Dear Friends: As of Fall 2004 the Greater Phoenix Area Writing Project has been discontinued. This website will be maintained for a time on a limited basis for informational purposes and so that you are able to access the resources provided. All the best to you in your teaching. Writings

Car Thief Turned Fairy Godfather I bought a role of duct tape yesterday, my first purchase for what will be an exhausting, expensive move back east. I'll be leaving a boy behind here. I'll be leaving The Boy. I rode home, bouncing my bike over the railroad tracks with an empty box smooshed in the metal basket, but by the time I got there, the tape had disappeared from my flimsy satchel. I was just standing there staring at the flat panel of concrete that I could not inflate to three dimentions without the help of my adhesive ally . . . and then a man appeared at the door. I didn't want to chat with proselytizers and I didn't want pizza couplns and I didn't want anything a stranger could offer me. I just wanted my tape so I could pack and move and leave all this sorrow behind. The man held something small and dark in one of his hands and I thought, Whatever it is, I'm not buying, I'm getting rid of stuff here . . . It was my wallet. He had my wallet in his hand. He said, "I found it on the railroad tracks." For weeks now, I have been cooking and laundering for and loving this boy who gives me nothing and I've been waiting for someone in the goddamned universe to Give Me Something Back, I've been waiting for the boy, The Boy, to ask me not to leave, to marry me, to knock me up, tie me down, adhere me to this town. And here is Jose, who told me, "Five years ago I would have taken the one dollar bill in there and the credit card and gone out all night. I used to do some bad shit in my day." He thanked me for the opportunity to do the right thing. I didn't know what to tell him except, "So that's what happened to my duct tape." This morning I get out of the empty bed and say goodbye to the cat and say goodbye to the boy, The Boy, who is not there and I open my door to see my lost roll of duct tape hanging on the knob, that silver wedding band that will seal me to my leaving. A gift from the former car thief turned fairy godfather, who returned to me things I didn't even know I'd lost. --Lisa Selin Davis   updated: December 8, 2005

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