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@copyright 2020/Mike Consol Marco Choppo arrived in Taos, New Mexico unannounced, uninvited and incognito. He was behind the wheel of a rental because he didn’t want Candida Holloway, his on-again off-again girlfriend, to recognize his arctic silver Saab turbo convertible. Instead he was driving an all-terrain blue Hummer H3, and his face was concealed behind a mask. He wasn’t in town for more than seventeen minutes when a local police officer pulled him over seeking identification. The officer ordered Marco to remove the mask so he could compare his face with the one on the driver’s license. Marco bogusly explained that he was a method actor preparing for a leading role in a movie that would be filmed in Albuquerque within the next few weeks. The lawman gazed suspiciously into the sweaty face with the patches of adhesive on cheeks and forehead. After the officer returned the driver’s license and vehicle registration to the odd person-of-interest behind the wheel, Marco affixed the the

 @copyright 2020/Mike Consol The Spiegel sisters sat on either side of me in my English composition class. They leaned forward and twisted their willowy bodies for their twice-weekly flirtations with me. One was named Tracy Spiegel and had cascading blonde hair reaching well below her shoulders. Jennifer Spiegel, a year younger than her sister, wore less makeup and had shorter dark hair tied in sprigs that burst in all directions from her scalp. They prattled back and forth while I tingled with the countervailing forces of their magnetic fields. Our instructor and connoisseur of classic literature was a slightly crazed Irishman named Peter Gallagher. He spoke in a voice constantly rising and falling as he gave life to the dramatic characters from his most cherished novels. There was always a book tucked under one arm and he read from it at well-timed intervals, often from the back of the room so his words wouldn’t be diminished by any visual tics. Today was different. Gallagher was