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  • Mark has become fussy and precise
  • J. Alan Nelson (bio)

Mark became fussy and precise prissy one would say since his book on Saddam Hussein was published. He turned fifty, earned his long sought doctorate started wearing suits impressing his students as a professor and television commentator by his chilling self-assurance of what to think on everything. Then he fucked his wife's best friend then divorced his long suffering wife, changed his church became conservative backed compassionate conservatism with a war of words. He puzzles over the decisions he makes his rationalization the cliché free will is an illusion his schedule for lunch, whether it's too close to his breakfast whether he should change his computing passwords and schedule an hour to think good thoughts. His alcoholic dad roams in his mental landscape, as his ex-wife's comments he should wear a collar with a bell to warn people that he's a predator, except he'd use the collar to elicit compassion. He remembered when he dressed as a Jewish rabbi believed himself to be a mystical Baptist healer. [End Page 27] He went to Iraq after Baghdad fell before the real danger began. He sees himself as a temptation to his female students and thinks of the 72 virgins promised to the Muslim martyrs and the reluctant death of Arafat. He hisses at his students, eyes narrowed, Arafat would have lost control years ago except for the United States playing Israel and him against each other He looked at a photo of an old graduate school class sees the circle of seven friends thinks how the others distanced themselves from him since he became an expert who fucks around and he laughs, asks himself why should he care what his old graduate school class thinks and tosses the photo in the trash for a moment, then snatches it out, and files it.

J. Alan Nelson

J. Alan Nelson, a former journalist, is currently a lawyer in Texas. When he was a reporter, Nelson more than once avoided Vernon Howell (who history remembers as David Koresh) trying to be a rock’n roll star, and George W. Bush, (who was then only son of a President) marketing The Ball Park. Nelson has been published in an eclectic array of publications ranging from Cottonseed Digest to the Wittenburg Door to Federal Lawyer to the Baylor Law Review. He’s also been published in the South Carolina Review, the Wisconsin Review, the Pegasus Review and has upcoming publications in the Hawai’i Review and Illya’s Honey.

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