On his way back from the supermarket about half a mile from his apartment, Mike picks up the local newspaper and scans the headlines. There big headline is about a scandal at an elementary school in a nearby town. A fifth grade teacher has been accused of improperly touching his students. A mugshot of the forty-five year-old shows a fit and clean-cut man with a sympathetic face.

Mike sticks the paper into his tote bag and starts to think about his own fifth grade teacher. Mr. Forkin was the first male teacher he ever had outside of gym class. He was of average height, athletically built, had curly dark hair and a large mustache, and wore glasses. He always wore striped shirts with white collars and bright ties – he could have worked at a bank. Although either in his late thirties or early forties, Mr. Forkin seemed to have little experience as a teacher and therefore lacked the strictness and penchant for discipline of the other teachers at the school. But the kids – mostly a mix of affluent Jews and middle-class Koreans – were well-behaved and easy to teach.

He remembers two distinct things about Mr. Forkin. The first was the dark circles under his armpits that would become more apparent by mid-morning each day. Kids snickered about “BO” and would wonder what caused their teacher to be so sweaty under his arms. Perhaps it was the stress of being a first-year teacher at a new school. The other was Mr. Forkin’s alma mater. It was Iona College. The reason Mike still remembered this was because of a cheesy thing Mr. Forkin had told the class once. “I went to Iona College,” he said. “No, I don’t own a college, but it’s called Iona College.” He then put the spelling on the board and told everyone the Who’s on First joke.

As he unpacks the groceries and starts to lay out the ingredients for dinner, Mike suddenly remembers the day he had to stay after school and have a talk with Mr. Forkin. It was March and Mike had been running an in-class NCAA pool. Years before people went online and participated in all kinds of pools, Mike had found a shareware program which allowed him to print out brackets and keep track of everyone’s results. He had recruited about twelve kids, collected five dollars from each, and set the prize at $50, netting himself $10 for administrative costs. He updated the participants with rankings and reports each week. Everyone had fun. And then one day, Mr. Forkin asked him to stay after school. They went to a small room at the end of the hallway where teachers usually went for private conversations. Mr. Forkin produced a sheet with the previous week’s rankings.

“Are you running this?” he asked.

“Yes,” Mike replied, a tremble in his voice.

“I heard there was money involved. Is that true?”

Mike nodded.

“That’s gambling, which is strictly forbidden in school,” Mr. Forkin said. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I didn’t know that,” Mike said.

There was an awkward pause. Mr. Forkin’s face looked grave and disappointed. Mike, who had been prone to shedding tears in confrontations with adults, willed himself not to cry.

“Do your parents know about this?” he asked.

“No,” Mike said.

“Would they be happy to hear that you’re doing this?” Mr. Forkin asked.

“I don’t think they would care,” Mike said. Mike was telling the truth. As long as he brought home good grades and studied hard, his parents left him alone. His father might even have applauded his initiative in running the pool.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, you can call them if you like,” Mike replied, with a surge of confidence. “In fact, my mom is waiting for me in the car outside. Would you like me to get her?”

Mr. Forkin seemed taken aback by Mike’s different tone. He studied his student’s face for a moment.

“I don’t ever want to see you doing this in class again, you understand? Gambling is not a good thing,” he said.

“Okay, I understand,” Mike said.

“You can go now.”

Mike ran out the school door and ran to his mother, who sat impatiently in the car.

“What took you so long?” she asked, irritated.

“I had to talk to my teacher about something,” he said.

“Don’t make me wait here like this again,” she said.

Mike didn’t say anything. He thought about how he could continue the pool without getting caught. There was the Final Four that weekend and the championship game on Tuesday. He would just have to deal things outside of class. And no more handing out rankings and results to everyone. The kids would have to come to him to find out.

As the water boils and he empties a box of pasta, Mike realizes that he hasn’t seen a game of college basketball this year at all. He doesn’t even know who won the national title. He wonders if Mr. Forkin still teaches at the same school in the small town in Northern New Jersey.

Mike rides his bike down Grove Avenue. It’s a sunny day, although the wind is a bit chilly. He carefully crosses the wide and busy Oak Tree Road and pedals hard downhill, picking up some speed. On the left he sees his old high school. Big, boxy, and unwelcoming as ever. It’s been thirteen years since he last roamed the halls there. He wonders if any of his classmates, besides Robert and Sammy, still live around here. Perhaps a few who have been laid off or are waiting for graduate school to start in the fall.

He passes the houses of a couple of girls he used to fool around with in high school. He knows they are long gone, working elsewhere and maybe even married or maybe even parents. He remembers Gale, the only Chinese girl he ever knew with that name. He would sneak over to her place after school their junior year, making out in her living room while daytime soaps played in the background. She would let him touch her anywhere and was never shy about walking around the house naked. For one reason or another, they never became boyfriend and girlfriend. They just gradually stopped hanging out and found others. In his memory, she was a pleasure to be around, with her dry, witty humor and tomboyish tendencies. They would toss the football around together in her backyard sometimes or play horse on her driveway. He knew that he took her for granted.

He turns on to a quiet street and stops in front of a small green house. The driveway is cracked in various places and the front yard is in desperate need of mowing. He punches in the code to the garage and lets himself in. He takes out his laptop and connects to Robert’s wireless network. He checks his email and pays his bills online. He spends some time doing some research for his short story. Some history about the waterfront town where the story takes place. What butcher shops do with scraps they don’t sell. A blog entry by a journalist who trailed a butcher for a day.

He goes outside and checks on the garden in the backyard, pulling out a couple of weeds and feeling the hardness of the unripe tomatoes. When he returns inside, he sees that Robert has come back.

What’s up, Robert says. Anything new?

Nope, just riding around and enjoying the weather. And you?

Just got back from the supermarket. You going to stay for dinner?

Sure, he replies.

He’s grateful that Robert’s always willing to make him food. He helps unload the groceries. He washes the vegetables and starts to peel the carrots while Robert chops up the onions and celery. They’re having beef ragu. There will be enough to last a couple of days. Enough so that he can pack some up in Tupperware, secure it with a plastic bag so it doesn’t spill inside his backpack, and ride back home.

Note: This is part of a larger story.

It’s raining hard outside. Mike is glad that he doesn’t have to go anywhere today. He can always call Robert to come pick him up, but he doesn’t feel like it. He doesn’t want the rain to touch him at all.

He takes his time getting up. He feels like he can sleep for another two or three hours in his dark room, but he’s already slept for more than eight. He’s heard that sleeping too much is for depressed people and he doesn’t like to think that he suffers from depression. Even with all the things that’s happened in the last year.

He makes coffee and microwaves some oatmeal. He adds brown sugar and slices up a banana. He’s getting sick of having banana everyday and tells himself to pick up some other fruit next time. Maybe strawberries.

He takes out his notebook and a pen. As he eats and sips on his coffee, he starts to make a list of things to do for the day. There’s not much to do, but making a list keeps his mind occupied. His old routine would have called for a thorough reading of the day’s top news and articles on The New York Times website, but he no longer has an Internet connection. No television either. Time, he’s learned, is hard to kill without such diversions. He twirls his pen and thinks of things to do for the day.

1) Clean the bathroom

It’s been at least a month since he’s last cleaned the toilet. In the four months he’s lived in his one-bedroom apartment, he’s only cleaned it twice. Pubic hair is everywhere and the rim of the toilet is stained with spots of yellow. Olivia would have prodded him to clean long before. She would have made sure the bathroom was clean. If only she had seen him living like this.

2) Write

He is in the middle of a short story that he wants to finish. It’s about a young butcher who falls in love with a customer. He’s borrowed several books on meat preparation and butchering from the library and found ways to incorporate the art of meat cutting into the story. He feels that a few more days of diligent writing will help him finish his rough draft.

3) Make dinner

He doesn’t want to leave the apartment to get more groceries, so he thinks of things he can make with what he has. For lunch, he’ll make a sandwich with the few slices of turkey that’s still left. He remembers that there is a can of tuna and some pasta. He also has a block of cheese and some milk, enough to make a sauce. With a cup of frozen peas, that will be enough for a decent meal.

He finishes up his oatmeal and coffee. He washes the dishes and heads for the bathroom. Time to clean, he thinks.