rudy."  I told her, grabbing the pistol.  I ejected the magazine and removed the round Illyana chambered.

"Your mister Rudy is мудак."  Illyana said, bending down and kissing my forehead, before telling me the best metaphor for the harsh cruelty of life that I would hear for fifteen years.

"Life is like this.  You always be ready to shoot.  Always one in the chamber.  No safety.  Life has no safety.  Someone about to hurt you, you shoot first.  You get opportunity, you always shoot first.  Maybe you regret later, but you cannot regret when dead."

I looked up at her.  Illyana was everything I hated in this world, but she was right.  Illyana never coddled me.  She kicked me in the gut and gave it to me straight.  Whenever I tried crying to her, she threw something at me and told me to shut up.

"I don't know why you like American so much.  American cars shit.  American guns shit.  American girls shit."

I exhaled and rolled over away from her.

"Your American girl... she does not know quality."  Illyana whispered in my ear.

Shut up.  Shut up.  Shut up.  I wanted to tell her. 

And for some reason, as if Illyana had read my mind, she did.  The rest of the night, I only heard one more word out of her mouth, breathing in my ear from behind as she fell asleep.  All I wanted to do was sleep now.  To fall asleep drunk, trying to convince myself that Katie was with me, not with Peter.  That the demented faceless, legless amigurumi bear that Illyana knit for me, in my arms, was Katie.  That the thin arms of this crazy Russian girl that held me from behind were Katie's arms.

For the first night, like a night twelve years later in the midst of the two most painful heartaches in my life, Illyana was there with me, with no bullshit... with just her understanding and the company of cold steel.

"Zaichiki..."  She whispered in my ear.

I turned my head and looked over Laura's bare shoulder at the table fifteen feet behind her, between two other couples dancing on the floor with us.



A man, awkward looking and dressed well but uncomfortably -- as if he were dressed by his female friends.  A woman, dressed as if she were going out for a drink with a friend -- her outfit was cute but un-provocative. 

I couldn't hear their conversation, but I knew what was happening.  I've seen it happen hundreds of times.  The pretty girl who made her rounds with her flowerbasket had stopped at their table -- that pretty girl with her flowerbasket that was often either a blessing or the kiss of death to a night between two people spending an evening together. 

The flowerbasket girl had asked the man, of course, if he would like to purchase a rose for the woman.  I watched him fumble for his wallet nervously.  I watched her sit up straight, and put her hand on the table in front of him, telling him that he didn't need to buy her a rose.  I watched him ignore her, handing over a crumpled wad of bills to the flower girl, and I watched her thank him and hand him a single red rose.  I watched the woman shrink back in her seat uncomfortably, and tell the man something.  Something I couldn't hear, but I knew.

"What are you looking at?"  Laura asked me, noticing my mind wasn't there on the floor, dancing with her.

"Table to our right."  I replied.  "I'll turn you a little bit."

"Oh, poor thing."  She replied, as I turned to let her see the couple.

"Yeah, poor guy -- he had no clue."  I shook my head.

"Poor guy?"  Laura laughed, putting her face back on my chest.  "Poor GIRL."










Up until the point where the flowerbasket girl makes her way to a table, the relationship between the man and the woman is arguably in a quantum state.  At this point, their relationship is like Schrodinger's cat in its box -- both alive and dead at the same time. 


When the flowergirl asks the man if he would like to buy a flower for the woman, the box is opened.

The woman was attractive.  I'd glanced over at her several times that night.  I watched her interactions with the man she was with.  I could tell by the way she was dressed, the way she spoke to him, and her subconscious body language, that she saw him as just a friend.  He, however, failed to make the correct observations, and now he was falling into the woman's romantic abyss.

I thought about a conversation I had once with June over coffee two years earlier, as she was studying for the Bar exam.

"What do you consider a date?" June asked me. "A date?"  I looked at her blankly. "Yeah, like what separates a random dinner with a person of the opposite sex to a date?"  She explained. "Two people meeting for the purpose of exploring possible sexual or romantic relations,"  I replied.  "It's the intent." "Is that your definition, or Webster's?"  June laughed. "Mine."  I smiled. She rolled her eyes, shook her head, and smiled back. "Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea"  I continued.  "The act will not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty."

Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea -- The act will not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty.  The concurrence of Mens rea (the guilty mind), coupled with Actus Reus (the guilty act), determines culpability.

In plain english, it's not a date unless it's acted upon with the understanding that it's a date.  It could look, smell and taste like a date, but if the parties involved don't see it as a date, it's not a date.

Culpability becomes more complex because the date is an interaction between two people -- so an additional requirement is necessary; and is the problem our flower-buying couple in question faced: 


A date is not a date unless both parties view it as a date.  Actus Reus -- the act itself, is not enough.  Mens Rea must exist.  To be a date, both parties must demonstrate an overt act in pursuance of the intent.









Women, imagine if you will, that you have three ladders.


These three ladders stand in a bottomless abyss.  Every man in your life who you are not incestuously prohibited from having sex with is on one of these three ladders.  The ladder any particular man is on is determined by whether you see him as a friend-only, or somebody you wouldn't mind having sexual or romantic relations with.

One ladder is for those you want to be friends-only.

The second ladder is for for those you wouldn't mind having sexual and/or temporary romantic relations with.

The third ladder is for those you want to be in a long-term romantic relationship with.

This is easy enough to imagine.  It's because this is how you categorize the men in your life, whether you know it or not.  Every man in your life has a ranking on your ladders.  The higher the rank, the more you want him.  He can move up or down as you choose, or as his behavior towards you dictates.  Some men are frozen in stasis on your ladder for moral reasons -- for example, he may be your friend's boyfriend or he may be married:  He is on Ladder 2 or 3, but you won't move on him.

Women can move men back and forth on her ladders.  Generally speaking, a woman places a man on one ladder immediately upon meeting him.  As time passes, the woman can move the man from ladder to ladder as she so chooses.  She has a "magic carpet" that can transport men back and forth safely across the bottomless abyss.

A man cannot move himself between her ladders.  If he wants to move from one ladder to another, he will try to jump.  The problem with this, of course, is that if he fails to catch the next ladder, he will end up in the bottomless abyss, likely to fall forever and never be on any of the woman's ladders again.   This problem is compounded by the fact that he makes the jump blind, without knowing how far away he is from the ladder he needs to make the jump to.  The only way a man can successfully move between a woman's ladders is by convincing her to move him. 

I listened to June continue. "What if you have no intentions but it comes apparent later on in the date that that is the intention of the other party?"  June asked me. I nodded. "Because for some reason, that always seems to happen to me... I meet a guy, find him really interesting and want to get together with him to learn more about him - on a friends level."  She continued. I remained silent, listening to her. "It ends up though that he has other intentions and I... I end up feeling sheepish and awkward that I didn't know that was the signal I was giving and I kick myself over it because I lose a potential close friend."  She finished, "I don't understand what changed..."

June didn't understand Ladder Theory.

When an evening out fails horribly like the way it was failing horribly for the couple Laura and I were watching as we danced together fifteen feet away, one or more of several things happen:

1)  The guy is embarrassed, discouraged and heartbroken if he was trying to be on the relationship ladder.  For one of these reasons he never sees the girl again.

2)  The guy realizes that he's never going to get into her pants, if he was trying to be on the sexual ladder -- and quits.

3)  The girl feels betrayed by a guy she felt was a friend and never speaks to him again, not understanding the way a guy thinks is different from the way a girl thinks.

4)  The girl feels awkward with the guy to the point where she doesn't feel comfortable to hang out with him again.  They never see each other again.

When the flowerbasket girl comes around offering her flowers, she is forcing the man to make a decision to discover what ladder he is on.  If he doesn't buy the rose, he is sending a signal to the woman that he is not interested and is lowering himself on her ladder.  If he is already on Ladder 2 or 3, buying the rose increases his position on the ladder.  If he is on Ladder 1, buying the rose in the hope of romancing or sexing the girl makes him fall from the ladder into the bottomless abyss from where he will never return.










Now men, imagine you have the same three ladders.

You can't, can you?  That's because you don't have three ladders.  You have ONE.



Men have only one ladder.   That ladder stands in an pool of water.  Every woman in your life who you are not incestuously prohibited from having sex with is on that ladder somewhere. 

Every woman is on your one and only ladder -- your mating ladder, whether you think she is or not.  The women who are above the waterline on your ladder are women you would mate with.  You may want to love her and romance her, and be a great guy for her... or you might genuinely want to be her friend.  You may even be able to remain celibate because of your religious convictions -- but really, in the end, don't lie to yourself... you still wouldn't mind mating with her.

The women who are BELOW your ladder's waterline however, are NOT women who you would normally mate with.  These are the women who become your friends, and friends only -- not only by her choice, but by yours as well; that you would NOT mate with under normal conditions.  This is not to say that being a guy's "friend-only" means you are not a good person. 

If a woman above a man's waterline, it means she is a candidate for any position other than "friend-only".  If she is below his waterline, it means she is a "friend-only."  A woman's position on a guy's ladder has nothing to do with her quality of person.  It just means that he just wouldn't mate with her for whatever reason he has.

A good example is the male-female relationship where the two are not related but see each other like brother and sister.  They are so close in that regard that it's obvious the man feels that the woman is of the highest quality.  Yet, he is not sexually attracted to her, and thus she is below his waterline.

Some guys have higher waterlines than others.  Some guys have really low waterlines.  The waterline can change, and represents the mental state of the man and how desperate he is to get laid.  The waterline changes if the man is drunk, high, or hornier than normal.

This does NOT mean that all men are womanizing bastards and will cheat at the drop of a hat should a woman on his ladder become available -- there are things like morality and loyalty that keep a man faithful. 

Loyal men don't have two ladders.  Loyal men are like every other man, with their one ladder -- they just freeze (put into stasis) every woman on the ladder while he's with somebody.

Now, what men don't realize is that women are not the same as they are.  Men think women have one ladder; and that just as women move up and down a man's ladder and that whether she is a friend or not, every woman his waterline is a potential sexual partner.   So when the flowerbasket girl comes around and offers a rose for the man to give to the woman, the man assumes that the rose will increase his sexual standing since obviously (to him), the woman is on a date with him (after all, why would she be out with him if it wasn't a date?).

And before he realizes what happens, the man finds himself falling into the woman's bottomless abyss.


Men:  The key to success is knowing what ladder you are on and figuring out a way to move to a better ladder; or if you're on a good ladder, to increase your status on that ladder.

Women:  The key to success is knowing what ladder the man in question is on, and making it absolutely clear to him what ladder he is on.  Don't play games with the man.  He likely doesn't even know there is a game at all.  Be clear about your objective with him.










"I have a clue."  I smirked, turning my eyes away from the couple we were watching.


Laura smiled at me.  She let go of my hand, and slid her hand up my wrist, pushing up at the french cuffs and playing with my cufflinks.  She dragged her fingers up my sleeve, to my shoulder, and pulled on the lapel of my suitjacket.

"Yes you do."  She grinned.

I pulled her into me, pressing her body firmly against mine.

"You liiiike me."  I joked, raising an eyebrow and grinning back.

She laughed, and rested her head against my shoulder.  I brushed my hand up her back, and into her long chocolate-brown hair before resting my fingers and palm against the back of her head.  I let my hand comb through her hair, before stopping and holding her back gently against me.  I heard her sigh.

"Maybe."  She smiled.

I looked up from the stove, and smiled at Chieko and June sitting at the dining table and laughing together by the window ten feet away.


My hands moved quickly now.  Much more quickly than they did ten years ago.  Stirring the sauce.  Modulating the heat.  Grating the cheese.  Flipping the prawns on the grill.  Checking the loaf of Ciabatta in the oven.  Dicing, chopping, mincing, slicing.  Our bottle of wine was uncorked and poured between the three of us, and I took a generous gulp of my favorite Cabernet Sauvignon from my favorite little winery in Napa Valley as I prepared dinner for us.  Ten years ago, this would have been a major production.  But now, it was an every-day dinner for us.

Except tonight, I was making Fettuccine Alfredo by request for June.

I could never make Fettuccine Alfredo without remembering the very first time I ever cooked for somebody I loved -- cooking for Katie, in my parents shoddy apartment in the ghetto, because she told me it was her favorite dish and I wanted to make it for her.

I looked around me.  So much had changed in the last ten years.  I wasn't a poor kid living in the projects anymore.  Instead of a decaying, roach-infested leftover kitchen from the sixties with a range to match; I was standing in my own kitchen in my own place, with granite countertops, a hardwood floor, and Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances neatly tucked into their enclosures.  Instead of using my mother's shoddy, scratched up T-Fal cookware, I was using All-Clad everything.  And instead of eating on a rusty secondhand metal table with a view of the building next door, we were eating on a custom-made Brazilian mahogany table by a floor-to-ceiling window with a view that was spectacular by any standard.

But Katie wasn't here.  And Fettuccine Alfredo was never complete without her.








Katie told me she loved it.

In hindsight, it must have tasted awful, but she told me she loved it anyway. 

What did I know?  I was fifteen, cooking the first thing I ever tried cooking that wasn't instant ramen or chef boyardee.  We had gone to a nice Italian restaurant two weeks earlier, and shared a dinner I could barely afford but I wanted to treat her to anyway.  My parents could never afford that sort of thing then, so I had never been to a place like that.  She told me she loved Fettuccine Alfredo, and not having the money to take her out like this yet wanting to treat her to what she loved, I told her that I would make it for her.

And tonight, even though I knew I was making it for Chieko and June, I wished Katie was here with us to have this Fettuccine Alfredo, made the way it's supposed to be made.

I use top-grade Plugra european butter now.  And fresh non-ultrapasteurized cream.  Fleur de sel.  And Parmigiano Reggiano.  I roll out and cut my Fettuccine by hand now, because this dish needs fresh-made pasta.

Katie was so kind to me then, telling me that she loved the first Fettuccine Alfredo I ever made, with margarine, half-and-half, powdered parmesan and cream cheese.  I scorched the sauce, it was clumpy, and the pasta clung together, half-cooked in places and over-cooked in others.

I still remember her face when she put the first twirled fork-full into her mouth.

No one has ever made that face since.  And I know why.  It's because Katie never took it for granted.  It's because she knew exactly why I had made it for her. 

Just because I knew she loved it. 

She knew I couldn't afford much, but I did what I could.  And she knew I didn't know how to cook, but I was trying my damned hardest anyway.  Because I was the only person in her entire life that actually gave a damn about her in a world of dysfunctional people who said they cared but really didn't.

Now, it doesn't matter what I make.  I could serve a Croquette of Foie Gras and Kogyoku apple confit in black truffle demi glace reduction, and it would be pedestrian.  Because that's just what people expect from me now.  And I knew that yes, Chieko and June would appreciate the Fettuccine Alfredo that I was making for them by request -- but they would just eat it.  It wouldn't matter that I'm using the best ingredients that money can buy, cooked with the best equipment that money can buy, with the best hands that money can't buy or that I'm making it because I care for them.

The love would be there, but they would never feel as loved as Katie did that night eating my disgusting mass of loving slop.








I exhaled a deep breath, letting my hands fall down on the wrought iron railing on my balcony in front of me.

I looked back in through the window, at Chieko and June doing the dishes in the kitchen.  Chieko, like June's big sister.  June, who reminded me of Katie before we started down into the dark places of this world together, ten years ago.  Before Katie fell.  Before I fell.  When we were pure, innocent creatures, like June, laughing as she flung soap bubbles at Chieko.  She was so untouched by the horrors of life, and I would not let these things touch her.  I would not let the things that happened to Katie happen to her.  Not again.  Not to another woman under my care.

I sighed.  My June.  My Chieko.  My place.  I looked down at myself.  The tailored, hand-stitched shirt I wore casually would have paid a month's rent for my parents back then.  And my watch could have paid my father for a year back then.  I would have, then, if I could have.  But life is what it is, now, not then. 

Everything, all of this, all started there that night, with the Fettuccine Alfredo and Katie.  For better or for worse, that dinner changed the course of my life.  But I knew all that I had... it was blood money.  And I hated it.  If it hadn't been for Katie and the Fettuccine Alfredo, I would not be who I was now, where I was, what I was.  But we paid so much for it.  Katie followed me into the deep, dark places of this world, and she paid a toll more costly than mine.  We paid too much for it, Katie.

I wondered, what my life would have been like... what our life would have been like, had we never had our Fettuccine Alfredo that night?