Category Archives: Fiction

THE ART OF MAKING ANGELS by Marilee Dahlman

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

THE ART OF MAKING ANGELS
by Marilee Dahlman

I’ve seen two angels and both were named Reginald.

The spirits appeared as a consequence of my life’s work: dentistry. I came by the profession naturally, as my father was a blacksmith in a small Missouri town. Before heading west, people needed help with their teeth as much as they needed wagon axles. And Pa was no butcher. As a child, time and time again, I witnessed his God’s gift with pliers.

“Nice ‘n slick,” he’d mutter from the side of his mouth, one hand gripping a customer’s jaw, his other hand wielding the steel tool. I’d have both palms on the customer’s sweaty forehead, pinning the head back against the high-backed chair. Pa’s knuckles would whiten and I’d close my eyes tight. Seconds later, I’d hear the pebbly sound of a tooth hitting the concrete floor, and the rattle of the pliers landing on the workbench. I’d tilt the head to let the blood stream down the chin.

I’d asked once, “What happens if the bleeding won’t stop?”

“They become angels,” Pa said. “Most of them.”

I was about twelve when I saw the first angel, Reginald Cooper. He had a wide head, a sandpaper voice, and eyes darker than a rabbit’s. When he sat back in the chair, he spit a stubby cigar to the floor. I tried to avoid touching the wart on his sweaty temple.

“I want it done quick,” Reginald said.

But it must have been a sticky one because Pa wrestled with that tooth for a while. Reginald fainted dead away after eleven minutes. His head felt damp and heavy. I held him until Pa grabbed my shoulder and said, “Leave him be, now.”

Mrs. Cooper showed up and so did the undertaker. Mrs. Cooper gave a few coins to the undertaker and a few more to Pa, even though Reginald had already paid. Pa flipped me a silver three-cent piece. That evening, I walked into town and stopped in front of the undertaker’s. Slowly, above the building, Mr. Cooper himself appeared, his outstretched arms shimmering, his whole body floating straight up to the stars. It was late and I’d had no dinner, but still, I saw what I saw. The next month, Mrs. Cooper married my father.

I must have turned the three-cent coin over in my pocket a thousand times, but I never spent it.

Five years later, I secured a position with the Army, Union side, assisting a doctor. Afterwards, despite my considerable skills and experience, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery rejected my application. I reckoned I could set up a shop anyway and make a success of it. I settled in Chicago, and found that I didn’t mind a big city where I could blend in like a drop in a river. My trade card said: “Painless, perfect, prompt tooth extractions! Always reasonably priced! Patients treated like angels!”

When I first started, I employed a strong lad who held down my patients. The patients were mostly stockyard workers, women from factories, and prisoners in chains. I took advantage of scientific advancements, experimenting with laughing gas (never worked well), ether, oil of cloves and a cocaine solution injected directly into the gum. Such products made it easier to work alone. I bought a drill operated by a foot treadle. I imported the finest gold leaf to push into cavities after extracting rot. I acquired a reclining chair, the latest design, a pump-type hydraulic.

My customers became wealthier. Some fathers, on the occasion of a daughter’s 18th birthday or wedding day, would pay to have all of her teeth removed and replaced with beautiful false teeth that would never give her trouble. I gave them exactly what they wanted.

I regularly advertised in the Tribune—Enjoy gentle dental surgery by polite professional!

Other dentists fill their offices with carnivore taxidermy, scientific diagrams of blood vessels and nerves, and even human skulls. Not me. I have oak-framed pictures of Apollonia, the patron saint of dentists, and keep fresh-cut flowers in painted porcelain vases. Vials and instruments stay locked in a cabinet until my patient is in the chair. I do keep a variety of books on the shelves, to lend my office a scholarly look, including my favorite text, Skinner’s Treatise on Human Teeth. The metalwork is all matching bronze—the handles on drawers, the gaslight sconces on the walls, and the lock on the door.

Last spring, a new Reginald—Reginald Dupree—opened a dentistry across the street. His advertisements claimed that he graduated third in his class from the University of Michigan’s dental school. One day, Reginald Dupree visited my office, a hand to his cheek. No warts on him; his young skin would feel smooth to touch.

“Can’t do it myself,” he said.

“I’ll treat you like an angel.” I smiled. “Now?”

“Ha! Too many customers today.” Reginald patted a gold watch into his vest pocket. “I’ll set an appointment for tomorrow at two.”

Before leaving, Reginald tapped the doorknob a few times, and turned back to me. He tilted his head and smiled, like an adult might if he sees a child do something wrong. “You practice without the proper education, madam.”

I didn’t answer.

“There’ll be laws soon. And no exceptions.” Reginald put on his hat. The ring on his pinkie flashed. “But perhaps I could use you in my office. We’ll see.”

That evening, I walked along the lake. I enjoyed the weight of my wool suit against the night cool, and the way a copper nodded politely as he passed. I rubbed my thumb against the old three-center, looked at the stars, and thought about throwing the coin into the water. Pa was no butcher, I decided; nor was I. It was just that, now and then, you meet someone who’s better off an angel.

Marilee Dahlman grew up in the Midwest and studied English at the University of Minnesota. She spent ten years studying and practicing law in New York. She currently lives in Washington, D.C. When not writing or working, she enjoys movies, art museums, and getting outside on the hiking trails or her bike. Her other short stories have recently appeared in The Colored Lens, Five on the Fifth, Metaphorosis, and The Saturday Evening Post.

 

 

 

 

Image Credit: “Historic Dentistry” by Clive Varley on CCSearch

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YOU’VE GOT A TALENT by Stefani Nellen

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

YOU’VE GOT A TALENT
by Stefani Nellen

female runner on a sidewalk

Another 5K, another easy win. With about half a mile to go, Shanna knew she had first female. Time to overtake some guys. This one, for instance, with the long hair and the Union Jack shorts. She surged past him, already eyeing the next target: the red-haired geek in the Hash House Harriers shirt, no idea what his name was, they’d raced each other before but they’d never spoken. She passed him at the finish line.

Once she could walk again, Shanna handed in her timing chip and picked up a banana. The harrier ambled past her, and they acknowledged each other with a nod.

People crowded the lawn next to the finish. A band shredded through Walking on Sunshine, and the Children’s School sold pancakes. Pink ribbons and healthy living information were on display everywhere.

Shanna walked to the curb to watch the other runners coming in. She hated the moments between the finish and the podium, when the adrenaline drained away and the soreness set in. Her desire to win embarrassed her as soon as it was satisfied. Once she’d made the mistake of looking at the finish photo provided by the race organizers as part of the registration swag; she’d looked like a boiling, contorting lizard.

As if on cue, Meghan arrived. Perfectly decked out in pink-and-black running gear, she shot out of a group of walkers and strode towards the line in photogenic agony, raising her fists to show that she had Overcome. As soon as she’d passed the photographer huddled on the ground, she dropped her arms.

Shanna hadn’t expected her. Sure, a few weeks ago, Meghan had announced that she had taken up running, too, that she had to find out what kept Shanna pounding the pavement for hours each week without going nuts, but she hadn’t mentioned wanting to run a race, let alone this one. Yet here she was, pointing a finger at Shanna with a gesture between threat and favor. You. Don’t move.

Once she was next to Shanna, Meghan said, “Man, this was brutal. So brutal.”

Shanna wondered whether she should tell Meghan that she had won the race.

“Where’s that husband of mine?” Meghan said.

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Typical.” Meghan put her foot on the curb and leaned forward. The sight of her legs and butt contained in shining black fabric made Shanna think of a scorpion.

“I had an idea for us,” Meghan said. “A friend of mine can get us entries for the Chicago Marathon. He works for a charity, I forget which.” Before Shanna could say anything, Meghan continued. “I know I’m slow. But I’ll work so hard. And besides, it’s about doing this together, right?”

Shanna felt lonely at times, but never during running. On the contrary, running was the one thing she wanted to keep for herself. She could try to explain, but it was hopeless.

“What do you say?” The question was a ritual. “You and me?”

◊

Shanna and Meghan had met as teenagers. Shanna had been the new girl in class, and Meghan knew everything about bras, boys, and beyond. Every once in a while, Meghan singled out a girl to make fun of. Not often, not excessively, but there was always a moment when Meghan stood with her hands on her hips, a bunch of people behind her, and the victim scrunched up her face trying not to cry. When Meghan asked her to hang out after school, Shanna was terrified and expected Meghan to drop her quickly. Instead, Meghan kept her.

With Meghan as a friend, Shanna didn’t need to talk to anyone: Meghan spoke for both of them. Her voice was deep and clear. You wanted to listen to her.

A few weeks into their friendship, Meghan would sometimes close her eyes as if she were asleep, and become smaller than before, more fragile. It happened after parties, when they sat in the back seat of Meghan’s car, music playing softly on the radio, or when they lay next to the pool and toasted on hot stones, screams and the smell of chlorine, hot dogs and sunscreen all around them. When Meghan opened her eyes again, she’d whisper: “Hey. You and me.” The words were Shanna’s treasure. They proved how important she was—more important than anyone could guess.

◊

Meghan spent her first post-grad year volunteering and shopping around a children’s book about gay marriage. She herself married an older man named Kyle, who played the cello for the Pittsburgh Symphony. They quickly had a son, Leo.  Shanna moved into a one-bedroom rental with a view of the Giant Eagle parking lot and worked as a research assistant for the Psychology Department. The part of her job she hated most was cold-calling potential research participants; she memorized a script to work through her list as efficiently as possible, and not a few people became irritated with her droning voice. Some thought she was mocking them. Her strong point was data analysis, and the professor she worked for regularly asked her to talk him through the statistics she’d used so I can sell it to the funding agencies; she’d been co-author on quite a few papers. The professor kept encouraging her to apply to graduate school, but the thought of teaching classes or presenting at conferences was too intimidating. “As you wish,” the professor said. “Remain our secret as long as you want.”

◊

Shanna became a runner by accident. One evening, after a whole day inside, she put on sweatpants, a fleece sweater, and an old pair of sneakers and started to jog around the block, not expecting to last longer than half an hour. She came home long after dark.

As a girl she used to dream of having her pack: friends that accepted her without words, recognized her like a long-lost sibling. She found them in books about running: The Lonely Breed, Young Men in a Hurry, The Perfect Mile – grainy black-and-white pictures showing young men running on grass tracks and in Scandinavian forests and in the dunes at Portsea. She was running, too, on the hills in the park and on the public track. Over the months, her hard training sessions started to feel easy. She shed the cocoon of her daytime self and became a new person – but only in her mind. The fewer people she met while running, the easier it was to imagine she was in the grainy black-and-white world of her books, so she made it a habit to run early in the morning or late at night.

Only at the races did she briefly show her face, her body, and—most intimate of all—her speed. With each race, she moved up in the local hierarchy, until she was one of the fast girls. At first she competed in baggy clothes, but eventually she switched to “professional” running sets she would never dare put on anywhere else. During a race she spat and groaned and fought to beat as many others as possible, as if she were in one of the legendary races she read about at night instead of a harmless footrace for weekend warriors.

It was as if Meghan had leapt from behind a black-and-white tree in one of the pictures in Shanna’s books, shouting, “Hey! Did you forget about me?”

◊

The Chicago Marathon was in October, which left them about five months to get ready. Their first official training run took place on a hot and humid Tuesday. Meghan planted her feet with rhythmic concentration. Shanna ran as slowly as she could.

At the picnic area, Meghan splashed water on the back of her neck, sliding her fingers inside her shirt.

“How are Kyle and Leo?” Shanna asked.

“Don’t get me started.”

Shanna waited.

“All right,” Meghan said. “I might as well fill you in. Kyle moved out.”

“Oh my God. What happened?”

“It’s been building for a while. He hasn’t been sleeping, and he’s been saying really strange things. He’s in Boston now. His mother knows a psychiatrist there.” She wiped her hands on her thighs. “He said he needs to get away from me—as if I’m some kind of monster.”

“That sounds scary. Is there anything I can do?”

“You already are. Being out here makes me feel so much better.”

◊

As spring turned into summer, Meghan and Shanna built mileage. Their long runs became their short runs. Kyle was crying every time they talked on the phone, Meghan said, and they’d talked about divorce and dropped it. Kyle was so incoherent it was hard to tell what he wanted. Leo took it the hardest: he was only two and half years old and kept asking for Daddy.

“Wait,” Meghan said. “Side stitch.”

They stopped.

“Put your hand there.” Shanna tapped a spot above her own belly button. “Maybe move your hand around a bit so your muscles can warm up. ” She demonstrated.

“Where exactly?”

Shanna put her hand on Meghan’s belly. “Here. Try to breathe into my hand.”

“You’re my savior,” Meghan said. She moved into the touch, and Shanna felt her warmth through the wet nylon.

“You and me,” Meghan said. “Once more.”

Shanna pushed back against Meghan’s weight.

◊

September brought cold rain, muddy trails, and the return of Kyle.

“He’s stable,” Meghan said, and left it at that. She and Shanna were meeting for coffee to discuss the charity that sponsored their marathon: the American ALS Foundation.

“How does it work?” Shanna asked.

“They bought race entries and sold them to runners like us, who agree to run in their name—wearing t-shirts and stuff. There will be a bunch of us in Chicago. Team ALS. Most importantly, they hope we’ll tell our friends that we’re running the marathon, and inspire them enough to make a donation.”

“Why should they?”

“It works, you’ll see. We can post our training runs and share pictures on social media. What do you think?”

“It sounds fake. I thought we were going to train and try to run a good time. I didn’t know we need an audience.”

Meghan looked up in surprise. “It’s a charity, you know? Don’t be such a bitch.”

◊

With Kyle back in town, Meghan started to skip training. Kyle needed a ride to therapy, the mortgage person had promised to call, she needed to search for jobs to apply for.

When the time came for their most important workout—a twenty-mile long run—Shanna arrived at Meghan’s house to find her sitting on the porch in black jeans and a sequin top, smoking a menthol cigarette as she sometimes did after a really bad day. “Look, I’m not feeling it tonight. Join me for drinks, okay? Tanya is coming too. Remember her? From Pitt.”

“We can’t run a marathon if we don’t train.”

“I don’t have time for this. The sitter’s with Leo, Kyle’s with his mom, and I’m partying tonight. Join me or don’t.” Meghan brushed past Shanna and started walking towards her car.

“You call this inspiring?” Shanna called. She hadn’t meant to.

Meghan turned around. “Cute. I know you have nothing better to do on a Friday night than run loops in the park. And you know what? You’re damn lucky. My family’s on the brink. We’ll have to sell the house, my kid is biting his friends, and I’m married to someone I don’t know anymore. And I will not run twenty miles tonight. End of story.”

Shanna stood still, aware of her tight clothes and the sweat drying on her skin. Up and down the street, windows were lit; people could probably hear every word.

Meghan flexed the fingers of her right hand, then got her keys from her purse and opened the car door. “Are you coming?”

“No,” Shanna said.

◊

Instead of doing the 20-miler on her own, Shanna entered a small marathon one state over. She was one of fifty participants. The course went out and back along a riverbank, and the field strung out quickly. Very far ahead of her, she saw two men reach the turnaround point marked by an orange cone, and start back. When they passed, they raised their hands in greeting. A thin layer of ice covered the water, and her cheeks felt hot and fresh in the cold. Afterwards, they ate chili in the boathouse to warm up. One of the two men who had greeted her pulled up the chair next to her. He was young, with a full beard.

“You’re a hell of a runner,” he said. “What was your time?”

“Three oh six.”

“Nice. Ever thought about trying to break three?”

“Not yet.” She glanced out the window, at the pebble trail along the water. She didn’t want to talk, but she loved the young man, and all the runners here, for their tacit agreement that they were not crazy doing this.

◊

It took them hours to get their race numbers at the marathon expo because Meghan had forgotten her confirmation letter and got into an argument with the volunteers. When they finally got to their hotel room, Shanna wanted to lie down and sleep off her headache, but Meghan had scheduled dinner with the rest of Team ALS and insisted Shanna couldn’t leave her to go alone.

They ate burgers and pasta at an American food place. Meghan talked non-stop. Her eyes were bloodshot; she’d put on clumps of mascara, the way she used to as a teenager.

“Just think about what we’re going to do tomorrow,” she said. “Twenty-six point two grueling miles!”

Everyone except Shanna acted disgusted. Weren’t they all so crazy?

The woman next to Meghan was drawing the course in the air with her finger. “And here’s the wall. Right here. It’s us versus the distance.”

“I’ll drink to that,” her husband said, and they all raised their glasses of alcohol-free beer.

Back in the hotel room, Shanna and Meghan picked everything they needed for the race the next morning from their suitcase: their gels and drinks, socks and shoes, numbers and pins. They were both dressed for bed in drawstring pants and tank tops.

Meghan spread her race day outfit on the desk, on top of tourism folders and a laminated room service menu. On top of her race number she had written GO MEG. Below it, she had written STRENGTH.

“I’ll bonk so hard tomorrow,” she said. “It’s going to be embarrassing.”

Shanna put a hand on Meghan’s back and started to massage her shoulders. The muscles felt like caramel; they promised softness to someone with patience. Shanna circled her thumbs, and Meghan sighed.

“I was such an asshole the last couple of weeks,” Meghan said. “I was, like, an evil puppet.”

“You’ve got every excuse.”

“Tomorrow’s going to be hell.”

“We’ll do this together.” Shanna was still kneading Meghan’s shoulders, settling into the rhythm. “I’ve run a marathon before.”

“You did?”

“After you bailed on our twenty-miler.”

Meghan closed her eyes. “How did you do?”

“It was okay.” She slid her arms down Meghan’s side. “You would have liked it.”

“I would’ve spoiled it. One more beer, and then to bed?”

Shanna got a real beer from the mini bar, and they sat down on Meghan’s bed, knees up, backs against the pillows. All the lights were out, except the spots above the night tables.

“You know what?” Meghan passed Shanna the bottle. “ALS is giving me the creeps.”

“I know,” Shanna said. “Me too.” She drank and passed the bottle back.

“You know something else? I started running because someone told me they saw you run at like five in the morning. I was jealous. To have something like this all for yourself.” She turned to look at Shanna. “And now look at us. We’re here together.” She put down the empty beer bottle on the night table, and Shanna laid her hand on Meghan’s belly. Breathe here, right here. Slowly, she moved her hand down. When her fingertips reached and lifted the elastic of her pajamas, Meghan slid down on the bed so she lay flat on her back, and pushed down her pants. “That’s better.” She reached for Shanna’s hand again, leading her between her legs.

Shanna closed her eyes and felt the pubic hair shaved down to a precise triangle, the smooth, cold skin around it, the warm slipperiness further down, the lips so different from her own. She heard Meghan’s moan like a soft breath in her sleep, the hiss of her heels against the linen, a croak inside her throat. Shanna moved only her fingers, mere twitches in exactly the right place.

Meghan rammed her elbow into Shanna’s ribs and sat up.

“What?” Shanna whispered.

Meghan started to rub her crotch in a way that made Shanna think of scraping ice off a car window. After she had finished with a series of dry, efficient screams, she lay back again, sprawled out and kneading her breasts.

“Okay,” she said, “you want me to return the favor?”

Shanna palpated the sore spot where Meghan’s elbow had struck her. “No,” she managed.

“Okay.”

Shanna got up and lay down in the other bed. Within minutes, Meghan slept.

◊

The next morning, they stood next to each other in front of the bathroom mirror in their matching red ALS running tops.

Meghan waved at Shanna in the mirror. “Are you ready to rock this?”

“No.”

They brushed their teeth, looking at each other. They spat out the foam and rinsed.

“Last night hit the spot,” Meghan said. “I slept like a baby. You’ve got a real talent.”

Shanna saw and felt the familiar blush spread on her neck and forehead, but forced herself to speak anyway. “Why did you push me away?”

“I like to finish by myself.”

“I guess,” Shanna said. “I’m sure Kyle appreciates it.”

Meghan put her toothbrush into the plastic cup. “Fine. Be that way.”

“You and me, right?”

Meghan leaned on her hands and looked at her reflection. “I always felt responsible for you. You never had anyone else.”

“You’re not responsible for me.”

“At least I’m watching the time,” Meghan said. “We’re late for the start.”

◊

Thousands of people were looking for their corral, and it took them a long time to find theirs. Each charity had a different color: red for ALS, purple for cancer, gold for Parkinson’s. The start shot had already gone off, but it took another half hour before Shanna and Meghan crossed the starting line, bumping elbows and feet with strangers. The runners around them were chugging Gatorade and taking photos of each other with their cell phones. Some stopped to hug friends and family along the course. Discarded paper cups stuck to their shoes. At seven miles, the course freed up a little. Meghan was limping.

“Do you want to take a break?” Shanna said.

“Do I look like a quitter?”

One of the spectators heard her and shouted, “You’re a hero!” Meghan pushed out her chest and pointed at the ALS logo, pressing more cheers from the crowd. And so another slow mile crept by, and another. Shanna’s legs hurt from being reined in. At mile ten, she screamed at herself: Just run! Every time she sped up for sheer pain relief, the familiar voice called her back: “Hey! Wait!”

Between miles ten and eleven, Meghan’s limp got worse. When they passed an aid station, the medics trained their eyes on her like vultures. “Are you all right, ma’am?” Meghan gritted her teeth and pushed on.  Once the aid station was out of sight, she stopped. “I can’t do it. It’s too much.”

“Where’s the pain exactly?”

“My foot.”

“Let’s sit down. Over there, on the curb.”

Meghan took off her shoe. Her sock was drenched in blood. Shanna took a band-aid and gauze from her pocket. “Just look away for a sec.” She squeezed open the blister. Meghan groaned, and Shanna cleaned the blister with water from her bottle, dried it with gauze, and covered it with the band-aid. “If you have some painkillers, take them.” Meghan pulled a strip of pills from the back pocket of her shorts and took two with the rest of Shanna’s water. “How do you know how to do this stuff?”

“From my long runs.”

Meghan moved her jaw. Mascara was drying on her cheeks. “What was your time in the other marathon?”

“A little over three hours.”

Meghan put her shoe back on and tied the laces with great accuracy. “Hey!” she called to everyone close enough to hear. “Being fast isn’t important, right?”

“No!” someone shouted back. “It’s not!”

She pointed her thumb at Shanna. “My friend here just told me she’s faster than I am!”

Shanna looked down at the asphalt. She felt the spectators’ laughter like slaps to the face.

“But we’re all winners!” Meghan yelled. “No matter how fast, no matter how slow!”

“Right! Go Meg!”

“That’s all I’m saying.”

They started jogging again. To Shanna, it felt like running in place. She was sick of the toy-train speed of this run, and of Meghan. She thought about the swish of turning the pages, of the burned smell rising from her books, of veined necks and thighs and the snap of finish tapes in the fifties. Of sucking frost from her tongue during her solo marathon, and of crunching the pebbles under her toes with each step, as if she could push herself forward forever.

“Try walk-breaks,” she said to Meghan. “That’s your best chance to finish.” Then she took off.

At first, the spectators booed her for leaving her friend behind. This changed as soon as Meghan was out of sight.

“Looking great!”

“Way to move!”

“Get it, girl!”

The sun was high and she started to sweat, but she didn’t care. She was one of the fast girls, and if she was empty where the night before she had opened up and closed around another person, she preferred it—the lighter she was, the faster she could run. And she ran as fast as she could, because it felt good.

Stefani Nellen author headshotStefani Nellen’s short stories are published or forthcoming in Guernica, AGNI, Glimmer Train, Third Coast, Bellevue Literary Review, PRISM International and Web Conjunctions, among others, and have won the Glimmer Train Fiction Open, the Montana Prize in Fiction (judged by Alexandra Kleeman), and placed as the runner-up for the Wabash Prize (judged by Adam Johnson). She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and is also a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop, where she had the opportunity to work with Neil Gaiman and Kelly Link, among others. A psychologist by training and originally from Germany, she now lives in the Netherlands with her family. She’s at work on two novels and a collection of short stories.

 

Image credit: Stage 7 Photography on Unsplash

 

A FAMILY MAN by Theo Greenblatt

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

A FAMILY MAN
by Theo Greenblatt

[TW: This piece includes sexual assault scenes that may be triggering for some readers.]

Picture of a victorian style house behind a white picket fence

Many times she had imagined, graphically and in slow motion, the bullet penetrating the pale, soft flesh of his temple; she knew intimately the faint indent, how it was edged with a line of graying strands slicked back with a dab of Brill cream, the shadowy crater of a chicken pox scar between the hairline and the eyebrow. She saw the skin parting and gently enveloping the smooth, hot tip of the metal missile, as if the bullet were melting its way in, as if the flesh itself welcomed the intrusion. This was the extent of her fantasy. She had never imagined the bullet exiting, or the blood. There was so much blood.

She went to the kitchen for a bucket and some Mr. Clean; took a sponge from the sink, a yellow one with a green scrubbie side, and a roll of paper towels. When she returned to the den she set the bucket down on the floor and began to sponge the blood—and other matter, she noticed—from the wood-paneled wall behind his chair. She worked carefully and methodically, but not with any thought as to “covering her tracks” or destroying evidence. She had no intention of hiding, it was just that she could not bear the mess. She wanted the room, the “scene,” to look clean and well-kept when it was examined. She sponged the entire wall, where sticky flecks of blood glistened as high as she could reach, and down to the floor where it had seeped into the crack between the molding and the patterned carpet. It had a particular gamey odor that wasn’t entirely dispelled by the industrial tang of the cleaning fluid. She almost liked that smell; it reminded her of hunting trips she had gone on when she was small, tramping through cold woods in gray morning light, her hands warmed by the ham and egg sandwiches packed in foil which she was charged with carrying.

She had to change the soapy water in the bucket three times before the wall was clean. She used Windex and paper towels to wipe down the pinkish spray that by now had dried onto the computer screen and keyboard. She winced as her touch on the keys produced an electric crackle and an image came into focus. She spread her hand so that the paper towel hid this image from her view. She could do nothing about his clothes or the blood soaking into the papers on the desk where his head now rested. It created a slowly changing pattern as it oozed and dried across the pages. She did not want to disturb the position of his body. There was a satisfying irony in the way his left arm seemed to point at the hinged picture frame (all the family members in separate frozen moments), his right arm palm up in his lap, head directly face down on the blotter. Not a sleeping pose, not restful, but the grace of arrested motion, a dance collapsed. She felt that the mess was acceptably contained in that small area, limited to his person and what might be considered his personal space. This was, after all, a deliberate act, rich with intent, not some out-of-control crime of passion. This was justice, this was necessity.

◊

It had never occurred to Frank that he could be aroused by the product of his own seed. True, he had felt repulsed by his wife’s body, hard and bloated like a badly upholstered sofa, but he thought that was a man’s natural reaction to pregnancy, and did not seem connected to what came later for him. When, as a young father, he noticed his reaction to the innocent touch of his small children he assured himself that this too was natural. For a long time he did not acknowledge that he moved around them in ways that resulted in their contact with his genitals; carrying them at a particular angle, holding them on his lap just so. When his son Tom was five, six, seven, he was entranced by the way the boy’s small penis evoked the shape of his own member; he could remember touching himself secretly when he was that size, thinking he must be the only person who could feel this because no one had ever spoken of such a thing to him. The two-fold thrill of touching Tom—feeling himself and the boy respond at the same time—was a pleasure he could not bring himself to forego.

As Tom grew older and more like him in size, more adult in his physique, the excitement diminished for Frank. His daughter Karen was beginning to appear less childlike at this time, too, but her maturing body had the opposite effect on him. She was not becoming womanly in the way that his wife Louise was womanly. Instead Karen had a spring-like newness, everything budding and blossoming at once. Her breasts were small and delicately formed, not heavy and pulpy like his wife’s; her limbs were smooth and ropy from outdoor play. Slowly Frank’s desire veered away from Tom and he sought time alone with Karen. At first he only touched her, held her against him for what he knew to be too long, and then secluded himself in the bath or bedroom to relieve his tension. He imagined over and over again the pale almost hairless triangle beneath her bathing suit bottom, and her slim legs parting like a cheerleader’s V.

The anticipation he created with this fantasy eventually became unbearable to him. Finally one night, fetching Karen from a late babysitting engagement, he consummated his need for her in just the way his imagination had detailed so many times. She had been asleep when he picked her up and he had suggested she lie down in the back seat of the Taurus on the way home. She didn’t question his pulling off the road or his clambering in on top of her. He avoided looking at her frightened face, pressed his mouth against her neck instead, feeling his own hot breath create a wet patch on her shirt collar. He drove the rest of the way home in red-faced silence, grateful for the solid seatback between himself and his daughter.

After the first time with Karen he could hardly bring himself to caress his wife. Louise was not unaccommodating, but he found her body grotesque in comparison with Karen’s. He developed the habit of staying up late to watch the news and Louise went to bed uncomplainingly without him. Nightly he would enter Karen’s room and, in the muffled dark beneath her flowered duvet, whisper hoarsely his love for her until he spent himself there.

Frank declined to examine this behavior in depth. He was sure he was a normal man with normal needs and desires. Just as no one had ever spoken to him as a child about the pleasure of touching himself, he assumed now that other men gave in to this uncontrollable urge and simply didn’t discuss it. Now that it had become part of his routine, he was able to set aside his thoughts of Karen during the day; it was a part of his life that simply didn’t touch on the rest.

When Karen started high school, he forbade her to date; she was allowed out only with groups, and kept to a strict curfew. Louise concurred unquestioningly with this. For Karen’s safety, it was understood. During these years Karen’s body changed, became hardened to him, and when at last she left for college, Frank had steeled himself to the loss. By this time he had outfitted the den with a home computer, and was finding his consolation online. Here in the privacy of his home office, while Louise assumed he was paying bills and poring over sports scores, he was able to find hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of boys and girls like his children had once been—gentle, delicate-looking children whose bodies appeared soft and compliant. He gazed with unstinted longing at their tender private parts, imagined their small hands running over his flesh, and was content to massage himself to climax this way rather than resort to relations with Louise.

For several years Frank looked no further than his computer screen for fulfillment of his sexual desires, and the period of his nightly conjugations with Karen faded into a blurry, unreal memory. It was easy to pretend it had never happened since he was certain that he shared the secret with Karen only. Karen herself never alluded to it, although relations between them were always distant and a little formal. He was not close with Tom, either, although no real animosity ever surfaced, and he had truly forgotten the extent of his earliest preoccupations with his son. Occasionally it occurred to him that this was not the sort of father he had set out to be, aloof and forbidding, but he did not really feel that he could have done anything differently.

When grandchildren came into his life, Frank allowed himself to be carried away by the same sense of fatefulness, of life’s inevitable course. At first when Tom and Karen visited with their own young families, he stayed out of the way, allowing Louise to sponge up the milky pleasure of having babies in the house again. But as they grew into toddlers and older, he felt the children sought him out. Louise’s attention was not enough for them, or it was different. They asked him for things—candy and pencils and piggy-back rides. They bumped into him, they snaked their slightly sticky fingers into his sweaty palm with no hesitation, they hugged him, pressing their faces to his corduroy-covered thighs, causing him to swell inside his briefs. It was like a rerun of his early parenting years and when the first cloud of guilt had passed he began to feel rejuvenated by these new stimulations. Clearly this was not something he controlled, this reaction of his, he was just wired this way. He allowed his anxiety to dissolve into enjoyment but at the same time he was careful in the presence of family and noticed that he was not often left alone with the children.

Louise had given him a digital camera for Christmas and it occurred to him that he could take pictures of his grandchildren and look at them whenever he chose. Frank became the family chronicler, taking pictures at every gathering and on even the smallest occasions. Many of these photos he sent out to Karen and Tom but there were some he kept to himself as well. Since everyone was so accustomed to seeing him with a camera, no one noticed his attention to particular details as he documented the children on film. He had countless images of his grandchildren at the beach, in the bath, getting ready for bed—images that fed his desire and held him nearly captive at his computer, with one hand pressed into his lap.

◊

Lying in bed he thought he heard a sound like a firecracker, but it was muted by the comforter he had pulled up over his head. He wedged himself further into the corner where the mattress met the wall and tried to silence his own breathing so he could hear what was happening downstairs, or if anyone was coming up. His sister was snoring lightly in the bed next to him, making little “puh” sounds when she exhaled. He had trouble falling sleep with her in the room. At home he had his own room, and he would always be alone when his father came in late at night. Last night his grandpa had come instead, and he had been nervous that his sister would wake up. He thought he understood that this night-time thing was something grown-up men did just with boys—at first he thought it was only his dad, but now he knew that grandpas did it, too. He also knew it was supposed to be a secret; probably because girls spoil everything, that’s what his dad would say, only half-joking.

He couldn’t make out any people sounds from the rest of the house, so he carefully eased the blanket down just past his ears and turned his head toward the door. A line of light shone along the bottom; not all the grown-ups had gone to bed. He couldn’t distinguish between their footsteps here because all the floors were carpeted, so he didn’t know who was still up. Everyone stayed up later when they visited at his grandparents’ house, he had noticed. He did hear a door close and someone moving about in the kitchen, which was directly below him.

At home he knew all the night sounds: the creak of every stair, the squeak of the floorboards by the bathroom, the furnace going on and the steam tapping in the radiators. Here everything was different and the unfamiliar noises made him anxious—the metallic knocking of the blinds against the window frame from the wind outside, the humming and clunking that he now knew was the refrigerator making ice. A lot of things were making him anxious, not just the noises, but the worst was that he really didn’t want his grandfather to come in again. It was different with his dad, he knew what to expect, but his grandfather was shaky and smelled of old man sweat, and it scared him. Also his father wouldn’t come in unless he was alone, but his grandpa clearly didn’t know the rules.

He shifted his head to look at his sister and watched her lips puffing rhythmically in and out for a while. He decided if he heard someone coming, he would reach over and pinch her to wake her up. She would cry and his grandpa would not touch him. Once he had this plan firmly in mind he felt better and relaxed his grip on the edge of the blanket. He waited a long time and finally someone was coming up the stairs. He tensed his whole body, ready to lurch forward, his fingers clenched to grab at his sister’s flesh; but the footfalls went past his door and there was a soft click as the hall light went out. Still he waited, lying flat on his stomach, watching the door, until it had been quiet for a long time. At last he felt sure his grandpa wasn’t coming. He pulled the blanket back over his head and began the slow drift into sleep.

Theo Greenblatt’s prose, both fiction and nonfiction, appears in The Normal School Online, Tikkun, Salt Hill Journal, Harvard Review, and numerous other venues. She is a past winner of The London Magazine Short Story Competition. Her collection Rescue and Other Relationships was a finalist in the recent Autumn House Press Full-Length Fiction Contest.
Theo teaches writing to aspiring officer candidates at the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, RI.

 

 

Image credit: Scott Webb on Unsplash

4:44 by Leland Cheuk

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

4:44
by Leland Cheuk

I died Sunday, for sixty seconds, at precisely 4:44 p.m. Novel and beer in tow, I strolled over to my armchair and tottered. Nausea somehow morphed into this buttery light that bled over the edges of my vision. There were my parents. There was my childhood, my friends, and my lovers, all these thoughts tinged with forgiveness (though there was nothing to forgive). And then I was down, and then I was up, wheezing, gasping for air.

My memories of how I’d gotten to where I was (floor, apartment, city) were slow to return, as if I’d been concussed. I’d been gone for a long time—years—only to be reborn. Picking up my spilled beer and splayed-open book, I checked the time: 4:45 p.m.

“I actually died,” I told my oncologist the next day.

She prescribed a full day’s worth of scans. CT, PET, MRI, tests without acronyms. Nothing new was wrong with me. While the EKG tech gelled up electrode patches and applied them one by one to my bared chest with the feathery touch of a Jenga player, the wall clock’s minute hand shifted to forty-four after and I flatlined, spasming up a minute later, choking on the dense waft of the tech’s shea butter-scented hair product as she hovered over me, debating whether to administer CPR or fire up the defibrillator.

So-called experts had never seen anything like it. The cardiologist, who himself was centrally obese and labored audibly to breathe, said it “must be” a new type of arrhythmia even though I’d passed all the heart stress tests. The oncologist fondled her silver bracelet as she shrugged and said, “I’m deferring to the heart guy.” They recommended I wear an event monitor and hire a daytime caretaker. “Event monitor”! What a phrase! I couldn’t afford one. I was officially in remission, so I had to return to work. The company’s healthcare coverage was the only reason I wasn’t impoverished already. The doctors reluctantly cleared me.

Death was perfectly manageable. I was a marketing director at a credit card company, so at work, I blocked off my daily schedule between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. and jury-rigged my own event monitor: an alarm on my phone that gave me a two-minute death warning. Every day at 4:30 p.m, I’d go to the bathroom, sit in a stall, lean back, and try to get comfortable. Pants down (so no one would think I was just shirking work), I’d wait to die. Weekends at home, I’d sit in my armchair and make sure I wasn’t eating or drinking anything that might cause a mess, then I’d face the window, stare up at the sky, and safely pass away. At night, after rising from the dead, I’d pop half an Ambien to fall back asleep quicker.

I’d never felt like I was owed an average lifespan. I’d never had any huge goals. I wasn’t disappointed about the many things I hadn’t experienced. I’d loved and lost. I’d traveled. I’d met people I treasured and hated. We’re all just animals, imminent dirt. That we can experience love and heartbreak and hate is an existential bonus.

When I saw the yellowing light again and felt myself sinking, I tried to hold the memories of loved ones appearing in my dying flashes so I could recall them when I was reborn. First, it was my immediate family, but as the months went by, there were others:

Ed, my college roommate and childhood best friend. He lived out west and was a veep at a toy company. We only spoke to each other every year or two now. Kristen, my best friend when I studied abroad in Madrid. I’d been madly in love with her, an impossible love. She now had three kids in a small town in R—. Jennifer, a peer with whom I’d worked at a startup for five years. She was a Republican and I, a Democrat. We sat across from each other in an open floor plan and would spar about politics. I found myself thinking about her more often than I liked to admit. She lived in S— now.

I wished I were closer to them. I was alive but not the same type of alive I was when healthy. When you become seriously ill, you never rejoin the ranks of people who take health for granted. You feel one hundred percent but you know you can feel perfectly fine and have tumors eating you alive. A life-threatening illness forces both a constant awareness of mortality and estrangement of mind from body.

I wrote to the people I saw before my “death minutes.” I told them they’d made an indelible mark on me, as if I were previously a blank canvas.

“The thing I like about you, Ed, is that you were always so loyal to me,” I emailed. “I’ll forever remember what you said about me at your wedding. That you wanted to be like me. Articulate, creative, funny. I’ve never felt like I had any of those attributes.”

“Hang in there, bud,” he replied. “I know this cancer thing’s thrown you for a loop. You’re not losing hope, are you?”

To Kristen: “I loved that you hated everything. Just like me! You were so cool, so skeptical, so cynical about life. When you’re nineteen, all you have to be is cool. God, how I’d wished you had feelings for me. After a while, it fucking hurt to be so close to you and know you didn’t feel the same way I felt about you.”

“I did have feelings for you,” she replied. “Maybe not those feelings. But you were the only reason I didn’t go out of my mind with loneliness while we were abroad. I just didn’t express my feelings well back then. We were all so preoccupied with being cool.”

When I told Jennifer how much I still thought about her, ten years after we’d worked together, she refused to take the emotional bait. She didn’t write about what she’d been doing for the past decade. She only said she’d visit soon so we could “hang out.”

But she started writing me every couple of weeks with funny stories about her current boss at the bank where she worked.

I’d write back and joke about the many different ways I played the cancer card in the office. I frequently took Fridays off, pretending I had doctor’s appointments. I’d call in sick complaining of ridiculous ailments, blaming my weakened immune system—the more absurd and obscure the illness the better (UTI, hemorrhoids, shingles, hard-to-pronounce diarrheal diseases). If I sensed that some higher-up doubted my proposals, I’d cite that compared to beating cancer, any of our top initiatives were easy, and they’d be reassured by my intestinal fortitude and suddenly believe in my ability to make my proposals reality. I told Jennifer that business would take me through S—, even though that was untrue. Would she like to meet up? Yes, she would.

My oncologist informed me that after conferring with several doctors, she thought my “death minutes” could be fixed by implanting a simple pacemaker.

“What does the heart guy think?” I asked.

Her gaze dropped. “He passed away last week.”

I blurted a wow. As a seriously ill patient, you assume your doctors are masters of their own health and somehow impervious to mortality.

“What if I don’t want to do it?” I asked.

“You’re risking death daily.”

But I wasn’t ready to stop dying.

“You’re young,” she said. “You should lead a normal life.”

A normal life meant you let things pass you by. You lost touch with people. You allowed the routine to distance you from your loved ones. You forgot the feeling of genuine connection.

The oncologist’s lips parted, her breath held—for an instant, she looked dead. “I suppose we can try beta blockers or something,” she muttered. “Let me check with the heart people.”

I rented a car and drove five hours to S— because when I flew now, I almost always got sick. When I got to the hotel, my phone battery was dead and I discovered that I’d left the charger at home. Jennifer had agreed to meet for a late lunch and was already on the way from the suburbs. The surly concierge requisitioned my phone and agreed to charge it in the back. (Later, I’d find a fee of $14.99 for “Electrical Services” on my bill.)

I’d have to wrap up my reunion with Jennifer before 4:44 p.m.

We met in the hotel lobby. A decade ago, she’d worn knee-high boots and expensive blouses, and designer sunglasses, even in winter. Now she wore Birkenstocks, khakis, and a white, long-sleeved wicking shirt. Still, I could see the twenty-three-year-old I’d known.

“You look terrific,” she said, inspecting me up and down.

“Cancer works wonders!” I’d lost fifteen pounds in the past year.

“I…didn’t know what to expect.”

“You expected worse.”

“Am I terrible for thinking that?”

“Of course not,” I said. “You’re healthy.”

We went to a brunch place a short walk from the hotel. Jennifer was an animal lover. She owned a dog and a cat. She volunteered and helped raise money for animal shelters. She enjoyed her job managing technology projects at a large bank. She had a gaze that could stare even death into the ground.

And she’d been partnered with a woman for eight years.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I was with someone before the diagnosis,” I said. “Together four years. I was going to propose, but then she was offered a job in Hong Kong. I wasn’t going to go there and do nothing. So she left.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Now? No,” I said. There we were, sitting across from each other again, this time in a restaurant instead of an office. Why was I playing games, trying to woo her with my death-sparked soulfulness?

“Hong Kong would’ve been amazing,” Jennifer said. “I’d have figured out the work thing later.”

“Had it happened after the cancer,” I lied, “I’d have gone with her.” I’d recently written Mika, my ex, opining that our split was for the best because we didn’t truly love each other.

Jennifer smiled with furrowed brows. “Are you sure?”

“No,” I admitted.

“You seem like a stay-in-one-place type of guy,” she said. “You’ve never left the City. You watch the river go around you. I can’t. I get restless. I’m, like, two different people. There’s the dutiful bank employee who loves animals and the adventurer who moved to the City at nineteen with nothing but twenty dollars.”

“So, like, the Democrat and Republican in yourself.”

Jennifer laughed. “Which is which?”

“The lesser of two evils!”

Jennifer laughed, which made me laugh, which made her laugh.

Later, walking with Jennifer through the cypress groves of S—, I learned there was nothing she wouldn’t try. Ribbon dancing. Sky diving. Trapeze. The old me would’ve been intimidated by someone so up for everything, but the post-death me was emboldened. I was now like Jennifer—restless and in search of adventure too! Maybe she’d be up for cheating on her long-time partner! With a man, no less!

Storm clouds gathering, we passed the gates of the town’s famous cemetery, which looked alive, ironically, the wind its breath, the trees stretching and bending, like giants doing calisthenics. The headstones looked like a child trying to wriggle out of a sweater. I realized I had lost track of time; my death was likely imminent.

“I should go,” I blurted, interrupting Jennifer’s story about a recent trip to Bhutan.

“Is everything okay?”

“I have a work call.”

“On a Saturday?”

“Yeah, my boss is a dick,” I said, spinning around. “How do I get back to the hotel?”

Jennifer gave directions I was too agitated to absorb. I saw the yellow light. She smelled of pine needles. She said my name. I said hers. I considered asking if I could kiss her. If not in the moments before death, then when?

I thought I could see her thinking: The next time I hear about him, it’s going to be because he’s dead. She hugged me so tightly that I squeezed harder to match her force. We seemed to embrace for a long time. I worried I’d die at any moment in her arms. But then Jennifer let go. And I had done nothing. I was indeed the stay-in-one-place, watch-the-river-go-around-me guy.

“I’m glad you got back in touch,” she said, professionally, as if to erase what had just happened. “Keep me updated on your health.”

I said goodbye and bolted. Rounding the nearest corner, I died.

When I came to, my cheek was on the sidewalk, badly abraded. I tongued a salty gap in my gums. I’d lost a bicuspid. I staggered back to the hotel, spitting blood along the way. The doorman eyed me suspiciously and didn’t offer any help. The concierge returned my phone (only half-charged though I’d been gone for hours). I went to my room, cleaned myself up, checked out, bought a car charger, and drove back to the City.

◊

Soon after I returned, I began to die for two minutes twice a day. A few weeks later, three minutes. My oncologist warned that, according to “the brain lady,” after six minutes of heart stoppage, the brain begins to die. And yet, when my deaths surpassed six minutes, I continued to rise undamaged. That’s when the doctors requested my consent to be studied. I refused, having had my fill of hospital time.

Now, after about a year, I die for a full hour daily. One down, twenty-three to go! I did make one concession to my oncologist and agreed to wear a CPAP mask during my times of death to ensure some oxygen flow to the brain, and at work, where I had blinds put up over my office window, I frequently extol to my colleagues the many virtues of afternoon meditation. I block off more and more time, telling anyone who will listen that our lives are borrowed on credit, the interest rates are variable, and we’re all headed for zero balance.

Mika returns from Hong Kong tonight to celebrate my birthday. We’ve been corresponding daily for the past year. She’d recently said recovery had changed me, that I’d been given a new life. Not new life but death, I hadn’t said.

◊◊

Leland Cheuk author photoLeland Cheuk is the author of three books of fiction, including the novels The Misadventures of Sulliver Pong and most recently, No Good Very Bad Asian, forthcoming from C&R Press in October 2019. His work has appeared in Salon, Catapult, Joyland Magazine, Literary Hub, among others. He has been awarded fellowships at The MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden Castle, Djerassi, and elsewhere. He runs the indie press 7.13 Books and lives in Brooklyn.

 

 

Image credit: Karen Rile

KINDNESS WOMAN by Michelle Ross and Kim Magowan

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

woman smiling broadly

KINDNESS WOMAN
by Michelle Ross and Kim Magowan

Kindness Woman has been working here barely seven months and already we hate her. This hate is of a different flavor than the antagonism we feel for Faye, who takes so many damn smoke breaks over the course of a day that even her emails reek of cigarettes—emails that often include full sentences in all-caps, sentences that bend and break with her scorn like the cigarette stubs she twists and grinds into a tin coffee can behind the building.

Kindness Woman’s brand of obnoxiousness sits on the opposite end of the spectrum as Faye’s. Her emails contain rainbows—each sentence a different color and a different font. Her emails invite us to help ourselves to the cake or brownies or homemade cranberry-walnut-unicorn bread that she has baked for our enjoyment on this beautiful day. Her emails always end with the word, “Enjoy!” It’s a command. As if that isn’t enough, some days she will walk around the building hawking a platter of brownies or a jar of lollipops. She stops at every desk. She says, “A brownie to make your morning sweet?” or “A lollipop to brighten your afternoon?” The price: only your dignity and having to endure her self-satisfied grin.

Kindness Woman won’t just anonymously leave her baked goods in the kitchen, like everyone else around here who wants to kill us slowly with sugar. Kindness Woman wants credit for her kindnesses. She wants applause.

“The thing about her is she never matured from high school,” says Terry, who works in HR and maintains that HR will turn the sweetest, most extroverted person into a misanthrope, so it’s not her fault she hates the world. “She’s still on the hunt for Senior Superlatives. Cheeriest Demeanor! Most Spirited!”

“Most Likely to Fill Up Your Email With Exclamation Points!” I say. Terry and I exchange a meaningful glance. Exclamation points are to us the splinters of punctuation marks. We share a deep disdain for those rows and rows of exclamation points in Kindness Woman’s emails, stiff and spiky like the barbed hooks of a stickabur. We share a disdain, frankly, for enthusiasm. Sometimes the only words Terry and I will exchange over the course of the day are “Shoot me now.” And yet—and I am being completely sincere here—we communicate so much with those three words, depending on where emphasis is laid. “Shoot me now” means seriously, it’s my turn to moan. “Shoot me now” conveys urgency, this level of bullshit is surpassingly dire.

Now Terry says these words, and she emphasizes all three. Her use of emphasis is so extreme, it brings to mind Kindness Woman’s exclamation points, but I don’t point this out to Terry. Kindness Woman is the reason for this bloated, bloodshot “Shoot me now.” Because Kindness Woman filed a complaint to HR against Faye for being mean to her.

“There’s a form for meanness complaints?” I say.

Terry squints at me. Then she says, “And who do you think Pamela tasked with the joyous assignment of investigating this complaint?”

“What’s an investigation entail exactly?” I say. “Do you tap their phones?”

Because we’re talking in the break room, we both eye the door constantly.

“Why doesn’t anyone file a complaint against Chad?” is what Terry says.

“Hard to prove a man is consciously looking at your breasts every time he talks to you?” I say. “Could be like being cross-eyed? He could say he can’t control his eyes?”

Terry sighs. She says, “For starters, I have to talk to these women. I have to sit down at a table and have conversations with the two most intolerable women in this lunatic asylum of an office. I have to get their sides of the story. I have to take the complaint seriously.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m kind of envious. I want to be a fly on the wall. Maybe you could record your interviews? Just surreptitiously turn your phone face down? I’d love to hear Faye explain why she’s mean to Kindness Woman. What do you predict? ‘Because she’s fucking annoying?’”

Terry does not crack a smile. She folds her arms over her chest and looks at me bleakly. “Do you know why I got into HR?” she says. “I thought I could do some good in the world. I thought I could have some kind of influence on, say, diversity of hires. On practices of inclusivity. Bringing in good people and, okay, slapping the bad people, because dudes like Chad deserve to have their lives made uncomfortable. But no one utters a peep about Chad! Instead I get complaints along the lines of, ‘Faye said, Get those blondies out of my face, I do not give a shit if they have butterscotch chips.’” Terry bites her lip, then passes her hand across my forehead. “Obliviate. You didn’t hear me say that.”

Terry is always doing this, letting confidential things slip and then wiping my memory clean. I let my tongue hang out and glaze my eyes in response, performing successful memory eradication, but there is no cheering Terry up today.

“I think I’ve finally hit bottom,” she says. “I think this is the bottom of the goddamn well. The ninth circle of hell, here I am, getting chewed on by fucking Satan.”

“Here’s what I don’t get,” I say. “Isn’t this against Kindness Woman’s whole ethos? Isn’t lodging an official complaint pretty much the antithesis of kind?”

Terry looks at me pityingly. She says, “Isn’t our company motto, ‘All for one, and one for all’? Yet you remember how Pamela said to Julie when she found Julie using Isaac’s office when Isaac was on vacation, “You’re not on an office-level paygrade.” And then Julie came to me about it, me in my little cubicle five feet outside of Pamela’s office! All I could do was laugh until my face hurt. I said to her, ‘Julie, when the president of the company is also the director of HR, and your complaint is about said president, what do you expect me, who is also not office-level paygrade, to do about it?’”

Pamela enters the breakroom then, so I quickly switch the subject. I say, “Yeah, I started buying the generic sparkling waters. They taste the same but they’re nearly half the price.”

“Which flavor?” Terry says.

We try to look like we’re not monitoring Pamela out of the corners of our eyes as she slices a chunk of Kindness Woman’s latest will-you-please-be-my-friend bribe: something crumbly and weirdly white, like it might just be made entirely of sugar. That or cocaine.

“Lemon,” I say, “though the coconut is pretty good, too.”

Normally, I take pride in my ability to quickly come up with inane shit to talk about in Pamela’s presence, but right now, for some reason, I feel this sickening sadness. A lost-every-tooth-in-your-mouth kind of sadness. And that’s when I remember that I had this weird dream last night that I was excruciatingly depressed. Weird because normally I dream out-of-this-world shit, but a dream about being depressed is dreadfully of-this-world. In the dream, I was walking very slowly through a putty-colored landscape. I was on my way to buy Cascade liquid-powder combination dishwashing capsules; my shoulders were slumped. When I first woke it wasn’t immediately clear to me that I had been dreaming, or was now conscious, or what, if anything, distinguished the two states. I actually said out loud, “Wait, what?” and rolled over to my left. But of course there was no Karl lying next to me.

“Anything wrong, Grace?” Pamela says. She’s watching me narrowly with her bulbous eyes.

“I was just remembering this incredibly boring dream I had,” I said.

“Hmm. People say they have interesting dreams, and when they describe them, they’re incredibly boring. I wonder if that would make a description of an incredibly boring dream interesting? Or would it just be that much more boring?”

Pamela’s affect is so flat and deadpan that it’s impossible to distinguish between her philosophical observations and her jokes. Terry takes a gamble and laughs, and Pamela smiles graciously, so we know Terry guessed right.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to your dreams and sparkling water,” Pamela says, and departs holding aloft her powdery square of Kindness pastry.

Terry raises her eyebrows. “Now I know how to get Pamela to make a fucking fast exit. That was even speedier than when Sam starts telling stories about the latest accomplishments of her twins!” She looks at me more closely. “Hey, what’s up with you? You look like someone hit you with a hammer.”

There are a lot of things I could say at this point, but what I latch onto is what I woke up thinking, what made me so sad my reflection in the bathroom mirror shimmered and blurred. “I miss Karl.”

Terry looks at me, just looks at me, then nods. I’m pretty sure I know what Terry’s thinking but not saying—that I was the one who pushed for the separation, that I said Karl lacked the introspection to really love someone.

We hadn’t yet separated when Kindness Woman first showed up, and I told Karl about that woman’s damn emails and her peddling her treats around the office, and he said, “You sound like that Faye woman. It’s like you’re allergic to kindness. It’s like you want to be miserable.” I tried to explain to Karl that that’s the thing: it’s not kindness if you’re constantly begging for credit for your actions and if you’re pissed off when people don’t give you the thanks you believe you’ve earned. I said, “Maybe she believes she’s being kind, but that’s not kindness. It’s phoniness.” I’d talked before that point about us separating. I’d already said many times that I didn’t believe he really loved me. I’d said to him that I believed he believed he loved me, but that I didn’t feel genuinely loved because I was constantly having to ask him to be thoughtful towards me, and that on the rare occasions he was thoughtful, he made a big fuss about wanting me to praise him. When I called the Kindness Woman phony and manipulative, that was the turning point for Karl. That’s when he said, “You know what? I think you’re right. We should separate. Because you’re impossible to please.”

That’s when I thought, shit, he really doesn’t love me.

“Shoot me now,” I say.

Terry, who passed me Kleenex six months ago and said, “But Grace, isn’t the point that you didn’t really love him either?” nods again, turns her fingers into a gun, and takes aim. I’m standing there waiting for that too-slow, invisible bullet to pierce my heart when Kindness Woman enters the kitchen. She looks at me. She looks at Terry. Then she turns around and leaves, as though she couldn’t remember what it was she’d wanted.

◊◊

author photo michelle ross and kim magowanKim Magowan lives in San Francisco and teaches in the Department of Literatures and Languages at Mills College. Her short story collection Undoing (2018) won the 2017 Moon City Press Fiction Award. Her novel The Light Source is forthcoming from 7.13 Books this July. Her fiction has been published in Atticus Review, Cleaver, The Gettysburg Review, Hobart, New World Writing, Smokelong Quarterly, and many other journals. Her story “Madlib” was selected for Best Small Fictions 2019 (Sonder Press). Her story “Surfaces” was selected for Wigleaf‘s Top 50 2019. She is the Fiction Editor of Pithead Chapel. More at www.kimmagowan.com.

Michelle Ross is the author of There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You (2017), which won the 2016 Moon City Press Short Fiction Award. Her fiction has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, Pidgeonholes, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, SmokeLong Quarterly, and other venues. Her story “One or Two?” was selected for Wigleaf‘s Top 50 2019. She is Fiction Editor of Atticus Review. She lives in Tucson, Arizona. More at www.michellenross.com.

Image credit: Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash

EXPECTING HIM  by Natalie Gerich Brabson

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Little girl drawing with markers

EXPECTING HIM
by Natalie Gerich Brabson

Maite and her daughter Pala arrived home only minutes ago, and already Pala’s settled in. She’s plopped in front of the TV, watching an inane show on the cartoon channel, all done telling Maite how she ate a cupcake at snack, that Lucy wasn’t playing nicely during recess. Maite hasn’t yet had a chance to change her shoes or chug a glass of water. Her feet ache like hell.

It’s quarter to six. Maite’s father should be here by now, should have beaten them home. Maite pulls back the curtains and scans the street once, twice, before acknowledging he has not arrived. She steals a moment to go into the bathroom, pull off her work shoes, and wash her swollen, sweaty feet. Hair strands and dust gather on the tiles; she hasn’t had time to clean for weeks. Sitting on the rim of the tub, she tips her chin up and shuts her eyes as she holds her feet steady under the cold stream. She pretends she is elsewhere, imagines she is smiling, then laughing open-mouthed.

Back in the front room, she peers through the window, and still her father’s car isn’t on the street. Pala has come to expect his visits. Every Friday afternoon, after Maite finishes her shift at the restaurant and picks up Pala from aftercare, he arrives at the house at 5:30 to take Pala to the neighborhood park. But it’s nearly six and he’s still not here. Maite’s throat tightens. She wants to huddle next to the window and press her face against it, watch until his car pulls up, just as she used to.

Word travels fast in their too-small town. When her father returned last fall, after many years gone, he soon learned of Pala and tracked down Maite’s number. He called and left a voicemail. He called again. She promised herself she wouldn’t pick up. She didn’t have to. When she did, he told her, “I’m different now. I wouldn’t have left you, Maite. Or I’d at least have visited. I wish I could do it all over again.”

She said nothing. Eventually he cut through her silence. “Can I meet my grandbaby?”

No, no, Maite thought. Pala. But should she deny any relationship? And if he was, as he averred, in town to stay, and if he really could be in Pala’s life…

Half a year now, every Friday. He has never been this late. Maite stands clutching the curtain—she wants to curl up, and, if his car doesn’t appear soon, hide her face in her knees. But she cannot, not in front of Pala.

Pala tugs at Maite’s pants, and Maite steps back. Pala wants to look out the window too; already she’s resting her chin on the windowsill. Maite places her hand on Pala’s head and guides her toward the kitchen, where she prepares Pala’s snack, apple slices alongside a dollop of peanut butter. Pala eats noisily, looking around the room, squirming in her chair to look at the door.

“Soon,” Maite says. “I’m sorry.”

Pala nods. She puts an apple slice flat on her plate and squishes it until a drop of juice emerges. She licks the drop off the plate, looking at Maite as she does so, but Maite doesn’t correct her behavior.

Maite notices the emptiness in her own stomach. Most days, she doesn’t eat lunch because the restaurant where she waitresses makes her pay for any food she takes, and it’s too expensive. Now, she fixes herself her own apple and peanut butter snack, the two munching in silence. Then Pala asks, “Can I watch my show?”

“I think it’s over by now.” The clock shows a quarter past six. Maite checks the voicemail, but he hasn’t left a message. She thinks, This is the time, this is when it will happen. He’s not coming for her.

“I want to make sure,” Pala says, glancing back at the front room.

“Your show ended.” Maite doesn’t want Pala checking for him again by the window, nor discovering that the cartoon channel plays endless reruns after new episodes air. “You can draw here.”

Pala scowls at Maite, but she finds her markers and paper and returns to the kitchen table without complaint. Soon she’s immersed in her artwork. Pala’s expression is strained, betraying her worry, but Maite doesn’t say anything more to her. Maite chomps into her second apple, this time without cutting it up first. She dips the skinless wound into the peanut butter, then takes another bite, gooey.

Finally, his knock. Maite opens the door, and he stoops right on the porch, stretching his arms wide. Pala leaps from the couch, and runs into his embrace.

“My sweet little bee girl,” he coos. He kisses her head only once, his eyes meeting Maite’s.

“I’m so sorry I’m late. Traffic, you know. Hi, honey.” He rises to hug Maite. She lets him, but she goes stiff, moving away from his body until he releases her.

“How was work?” he asks.

She shakes her head and turns away, toward Pala. “Well, your grandpa is here for you,” she says. “Do you want to show him your drawing?”

Pala crosses her arms behind her back, and softly says, “Later.”

“Let’s get going,” Maite’s father says to her.

“Hold on,” Maite tells him. “It’s 6:30. Maybe the park’s not a good idea anymore.”

“It’s safe. It’ll be light out all evening,” he says.

“Let me finish this apple,” Maite says. I’m almost done.”

“You don’t have to come with us. Rest. I’ve got her.”

“I’m coming.”

The park is down the street. Maite’s feet still hurt, and she drags behind her father and Pala. Her father glances back once to smile at Maite, saying to Pala, “Your mother should be like me. She shouldn’t work so hard.” Maite can’t get herself to smile back.

She speeds up, walks close enough to overhear their conversation when her father turns again toward Pala, who’s chattering away, no longer, apparently, distressed at her grandfather’s lateness. He’s good at talking to Pala. He’s better at responding to her tangential conversation style—new since she turned five—than Maite.

“What did you like about school today?”

“It was Ella’s birthday.”

“Did she bring any treats for the class?”

Pala nods. “The cots in kindergarten are bad.”

“What makes you say they’re bad?”

“We have to nap every day.”

“You’ll be missing that in a few months, when you grow up and go to first grade.”

It’s early June, and near the park, cottonwood seeds float everywhere. The wind gusts and releases more from the trees. There’s a gully alongside the path, filled with a few inches of water. Some seeds have been blown by the wind into the runoff. They form clumps on the surface as they are carried away in the slow-moving water.

A seed catches in Pala’s hair.

“Snow,” Maite calls to her, but Pala doesn’t hear.

They step through the park’s gate. There are already children on the playground, and Pala studies them before reaching for her grandfather’s hand to walk over to the hill. Maite follows them to the top and finds a tree trunk to lean against. From this tree, she’ll be able to see Pala all the way down to the edge of the park, and on the playground too, if Pala leads her grandfather there.

Pala pitches forward, briefly on all fours, then sprawls on the ground.

“Are you going to roll down the hill?” Maite’s father asks.

“You roll, please,” Pala responds.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know how. You have to show me.”

She springs up. “You know! You know!”

“I don’t. Teach me how to roll down the hill.”

Pala lies at the top of the hill again, and tips into motion. Her limbs are loose, and her roll is clumsy and slow. She’s not yet halfway down when she stands and falls again, trying to roll faster. Her white leggings, new, are streaked green and brown.

Maite’s father trails Pala’s path, only a few steps behind her. Maite hopes he’s keeping an eye out for rocks that Pala could bump her head on. She wants to look out herself or take her father’s place behind Pala. If she saw any danger ahead, she’d pick Pala up, run. She could run fast, even on her work-swollen feet. She could run faster than anyone for Pala. She imagines running with Pala all the way down the hill, gaining momentum, and flying her out of the park, across the street and beyond, to the good side of town. They’d go to New York, somewhere big, a place where Pala could do anything, where she’d be unharmed.

If they left now, Pala might forget these early years, the last few months. They would have to leave soon, though—her memory is getting stronger, and she’s beginning to track patterns. She knows when Friday is coming, when Friday’s here, when to expect his car in the driveway.

Maite takes off her shoes and socks, folds the socks into a ball and places them in one shoe. She lets herself feel the soles of her feet on the bristly grass. She pulls the grass up with her toes, then gathers the blades and throws them into the air. They do not hover—they fall before the wind can catch them. The blades of grass don’t have the magic of cottonwood seeds.

Pala is tumbling down the hill again, but the hill isn’t steep enough, and she comes to a halt every few rotations. The late afternoon light, glaring, hits Pala’s hair, makes it glow. Momentarily she lies still, belly-up. Her hair has fallen in front of her face, tangled and wild. Watching, Maite holds her shins and pulls her legs close, huddles, hugs.

Pala jumps up to catch her grandfather’s hand, dragging him to his knees. He calls, “Mind yourself! Log coming through,” and waits until Pala backs away, safe, before he begins to roll. Pala takes another cautious step backward, then springs into motion and runs after him.

Maite won’t admit it to him, but she remembers her father took her to this same park, before the playground equipment had been replaced. It must have been only a few months before he left. She was twelve, and was reluctant to play, believing she was too old to be at the playground with her father. She remembers too well.

Watching Pala chase her grandfather down the hill, Maite feels a tickle on the bridge of her foot: an ant. She is momentarily fascinated by its steady crawl, how it wields its antennae like windmills. Then she reacts, shaking her foot violently to free herself from the ant. It falls to the grass, and soon disappears.

Her father has not yet led Pala back up the hill. If Maite called to Pala now, her voice would not carry. She digs her feet into the earth and pushes her back against the tree trunk. She scrapes her heels furiously, and the dirt loosens and allows her to hollow out depressions. She cannot root herself enough.

The sun has not yet neared the horizon. It’ll be light for another couple of hours, but there are fewer children on the playground. Those remaining are much older than those Maite noticed when they entered the park. She can’t see any adults among them. The teenagers cluster near the swings. Their laughs are loud and movements loose. One boy has his arm hooked around the swing’s pole and hangs back carelessly. He looks toward the hill. Pala might not be visible to him. Maite hopes he won’t lead the teenagers any closer to Pala.

Finally, Pala races her grandfather up the hill.

Maite calls to her. “Let’s go home!”

Pala glances over briefly but pretends she doesn’t hear. She bows her head as she runs, her eyes directed to the ground, serious.

Maite cries, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” She pronounces go like goo, as if she’s joking.

“We just got here. Let’s stay a little longer, Mom,” her father says. “Maite, it might be the best day of the summer. Let her play.”

Maite throws her head back to the sky, too blue, and doesn’t argue. Pala recognizes that she has more time, and she pulls her grandfather toward the teeter-totter, which is thankfully far from the other playground equipment and the teenagers. Maite’s father walks slowly, and Pala hangs on his arm, dragging him, giggling, shouting, “Faster, Papa!”

He slows down, and says, “I can’t! You’ll have to leave me behind.”

Pala’s overtaken by peals of laughter. She’s clutching his arm too tightly, refusing to release her grasp. Maite thinks, Let go, let go. One day you may not have a choice.

Maite will tell him he can’t come late for Pala. No, she will tell him it is best if he doesn’t come at all. She fears that his disappearance will repeat, that it’s inevitable.

She’ll tell him today, she promises herself. She’ll send Pala to her room to clean up her toys when they get home. Pala doesn’t clean yet, but she pretends: she will get caught up with playing and won’t try to overhear. Maite will tell him then. She’ll say it doesn’t matter that he is Pala’s only grandfather—she can’t let Pala get attached to someone who eventually won’t be there for her.

But when they arrive, Maite is slow to take off her shoes. Pala immediately leads her grandfather to the kitchen, hands him her drawing, and beams at him as he studies it. Maite can’t bring herself to interrupt their connection. She lets go of her breath, remains silent for one more moment.

“It’s beautiful,” he tells Pala. “Is it a cheetah?”

Pala shakes her head.

“A lion? An ocelot?”

No, no.

It’s a housecat, Maite thinks. It’s the only thing Pala ever draws, for years now. But her father is patient with Pala, and he plays her game and keeps guessing until he gets it right. And when he does, he tries to hand the drawing back to her, but she tells him, “You can have it.”

He bends down to hug her, not apologetically as he did when he greeted her, but fully. Pala steps on his toes to hug him back. She looks toward Maite, waits for her grandfather to pick her up.

◊◊

Natalie Gerich Brabson author photoNatalie Gerich Brabson is a recent graduate of Sarah Lawrence College’s MFA program, and holds a BA in Hispanic Studies from Vassar College. Her fiction has been published in New World Writing and Eunoia Review. In 2017, she received the Go On Girl Book Club Unpublished Writer Award. She lives in Philadelphia, and is at work on her first novel.

 

 

 

Image credit: Rudy and Peter Skitterians on Pixabay

CONSTANCE COMES HOME by David Priest

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

living room with sofa, plant

CONSTANCE COMES HOME
by David Priest

Danielle hated her feet. She hated that the knuckle at the base of each big toe bulged out like a Ping-Pong ball. She hated that if she pressed the pad of her finger against, say, her right foot, it would leave a little oblong mark for full seconds before blood seeped back in. They were always cold, too, but sweated continuously. This was the worst part. It was the reason she wore socks in her own home. Otherwise she’d leave moist negatives of her feet on every hard surface in the house.

But now Danielle was barefoot. She was walking slowly, allowing each foot to light on each tile, one at a time, in Constance’s house. When she closed her eyes Danielle was Constance, with her white pants that boasted a runner’s lithe confidence, confidence that rendered the usual socks unnecessary. Of course, neighbor Constance was really at the gym—Monday/Wednesday/Friday—and daughter Harmony was at school and husband Dorian was working till five-thirty. She had the house for hours.

Here was Danielle—walking tile-by-tile, sitting at the kitchen island, perusing Fitness Magazine, sauntering to the fridge and pulling out a futuristic glass cylinder of sparkling Norwegian water, drinking it luxuriously, savoring the carbonation tickling down her throat. Danielle straightened a picture magnet of the pert young Harmony gripping a platinum-blue tennis racket and resting it on her shoulder—the sinews of her forearm pronounced as if she’d been perfecting her backhand only moments before the photographer had snapped the shot.

Danielle turned, screwed the metallic top back onto the water bottle, and gazed at the rich cream tile floor. In the bay window light, her damp footprints tracked from the front hall to the kitchen like soft gold islands. The tracks led to ten wiggling toes, nails colorless.

Danielle turned to the clock as Constance had probably done countless times while making dinner, waiting for Harmony and Dorian to come bursting in, poised to smile and laugh—activities catalyzed by Mother’s wonderfully aromatic food. Spaghetti and meatballs, a classic, magically infused with joy. Dorian would cup one breast while Harmony looked away, embarrassed by her parents’ carnality. He would nibble her neck in just the way to make her shiver. Danielle shivered.

◊

Danielle’s daughter Julie had screamed the night before. She’d been standing in the center of her pink room, Danielle in the hallway looking in. Husband Bob was downstairs on the couch. In the silence right after Julie’s first shriek (“You’re such a bitch!”), Danielle thought she heard the volume on the television downstairs tick up.

Danielle made herself small. She felt apparitional in the dark hallway. Julie was standing splayfooted, hair mussed, the ceiling light above her purging the room of shadows. One side of her head was shaved.

Danielle didn’t fully understand why Julie was screaming. Mother Danielle had simply expressed concern for her daughter’s romantic possibilities with such a haircut. Dark purple tears were tracing parentheses on Julie’s face, around the “o” of her mouth. It was like some indecipherable text message.

“Why do you even care?” Julie had screamed, fists balled at her sides and torso tilted forward. Danielle thought her daughter looked cartoonish, a mannequin donning adolescent fury.

The teen curled her upper lip—experimentally, Danielle thought. “You’re going to die alone, you know.” Now the girl was aiming for cruel. “But you don’t know. You have no idea. I almost feel sorry for you.”

Be the adult, Dani, Bob had chided some years before, when Danielle had shouted at Little Julie to go to her room. Little Julie had said dinner tasted like dog shit.

The casserole wasn’t worth a fight, he’d said. Be the adult, Dani.

“Julie,” Danielle said now, arms folding, “don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?”

◊

By this time, Danielle knew Constance’s home intimately. She visited twice per week, on Monday and Wednesday, since schedules seemed a bit more fluid on Friday, what with Harmony returning home early to pack for weekend tennis tournaments, and Constance of course pumiced and made-up to drive her daughter counties or states away, as needed, always smiling.

But today (Wednesday) fell in the middle of the workweek when, Danielle knew, most men of the subdivision would be preoccupied amid the routine of eat/work/sleep, and most women’s to-do’s would dwindle to kiddycare, hubbycare, and bodycare. She and Bob were no different, only he stayed late most weekdays now.

Wednesdays were Danielle’s favorite, because she felt the safest in others’ homes. Less chance of being interrupted, of having to slip out a sliding glass door in back as she’d had to do twice before—neither time a Wednesday. But today was not just any Wednesday. Today was special. Danielle could feel it.

◊

The back stairway hair-pinned, a strip of plush carpet rolled directly down the middle of each flight, hugging the contours of each stair, attached with a line of heavy-duty construction staples under each wooden flange and at the crook of each step. Danielle knew the staples were hidden in the carpet’s abundant pile because she’d examined them closely the first time she’d explored Constance’s home.

Danielle was proud of her eye for detail. She went barefoot on these expeditions to memorize the feel of each carpet, laminate, tile. She laid her cheek to each countertop, watched how her breath stayed or dissipated from the marble, the soapstone, the quartz. Danielle could write a book on the empty homes of Court of Spruce, a book only for her.

First floors, for example, tended toward the immaculate, with untouched sitting rooms and wife-kept kitchens. The only rooms that occasionally showed some wear were those the men inhabited—shoes congregating in the corners, plates with crusted-on unidentifiables slid halfway under the couch, video game consoles in the middle of the floor with bundled cords slithering out and toward the televisions. When one visited another’s home (socially, that is), one was almost guaranteed a brief tour, including the controlled mess of the male-inhabited living room (which sometimes even boasted a live specimen before he fled upstairs).

On Wine Wednesdays, for instance, Ilana Burkins made a habit of clicking her tongue in gentle reproof at her eighth-grade twins finishing a shooting game on the TV.

“Boys,” she would say knowingly, and the other women would sigh and roll their eyes.

Boys, men, and their mess were to be displayed, within reason. Danielle knew this, because she’d often seen Ilana’s house six hours prior to Wine Wednesdays, and she knew which rooms were tidied, and which weren’t.

At first, Danielle had found first floors to be of great interest. She discovered pornography stashed in cardboard boxes and external hard drives, sometimes in plain sight. She quickly came to understand that most men on the block watched pornos, and many women were either fully aware or in denial. Bob was one of the few who seemed not to masturbate daily, and Danielle had secreted in her chest both a bud of pride at this revelation and a flowering, prurient captivation with the unfulfilled sexuality in other husbands. Like animals caged, she thought.

With time, though, Danielle tired of the performance of the kitchen, the living room, the entryway. The clearest windows into the life of each house were in the bedrooms.

The second time Danielle had visited Ilana Burkins’ house, she’d found a large, purple and elaborately textured dildo tucked snugly between the baseboard and the mattress of the master bedroom. She looked at Ilana differently for weeks.

While Ilana was out of town, though, Danielle made the discovery that Ilana Burkins wasn’t the one who utilized the tool. It had been moved, recently scrubbed with lavender soap, midway through her vacation. It had to be Husband Alex. Danielle seriously doubted that Ilana was unaware of its presence, and would smile to herself while making dinner, imagining that Alex may in fact have asked his dutiful wife to penetrate him with it. Danielle had to fight back the titters imagining it. She was certain Ilana would comply with any such requests.

The drama reached its pinnacle, though, the week Ilana and Alex celebrated their anniversary in the Caribbean, when Danielle had found the dildo missing from its usual spot. Instead it was tucked haphazardly under the bed of one of the twins. The boy must have fantasized about his vestigially pretty mother using it. The families on Court of Spruce all had such secrets that only Danielle knew.

◊

Constance Jones’ home was the first Danielle visited. This was a year ago now, after Bob had asked whether Danielle still used her gym membership. Realizing he truly wouldn’t notice, she canceled it, leaving two hours of every weekday suddenly unoccupied. She began by reading, picking up a stack of books—mostly romances—from the library and flipping through them while cradled in the front window seat. But she couldn’t concentrate, and so found herself watching the other homes around Court of Spruce. It was like a miniature society, so slickly routined Danielle could unfocus her eyes and the day would pass in moments.

It was nothing at all that started it. Constance’s daughter, Harmony, the last to leave on Tuesday mornings, left a cup of coffee on the roof of her car—a cute European toy made life-size. It slid off the roof, smashing on the street as she raced away.

Danielle walked out to the street, gathered the porcelain shards, and gingerly carried them to Constance’s front door. She knocked, though she knew no one was home. She tried the knob, found the door unlocked. Then, without knowing why, she entered. Closing the door behind her, Danielle realized suddenly that she hadn’t taken a full breath all day, maybe all week. She inhaled the lingering essence of Constance, and discovered it to be the same Sweet Pea perfume Danielle had worn in high school. She recalled holding her wrist to a friend’s nose, the friend breathing and sighing. I like it. When had Danielle started wearing more “adult” perfume, and then just deodorant? She couldn’t remember.

Danielle started testing the doors of all her neighbors, at first bringing long-forgotten borrowed eggs or cups of sugar, then bringing nothing. Only two of the women on the block worked. One, Charlene, had a maid. The other, Breena, couldn’t keep her home clean. When she made it to Wine Wednesdays, she would half whisper her contentment to the other women, her confidence that Husband Barry fully supported her law practice. But Danielle knew Barry didn’t even delete his laptop’s history, which boasted video of busty maids after video of “lonely wives,” grinding against various cleaning and cooking tools. There were no videos, Danielle noted, of sexy lawyers.

The stay-at-home mothers like Ilana had their secrets, too, their weaknesses. Danielle would remind herself of this while staring in the mirror after the evening she hosted Wine Wednesday, where Katerina Fuchs averted her eyes from the kitchen sink, empty but still streaked with grime. How had Danielle forgotten to scrub the sink? Well, thought Danielle, how had Katerina allowed her daughter to get pregnant in college?

Yet in all her time inspecting Constance Jones’ home—two days a week for a year now—Danielle never found anything out of place. Nothing to suggest sexual kinks in Constance and Dorian’s room. No drugs or alcohol or even condoms under Harmony’s bed. Closets were in order, desks were work-only, and computers practically sparkling.

◊

Danielle stood in the center of Constance and Dorian’s room. The carpet was beige, the walls white, the bedding brown with ornate, crème stitching. In one corner of the room a door led to the master bathroom—all marble and frosted glass. On Dorian’s side of the bed (right) lay a short stack of police novels, edges flush. Constance’s side was furnished with a vanity. A gold carousel of jewelry and a makeup bag rested on top.

Danielle felt something click inside her chest, like a clock’s hour hand locking into place. She picked up a glass bottle of Crybaby-Pink polish and hopped onto the bed like she was at a slumber party. She’d always wondered how the bottle would feel in her hand, how Crybaby-Pink would look on her toes. She’d always wanted to lie in this bed. The perfect bedspread broke pleasantly underneath her. She rested her chin on her knee as she layered thick polish in even stripes onto her toenails. She sat back against the pillowed headboard and stretched her toes, worming them in the gentle draft of the A/C.

Danielle could breathe out, reclining on Constance’s bed. This house was calming her. She could always count on that, from the first time until now. Everything was organized, proper. Everything was soft. She pulled the lump of her cell phone from her back pocket and dropped it on Dorian’s pillow. She turned toward the open closet door and began planning the outfit she would put on when her toes dried.

Lying there, Danielle fell asleep.

◊

Last night, Mother Danielle had pulled Julie’s laptop from her backpack and sat in the living room. She decided to read some of Julie’s school assignments. Maybe there she could find some sense in the girl’s behavior. It’d only been a few months of this, of new music, new clothes, new makeup—all darker. Maybe it was just a phase. Or maybe, she thought, mousing through folders on the desktop, it wasn’t.

“Not a good idea,” said Bob, feet on the coffee table, hand on the TV remote.

It’d been a few months since Danielle had inspected her own home, let alone Julie’s laptop, but she quickly found a folder called “School.” She skimmed an essay on the Civil War, on democracy. She read the introduction of an essay on an author she’d never heard of, tried to bite her imaginary tongue, failed, thought, Well, it’s not grabbing my attention. She deleted a comma, exited without saving.

Julie’s door opened upstairs, and Danielle slid the laptop back into place, pulled her knees against her chest, and hugged them.

◊

Danielle’s phone was vibrating beside her head, floating across the pillow as though trying to creep away unnoticed. It was an unknown number. She picked it up.

“Hello, this is Constance.”

“Hello?” A man’s voice. “I’m sorry, I’m looking for Mrs. Danielle Kimpan.”

“I’m sorry,” said Danielle, yawning the sleep from her voice. “This is she.”

The clock beside the bed said 2:20. Constance should’ve been home by now. Danielle stood, surprised by her own calm.

“Your daughter is Julie Kimpan? This is Principal Quinn.” The man covered the mouthpiece of his phone and spoke to someone on the other side. He returned. “I’m sorry to call you, but Julie’s in my office right now. A teacher found her smoking marijuana in a school bathroom. Can you come in today?”

He sounded bored. Danielle could empathize.

“I can’t,” she sat on the bedside, gazing down at her new toes. They looked nice, and for once, Danielle didn’t mind her feet. “Actually, can you call back another time?”

She hung up. After a few moments the phone vibrated again. She silenced it.

Where was Constance? Danielle wondered again at her cool, wondered if it was simply this home, so perfectly composed, that made Constance herself so perfectly composed.

Another part of Danielle nagged. Something was wrong. Then again, Constance was often late. If she met up with friends for a post-workout brunch. If she stopped at the bank or grocery.

But maybe something else had happened. Maybe, maybe Constance was in an accident. Maybe she’d gone to the hospital. Maybe she wasn’t coming home at all.

Danielle yawned again, stretched, and felt her whole body expand. Why worry? She tossed her phone back onto the bed. Who cared where Constance was? She was here.

◊

That morning, Bob had been eating breakfast in his dress shirt and boxers, daubing flecks of egg from his plate with a too-small bit of sourdough. His fingertips were yolky. With the other hand, he scrolled through headlines on his phone, reading them aloud the same way he read signs and billboards as they drove, to fill the silence.

“South Carolina man dives off waterfall trying to save dog,” he said. “New Jersey mom strangles newborn, throws her in garbage.”

Danielle sat beside him, taking slow bites of yogurt, setting her top teeth to drag against the curve of the spoon, her tongue to hollow it out. Suddenly, she realized it’d been weeks—maybe more—since she and Bob had made love. Finishing another bite of yogurt, she scooted her chair toward Husband Bob, and slipped her feet under his thigh to warm them.

“Entitled parents are hurting their kids.” He lifted his leg, pushed her ankles with his yolky hand. “Jesus, your feet are clammy. Put on some socks.”

Danielle waited until Bob left for work, then she went to his desktop to watch porn—perhaps just to leave a single blemish on his history. When she clicked on the browser, a window was already open—an icon for an online document, connected to Bob’s work email. It was titled, “Dear Danielle.” For a moment, she couldn’t think who would’ve written it. To Julie, she was “mom,” and to Bob, she was “Dani.” Yet there it was. She hesitated a moment, then clicked it open.

Dear Danielle, We’ve been married for a long time and it has not been an unhappy marriage but not a happy one either.

Danielle cringed at the punctuation.

I think it would be best if we took some time apart. Julie says it is better to grow up with divorced parents than miserable ones, and I think we are both miserable if I am being honest.

Danielle felt her jaw pop, and realized it was locked shut. She tried to open it, failed.

Next steps might be hard but they are what we must take. We both contributed to the house but I think whoever Julie decides to stay with should keep it.

Son of a bitch. Of course Julie would pick Father Bob, because Father Bob—soon to be Bachelor Bob—let her do whatever she wanted. Fifteen years ago, they’d used Danielle’s inheritance from her dead aunt to put a down payment on this house, and now—now what?

The room began to spin. Danielle gripped the arms of her chair, felt their edges dig into her palm. She squeezed her eyes shut, lowered her forehead between her knees. She tried to breathe, found her lungs weren’t working properly, and ran outside, across the street, into safety.

◊

Constance’s closet was organized by season and color. Across from the monochromatic tones of Dorian’s suits, Constance’s blouses (top rack) and pants (bottom rack) opened up like a box of pastels. On one end of the pants rack was a bureau with the top-drawer half open, bras carefully folded inside.

Danielle shed her clothes in a small pile and walked to the dresser. No pushup bras, she knew. Constance was pragmatic. She fished out a lacy bralette Constance didn’t wear enough and pulled it over her head, cupping her breasts into place one at a time. The underwear drawer remained, as usual, unopened. Danielle slid on a pair of white jeans, sucked in her belly, and buttoned them. She couldn’t wear them as low on her hips as Constance, but she could wear them.

For her top Danielle already knew the tunic she wanted. It matched her toes—a pink, loose fitting, button-up whose translucence whispered of the bra underneath. On Constance, the top hung loose with subtle swells at her breasts and over her bottom. But as Danielle buttoned up in front of the mirror, she thought it fit her better. The buttons at the bosom looked eager to unclasp, revealing a hint of black lace and soft flesh underneath.

Constance’s summer heels were still under the bed. When Danielle looked for them, she realized they had migrated closer to Dorian’s side over the cold months. She circled the bed, knelt, and stretched, hooking two fingers over the straps of a pair of toeless heels. Suddenly she noticed the tearable fabric under the mattress falling strangely: the faint shape of an envelope. New since last week.

Sitting on Dorian’s side of the bed, heels beside her, Danielle turned over in her hands what she’d found. Thick paper. Plain white. Written in tiny, exact print on the front: open alone. The flap looked to have been torn open hastily. She pushed it open and pulled out the card. On the white front, a glittery gold print read Happy Birthday, Daddy! Inside the card was one line, penciled by the same hand as the envelope front: 10:30 in the copy room. -Catie.

That was all.

Danielle’s throat tightened. Dorian didn’t have a second daughter. Little dark-eyed Catie—an intern, Danielle was sure—waiting in the copy room. One lamp would be on in the corner. Her highlighted hair would be teased, playing at her collarbone. A little diamond stud would be tucked in her bellybutton, under that fitted dress shirt and high-waisted pencil skirt.

Danielle snapped the card closed and strapped on her heels, a perfect fit. She stood, a little wobbly at first, and walked to the bathroom. Danielle stared in the mirror at her red-rimmed eyes. She slapped herself, just once. A sharp sting radiated on her cheek before receding into a dull warmth—a cute half-blush, she thought. Danielle turned on the faucet, cupped water, and washed her face.

After she finished, she walked to the bed and picked up the letter, sliding it back into the envelope. As she tucked it into her pocket, she noticed how sexy her heels looked. They were nude leather, and her toes poked out like a pink bouquet, like roses.

She walked down the front stairway, pulling her hair back into a tight ponytail. Someone had left the door cracked, so she closed it. Her heels clicked tile-by-tile down the front hall to the kitchen, Crybaby Pink gloss shining in the light. A glass water bottle was sweating, puddling on the counter. Dorian was always leaving the kitchen such a mess, she thought. She put the water in the fridge.

She walked to the pristine sitting room—where she’d wiped the coffee table and pounded the couches two weeks ago for spring cleaning. The curtain rings squealed on the rod as she let in the sun. Dorian would be home soon. Constance sat on the couch. She folded one leg over the other, reversed them, and set the envelope on the coffee table in front of her, in full view of the front door. She folded her hands. She waited.

◊◊

David Priest author photoDavid Priest is a journalist and a 2018 International Regional Magazine Association (IRMA) Gold Award recipient for Nature and Environmental Writing. His stories and essays have appeared recently in The American Literary Review, Salon, Arkansas Life, Reservoir, Transect Magazine, and elsewhere. He lives in Louisville, KY with his wife, Lindsey, and two sons, Idris and Atticus. In his spare time, he can be found playing board games with his family.

 

 

Image credit: Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

LEAVE NO TRACE by Geri Ulrey

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

LEAVE NO TRACE
by Geri Ulrey

Woman Hiking in forest in California

Sam and Viet stand in his small blue kitchen. Viet has stopped stirring his chard lentil soup while Sam tries to figure out what to do: Three nights a week on the mountain, leading small groups up Whitney, or sleeping out in Alabama Hills, climbing.

I’m doing ok, she says. It’s just I think I should find a room or something, short term.

Viet says, I see what you mean.

Renewing my one-year lease, don’t you agree it’s financially a waste?

Viet says, Yes. It seems that way.

Unless I can be sure I can find a subletter.

Viet says, Move in here.

He keeps stirring, watching the chard shrink. He adds cayenne.

Sam can hear it before he says it: You have practically been living here for two years anyway. We spend nearly every hour together, when you aren’t guiding. Or when I’m not out there searching with my team.

But Viet just stirs the dark green leaves, making sure they get smothered by the hot liquid.

Viet, let’s not—

It’s practical.

He smiles at her, charmed with his own logic and that he got her this time.

He says, Wasn’t that your New Year’s resolution?

Viet, I’m not moving in here.

She says it like it would be succumbing to disease.

Sam moves in close trying to smooth over the hurt and wraps her arms around his middle. She wishes she could take it back.

Sam, what are we doing here?

She nuzzles the back of his neck.

Having fun.

Five years of fun?

Viet, let’s not do this.

She steps forward. If they hug tight enough, they won’t have to talk about this again.

He pushes her away. Then snaps.

Fuck you, Samantha!

Viet picks up the heavy blue pot and moves to the kitchen table where his industrial sized dehydrator sits. He begins to scoop the soup onto the plastic liner of the top tray. He smooths the lumpy soup like he’s spreading pancake dough on a griddle.

◊

Deep on the trail, Sam thinks about that moment. Replays it. Sees it. Hears it.

Fuck you, Samantha.

It’s been four days, and the words still roll around in Sam’s head. With each step up the mountain, her ears still hurt. It’s 9,000 feet up ridges and another 6,000 feet descending down trails. Long feathery pine needles underfoot the entire way.

Firmly, decisively, a warning of sorts, the way a parent tells a child not to do something that might hurt. Don’t go near the edge. Stop right there. Put that down.

Sam breathes out, Fuck you, Viet Tran. Fuck you. She says it out loud. Her words, even the ones in her head, are more sinister than Viet’s words ever could be. In her mind, she hisses, trying to hurt him.

She likes her nomad life.

But what she really wants is to erase Viet’s words from her mind.

Scattered needles crisp and crack under the tread of Sam’s boots. She finds a spot that is neither hidden nor exposed. Perfect. Sam always laughs whenever Viet calls digging a six inch hole into the ground, a cat hole, “the facilities.”

Sam squats all the way to the ground and digs. The underlayer pushes back against her bright orange trowel. Stumps get in the way. She knows the hole must be six inches deep, so she muscles each scoop of pine and gently places the under layer a few inches away from her. The deeper she gets the more hard earth she finds. Pebbles. Tree branches. Twigs. It’s all hard and clumpy.

When Sam pulls her pants down to her ankles, she can hear and then see a shape of a person in the shadows, between the rocks and trees. There’s a bend and a dip before the mound of rock, some fifty feet away on the ridge. Her eyes flutter up it, like a pilot tracing a line of attack, a path in the sky. Then she catches a flash of movement; she knows he or she probably can’t see her; she or he is probably just a weekend backpacker trying to find a spot of privacy.

That’s all Sam wants to find out here too. Privacy.

◊

As soon as a client confirms their trip by making a payment in full, Sam sends an email with a two-page list of needed gear. Nothing is extra. She also sends all her clients one-sheets of the most important technical aspects of using or buying gear. Each sheet describes one important component: how to layer your clothes, how to pack your backpack, how to set up a tent, how to filter water, how to dig a cat hole, pack out your trash, use a wag bag, and the luxury and usefulness of a courtesy bag. When she meets up with the client, she goes through their gear and throws out everything that is unneeded as they bargain with her. All seasoned backpackers know that items worth carrying on the trail, anything worth the weight on your back, cutting into your skin, must have more than one use. You are allowed one luxury item.

Most of Sam’s clients are women, and she resents this. More women request Sam than her fellow senior guides, the male guides. Women like sharing the trail and the summit with other women. They are more comfortable. But they are also more inspired; they like seeing Sam’s superman strength. Sam is a tiny woman and she suspects men don’t like sharing the trail with her because they know she’s stronger than them. She can out-carry, out-climb, out-summit most everyone on the trail. And men, even the novices, the guys from places like San Diego and Burbank and San Jose, who fly in for their Mount Whitney excursions, these men who took days off for their adventure vacation don’t want to be surpassed, helped, encouraged by a woman. Viet likes this part of Sam. Why won’t he accept the rest?

At the bottom of last page of the gear list, marked with asterisks, Sam writes, Nothing on the trail should have only one function.

◊

Sam fills the cat hole with pine needles, pats the ground with her trowel then places a slab of rock on top. She packs out her trash, the toilet paper, wrapping it onto itself and carefully dropping the bundle into a Ziploc, then uses a stick to push it down, making sure to not brush finger to paper. Then she drops the Ziploc into her odor proof NyloPro bag, just a fancy version of a turkey roasting bag, twisting its end, tying it. Even though the cold temperature makes this last step unnecessary, she double bags it. Then she buries the NyloPro deep inside a dark plastic shopping bag with handles, a bag she got from the liquor store in Lone Pine when she bought vodka to drink back home, alone.

Sam stops and listens, watching the sky go dark. She thinks maybe she can see some clouds forming wide sheets. She thinks maybe that storm is coming a little early.

Sam is pulled back and remembers she isn’t alone. Scanning the ridge above she sees the shadows move again and wraps her fingers tight around her black plastic bag. It crinkles loud. She hears needles breaking under her feet.

◊

At camp Sam heats water to a boil and pours it into a Ziploc pouch that holds dinner, dehydrated chard and lemon lentil soup, Viet’s famous recipe. Fresh chard and garlic from Viet’s garden, lemons picked from a friend’s tree in Los Angeles, and organic brown lentils from the Lone Pine market. She remembers the night Viet made this particular batch. They laid in bed for hours, tangled, as a storm came through town.

She scans the sky for more clouds forming.

Sam makes a cup of green decaf tea then heads to bed. She bivvies it tonight, as she does most nights on the trail. She doesn’t like to carry the extra weight of a tent and brings the ultralight shapeless bag instead. She crawls into her cocoon like some animal burrowing into the ground, making a perfect depression into the hard earth. The sack presses onto her, not even six inches from her face. She can smell the nutty green tea aroma on her breath; it reminds her of straw. She falls quickly asleep imagining she is buried deep in blankets, like she did as a kid, under the forts she constructed in her living room.

The sounds of the night swallow her up; tree limbs cracking from marmots or birds or maybe squirrels and of course, the occasional backpacker looking for a spot to pee. She unzips the bivvy hood, keeping it slit open, pulling cold air in. Then she tucks the hood close, wrapping it around her head, snuggling tight, so only her mouth and nose and the very bottom of her cheek bones are exposed. She can feel the waterproof shell against her closed eyelids, scratching her cheeks, burying her chin.

She wakes to what she thinks is someone shining a flashlight on her. What are they doing? Then she thinks, Have the lights been turned on?

No, she opens her eyes and sees through the slit in the bivvy. Millions of stars have come out to brighten the Sierra sky. It’s brilliant. She squints. Then she hears the deep groans of a man snoring. Guttural gasps and grunts that start baritone and rhythmically escalate into a high wheeze, only to start over again in the lower register of grunts, a grumpy old man turning in his bed. Sam knows that sounds near a ridge can play tricks on you. What feels like someone, something, twenty feet away, can very well be over a hundred. She closes her eyes tight and just listens. The grunts are moving. It must be a bear. Snorting. Puffing. It sounds like a zombie making its way through and near her kitchen, the spot where she left her stove and bear canister. Most backpackers know this should be fifty feet away from your tent, so when a bear, like this one, traipses through your camp, it isn’t right where you sleep.

Sam sits up. If someone turned the lights on, for real this time, it would be a comical scene. A grown woman in her bivvy, strapped inside a bag. Helpless, peeking into the darkness, looking for a bear.

There it is. Batting her bear canister with its paws like it’s a soccer ball.

She calls out, politely at first. She doesn’t want to wake any sleeping backpackers that might be nearby.

Shoo. Get. Shoo.

The bear turns and looks at her. Its eyes pick up the light from the stars and sparkle. Two little lights shine back at her.

She yells. Go away Bear. Shoo. Shoo.

The bear makes a low grunt, deep like he’s clearing his lungs from smoking two packs a day. Then he rolls a bit on the sides of his paws, back and forth. He leans forward. Getting the momentum he needs. He finally moves.

Sam remembers the first bear she saw on the trail and how she felt so afraid. That seems so silly now.

Get out of here.

She’s firm. Like a parent to a child.

He takes two slow steps, defiantly. Then jaunts into the dark, forgetting himself. He’s graceful but clearly annoyed. The bear canister was a bust.

Sam sits listening to the cracking earth and tree branches, the far scrapes and grunts, until she imagines the bear settling into some other spot that is more hopeful. So she thinks.

Then there is the rustling of earth behind her, back up the ridge, just ten feet or so away. Her ears are hyper alert. Human steps. Sam twists around, still bundled, and sees two sparkles further from the ground than the bear’s eyes.

What the fuck does this guy want?

Sam is still. Her breathing has stopped and she sits for what feels like ten minutes, watching the eyes. Counting the steps she would need to take to get to her backpack. She imagines where her knife is, in the outer pocket at the top. Then the shiny spots disappear and Sam can see the back of a head moving away from her. She makes out a blue beanie. A green puffy jacket. Sam thinks, Just using the toilet.

Sam waits until she can’t see any more movement or hear any more steps, struggles to unzip the sack at the top, pulls her legs to her and scoots out. She stands, barefoot, wobbling, and takes the five steps to her backpack. She unzips, finds her Swiss Army knife, tucks it into the pocket of her sweater, and bundles back into her cocoon.

Fuck you, Samantha.

At 5:30 a.m., the sun shoots through the thin blue Gortex of her bivvy. Sam stirs for a few minutes. Once she is awake, she quickly pulls her legs out of her cocoon and automatically starts to pack. Everything has its place, and she is nothing if not efficient. She’s packed her bag a thousand times, practicing as if it was a sport, in the dark, half asleep, with altitude sickness, with thick gloves.

She almost forgets about the bear until she gets to the center of her pack, the place for her canister. Sam scans the woods. The backpacker from last night is gone.

She starts thinking she will have to head back earlier than she had planned. She had hoped to spend five nights on the trail; that’s how long it takes for a fight with Viet to rub off.

She can picture her oatmeal at the bottom of the canister, the pita and dried fish Viet made for her last week. It will be a long day back to town without any breakfast or lunch or dinner.

She gives up looking and cinches up her pack, and heads down from where she came. Then, a hundred feet down the ridge, she sees blue tucked inside a brush like a sprouting flower. She feels lucky she spotted it and annoyed with the bear for getting her off track with her day. Today was going to be twenty-five miles with 5,000 feet of gain. She climbs down the hill.

When she gets to the canister it’s slimy as if some alien swallowed it whole and spit it back out. It’s foul but there is food inside.

The mouth of a bear is like a garbage truck, with slime and rot inside his muzzle. It helps Sam that there are animals on the trail more wild than she ever could be. It’s good for her to remember that she’s more than a beast. Sam uses her bandanna and some water, to try to clean the smell away. Her hands are strong, calloused and weathered, and not easily distracted by pain or cold. She rubs harder, rinsing her bandanna between the scourings. She can see bits and pieces of evergreen and dark brown and grey on the transparent blue plastic. Bears put their snouts on everything.

Sam makes quick time to her first break. It’s one of her favorite spots; she calls it the Lazy Boy Junction. She’s a fast, strong hiker, and happily, today, she’s carrying only twenty-five pounds. When she guides she often carries three times this weight. Arriving at an open area overlooking Golden Bear Lake, she takes a seat on one large boulder and puts her feet up on another. She pulls out her stove and pours water into the pot; this time she brought her Jetboil, an all-in-one stove and pot. The sound of the flame is startling in the cold air, a scream in contrast to the silence, the lack of voices except for the one inside. Just as Sam starts to pour the water over the maté she got in Argentina, a head appears from below. It’s a young man, not more than twenty years old, smiling at her. Then another face, not smiling but looking hard.

They stand taking her in. Sam doesn’t move; instead she looks down at her frothy maté then sips long and full, through the silver straw. The young men don’t say anything.

Then the smiling one says, Hey there!

Sam sips once again, still not looking up. Then, deliberately, she meets the friendly man’s eyes and smiles. His face makes her feel more open than she’s felt in days.

Sam says, Hi.

She holds her smile, listens to the wind blow out of her lungs and waits.

The friendly one, he smiles big at her. She notices him look up and down her legs. She can’t tell if he’s checking her out or counting the bruises that pepper her browned skin. Either way, she can tell he’s impressed. When he realizes he’s staring, he politely looks away. She decides he probably assumed, correctly, she’s a climber. He seems to decide this will be a short break with packs. His buddy looks like he will lose steam if they settle in for too long of a break. The friendly one leans against one of the boulders.

The friendly one asks, Where you headed?

I’m not sure. What about you two?

Back over Kearsarge Pass. We’re from the Bay Area, at the end of a two-week trip.

That’s fantastic.

Sam is just as enthusiastic as if he told her he climbed Everest. There is nothing Sam admires more than anyone doing anything in the wilderness.

He adds, You’re the first face we’ve seen in over a week. It’s been awesome.

Sorry?

Oh, no. I think we are both ready for some company. Right?

He gestures to his friend. His friend barely nods.

He asks, You out here alone?

Yep.

Cool. I love solo trips.

Sam watches the less friendly one struggle to pull out a snack from a pocket on his hip strap. He pokes his fingers into the compartment, searching. He finds it, a Cliff Bar, then struggles to tear open the packaging. It’s cold and she can tell that his fingers are unresponsive.

The friendly one looks at his friend with irritation; Sam senses that they’ve been on the trail together longer than even the friendly one can tolerate.

Are you thinking of summiting Mount Keith?

She says, I don’t have a plan yet.

You might see our friend Muir up there.

Muir?

Yeah, John Muir. He’s a bonafide Mountain Man. We met a few days ago. He’s an odd one. From LA.

She smiles at him, charmed.

Well, stay safe out there.

I will.

The less friendly one barely nods goodbye.

Sam listens to the crunching earth of their big boots ripping up the trail.

Then she hears the friendly one shout in her direction.

If you spot Muir, tell him Mike says hello and that he owes me a beer.

Sam says, How will I know it’s him?

The guy with a beard down to his ankles.

Sam watches as Mike and the less friendly one bop away, their heads becoming no more than dots on the horizon.

◊

Sam gets to the summit before dark. Whitney feels like she can touch it. It’s a particularly windy afternoon, and colder than she had anticipated. The clouds are forming broad sheets in all directions. She wonders if it will snow tonight. She pulls out her puffy jacket, feeling glad she brought it, even though it was extra weight. Everything on this trip has been extra. The weight is all luxury items. The silver trimmed maté gourd cup and silver straw, the puffy jacket, the extra two meals, the sea salt chocolate, the red wine. She wants to eat her way up the mountains and feel good, comfortable. She feels desire for something more than what she needs.

She sits on the ground, pulls her legs in tight, wrapping her arms around herself like she’s a little kid, and watches the sunset this way, without moving a muscle. She contemplates staying here tonight. Otherwise she’ll have to scramble back in the dark, but she doesn’t mind. This sunset will make it worth it. She promises herself to make camp the minute it gets too tiring.

Just as she starts to fixate on the light turning pink, a head with a long greying beard comes up over the ridge.

The man’s in his late forties, tall, thin, sunken cheeks, carrying only a clean just-bought lumbar pack, clasped high on his hips. She is stunned; he looks just like John Muir but bright and brand new. His boots are lightweight trekkers. His jacket, shorts, all tell her that he recently got outfitted for this trip. He stands like a metal coat hanger, his gear and layers of clothing draped and hanging on his bones.

He stops, full frame. Center. He’s the first to smile.

She waits for the view to clear, sitting, still. But the man won’t move, he just blocks her view. She can’t tell if he’s catching his breath or waiting for her to be happy to meet him. She makes an effort to smile but wants to be alone.

Once he gets a smile from her he moves out of the way and takes a seat on another pile of rocks. They’ll share the summit and the sunset.

Finally he says quietly, You don’t get this for nothing; you have to work for it.

You sure do.

The spot of gold is getting lower, almost falling behind the highest peak.

You made fast time, didn’t you?

How so?

Well, I saw you back down, packing up this morning. I was probably no less than a hundred feet behind you. Yet, here I am, coming in what? From the look of your feast an hour or so after you? You, such a small thing.

He pulls out some snacks of his own.

He sees she’s got her bivvy out and her sleeping bag an arm’s length away.

You gonna crash here?

Um, I don’t know.

It’s a beautiful spot. If you don’t mind, I’ll join you.

Sam watches him pull out his store-bought dehydrated meal. Some remote form of a bean enchilada. He pours water from a Nalgene into his Jetboil. Turns the igniter. The flame roars into the cold air.

You’ve got a Jetboil too, huh? Thought someone like you would hunt along the way.

Sam doesn’t like all the talk.

He asks, Any chance you’ve got a bow and arrow in that tiny pack?

Sam smiles politely.

Then she closes her eyes, getting lost in the last rays of warmth that hit the skin of her cheeks. It’s going to be a cold night and this is the last bit of heat she’ll feel for ten hours. The best part of being on the trail is knowing that weather will always change. That you can count on.

When she opens her eyes the sun is at its most pink-blue-purple display. That’s why she is here. The sky is always more spectacular after the little gold blob of light passes through the mountains. Once gold is gone, she quickly starts to pack up. There is nothing more for her to see or feel. She wants to be alone.

Leaving?

Yeah, I don’t want to hike out in the dark.

I thought you wanted to camp at the summit. Why else would you arrive so late? Great minds—

I’m taking off.

With the sun gone, Muir bundles up in his fleece sweater, pulling it tighter to his chest.

Then he pulls out his beanie from his pocket.

As Sam throws her pack over her shoulder she says, Well, enjoy your night.

He says, Who knows, if the wind picks up, maybe I’ll see you later tonight, back down on the trail.

She just nods.

He says, I didn’t catch your name?

Sam.

They call me Muir.

Good night.

The light is dimming fast. She doesn’t look back at the grey figure of the man they call Muir. He’s still sitting on the rocks, where she left him, his legs crossed like a child sitting on the ground at school, watching a movie, the movie of the sunset. He uses an orange lightweight spork to shovel store bought, prepackaged dehydrated food into his mouth.

He calls out, Be careful of the bears out there; you’re headed to Bear Alley.

Then he adds, You know how curious they can be.

Sam is usually unafraid of darkness on the trail, but tonight, even as she leaves Muir further and further behind, Sam feels a little skittish. In her ten years of serious backpacking and mountaineering, she’s met some characters, but this Muir stands out. She can’t get the image of him standing on the summit, blocking the sun, out of her mind. She wishes Viet was here. They’d have a laugh. Make jokes about pre-fab food. Viet would know just what to say to take her mind off of today’s creepy John, John Muir.

Sam misses Viet with an ache so strong she thinks, Viet I love you. First she says it quietly in her head, then out loud. Then a yell. Who yells I Love You into the dark?

Without a moonrise, Sam struggles to see her feet on the ground and her hands at her face. She worries she’ll trip on a small boulder protruding from the earth, so she slows her pace to a crawl. Tired of waiting for the moon to rise, Sam bivvies it, nearly a hundred feet from the trail. If Muir decides to come down tonight, he’ll have to work to find her in the dark wood. She figures he’ll get bored and carry on.

Sam falls asleep listening for crunches, snaps, and pops.

In the morning, she wakes when a cloud covers the warmth of the sun. Sam opens her eyes and sees it isn’t a cloud at all but a wall, a tall wall standing above. It’s Muir, the bearded man from Los Angeles who likes to section-hike on the weekends.

Really? she thinks.

But instead of screaming, Sam calmly says, Hello.

Muir smiles big. Hey there, good morning.

Sam rolls away from him and pulls her legs out of her bivvy. She’s wearing neon-blue long-johns. Her torso peeks out, exposed. She peers up at him and tilts her head.

He holds his Jetboil in the air. It looks like a hot air balloon blocking out the sun.

Want some hot water? I made extra.

Her brain clicks on. She scoots away from him.

No, thanks. I’m good.

You were so far off from the trail, I had to really look to find you.

She begins to quickly pack up. She opens the top pocket of her backpack and feels for her knife. It’s right where it should be.

Getting an early start?

Yeah, should head out. Meet my friend. He’s expecting me midday. You know how boyfriends can get worried.

He watches her as she tightly shoves her soft belongings in the bottom of her pack.

He says, Don’t want to set you off track or anything.

Then he says, Ok then. Have a great day.

He starts to walk off, away from her. She feels a sense of relief.

Just as her insides relax, she turns to see the man reach into his pocket and pull out his blue beanie. An alarm goes off inside Sam’s gut. She remembers the blue beanie in the dark, the first night on the trail.

She doesn’t even finish packing. She gathers what she can in her hands and just shoves the rest in her pack and the pockets of her pants. Back on the trail, she travels in the opposite direction of Muir. Once she gets several hundred feet between her and him, she picks up her pace.

Sam moves swiftly, sucking in thin air fast.

◊

Sam arrives at a clearing where she can see Golden Bear Lake further down. She thinks, This is far enough. He’ll never catch up now.

Aquamarine blue water lies below. Closer, it’s even more beautiful. A crater on another planet with gold and yellow rings of mineral deposits. For the first time, she pulls out her camera and snaps a few photos. She thinks about how she’ll show them to Viet. Muir is a fading image. So is the blue fleece beanie on his head.

It’s so calm. Peaceful in the Sierras. A red streak of embarrassment shoots through her. She thinks, Sam, you overreacted.

She marches on towards the alpine lake. The trail gets looser and looser, until it’s just scree. She starts to foot plunge down the side of the mountain, off trail, like she’s skiing on rocks.

Once down the mountain, Sam heads to the edge of the lake and follows the use trail for half a mile. Then she takes a sharp turn off trail and meanders deeper into the wilderness, into the thickness of the trees. Viet will have to wait. She’ll head home tomorrow.

◊

At dusk Sam decidedly heads into the densest patch of forest. No one is around. No crackles. No pops. She makes camp, crawls into her bivvy, pocket knife in hand, open, just in case. She lies awake thinking about Viet in his kitchen saying, Fuck you, Samantha.

Her Swiss Army knife presses against her thigh as she drifts asleep feeling Viet’s arms wrapped around her middle, wishing she hadn’t said what she said. Wishing Viet hadn’t said what he said.

Suddenly she feels something scratchy on her cheek. Hair? Fur? Fuzz? Maybe this is a marmot? Or a bear? Or a squirrel? A fox? Something she’s never felt before yet familiar.

She doesn’t move. Or open her eyes. Just scratch. She says a prayer deep inside her head, a prayer that this will go away. A dream. A fantasy. The space between waking and sleeping. Then she feels warmth under the fuzz, then skin. She hears the breathing. Every exhale is more warmth. She starts to scream, but a hand covers her mouth. Even if she could, no one would hear her. She focuses on the warmth. She only sees black. Two darts of white pass next to her, out of focus and surreal. Why?

Weight on her. Ground pressing up. She can’t breathe. She scoots deeper into her bivvy. She’s protected, for now, by three layers: Gortex shell, fleece and wool.

Wet tongue licks. More scratchy fuzz.

Then, Sam feels the hard metal of her knife, pressing against her thigh. She remembers that she went to sleep clutching the thing, worried about any unwanted visitors.

She starts to writhe, involuntarily, but focuses her mind on the hard metal next to her. She is trying not to squirm. She doesn’t want to give it away. Big hands grope at her breasts. She focuses her full attention. This moment has become the most important activity of her thirty-five years of life. Why didn’t she practice this before now? His breath smells like whisky. She tastes salt. It’s his skin. She’s repulsed and then surprises herself. She bites. Down. Hard. Feels warmth. Tastes metal. This last step, she has practiced before. Sparring. And in the first self-defense class she took, as a teen. He flings his face away from her. Just far enough. She finds leverage. Hits with her arms from underneath the bivvy. Hard. She gets a good blow in with her elbow. Her hand grips tight on the knife. Plunges. Stabbing past the shell. Softness. An arm? His side?

Muir cradles his middle. She doesn’t know what happens next, but the two of them are rolling, fumbling, scratching. Contorting. She pulls her legs out of the bivvy, somehow, and gives him a good judo kick. How dare he. Then another, until he’s crawling away from her, like an animal. He makes a deep sound like a beast in a trap, moaning, trying not to spill his pain. She keeps kicking him, conscious of the edge of the hill with the loose ground.

Muir twists and she’s not sure if he is retreating or losing his footing. Then he slips and falls, almost off the side of the hill, and trips a few feet downwards but manages to hold on.

The scene erupts into stillness. She watches him. Shadows and movement crawling on the rocky ground, just a few feet below the edge, a hurt animal, pulling itself to the curb of the freeway as the car drives away. He is crawling his way back up to her. On all fours. Clutching his arm.

Sounds pierce through the low hissing wind, scratches, like a rat scraping on the insides of a cave.

Sam still feels warmth and tastes metal in her mouth.

She spits.

Muir struggles to stand. The cliff is just behind him.

Fuck You, Bitch!

And then he slowly teeters, like a tree swaying in the wind. Falling. The man rolls away. Over the ridge. She watches in disbelief. She rushes to the edge and watches as his form is swallowed by the shadows. She hears the rustling of rocks and body hits against dirt and boulders.

It’s an easy incline, but still definitely the side of a mountain, and Muir is lost from her view. She finally hears what sounds like a mass toppling down far, far below. Slowly. Surely. She squints her eyes and sees a round figure that looks like a bag of laundry, slowly tumbling. Big chunks of rock dislodge. Small boulders. Dirt. The hillside shifts and moves, follows him down, like trains of a coaster. Then quiet except for the sound of his gurgled breathing, but sound travels far in the quiet Sierra night. It’s as if he is breathing in her ear. Then there is nothing at all but the low hiss of wind in the trees.

For the first time, she hears her own breath. It is fast. Shallow. As if she sprinted a 100 and left it all on the course.

The mass below starts to move again. Then stops. Sam’s chest expands. Contracts. Muscles in her middle get away from her. She can’t slow it down. She sucks in thin air as if through a straw. Is she hyperventilating?

Then Muir is quiet. She waits. Listening. Nausea shoots through her stomach into her throat. She might throw up.

Instead she runs. For how long, she’ll never know, but when she stops the air is suddenly cold. It’s too dark to see. She only can smell musty browns and greens, damp dark earth, listens to the owl in the redwood above her, feels a bed of pine needles prick and cut into her naked toes.

Geri Ulrey author photoGeri Ulrey’s creative nonfiction has been published in Gulf Coast and The Carolina Quarterly. Her essay “13th & B” was a Notable in Best American Essays 2016. Geri is a writer, filmmaker, and educator living in Los Angeles and is currently at work on her first novel. Author photo by Thouly Dosios.

 

 

 

 

Image credit: Ivana Cajina on Unsplash

FIRE HAZARD by Patrick McNeil

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

FIRE HAZARD
by Patrick McNeil

red fire hydrant

Hot, back in the corner of the coat closet you find it, right where you knew it would be. Pull it out with both hands, it’s a lot heavier than you expected. Dad said never to touch it, but who knows when he’s coming back this time, and what else are you supposed to do on a day like this? Show it to your sister, how it gleams in the light let in through the screen door. Stand it up, it comes up to her chin.

“Dad’s giant wrench. Can I hold it?”

Laugh at her. “It’s bigger than you are.”

“So are you, but I could still toss you.”

She’s been a brat all morning. So have you, kind of. The AC is out again and the heat makes everything a lot less bearable, even yourselves. Especially yourselves. She’s nine-and-a-half. You’re eleven. And two inches taller.

“Just get the door.”

Nellie gets the door and follows you out, barefoot. You’d think she would learn. Don’t remind her about the street.

It’s so heavy you have to stop on the porch to catch your breath, and to wipe the sweat off your forehead before it runs into your eyes. Out here there isn’t even a breeze. You look down the steps a second too long and Nellie doesn’t miss a beat.

“Having second thoughts, big guy?”

“Shut up. Help me down with it.”

Walk it down awkwardly together and across the front yard. Putting her first foot down onto the street, though, Nellie yelps and hops back to the sidewalk, dropping her end banging onto the ground.

“I told you get your flip flops.”

“You did not.”

And who is it walking up to you now but Barbara’s old, newsy self from two doors down. She’s wearing the same fuchsia swishy jumpsuit she always wears, whatever the weather. It could be snowing or it could be a hundred and two with the heat index, like they said it was today. Even so, not a bead of sweat is coming down from her hairline. How is that possible?

“And just what are youse thinking of doing with that?”

It’s Nellie who has an answer, of course it is.

“We’re thinking of minding our own business with this, thank you, Miss Barbara.”

“You little bad-behind kids. That’s a fire hazard, you know.”

“This whole day’s a fire hazard,” says Nellie.

“You know that’s how the house on Cedar burned down, don’t you? Youse kids need to take a walk to the pool.”

“You need a grownup for the pool,” says Nellie. “You want to take us, Miss Barbara? My brother doesn’t think you swim in that swishy suit, but I think you do.”

Yell at her now to go inside. “Get your flip flops.”

Nellie smiles wide at Miss Barbara and then runs back up the steps.

Miss Barbara waits till she’s gone to give you a long look. “And just where, now, is your mother? On a Saturday, too.”

Tell her your mom works Saturdays now. There’s another moment then, and inside of it she decides not to ask about your father. What does she know? More than you, probably. The sun is hitting you hard on the top of the head and the sweat is starting to drip into your eyes. It’s you that blinks first, then.

“Well here’s what I’ll say. I’m off to run a errand. But if youse are still out here with all that when I get back, I’m calling in a report. Your mother doesn’t need that, you know. That’s the last thing she needs, we both know that.”

That’s what makes up your mind, the threat in there, against your mother. That’s the thing that, once she’s gone and you’ve carried your father’s enormous wrench across the street and fitted it onto the nose of the hydrant, when Nellie says to wait a second, what if it really is a fire hazard like Miss Barbara says—that’s the thing that makes you say, “Fuck Miss Barbara.”

Nellie covers her mouth at the word.

Crank down on that thing with all your weight—it’s just enough, you can feel it when it gives, when the water rushes up and bursts out the nose and sends the wrench clanging across the street. Within ten minutes every kid from the neighborhood is out running through the spray, no way to put it back now.

And if the unthinkable happens? If later that night it’s your own house that catches fire, and the firemen can’t save a thing because the hydrant’s tapped dry? If Miss Barbara was right? If your mother comes home to the blaze and pulls out her hair and calls you the exact son of your father.

“He would burn down our home tomorrow to play hero for today.”

Swallow back the thing in your throat. Breathe, think. Could you even close the hydrant now, even if you wanted to? With all that water bursting out? With everyone out and playing in it now? A lot of the kids are older than you, and everyone’s laughing and all of a sudden it’s enough to make you want to cry, but you can’t do that. Watch the way it rainbows in the sunlight, feel the mist on your face. The way Nellie runs through it again, watch until she’s shivering in it, till her lips are blue, and breathe. There. Whatever comes next, at least there was this. There will always be this, how every time another kid shows up, Nellie makes it a point to brag to them through chattering teeth who it was that opened up the water.

“It was my brother.”

See her point?

“See him there, the one with the huge wrench? That boy is my brother.”

Patrick McNeilPatrick McNeil is the organizer of Philadelphia’s own Backyard Writers Workshop and the founder of the Writers Retreat in Tufo, Italy. His fiction and nonfiction has appeared in The Fourth River, Philadelphia Stories, The Head and The Hand’s Chapbook Series, and more.

 

 

 

Image credit: Pixabay

A LOVELY AFTERNOON by Tom Lakin

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

A LOVELY AFTERNOON
by Tom Lakin

New England white church in autumn

We sat three abreast in hard white pews. At our backs, an open door laid rectangles of sun on the salt-smoothed pine floor. It was an old Puritan church—Built in 1772, read a small plaque by the door. You could tell: the ceiling was crossed with bare beams, the floor was hard and cold. As a boy, I’d been brought to the church from time to time for a service, usually the wedding or funeral of a summer neighbor. I recalled the starkness of it, the chilly severity. Across the street, at the base of a hill that sloped down to the ocean, my mother’s ashes lay beneath a weathered stone.

The pastor climbed to the pulpit. He was a short, round man whose redly perspiring face put me in mind of a carnival barker or the proprietor of an adult video store. I pictured him sweeping back a curtain of beads, beckoning me into a dimly lit room. We waited for him to speak. He labored over a sheath of papers; the pages stuck to his fingertips, caught and tore. From the chancel a portrait of my father, whom I hadn’t spoken to in years, regarded me with stern blue eyes and a curling grin.

“Well,” the pastor said finally, cupping the back of his neck with a fat red hand. “I don’t quite know what to say. I knew John, but not well. Frankly, I was shocked by the invitation to speak today—”

Here he paused and shuffled his papers. One page slipped from the lectern and floated to the floor.

“Like I said,” he said, adjusting his glasses, “I don’t really know what to say.” He trailed off.

The fifteen of us gathered before him—cousins, a brother and sister, a couple of my father’s summer friends—stared with open mouths. Into mine flew a mosquito, buzzing hysterically. Up front, my aunt stood in a rage, harrumphing into her program, the pew door swinging shut with a clack.

It was then that the first ghost appeared—my father’s older brother Steven, wearing a dentist’s white coat and a pair of polished loafers. He stood by the open door, shimmering slightly, his face vaguely drawn and lacking the ruddy flush he’d had in life. My aunt sat down.

Sneering, Steven strolled to the pulpit, shuffling the pastor aside.

“If no one else is going to say it, I will,” he began, his chin jutting, glasses low on the bridge of his narrow nose. “My brother John was a royal prick, as all of you know. Let’s not pretend he wasn’t now, just because he’s dead.” A brief moment of stunned silence gave way to assenting murmurs and a few vigorous nods.

“There wasn’t a kind bone in his body,” Steven went on. “When we were boys, he used to torment me in all sorts of different ways. One time, here at the shore, we were swimming out by the dock and he held me under until I thought I would drown. When I came up in a shower of spray, there he was, bobbing nearby like a seal, laughing his head off. I don’t think there was anyone in all the world who really liked him.”

As if to answer his claim, there came then a parade of ghosts, some familiar and others unknown to me, materializing with a kind of fizzy static, like an old TV turning on. One by one they ascended the chancel and took the pulpit. There was Chet, our old gardener, wearing coveralls and a work cap. John was the cheapest sonofabitch I ever met,” he said, shaking a trowel at us. “He used to tip me with handfuls of change. Change!” Jeffrey, my father’s longtime driver, said they’d never exchanged more than a couple of words in all their years together. “He’d just sit there in the backseat, reading the newspaper and grunting that low grunt of his. Occasionally I’d ask him a question, just to break the silence, but he’d peer at me over his glasses and shake his head.” A woman, who introduced herself as Mrs. Watson and claimed to have taught my father in the first grade, said he was the worst student she’d ever had. “His spitballs were monstrous. He picked on all the other kids and once peed in the broom closet.”

“He was a horrible boor,” said Cynthia Mix, a neighbor.

“A crook,” said Neil Coughlin, a customer at the bank.

“The worst kind of drunk, that man,” said Jimmy, who tended bar at a club in the city. Nobody knew his last name.

The ghost of the family dog trotted to the pulpit then, limping a bit on his left side. “He used to kick me,” the spaniel growled, gesturing with a hazy paw. A gasp went up from the crowd. “He’d shout and swat at me with the paper.”

I stood to offer my own take—a story had come to me in the pew, a long-ago memory of my father cursing at me on a sailboat—but just then a particularly lanky ghost glimmered into view by the open door. We all turned to look, and I was shocked to see my younger brother Tim, wearing khakis and a flannel shirt, a pencil behind his ear. He was tall and rangy, just as he’d been in life. He looked like a ballplayer, a shortstop with three-day stubble and a dirty uniform, a gaggle of bright-eyed gals waiting for him after the game. His shirt hung open at the neck, his shoes were loose at the sole. He’d been killed in a car accident at nineteen. Drunk, he’d missed a turn and crashed into a tree. My father had showed up soused to the funeral, his blazer wrinkled and his breath sweetly stinking.

“It’s strange,” Tim said in a sort of windy voice, faint and much lower than the one he’d had when he was alive. We leaned forward in our pews, straining to hear. “I’ve forgotten all the bad things. All of ‘em. It’s only the good stuff I can remember now.”

He walked toward us, palms hanging open at his sides. “Dad at Christmas, tinsel draped over his arms, the strands glittering like slivers of glass. His back to us, that broad, sloping back. He’s dwarfed by the tree, its boughs sagging under the weight of gold and silver balls. A drink in his hand, he sways, dances a little jig, laughs—a sound like pealing bells. That’s the kind of thing I see.”

He was looking at me now, his eyes soft. I fidgeted in the pew. The other ghosts grew quiet; the dog slunk toward the door.

“I see him in his workshop,” Tim went on, “bent over an elegant figurine—a fisherman in a pair of painted yellow waders, a toothpick rod at his side. A bare bulb casts the room in a copper glow. Dad’s canvas slacks are covered in shavings. Little curls of wood litter the concrete floor. You—” he raised a flickering hand in my direction—“are beneath him, playing by his feet. From time to time you sneak a shaving into your mouth, and, silently, without glancing up from his work, Dad reaches down and plucks the curl from where you’ve hidden it in your cheek.

“I see him on the boat, sunglasses hiding his eyes, a gust tugging his hair to the sky. I see him in the yard, at the hardware store, striding up our brick front walk. I see his work gloves hanging from a nail in the garage—the coarse leather, that close grassy smell that never seemed to wash off.”

“I can see him on the night I was born, Danny.” Tim was talking directly to me at this point, as if nobody else was in the room. “Isn’t that strange? I can see everything now. It was a cold night in October. You’re all at the hospital. Mom’s in bed. You’re in a chair outside the door. Dad’s pacing the hallway, his hands in his hair. His shirttail’s hanging out, there’s a dark oval of sweat across his back. He’d come straight from the office; Jeffrey ran three red lights and nearly wore out the horn on the way. Suddenly there’s a commotion in the hospital room. The doctor is hollering, a pack of nurses streams through the door. You can’t see anything from your chair, but you can hear the tinkle of medical instruments, the bark of raised voices. You press your ear to the door, straining to listen.

“After a time, the clamor dies down, replaced by cries of another sort. Then the door opens, and you feel a warm hand on your shoulder. ‘Danny,’ Dad says, ‘come meet your brother Tim.’ Dad’s hand trembles; his shirtfront is soaked with sweat. Inside, you creep to the bed, where Dad scoops me from Mom’s chest and hands the bundle to you. Our parents watch as carefully you rock me side to side and attempt a small kiss on my damp forehead. You grin, the nurses applaud, Mom’s doctor claps Dad on his huge back. He looks at us there and softly shakes his head. His eyes are wet with tears.”

Tim’s face flickered then, but still I could see his sad smile, his tender eyes. His words had torn loose something inside me; I felt it as a kind of jangling in my belly, a thawing of innards I’d let chill a long time. I leapt to my feet and ran to where he stood. I wanted to hold him, to clutch his stubbled neck, to shout that I remembered, I remembered, oh, I remembered it all!

The night Tim died, I was home from college on spring break. I’d come home the week before, and we’d spent most of our time together fighting over one thing or another: his clothes (shabby, unwashed), his hair (long), his cadre of shady friends. Mostly I chided him about his recent decision to drop out of the local community college he’d been attending for the past couple of years. Not once did he get angry with me; in that way he was the opposite of Dad. Instead, while I ranted and raved, carped and cajoled, he merely smiled that curling little smile of his and shrugged, eyes twinkling, and sidled toward the nearest door.

That night he’d fled an argument about laundry, of all things. He’d been throwing his clothes in with mine, and as I was the only one of us who actually knew how to run the machine, I’d grown sick of finding his ratty jeans tangled with my pressed khakis. I told him so by depositing a pile of still-wet clothes on his pillow, and then trailed him into the kitchen when that failed to elicit what I deemed a sufficiently contrite response. I harangued him all through dinner, and by the time our mother brought out the dessert—chocolate pudding, Tim’s favorite—I’d all but chased him out of the house. “Okay, okay,” he called finally, waving his napkin in surrender. “I give up. Uncle. No more laundry. I’ll do it myself, I promise.” Then he peered at me strangely, squinting at a spot on my chest. “Wait, Danny, I think you’ve got something on your shirt—” He pointed, and when I looked down, he catapulted a spoonful of pudding onto the collar of my cable knit sweater.

It was a footrace to the door. Always the faster runner, he beat me by an arms-length and disappeared laughing into the night. I heard the car start, and watched from the doorway as he pulled onto the road with a whoop. He idled at our yard’s edge, one arm slung out the window, a grin on his face. For a moment he simply sat there, smiling at me through the open window. A streetlight washed him in a silver glow. I said nothing, just crossed my arms and glared at the bright bar of his teeth. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to think better of it and instead leaned back and laughed—a buoyant, boyish sound. He threw a little wave, then he gunned the engine and roared off into the dark. I stood awhile in the doorway, wondering what he’d been about to say. When the streetlight clicked off, as it did each night at nine, I turned and stomped back into the house.

The knock came just after midnight. A young officer, his cheeks frosted with peach fuzz, blue cap in hand. In a splintering voice he told us. The car, the tree, the bottle of Wild Turkey found in the grass. His eyes, fringed with dark lashes, were aimed at the ground. My mother’s wails drew neighbors into the side yard, where they stood huddled in terrycloth bathrobes, slippers slick on the dew.

We slept that night on the floor of Tim’s bedroom. We dragged sleeping bags to the foot of his bed and tossed fitfully beneath posters of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Jack Kerouac and Billie Holiday. My mother and I on either side of my father, his enormous arms hugging us close. At some point in the night I awoke to the sound of him weeping—great heaving sobs that caused his chest to tremble under my reclined head. I stayed absolutely still, listening. It was the first time I’d heard him cry. My own undershirt was wet with sweat and tears, but his sorrow—fierce, elemental—seemed another thing entirely.

Back in the churchly gloom, all at once I realized I too was crying. Tears soaked my necktie, chilled the bare skin at my collar. By the open door, Tim’s ghost stood quivering in the spilled daylight, his edges already beginning to melt away. I became frantic, desperate to keep him from leaving. I leapt for his hands, for his waist. I threw myself at his vanishing feet, shouted for him to wait, to stop, to stay, but my hands passed through his retreating body like vapor.

“Tim!” I screamed as he withdrew toward the doorway, his form now little more than a flickering disturbance in the heavy air. “Tim, what was it you were going to say that night in the car? Before you left, before you—before you drove away. You were about to say something. What was it?”

I’d wondered for so long; it haunted me, that pause, that wordless empty void. I had to know, I’d never stopped needing to know.

Tim turned, and his face fizzed back into focus for a moment. I could see his eyes, vivid and gray like new nickels. A kind of hush came over the church. Even the birds outside seemed to stop their chirping. Total silence descended. I implored the line of his mouth to fill it with sound.

And then, before I could take another breath, there it was: that slanted grin, that brightly curling smile. No noise, not a word. Simply the smile—the same one he’d beamed at me that night in the bedroom, at the dinner table, from the idling car. The same one I’d seen so many times on his face, on the face of my father. The same smile I wore now, kneeling on the hard church floor, grinning up at a ghost.

We stayed like that for an oddly frozen moment—it seemed timeless, eternal, but was probably only a couple of seconds—and then Tim turned and whistled for the spaniel, and it rose from its spot by the pulpit and trotted to his side. My brother waved and the dog gave a hollow bark, and then together they stepped through the doorway and were gone.

The other ghosts filed out then, in a cloudy curving line—Steven and Jeffrey and our cranky neighbor Cynthia Mix. At the doorway each vanished with a little fogburst and a sound like a pulled zipper, leaving a wake that smelled of woodsmoke and the sea. The rest of us stood and followed them out. The day was bright. Bells chimed from the steeple, gulls called to each other across the sky. It was a lovely afternoon.

Tom Lakin Author PhotoTom Lakin is a writer from Boston. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative, Pleiades, Ruminate, Pembroke Magazine, and Lunch Ticket, among others. He is the recipient of Pleiades’s 2018 G. B. Crump Prize in Experimental Fiction, and his work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Tom holds an MFA from Emerson College, where he was a full-tuition fellow.

 

 

Image credit: Public Domain Pictures

GHOST PRINTS by Emily Lackey

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

GHOST PRINTS
by Emily Lackey

multiple exposure image of a woman against an outdoor background with a silhouette image and flowers

Children always follow the mother. That’s what my mother always used to say. And it was true for my sister Kelly and me. Every time our worlds fell apart, we would end up in our mother’s kitchen, washing the dishes and sitting at her pockmarked table until light returned to the world, sometimes just at its edges. Even after so many years, what my mother said was still true. How else could I explain why I visited my mother every day once she moved into a nursing home? How else could I explain why my oldest daughter, April, followed me there too, coming every day after her twelve-hour shift ended and refilling my mother’s cup with water and thickener so she wouldn’t choke? We took turns, the two of us, stirring the pureed food the underpaid dining staff delivered on plates, adjusting my mother’s legs on the pillow we propped under them, and righting her head that, lately, seemed too heavy for her neck.

What my mother’s adage didn’t explain, however, was why my youngest daughter, Caitlin, had decided to move three states away to go back to school and really invest in her work as an artist. Caitlin would say that she moved away because her therapist, Rebecca, said she needed to start making decisions for herself for a change, but who knows. What Rebecca said to my daughter in the privacy of her vanilla and cinnamon scented office was doctor-patient privilege, so I don’t know if any of that was true.

“Do you think I should call Caitlin?” I asked April. She was spooning pureed turkey into my mother’s mouth, opening her mouth wide as if to demonstrate. “She looks worse today, don’t you think?”

“She looks fine,” April said, scraping a spill from my mother’s chin and bringing it back for a second try.

Before the nursing home, I barely saw my mother. She was always out of town or busy running errands or hiking in the woods or, toward the end, letting the phone ring and ring forever without picking up. But all it took to finally convince me that she needed help was one surprise visit and a hole burned through the door of her microwave. When I asked her what had happened, she said she didn’t know, that she lost a few days in there somewhere.

The decision was easy after that. It was easier having her here where I knew she was being taken care of. Plus I could see her whenever I wanted, which very quickly became every day, partly out of guilt and partly because I liked making her room feel like home, lugging bins of seasonal decorations into the nursing home every few months and sitting with her during craft time so she wasn’t so alone.

Craft time was my favorite time. After a few years in the nursing home, my mother had stopped participating, but I would still cut out the orange leaves and pink hearts and blue eggs and spread the backs of whatever holiday-themed shapes we were making with glue so that all my mother had to do was hold them in her hand and stick them just about anywhere. Most of the residents left their art projects on the table when they were done, but I took each of the things my mother made home. I lined them up in every room, until, eventually, my house was full of snowmen made from painted tomato cans and turkey headbands cut into the shape of my mother’s hands.

I didn’t know why April couldn’t see what I saw—how my mother’s physical state was getting worse every day—but it was the thing we fought about the most. Some days I asked April more than once if she thought today was the day, if I should call Caitlin and tell her to come home, because it was really happening this time, wasn’t it? My mother was really dying.

“She’s still eating,” April said. “People who are dying don’t eat three meals a day.”

“She’s barely eating,” I said, which was partly true, because she had been losing weight consistently ever since she moved into the home, even though she sometimes devoured an entire plate of dessert without ever seeming to chew. The other day April brought a chocolate milkshake from McDonald’s that my mother sucked down without stopping to breathe.

But the next day the nurse handed me my mother’s weekly report and it said she had lost 2.7 pounds.

“That’s almost half a pound a day,” I said to April when she arrived, holding the paper out like some sort of proof. “I’m calling your sister.”

“Fine,” April said, tossing the report on the radiator. “But she’s not going to come.”

“Why wouldn’t she come?”

“It’s mid-terms,” April said. “She’s busy.”

April didn’t have to remind me how busy Caitlin was. Every night I scrolled through the column of unanswered text messages on my phone that I had sent her in the weeks since we last spoke. Some nights I would calculate the time in between timestamps like a checkbook that wouldn’t balance.

“She’ll come,” I said, lifting a forkful of mashed peas to my mother’s mouth. She kept her mouth firmly shut.

“Here,” April said, bringing a spoonful of cherry pie to my mother’s mouth, and my mother’s blue eyes widened when she wrapped her lips around it.

◊

It had been fewer than twenty-four hours since I called Caitlin and left a message telling her that this was it, that she needed to come, and then there she was, standing in the doorway to my mother’s room while April changed her sheets, looking too afraid to come in.

“Mom?” she said. It wasn’t that long ago that Caitlin called me “Mommy,” but when she started seeing Rebecca every Tuesday at 1 p.m. that all changed.

I rushed over to her and wrapped my arms around her full waist. “You still smell the same,” I said, burying my nose in her neck. Caitlin always smelled like line-dried laundry and a specific kind of fabric softener that I never could find. One Saturday I spent an entire afternoon in the detergent aisle, unscrewing caps and trying to find the one that smelled exactly like her.

Caitlin pulled away.

“Mom,” she said. “Please.”

I stepped back.

“How’s grandma?” she asked.

I gestured toward my mother who was sitting in her chair, more shriveled and frail, I thought, than ever before. Last week they determined she was a fall risk, which meant now there was a cord clipped to her shirt that sounded an alarm every time she tried to stand. “Doesn’t she look terrible?”

Caitlin didn’t say anything. She took a step into the room.

“Hi, Grandma,” she said.

“She can’t hear you from there,” April said, waving Caitlin over to stand by her side.

It was rare to see April and Caitlin together. How long had it been? Four months? Five years? That was probably my fault. Wasn’t everything the mother’s fault? I imagine that’s what Rebecca said in her sessions with Caitlin, even though she didn’t know that it was really because of the age difference—seven years—that they were so distant. That and the fact that they had spent so much of their lives living apart. They were never close like my sister and I had been. Until the day she died, Kelly and I were inseparable, inextricable.

I didn’t know what was worse: thinking about how much better my sister would have been at caring for my mother if she were still alive, or thinking about how much my mother would have preferred to be cared for by my sister. It was true, I was sure of it, because on the rare days that my mother spoke, she always called me by my sister’s name.

“I’m not Kelly,” I’d say loudly in her ear. “I’m Laura. Kelly died, remember?”

One time, when I was running late, I found April and my mother in the reading room, talking up a storm.

“Remember that time we drove to Syracuse in that snowstorm?” I heard my mother say. Except it hadn’t been April she had driven with, it had been Kelly.

“I do,” April said, putting her face close to my mother’s.

“What was that play you were in?” My mother squinted her eyes and tried to remember.

I walked over to them quickly and put an end to it.

“April, stop it,” I said. “She thinks you’re Kelly.”

“So?” April said.

“So you’re confusing her.”

“What does it matter as long as she’s talking?”

Caitlin had always reminded me of Kelly in so many ways, which was why it confused me to see her like that, still standing in the doorway to my mother’s bedroom, still refusing to come any closer.

“Don’t be such a baby,” April said, pushing Caitlin toward my mother. “It’s just Grandma.”

◊

Caitlin arrived just before arts and crafts time, which was perfect, because almost every day I told Rhonda, the woman who ran afternoon activities, that my daughter was a painter and that she probably got it from my mother, because would you look—just look—at the amazing work she did today.

It amazed me, really, how talent could be passed down like that: the smallest inkling of artistic ability in my mother making its way down through Kelly, who became an actress, and then into Caitlin, whose work I hadn’t seen in person lately but always liked when she posted a picture of it on Instagram. Artistic talent must be some sort of recessive gene, because instead of blue eyes and blonde hair, Caitlin inherited the ability to make sense of the world in a way that April and I never had. Sometimes it seemed like Caitlin was living a version of my mother’s life—or maybe Kelly’s—that she couldn’t anymore: traveling to France and Florence and some place in Germany—or was it Holland?—to study the thing that she loved. At least that’s what I told myself every time I felt that sick feeling, picturing Caitlin’s body so far away from mine or suspended over an ocean for eight hours at a time.

Rhonda was standing in the middle of the room, the tables arranged in a large square around her so that all of the residents could hear and see as she explained the day’s project.

“Rhonda,” I said, waving her over as April wheeled my mother into the room. “This is my daughter, Caitlin. The one I’ve been telling you about.”

“Oh, the painter!” she said, leaning across the table to shake Caitlin’s hand.

“Actually,” Caitlin said, “I’m a printmaker.”

Rhonda blinked.

“It’s sort of like a painter,” I said quickly. “She paints things, but just on plates.”

“Like dinner plates?” Rhonda asked.

April was pushing my mother over to the far side of the table where there was space for us to sit.

“No,” Caitlin said. “Not like that at all.”

I didn’t know why Caitlin was being so difficult, but sometimes she got like that, defensive of her art and her decision to go back to school and the specifics of how she spent her time as an artist. I blamed her father, really, who was always talking to her about her work as if it were a hobby.

“Are you really still doing that art stuff?” he apparently asked the last time she visited him in Boston. After that, she told me later, she couldn’t see him anymore.

“You know how dad is. If it isn’t something that contributes to a capitalist society, it isn’t real work. Until he can respect how I choose to live my life, I can’t respect him.”

If you asked me, that sounded like something Rebecca would have said, not Caitlin, but when she reported the conversation back to me, I did my best to be supportive, nodding my head and telling her of course she was right.

“That’s just like your father,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder and rubbing the curve of her collarbone.

Rhonda was back in the center of the tables, holding up a carton of hardboiled eggs. “Today,” she paused for effect, “we’re going to have an Easter egg hunt!” She brought the egg carton close to each of the residents. “But first we need to paint our eggs.”

“Did you hear that, Caitlin?” I asked. “Painting Easter eggs.”

“Mom,” she said. “We’re Jewish.” She pulled one of the chairs back from the table so that she was sitting outside of the circle.

“It’s still painting,” I said. “Come closer. Come sit next to Grandma.”

Caitlin shook her head and stayed where she was. She was watching Darlene then, the woman who always refused to sit still during craft time and would wheel herself around the room aimlessly with her feet. That day she had gotten herself stuck in the corner and was calling out, over and over again, “Help, help, help, help, help.”

April was on the other side of my mother, holding an egg close to her face and speaking softly into her ear. “What color should we paint these, Grandma?”

“Green,” my mother said, the word catching in her throat so that it sounded more like a groan.

“That’s Darlene,” I said comfortingly to Caitlin. “If you try to help her, she’ll just wind up back in the corner in a matter of minutes.”

Caitlin kept staring.

“First things first!” Rhonda called. “We have to get our brushes wet!” She demonstrated dipping the brush in a Dixie cup.

“Here, Mom,” I said, bringing the cup of water to her brush so that she wouldn’t miss. April had already wet it, though, the oval of green watercolor paint already a puddle. April was always jumping ahead during activity hour, letting my mother start before all the other residents had their supplies or not following the directions so that she ended up with an Easter bandana instead of a bonnet.

“Let Caitlin help,” I said, pushing April’s hand away. I leaned toward my mother and raised my voice. “Caitlin is a PAIN-TER, Mom. A PAIN-TER. Can you believe that? Another artist in the FAM-I-LY.”

“Why are you talking to her like that?” Caitlin asked from behind me.

“Honey, she can’t hear,” I said.

“No, I know she can’t hear,” she said. “But she’s not stupid.”

I stared at her for a second and then turned back around so fast, I spilled the green water across the table.

“I’ll get it,” April said, getting up for paper towels, but Rhonda was already there with a rag.

She picked up the cup and wiped the table beneath it. “You know what I always say,” she singsonged. “There’s no use crying over spilled paint!”

◊

“Want to come over for dinner?” I asked April in the parking lot. “It will be fun,” I said. “Like old times.” I was smiling at my two daughters, but April was looking down and searching for her keys. I offered the eggs my mother had painted to Caitlin, but she waved them away.

“Grandma made these,” I reminded her. “You should keep them.”

“She didn’t really, Mom,” she said and slid her leather coat over her shoulders.

Before we had left, I wrapped a sweater around my mother’s shoulders and put a knit hat on her head. From the doorway she looked so small, like Kelly when she used to sneak into my room at night or Caitlin when she’d beg me to sit at the foot of her bed until she fell asleep.

Caitlin wouldn’t demand anything of me now, because when I asked her at dinner that night how she thought grandma looked, she took a sip of her wine and looked at April.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing,” April said.

“Have you two been talking? Tell me.”

Caitlin put her wine glass down and folded her arms across her chest.

“It’s just—“ April said. She stopped. She looked at Caitlin.

What was it with those two?

“We want to say this in a way that respects your emotional perspective,“ Caitlin said, and I felt it instantly: that feeling that felt as if we were being watched, as if Rebecca was in the room with us, taking notes on our every move, her tortoiseshell glasses low on her nose. I pictured her straight bob swaying as she turned her head to hear each of us completely. I hear you, Laura, she would probably say, but are you hearing each other?

“You can say it, sweetie,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“It’s just that,” she tried, “Grandma doesn’t look any different than she did the last time I saw her.”

“Caitlin,” I said, trying to stay steady. “Grandma is dying. You may not be emotionally prepared to accept that fact,” I said, using language I thought Rebecca would be proud of, “but it’s true.”

“I know she’s dying,” Caitlin said. “But not anytime soon. She looks the same as she did in September.”

I placed my hands flat on the table. “Maybe you can’t see it. You don’t see her every day like I do. You don’t see her losing weight. You don’t see her not eating. You don’t see her wasting away.” I took a long sip of my wine. “Maybe if you were here more,” I said gently, “you would see it.”

“April’s here,” Caitlin said, pointing in April’s direction. “Do you see it, April?”

April didn’t move. We both stared at her.

“Well, she’s not getting better,” April said cautiously.

“Oh, don’t be so diplomatic,” I said. “Pick a side.”

“See?” Caitlin said, turning to April, and I knew it then: they had been talking.

There was a minute where no one spoke, and I could feel that feeling that I sometimes felt when I was all by myself. It came out of nowhere most of the time, and most of the time I thought it was just me missing Caitlin. I’d be driving to Costco on a Sunday or sorting the mail on a Monday, and I would feel it, that sort of disbelief, yawning open beneath me, that something I loved that much could be gone.

But Caitlin was right there, which meant it couldn’t be her.

“Maybe you’re the one who can’t see it,” Caitlin said. “It’s difficult to see beyond the stories we’ve grown emotionally attached to.”

“What does that even mean?” My voice was getting higher.

“She’s your mother,” Caitlin said. “You love her. And you’ve made taking care of her your entire life.” She pointed to April. “But April tells me. She says you go there every day. She says you spend every free minute taking care of her.”

“That’s what good daughters do,” I said.

Caitlin waved her wine glass across the room, gesturing to the things my mother had made. “Oh, come on, Mom,” she said. “Look at this place. You’re treating her like she’s your child. You don’t think it’s a problem that you’re infantilizing your own mother?”

“Is that what your therapist says?”

“Mom,” April said like a warning.

“I’m trying to help,” Caitlin said, steadying her voice, trying to stay calm. “I know it must be hard without Aunt Kelly. All of the emotional labor of caring for an older parent has fallen on you. But I just—I don’t get it. We barely saw her when she was well, and we lived in the same town. Wasn’t she a terrible mother to you guys?”

It stunned me for a second, like the arc of electricity that shot through my body that time not long after April was born when I touched a still-live wire. Did that just happen? I thought. Am I still alive?

No one had ever said that before—I had never said that before. My mother was not perfect, but she was not terrible. Besides, what did Caitlin know about taking care of anyone but herself? She had never been a mother. She had never been alone with two girls who seemed to always need something from her that she never had to give. She only knew what her therapist told her a mother should be: selfless, free of judgment, a port in the storm. But Caitlin didn’t know about trying to be those things when it felt like the entire world was the storm. If she had asked me, I would have told her: all you can do when times get terrible is batten down the hatches and save whatever is closest to you.

“Your grandmother did the best she could,” I said, my voice shaking, and then Caitlin was the old Caitlin, the soft Caitlin, and she was trying to take it back.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She stood up and came over to my side of the table. “Of course she did.” She squeezed in next to me on my chair and rested her head on my shoulder. She knew exactly what I needed. She always did. She was so sensitive like that. So sweet and selfless and good. I could feel her entire torso against mine then, and I thought, Please. I thought it, but I didn’t say it: Please don’t leave. Please stay here forever.

◊

Later that night, after the girls thought I had gone to sleep, I heard them in the kitchen. April was washing the dishes while Caitlin dried, but it was Caitlin who was talking. She was telling April all about something called a monotype, how you cover a glass plate with paint and press it onto paper, and even though most printmakers use the first print because it’s the most vivid, she found it to be too illustrative. I listened to her put the emphasis on the second syllable, not the third, and it took me a second to realize what she was saying.

“Honestly,” she said, “I prefer the second print or third. Plenty of artists consider them to be inferior, but I like them more. The edges are softer. The colors are more muted.”

April didn’t say anything. It was quiet for a minute except for the sound of the water moving across the back of the bowl April was washing.

“Mom is nuts, isn’t she?” Caitlin said then, and I drew in my breath and tried not to move.

April didn’t say anything for a while, and I watched Caitlin watching her sister. She always did that, even when she was young. See me, her eyes always seemed to say when she looked at April. Love me. Never leave me.

“She’s not nuts,” April said then, shutting off the water. “She’s just Mom.”

I stood there for a second and tried to remember how long it had been since we had all lived under the same roof. Ten years? Fifteen? I was losing track. Even in this moment, I didn’t know who was who and which decade I was in and where everyone was. Was this my house or my mother’s? Was that April and Caitlin washing the dishes or Kelly and me? Those were my children, weren’t they, moving on without me? Or, if they weren’t, then it must be me. I was the child, wasn’t I, still trying my best to move on.

Emily Lackey HeadshotEmily Lackey’s stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Glimmer Train, Prairie Schooner, Post Road, The Rumpus, and Longreads, among others. She lives and writes in Western Massachusetts.

 

 

 

 

Image credit: bohdan palahai on Unsplash

A KNIFE TO A MOTHER by Jessie Glenn

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

A KNIFE TO A MOTHER
by Jessie Glenn

A folding knife against a pink neon background

Shhhk. The knife blade flicked up. Shhhk. The knife blade flicked down. I can’t remember who gave me the knife but I’m pretty sure it was my brother. He certainly had a knack for knowing what I liked, having later picked my favorite husband of three. I kept both sides of the blade razor sharp. For a time, I loved it, unduly.

In those days, I carried the knife everywhere but mostly to work at Satyricon, legendarily the oldest punk bar on the West Coast, where I sat in the raised booth to the right of the door, collecting IDs and money, flicking the knife up and down, rolling and chain-smoking cigs. On an average night at Satyricon, Everclear, The Wipers, Floater or some other 90’s PDX band blared into me for hours, music becoming a wall of sound and me a vibrating sheetrock screw. But shhhk. I could still hear my knife.

In the 80s, when George Touhouliotis bought Satyricon, and into the 90s, when I worked there, Old Town Portland was a dangerous area. Dealers walked by with excellent side eye whispering their code words, “Chiva. Soda.” Luckily, I never got busted for my chiva street buys. Back on the East Coast friends had told me, “No white drugs, the rest is ok.” So when I moved to the West Coast and heroin was black, I figured, no big deal.

A couple of decades later, Old Town has been rebuilt shiny and clean and people have to find their drugs elsewhere. Satyricon is gone and chiva probably just means goat instead of sticky little black balls of heroin looking like goat shit, wrapped in colorful balloon skins.

Before I got my gig as a doorgirl, but after I realized shooting up heroin was not so great, my friend Laura and I would go to Satyricon to watch shows and buy coke from the former weekend doorgirl, Kiki. I saw Floater way too many times and Dead Moon not enough. At the time, I was crushing hard on the weeknight doorgirl, Cynthia, so we’d go on those days too. I thought we were lucky, getting into the bar with no ID, but later I heard George say, with his magnificent bellow, “IF SHE GOTS A PUSSY SHE GETS IN.” Then Cynthia got another job, and improbably, the week I turned 21, George hired me as Satyricon’s new doorgirl. George looked at the manager, Dan, with his thumb stuck back at me. “She gotta ID yet?” Apparently, it took more than a pussy to work there. But the knife was fine.

Any character flaws I had at twenty-one were roundly celebrated at Satyricon—my shady, unformed ethics were saluted; my dips into mental illness and drug-enhanced mania were collectively regarded as adorable. Not being a chicken shit was more important than staying alive, and everyone cool had the same code in this dark, comforting world.

Out of the blur, a few moments stand out. Shhhk. I would flip up my knife while asking people for their IDs. If they flinched, I would call them pussies. If people were super drunk, I’d ask if I could draw something on them. If they said yes, I’d write, “FUCK ME IN THE ASS IM WASTED” on their forehead. In Sharpie. Shhhk.

Once, I flicked up the blade and the short white dude in front of me looked approving and poured a bunch of (seriously good) coke behind the edge of my doorgirl booth. Later that night, his taller friend asked if I could help them with an errand. The junky girl bartender fluttered her eyelashes and asked to join. I was a little nervous but thought, who wouldn’t want to be helpful?

I followed the little guy in my car to a big house in SW Portland, not far from downtown. When we got there, the tall guy offered me and the bartender some heroin.

“No thanks,” said I. Even then, it was not lost on me that addiction had nothing to do with intelligence or willpower. It’s just a cruel and simple lottery that I had managed not to win.

“For smoking then,” he said.

“Eh, no,” I said. The bartender looked relieved and tucked in for two.

The two men loaded some bags into a crappy little car in front of the house and asked if I would drive. I got in the driver’s seat, fastened my seatbelt, turned on the ignition and the two men sat in the back, giving directions like people do in mob movies before the driver is garroted.

“Right! Right, here! Get in the other lane.” I flipped on my turn signal.

“Wow, that so good. She use her turn signal,” the big guy said to the little guy. Pretty sure that’s the only compliment I’ve ever had on my driving to this day.

We pulled up to an apartment building and the tall guy ran in while we waited in the car. A short muscly guy came out of the building, saying nothing but taking all the bags. All four of us drove back to the house and the bartender asked if there was any more heroin.

“You know how to get that, puta,” the tall man said, laughing.

“I gotta go,” I said.

“OK! Excellent job tonight! Thanks for driving! Sorry you don’t like heroin! Want some pills?” the short man was enthusiastic.

“Sure,” I said, tucking them in my pocket. Got back in my car and drove home to Ben, my husband. It didn’t in any way occur to me that I just participated in a major drug deal. It was just another night after work.

The next week at work, shhhk. Napalm Beach, wall of sound. I flicked the knife open while asking a scary-looking dude for his ID. “You like knives?” he said. “How about this?” He pulled a handgun out of his pocket and held it to my head. I laughed. “Nice,” I said. “It’s 10 bucks to get in tonight.” When I was twenty-one, I was never gonna get two for flinching.

Sometimes I spoke in a French accent all night. Everyone counted their change twice. When I spoke in a southern accent everyone spoke slowly and used simple words. “I’mmmm Savaaaanna,” I told them. “Hi Savanna!” Shhhk.

The best nights were when Jake came in. Being married at twenty was weird. Being married was the sum total of life when I was home, and I forgot about it when I wasn’t. Ben and I were friends, and I loved him, it just never occurred to me not to be looking for someone I loved better, and I’d been situationally in love with Jake since we were both 18, when I met him at my friend Adeline’s house. He was one of those super cute boys who didn’t talk, which made him seem extra interesting. I fell in love easily and unregretfully for the first 30 years of my life.

Jake worked around town at various restaurants and, at some point, started working at Genoa. Arguably, Genoa played a significant role in me getting pregnant. Genoa is still legend in the Portland restaurant scene. Genoa started the Portland restaurant scene. Their food was like eating heaven if heaven was made of meat. And sauce. And lovely bits of stardust I couldn’t identify. Every time someone walked in the door to Satyricon, my pulse would speed up for a second: was it Jake? Was there food?

I don’t remember the first part of that Friday in early November, 1996 at Satyricon. Probably The Mentors or Poison Idea playing. I remember wanting to love the music, but it always hurt my ears too much. Likely I was stealing a fair amount of money out of the till, out of which I paid off the side door guy, the sound guy and the bouncer. I had nailed Peter Pan, why not be Robin Hood, too?

Forty-five minutes before last call, Jake walked in with something wrapped in foil. I salivated before even knowing what it was, because I knew it was from Genoa. Lamb chops. I can still reconstruct the mouthfeel of the crisp fat on the sides of my tongue, the juices salty, the meat yielding to my teeth.

Dan opened the till to pay me. “You want cash tonight or…?”

“Not cash,” I said. “$15 of not cash.” Which meant, pay me partly in coke. “The rest in cash.”

Jake rolled his eyes in the most subtle of ways. I could only tell how he was feeling by paying complete attention to him all of the time. He was subtly miserable a lot and I tried to distract him by convincing him to be entirely, obsessively in love with me. This was not particularly successful, but he continued to come to see me at Satyricon while continuing to be miserable, so it wasn’t a zero-sum game.

“Want a shot of whiskey?”

“Sure,” he said. I finished the lamb chop.

Last call came and I took my cash and did a couple lines. I asked Jake if he had a ride. “Want me to drive you home?” I staggered when I stood up.

“Sure,” he said.

At Satyricon, as in many bars, we got a free post-shift drink after the lights came on when everyone looked weird and blotchy and we’d kicked out anyone who wasn’t working or playing. I also got a pre-shift drink, and most times (usually) a few during-shift drinks. I was very proud of my hard-won tolerance for whiskey, my toughness, my knife. Start heroin, quit heroin, get married, fall in love, never get two for flinching again. I had been the sensitive kid my whole life. Who says you can’t just decide to be different? It’s easy if you find the right world to live in.

We drunk-walked to my 70s Thunderbird, both still holding our beer cans. It started to pour. I crossed the river from Old Town to Southeast and stopped at the Plaid Pantry for cigarettes. Pulling out, I went the wrong way in traffic. I went through a signal and the cop behind me turned on her lights. As I turned onto the shoulder, we pushed the beers as far under the seat as possible.

“Do you know you went the wrong way on a main road and ran two lights?” the cop asked. I half closed my eyes tragically.

“It’s raining so hard, I got turned around and flustered, ma’am.”

“Yeah, it sure is raining hard. I can see how that would happen. I do need to give you a ticket, though.”

“I understand, ma’am. I will be very careful on my way home.” I worked hard at not slurring. Or using a French accent. Or kicking over my beer.

“You do that,” she said, ripping the traffic ticket off the pad and handing it to me.

She walked back to her car and Jake whispered, “Don’t drive till she’s passed! How can she not tell you’re wasted?”

I fiddled with my keys, waited till she passed to turn the ignition, and looked at him. “What the fuck was that?”

“No idea,” he said. “You’re lucky.”

“Lucky. Yeah.”

We started kissing like kids do, then, like you want to consume something, like desperation. Like it’s the last chance ever again to eat a lamb chop from Genoa. At every stop light on the way back to his house we smashed our faces and chests together but it wasn’t nearly close enough and when we finally parked outside of his parents’ house, it took about 10 seconds to wriggle out of our clothes, fulfill our bright consuming of each other and be done, pulling clothes back up and around ourselves, lighting a cigarette, chucking the two cans of beer out the window. He got out and walked into his parents’ house and I drove back home and got into bed with my husband. I told him about the cop and Jake and the beer in the car. I didn’t tell him that I screwed Jake. But he knew. It was the 90s.

A couple weeks after that, I drove Ben’s truck to work. Not sure why I didn’t drive my Thunderbird, maybe Ben was using it. Maybe it broke. We went through a lot of old cars. The huge ‘65 Ford was hard to drive without power steering and the brakes weren’t that reliable. My brother borrowed it once and the brakes went out on a hill and he crashed it. “You’re supposed to pump them when you go down a hill,” said Ben.

I didn’t drink much that night. I felt like any store of luck I might have had was annihilated when the cop let me go while I was driving wasted the wrong way up a street. And running lights. And screwing cute boys. And chucking beer cans.

And playing with knives.

At the end of the night, I took only cash from Dan. Shhhk, I flipped the knife back into its sheath and shoved it in my back pocket for the last time. I walked out into the three a.m. autumn air, my shoulders pushed as far back as my childish bravado would let them.

The ride home could be broken up into several stages: first out of Old Town to the Burnside bridge, than over the Willamette River to the south side, then as far south as Portland goes until you get to the somewhat rural suburb of Milwaukie, then up River Road past the first old folks home and just past the second one. I drove pretty slowly as I got close to my street. Both of the windows were rolled down because I was smoking while I was driving. I put the blinker on, and it did its slow old man tick, tick, tick and… SMACK. Something hit me in the head.

I yelped as I turned left onto my street and pulled into my driveway. I turned off the car and rubbed my head. I had what felt like a little scratch on my cheek. I patted the wide aqua bench seat next to me to see what it was. Feathers. A body. A warm body. A bird. An owl. It had flown through the passenger side window and hit me in the head. I picked it up carefully and brought it inside in case it was just stunned rather than dead.

I woke up Ben and he agreed. The owl’s neck was broken. “What the actual fuck,” he said, and went back to bed.

I sat with the little owl for a moment longer, not sure what to do. What did an owl mean? Death. Wisdom. A message. What did it mean for wisdom and death and a message to break their neck against my face?  I pulled my knife and my wallet out of my back pockets with my keys and set them on the kitchen counter next to the little owl.

In the morning, I went to the pharmacy and bought a pregnancy test. My pee made a plus sign. There was to be an addition.

A premonition folded in over me. This is the end and this the beginning. The dark, comfortable world I had found was no longer mine and it was time to invent a new one. I tucked my knife onto the top shelf of the kitchen closet and closed the door.

I told Ben. I told Jake.

I put the owl in the freezer.

Jessie Glenn Author PhotoJessie Glenn’s essay exposé about ‘MasterChef’ was ‘Best of 2018’ in Salon Magazine. They’ve also had essays in NYT Modern Love, Washington Post, Toronto Star, and elsewhere. They are currently writing a memoir. Glenn teaches book publicity at Portland State University in the Masters of Publishing Program. Jessie and spouse have a blended family with five children.

 

 

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DAISY’S BOY by Allison Dreier

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DAISY’S BOY
by Allison Dreier

Young man with an arrogant expression on a fire escape

Daisy has this boy that none of us like. She says they aren’t boyfriend-girlfriend but he sure acts like it’s more than a hookup when he texts her things like, where are you? and i miss you much right now baby.

Daisy tells me she likes the way he takes control. Like on their first date, he put his hand on her chest and she pushed it away cause she’s “not that kind of girl,” but then after a few more minutes he tried again and she let him.

“I wouldn’t like that,” I tell Daisy.

◊

Daisy spends the party in the bathroom and she’s not even drunk.

Phoebe and I try to get Daisy to come out, but she won’t and she’s locked herself in the stall with her feet pressed flat against the door so it won’t even budge when Phoebe tries to kick it open.

“What did he do to you?” Phoebe asks.

◊

Phoebe calls me and asks if I know where Daisy is and I say no I haven’t seen her since they broke up. She says that Meg told her she saw them together at Commons and we decide to run there and see for ourselves.

Daisy looks like a puppy caught chewing up the couch and he doesn’t even look at us. We make up some excuse of why she needs to come home, but she looks at him when she says she’s not leaving.

◊

Daisy asks me if my boy ever pressures me to have sex. She’s also wondering if it’s normal to start crying after.

I tell her a half truth, because I don’t want her to feel so alone like she does, so I tell her, “It’s normal to start crying cause it’s an emotional thing, ya know? But I don’t think it’s right.”

She asks if my boy ever does things that I say I didn’t wanna do, and I say, “No, cause he’s not a rapist.”

I know I shouldn’t have said that, cause she gets all quiet.

“I was just wondering if it was normal.”

◊

Daisy says his heater’s broken so he’s gotta live with us for a while. Phoebe tells me that being around him makes her want to throw up, so she’s gonna be spending a lot more time in coffee shops.

Meg asks us why we’re letting him live with us if we hate him so much, and we just shrug our shoulders.

“We aren’t the ones who would deal with him if we say no.”

◊

Daisy tells me, “This is it. This is really the end,” cause she spent all night looking after him cause he tried coke and thought he was gonna die.

She calls her mom crying, and her mom gets all worked up and says, “What did you expect, Daisy, you let him treat you like shit. I told you, Daisy, I told you.” Daisy keeps saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

◊

Meg tells Phoebe that his roommate told her that the heater was fixed weeks ago. Phoebe and I decide not to bring this up with Daisy at first, but when we get back to the apartment and he’s there, and she’s got her head on his shoulder, I look him straight in the eyes when I say, “You can’t live here anymore.”

I don’t wanna look at Daisy, her arms hugging her waist, curled up and folded until she is small enough to get lost between the couch cushions.

◊

Daisy’s boy opens the door to the apartment, which makes all of us jump. Daisy says she’s sorry a million times, and tells us not to pause the movie, cause she’ll be right back. I tell Meg to pause it anyway once they’re in Daisy’s room, cause I wanna hear what he’s gonna say.

But all I can hear is Daisy’s boy crying, which I find strange cause I’ve never heard a boy cry so hard before, and all she keeps saying is, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Meg says it’s her fault cause she told Daisy to stop texting during the movie, and I kind of agree cause Meg should have known what would happen if Daisy stopped, but Phoebe says, “No it’s not,” and Meg doesn’t say anything more. We sit there doing nothing for a while but then we play the movie cause Meg says she doesn’t wanna listen to him scream anymore.

◊

The next morning I must have shown the disapproval on my face, cause Daisy gets all defensive and says, “You know I can’t leave him.”

“That’s not true.”

“I’ve tried to. I can’t do it.”

“You could leave him,” I say.

“I’m stuck.”

“You aren’t.”

“No matter what I do I’ll go back to him. I always do.”

“Daisy—”

“It’s cause he loves me,” she says, “You think I’m crazy. Do you think I’m crazy?”

“No.”

“I would,” she says.

“You’re not crazy.”

“Remember when I locked myself in the bathroom?”

I nod. “If he hit you,” I say, “you’d break up with him, right?”

But Daisy doesn’t answer.

Allison Dreier author headshotAllison Dreier is a rising junior at the University of Pennsylvania studying the Biological Basis of Behavior with a minor in creative writing and chemistry. She is the recipient of a Gold Medal and two Gold keys in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in short fiction.

 

 

 

 

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VICTORY LAP by Tommy Dean

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VICTORY LAP
by Tommy Dean

Purple, white, and blue firework in the sky, with the title of the piece on the bottom right

The ticker tape dropped from the unseen buckets perched high above the swarming city streets. If this was victory, the boy didn’t want another second of the crush of people, the taste of ash and paper on his tongue. His mother gripped his hand and though he couldn’t see her face, he knew she was crying. He was bounced by hips and knees, that little rubber ball at the end of the paddle until his fingers ached and he found himself alone at the mouth of an alley, struggling to breathe, sound, not air, filling his lungs. A soldier kneeled halfway down the trash-strewn pavement. The rifle that had surely kept him alive rested in a pool of murky water, the shoulder strap a sun-shriveled snake resting near his boot. The boy approached slowly as if trying to collar a witless sheep. He touched the man’s shoulder, but it was several seconds before the man turned from the oily, cracked cement. His eyes weren’t dull or drunk, but sparking, his shoulder quaking like the boy’s dog during a nightmare. The dreams had led to a hemorrhage that had leaked from the dog’s ears like a nosebleed. The boy didn’t want this man to die, not at the parade for his honor, not after surviving. The roar of the crowd pummeled the space at his back like the growl of the tractor engine, his father swatting him with his hat every time he stalled the choke, grinding the gears. His mother was out of bounds, past his imagination, probably frantic, but here was this man, saying something, his spit rippling across the puddle. The boy bent closer until his knee wobbled against the gritting road, paper shedding from his jeans, seedlings bullied by the breeze of the passing parade, thousands of people celebrating.

“I just need to find North,” the man said, his skin grey in the twilight. The stubble on his cheeks was black, a rash of pimples across his chin.

The boy felt in his pockets, but there was no compass, no map, just rocks he had been pretending were bullets or, if thrown in a handful, a grenade.

“If we went back to the street,” the boy was saying, when the soldier stood abruptly, body rigid, legs pumping, a colt bucking, and the boy was scared, so he picked up the gun, a crowbar too heavy to swing. The muzzle dragged across the ground, metal rattling.

“Wait,” the boy called, his voice bouncing around the narrow walls.

The man stopped at the mouth of the alley, gave a lopsided salute, before merging into the flow of bodies, their noise a flock of crows scattered.

The boy felt desperately alone, the gun a weight he didn’t think he would ever escape.

Headshot of Tommy DeanTommy Dean lives in Indiana with his wife and two children. He is the author of a flash fiction chapbook entitled Special Like the People on TV from Redbird Chapbooks. He has been previously published in BULL Magazine, The MacGuffin, The Lascaux Review, Split Lip Magazine, Spartan, Pithead Chapel, and New Flash Fiction Review. Find him @TommyDeanWriter on Twitter. His interviews with flash fiction writers can be found at www.tommydeanwriter.com

 

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AMANDA IS MOVING BACK TO MONTANA, ALTHOUGH SHE VOWED SHE’D NEVER DO IT by Raima Larter

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AMANDA IS MOVING BACK TO MONTANA, ALTHOUGH SHE VOWED SHE’D NEVER DO IT
by Raima Larter

The starry night sky above a yellow house in Billings, Montana

Snapshot One: Graduation, Three Forks High School. Amanda wears a dark blue cap and gown with honor cords. The photo is out of focus and off-kilter since it was taken by Daddy who was probably drunk at the time. The principal is handing her a large envelope, which will turn out to be a full-ride scholarship to Mountain Valley State College in Billings. Granny is impressed, but Mama will say she doesn’t understand why Amanda would accept such a thing, since the money is from people they don’t even know.

Ways In Which Amanda is Like the Moon

  • The moon does not shine on her own; she only reflects the brilliance of that around which she orbits.
  • The moon was, they say, torn from her mother, the earth, by a great, cataclysmic event.
  • The moon circles the earth, both of them tugging at each other with a force strong enough to move oceans.
  • The moon’s role is simple: reflect the sun’s glory, but never, ever outshine it.

 

Snapshot Two: Family photo, Daddy’s funeral. Amanda, age 19, her sister Megan, 10, their Mama, their cousin Darlene, 21, and Brian, Darlene’s father. Uncle Brian wears an off-white cowboy hat and string tie. Amanda wears a light-colored calico dress. Mama is in a too-tight and too-short black skirt. Mama never dressed that way when Daddy was alive. The casket sits in the aisle behind them and is closed, since the body was mangled when the tractor Daddy was driving tipped over and crushed him. Granny is not in this photo since she was the one who took it. The photo is crisp, clear and perfectly centered.

Pros and Cons: Should Amanda Marry Jack Morgan?

Pros:

  • He’s smart, handsome and makes her laugh.
  • He’s not from Montana.
  • Amanda felt a jolt of electricity from his hand to hers when they first met, and when she told him this, he believed her.

Cons:

  • She may or may not love him—how is one to know?
  • He’s not from Montana.
  • Jack was engaged to someone else when Amanda met him. He refused to call it an affair. She wants his version of events to be true, but Granny doesn’t buy it.

 

Wedding To-Do List

Something Old: Jack’s paternal grandmother’s wedding ring—soon to be Amanda’s

Something New: Amanda’s wedding dress, which she made herself to save money

Something Borrowed: White strappy high heels, borrowed from a friend

Something Blue: Amanda, although she denies it whenever Granny asks

 

Snapshot Three: Family photo, Granny’s funeral. Amanda, Darlene, Megan, Mama, and Uncle Brian, who has now also become Amanda’s step-father. Amanda’s son Elliott, age eight, sits on her lap, looking sad. Amanda’s husband Jack is not in the photo since he was supposedly at a conference that day. He was actually with his lab tech, with whom he was having an affair, although Amanda will not find that out until she arrives home. Tucked under her arm is a folder holding a copy of Granny’s will, leaving Granny’s home along the Gallatin River to Amanda.

Things Amanda Will Miss if She Does Not Move Back to Montana

  • The meadowlark’s song, since that bird is a western bird and you’ll never find one east of the Mississippi.
  • The sun still being up at ten p.m. in the summer.
  • Snow in July.
  • Seeing Mama and Brian grow old and die.
  • Darlene’s little boy, who she’s never met. He’s the same age as Elliott and they could be cousins, just like she and Darlene were. Are.

 

Snapshot Four: Amanda and Jack with Elliott on their front porch in Illinois. It’s supposed to be a family photo. Amanda and Elliott are smiling at the camera, but Jack is looking at his phone.

Amanda’s To-Do List

  • Get the front porch of Granny’s house repaired.
  • Register Elliott for school at Three Forks Elementary.
  • File for divorce.
  • Buy two fishing rods—one for Elliott and one for Amanda.

Headshot of Raima LarterBefore moving to Washington, D.C., Raima Larter was a college professor in Indiana who secretly wrote fiction and tucked it away in drawers. Her work has appeared in Gargoyle, Chantwood Magazine, Mulberry Fork Review, Linden Avenue, and others. Her first novel, “Fearless,” will be published by New Meridian Arts Press in early 2019. Her second novel, Belle O’ the Waters, will be published by Mascot Books, also in 2019. Read more about Raima and her work at her website raimalarter.com.

 

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JUST YOU WAIT by Stefani Nellen

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JUST YOU WAIT
by Stefani Nellen

Two girls with curly hair

Malu’s daughter Lotte and Lotte’s friend Charelle were playing their favorite game: Mutant Vampires. They pressed their arms against their ribcages underneath their tight, glittering t-shirts so only their hands stuck out of the lacy sleeves, and stumbled through the kitchen groaning blood, blood, blood. They were both eleven years old.

“Blood, blood, I need blood!” Lotte banged against the fridge and tore open the door. “Frozen blood! No! There’s no frozen blood!” She banged the door shut, bugged out her eyes and spun in place, so blood-deprived she was hallucinating. Malu sat at the kitchen table and tried to focus on her laptop screen. She worked at a call center for the Belastingdienst, helping people with their taxes. She had taken the job when Lotte was six months old; now she was a manager who trained the new agents. She also worked as a freelance writer when she could get assignments. Lately, she had started looking at other options. Maybe she could go to the university and study literature, as she’d wanted to before she got pregnant in her last year of secondary school.

Charelle collapsed on the floor, twitching and moaning and arching her back. Lotte wrapped her arms around the bag of groceries still standing on the kitchen table. “Blood, blood, blood,” she groaned.

“Damn it,” Malu said, hitting the table with her palm. Lotte let go of the bag. Charelle got up and tugged her t-shirt into shape.

“There’s butter in there,” Malu said, pointing at the bag. “Milk. Yogurt. I told you to put away the groceries.”

“We were just playing, Mom,” Lotte said.

“Funny game,” Malu said. “Blood. Blood.”

Lotte stared at the floor. She was growing again; her pants were too short. The stick-on butterfly tattoos were starting to peel off her knuckles. “Your hands are rotting,” Malu said. “Is it part of the game?” She had been a girl, too, once. Not a Lotte, chubby and blond and pretending to be too old for Barbies while hiding them in a box underneath her bed. Malu had been a Charelle: straight long hair always falling into her face, shoulders she could drop in a way that grown-ups found irritating, long legs in carefully torn jeans. The stubborn set of her jaw.

“Just keep it down, okay?” Malu said. “I’m trying to finish an article.”

“Mom wrote a book about torture,” Lotte said. “She wouldn’t let me read it.”

“I only edited a book chapter,” Malu said.

“Cool,” Charelle said. She let a strand of hair glide through her fingers. “Real writers don’t have kids, though.”

“You know what, darling?” Malu said. “I think it’s time you and Lotte play at your place for a change. I’m sure your mother has time to entertain you.”

Charelle glanced sideways at Lotte, like a girl who had misbehaved and knew it. She lived in a big house next to the park; she had a trampoline, a cat, and a stylish black bike, and her parents were chaotically cheerful academics. Still, the girls usually played here. Tomorrow would be Saturday, so Charelle would sleep over.

“We’ll go to my room,” Lotte said. “Okay, Mom?”

“All right.” Malu put away the groceries and stepped on the small balcony, one of many identical balconies in her apartment building. There was no shade at this hour, and the stone was hot. She started stacking the empty flowerpots that were taking up all the space. Her mother had given them to her for her birthday, saying that the balcony would be perfect as an herb garden; the seeds were still in a drawer somewhere.

Real writers don’t have kids. Malu wrote whenever she could, early in the morning or late at night, or next to the TV while dinner heated in the oven. Stupid text for fashion catalogues or tourism websites or a restaurant’s homepage. She wanted to show the world that she could be both, a working mother and a writer. She would not become a welfare mom who collected a check each month so she could stay home with the baby and transform her place into a giant playpen. Or the kind of student mommy who brought the children to grandma before biking through the city, lunching at a café with her friends, and attending classes on Proust.

Living in a small flat with a baby, with occasional help only from her parents (who were not rich either, and who had hoped for something better for her), and the official resources available to any single working mother: it had felt romantic at first. She was living a story. The more boring her job, the darker the stairs up to her echoing hallway, the weirder the neighbors sitting and smoking next to the building entrance all day, the better for her. She would use it all in her writing. But after more than ten years, she understood that her life, apart from raising Lotte, had consisted mainly of staying on top of her job and short relationships that usually ended with the man telling her he felt overwhelmed by the idea of fatherhood. (“I see a theme here,” Malu once told her best friend from school, the only one she was still in touch with.)

Lotte’s father had been almost two years younger than Malu. She had been his first girlfriend. His awkwardness in bed and his blushing attempts at being a gentleman (he insisted on washing her afterwards, apologizing for she didn’t know what) had made her feel more experienced than she was; a real woman. Maybe he really had been in awe of her, but she lost any control over him once she was pregnant. There was already a mother in his life, and she swooped in to rescue her young. She sent her boy to live with an aunt in Amsterdam, and soon she and her husband followed. Lawyers negotiated financial details and visiting rights. Lotte visited her father once a month; she always brought back expensive presents: a new watch, clothes, a pair of suede boots. Whenever Malu refused to buy her something, she said, “Fine, I’ll ask Daddy.”

When Malu was done stacking the flowerpots, she swept the balcony, took a pizza from the freezer, and started to chop a head of lettuce. After dinner, she turned in early; she felt a headache coming on and asked the girls to be quiet.

◊

Malu woke up. She was hearing giggles through the open window, intimate and rough. It was still dark outside. She checked her watch: three a.m.

She put on her robe, walked down the hallway and into the kitchen. The door to the balcony was closed, but Malu could see the girls through the glass. They were sitting opposite each other on a blue-striped picnic blanket, both wearing pajama pants and white tank tops, bending their spines to look at some small thing they were both touching. Malu had never seen her daughter so grown-up, and Charelle so innocent. She came closer, crushing breadcrumbs under her naked feet, and took a sip of cold coffee from an almost empty cup on the counter. Charelle handed something to Lotte: a cylinder, irregular, almost a cone. It was glowing at the end. Lotte pinched the thing between thumb and fingers and lifted it to her lips.

Malu stood still. This was the ugliest, largest joint she had ever seen, and her daughter was smoking it. After a few moments, she opened the door. A black candle stood on a turned-over flowerpot, and an ashtray and a white saucer with dark crumbs sat between the girls with their smooth arms, faces glowing in the candlelight, and their small breasts pressing against white cotton. Malu knew she should punish this. She should tear the joint out of Lotte’s hand and drag her inside for a good and righteous talking-to. Do you have any idea what this is doing to your brain?

The candle flickered, the moon was almost full, and the girls were sitting in their blue striped nest like birds. The joint looked as if it contained seedpods or walnuts. It was held together by a piece of thread, or no, what was it? A wire? And it smelled different. Not like weed at all.

“What is this?”

Charelle leaned back on her arms and let her hair fall back just so, her face a mockery of sultry seduction.

“We’re getting high.” She pulled up her knees and giggled.

Lotte carefully put down the joint in the ashtray, turning it to remove the ash. The butterfly tattoos were still visible.

“We took some herbs from the kitchen, Mom.”

“We didn’t inhale,” Charelle said.

Malu picked up the saucer and sniffed. Oregano, basil, and thyme. She sniffed again. “Mind if I join you?”

“Sure!” Charelle said. Malu felt clumsy sitting down, like a giraffe among antelopes, but she didn’t want to go back to her bed and put foam plugs into her ears. She had earned her membership in the up-all-night club a long time ago.

“I’m curious,” Malu said. “Give me that.” Lotte hesitated, and then handed her the oregano joint and a lighter. Malu lit up and tried to inhale. She didn’t manage much. The smoke tasted like ciabatta bread at first, but quickly became bitter. She exhaled, lightheaded. “Whoa. Not bad.”

Charelle laughed, showing her sharp teeth. Lotte scrutinized her knuckles and the peeling tattoos. “These are pretty gross,” she said.

Malu noticed her cigarette papers next to the saucer. “Let me show you how to do this properly.” Lotte looked away. Malu knew she was going too far, but she couldn’t resist. She took two sheets of paper out of the flat package, licked one, and glued them together. On the paper, she mixed the herbs with her fingertips, pushed them down and wrapped the paper around them. She rolled it into shape, and licked the rim. “Voilà.”

She handed the joint to Lotte, who didn’t move to take it. Charelle did, her fingertips hard and cold. She admired it from all sides. “It’s beautiful. How did you do it?”

“Fast. The faster you do it, the better.”

Charelle rotated the joint and regarded it from each side, her eyes large, the tip of her nose moving a little when she said, “It’s perfect.”

“Thank you.” Malu took back the joint. “It is.”

“See,” Charelle said to Lotte, “I told you your mom knows how to get high.”

“Shut up,” Lotte said. “She doesn’t.”

Malu tucked her hair behind her ear. Charelle was facing her, inviting her to exchange a knowing smile that would exclude Lotte. A knowing smile—as if this girl knew anything.

“Is this why you’re here?” Malu asked. “Because you want to get high?”

“What? No,” said Lotte, and Charelle hung her head like a sad puppy.

Malu wanted to shoot them a sharp reply, but her personal time slowed a fraction, and she had to smile at what she saw. Charelle was too young to be a bad girl, no matter how hard she tried. And Lotte was the type who lifted snails from the bike trail because she couldn’t stand to see them split and mashed.

“There are more herbs in the kitchen,” she said. “Only herbs. Understood?”

“Understood,” the girls murmured.

“Stay away from the seeds, they’re for the balcony. And now I’ll go back to sleep. That’s my bedroom window right there. So keep it down.”

“Sorry we woke you up,” Lotte said.

Malu got up, still dizzy, and steadied herself against the wall. A breeze lifted the hem of her robe, and she wanted to open it and spread it like wings.  “You know what?” she said. “I am going to write a book. About torture and vampires and getting high and everything. Just you wait.”

◊

In the kitchen, Malu put the coffee cup in the sink and turned around to look through the glass door again. Lotte had wrapped herself in a green fleece blanket, holding it closed from inside. Charelle carefully stubbed out the joint and again lifted and admired it. Malu envied them their friendship, and their being out there together. It felt wrong that she should sleep alone. But maybe she could change this, too. It was time.

Stefani Nellen author photoStefani Nellen’s short fiction has been published in AGNI, Glimmer Train, Third Coast, the Bellevue Literary Review, Web Conjunctions, Cosmos, and Apex Magazine, among others, and anthologized in Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web and Flash Fiction International (W.W. Norton, 2015). Her stories have won the Glimmer Train Fiction Open and the Montana Prize in Fiction (judged by Alexandra Kleeman) and been runner-up for the Wabash Prize in Fiction (judged by Adam Johnson) and a finalist in the Iowa Review Awards. Originally from Germany, Nellen now lives in the Netherlands with her family.

 

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DISPATCHES FROM DEAD CITY by Marie Baléo

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DISPATCHES FROM DEAD CITY
by Marie Baléo

Love thy neighbor, but don’t stick around too long

“Billboards?” William asked over the phone. His voice seemed small, reaching us, I imagined, from somewhere inside his mother’s house in the mountain, where he liked to play the grand piano and persecute the help, whom he refused to call by their names, calling them only that: “the help.”

“Yes, billboards,” Cole repeated. He had called us, William, Julia and me, on one of those group calls we used to love when everything was fine. They had taken on a grave, urgent tone in the past month.

I stood alone on the balcony of our home. Inside the apartment, my parents consumed the news voraciously, speaking in hurried voices. When the phone rang, I heard my mother say “Hello,” after which her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Just go outside, and you’re bound to see one,” Cole said. “They’re everywhere. It all happened overnight, apparently.”

“What do they say?” Julia asked. The signal was weak, transmitting only the structure of her words, not the warmth of her voice.

I leaned over the railing and saw, in the smaller building opposite ours, a hand pulling open the doors to the upper floor balcony. A balding man in his early fifties stepped outside cautiously, carrying a container of something I could not make out. I squinted. Next, his wife appeared, clutching what seemed like a heap of freshly cleaned, white clothes. I knew her well: as I sat at my desk trying to learn history dates by heart, I would watch her scurry into the apartment to retrieve wet clothes and out to the balcony, where she swung her arms from the laundry basket to the wires overhead. When she was not there, traces of her lingered in the soft sway of the shirts, towels, and trousers, and the shadows cast on them by the changing sun.

“Big block letters,” Cole said. “In all three languages.”

“What do they say?” William repeated.

“He who lives like a dog will die like one,” Cole replied slowly.

A strange rustling rose from the city, as though it were breathing, ribcage rising and receding like the tide. A mist appeared near the sea. The bald man’s wife laid a white fitted sheet across the plastic picnic table. Wielding a large pair of scissors, she cut across the sheet while her husband held its corners fast, then brandished the result, a rectangle one meter wide. The man was holding what I could now see was a can of spray paint, the kind our grocer, a man by the name of Badry whom I would always remember chiefly from the shameful run I’d made to his shop on the morning of my first period, sold at the back of his store, in between Christmas decorations and cord extensions. From across the street, and despite the excited voices of my friends rising out of the cell phone, I heard the distinct rattle of the can as the man sprayed the sheet with words in an ink that was blood red. He held out the result of his work for their admiration—the single loop, the several angles, the audacity of red paint on a common sheet.

I stepped back from the railing until I was certain I could not be seen from any of the high-rises that surrounded ours and collapsed into one of my parents’ deck chairs. Lights had begun to shine everywhere, on towers and in streets. By the sea, the fog lingered over the waterfront.

Across the street, the balcony was deserted. The spray can lay discarded on the plastic chair. From the railing, a plastic broom handle jutted out, two ends of the sheet tied around it. The flag swayed gently in the wind.

◊

What’s yours is mine

We had spent the afternoon parked by a field in the mountains, where the city could be seen as though from an airplane, drinking cheap wine and enjoying the safety of our position, above the turmoil that raged below, above the billboards, which had appeared three days before now and had continued to appear throughout the city since we first heard about them from Cole. 

Now William was speeding through the streets, eager to get us home before curfew, though this kind of wariness did not resemble him.

“Slow down,” Cole said.  “There’s something ahead.”

“What the fuck is this,” William asked without a question mark.

“Roadblock.”

“What the hell do you mean, roadblock? Since when?” William spat as he spoke. “This is my road. I’m on this road every day. There is no roadblock.”

“Slow down,” Cole said again.

Random shootings had multiplied; we could hear them from our apartments at night. They sounded like firecrackers. They were followed in the morning by angry diatribes broadcast on all radio channels. On TV, the enraged faces of politicians appeared nightly, animated with a sort of delight over the fury their words were eliciting.

“This isn’t the army,” William said, lower.

The car slowed to a crawl as we neared two pickup trucks parked across the road, their doors wide open. A small group of men in dark boots, who, from a distance, strangely resembled black beetles, stood under the halo of the street lamps. Looking at us.

William reluctantly rolled down not just his, but all of our windows.

He shut off the engine. Everything fell silent.

I shuddered in the cold air.

Two of the men looked at our license plate. Another made for the driver’s window. Against his white shirt, the strap of his gun seemed like a pageant winner’s ribbon, or perhaps a mayor’s sash.

The man, I now saw, was no man at all, but a kid our age. He seemed familiar, possibly because he had that air of childish boredom worn by all the boys in our year.

“Show me your ID,” he said.

William looked at him directly, their faces inches apart. He did not speak; he did not move.

I heard Julia fumbling for her bag. Cole’s hand jutted from between the seats, holding a passport.

I produced my own, from the bottom of my backpack.

Now the man held all of our IDs, save for William’s. Our friend had not moved. He continued to stare the boy in the face.

“Yours, too.”

William remained silent.

“Give me your ID or get out of the car.”

“William, hand him the ID,” I said.

“Give it to him, Will.”

William seemed to snap awake and leaned over my knees to open the glove compartment. I could sense the boy tensing up on the other side of the door. The laminated ID shone orange in the streetlight glare.

The boy took one look at the papers and raised his head.

“Be careful. You shouldn’t be out here driving late at night for no reason.”

He tossed the passports back into the car. Three of them landed in William’s lap.

◊ 

Someone knocked and came in before we replied

That night, after nothing could be done to save the last strips of blue from the darkening skies, but before the heat of the scorching afternoon finished seeping out of the pavement, something appeared in our great city of —–.

Those who had gone to bed early never heard or saw a thing, but those who wandered the streets, the disinherited, lonely, or abandoned, were privy to the strange events that unfolded that night. Smoking insomniacs, leaning against the railings of their balconies, wondering if a dream had come to them with sleep; drunks, thinking what they saw was no more than a symptom of the red drip-drip tumbling down their veins, stumbled down streets unbothered. But Karel, the homeless man, who, with pores so wide and skin so red, made small children wail, was counting the day’s proceeds in a beheaded can of condensed milk when the men appeared. They ran out of the truck like water, faces smoldering below their hard hats.

Not one of those rare people who were on the street at the time thought to do or say anything, to warn or call, to expose or confront. We believed, perhaps, that what our eyes had witnessed would become clear as the night ended, the meaning of it exposed by daylight.

By the time infants began to stir in their beds, and birds of the city began to sing, and steam slowly escaped coffee pots, the inhabitants of —– rose from their slumber to find that where there once had been nothing of particular importance—a quiet street filled with the scent of honeysuckle perhaps, a bench covered in chipped green paint, a string of fire hydrants—there was now something.

A wall, visible from the street, from apartments, from balconies a hundred yards away, clear as the billboards, the roadblocks, clear as death itself: separating, dividing us from our brothers.

Marie Baléo is a French writer born in 1990. She began writing fiction and poetry in 2017. Her work has been nominated for a Best of the Net award (2017 and 2018) and for Best Microfiction (2018) and Best Small Fictions (2018), and her poems and stories have appeared in Passages North, Yemassee, Litro, Lunch Ticket, Tahoma Literary Review, and elsewhere. She is an editor for Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel. Marie grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, and Oslo, Norway. www.mariebaleo.com

 

Image credit: Angela Intriago on Unsplash

PUNCH by Josh Denslow

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

PUNCH
by Josh Denslow

Until recently, I’d only traded in one Punch Voucher and that was the time I hit Chuck Mellon in the nose when we were kids and broke his glasses. He didn’t make crying noises, but his eyes sure watered. We stayed best friends, though. Right up until he hanged himself.

It was bad timing because my girlfriend had just dumped me, and I was hoping to stay on his couch. Chuck had the best couch ever. Firm but lush, if that makes sense. It was deep brown with luminescent flecks of gray sprinkled throughout as if it contained a small universe. I spent a lot of nights with my head wedged between the cushion and the plush arm, my legs splayed over the back. But now that Chuck was dead, I found myself sleeping on my sister’s couch, which was like a pile of rocks covered with paper towels.

Wanda, Chuck’s mom, asked me to speak at Chuck’s funeral, and that’s when I realized I’d left my only suit over at my ex-girlfriend’s. Way in the back of her closet with the tennis rackets we never used. I sort of blamed Chuck that I had to talk to her again, but just a little.

There were a lot of people at the church that I’d never seen sitting shoulder to shoulder in their black clothes. I wished my suit wasn’t green. After the preacher talked about how Chuck was called away too early (no mention of how), I talked about the time I hit him and broke his glasses. I got a few laughs, choked with tears of course, but it felt good to smile while remembering my best friend. I almost told them about the time I beat his high score in Tomb Blaster, but I didn’t want to brag. It was his day after all.

Afterwards, Nadine and Roger walked up to give their regards. Chuck had a huge crush on Nadine, but she never reciprocated on account of the fact that she was married. She had long golden hair like the lady in the Golden Locks shampoo commercial, but was three hundred times prettier. My sister said Nadine only hung out with us because we were non-threatening losers. My sister’s normally right about things like that.

You did really good, Nadine said. Chuck would be pleased.

She placed her delicate hand on my shoulder and smiled. She seemed like she wanted to stay longer, but Roger pulled her out by her arm, a vein throbbing on the side of his boxy head like a silent alarm.

When everyone had gone, Chuck’s mom Wanda walked up and gave me a humungous hug. My nose got tangled in her sticky helmet of hair and it smelled like baby oil.

I need to talk to you, she said. So I agreed to sit in the back pew with her while she blew her nose and repeatedly patted me on the head.

There was a will, she said, or a suicide note. Whichever you’d call it.

Did he leave me his couch? I asked.

No, she said, he put all of his stuff in a storage room the day he ended his life. Before I could get it out, it was broken into. They took everything!

It seemed fitting. If I was never going to see Chuck again, I might as well never see his couch either. But that couch was heavier than a bus full of my regrets. Must have been some pretty big guys.

When Wanda was done blowing her nose she said, He left you his Punch Vouchers.

She pulled them out of her purse. Two rectangular magenta cards, about the size of my hand, with Chuck’s name and ID number and a line for a signature. It was a completely legal transference. Wanda even had a form from Central Office saying that they’d updated my file.

She closed her eyes and said, In his note he wrote that he wished he’d punched a buttload of more people. She was pretty shy to say buttload, and I didn’t hear her the first time.

What?

Buttload, she said and it ricocheted around the church like one of those rubber balls Chuck and I used to bounce in his garage after we drank too many beers.

Chuck thought it would be worthwhile to exceed the Two Punch Quota and do Serious Time. This was news to me; he was always such a sissy. I got the feeling that Chuck was giving me a hint from beyond the grave, like in a movie, and I deduced that he wanted me to hit someone. Too bad he didn’t say who it was in his note.

◊

Chuck and I always saved our Punch Vouchers and returned them to Central Office at the end of the year for a free dinner at Spunky’s.  We’d wait for a night when Nadine’s husband Roger had a poker game and drag her along, too.

Roger always used his two Punch Vouchers on Nadine.

Now that I had the legal ability to punch four people, not to mention a mandate from my dead friend, I began thinking about how small and scrawny I am due to the genes that were passed on to me. If I’m honest with myself, I know that’s the real reason I never hit or get hit. A punch from me would be like a feather falling out of a cannon. So I did the next best thing: I went out applying for jobs. I mean, I had to get off my sister’s couch.

I was waiting for the J Train when this enormous walrus of a guy walked right into me. His belly was huge but it wasn’t jiggly, it was solid like a bag of flour. He knocked me off balance, and I staggered into a cement pole. The walrus barely faltered. He turned his bristling red face to me and said, Why don’t you watch where you’re going, pansy?

Then something happened to me that has never happened before. I talked back. I don’t know if it was the knowledge that I had more Punch Vouchers than anyone but I said, Why don’t you watch what you eat?

You’re lucky I’m out of Punch Vouchers, he said while blood vessels popped in his eyeballs like bacon in a griddle.

I still have mine, I said, but he didn’t look so scared. In fact, he got right in front of me and leaned his greasy face into mine.

Hit me, he said with a lot more restraint than I ever thought he could muster.

Of course, instantly like three Eye Witnesses showed up. The walrus looked like a dog begging for food. He knew it wouldn’t hurt him, and in the end, he would still look like the winner, even though he wouldn’t get a chance to hit me back without doing Serious Time.

I would never waste a Voucher on someone like you, I said. Besides, you might eat my fist.

I guess I was really stretching for a joke, but it felt good to stand up for myself. A couple of the Eye Witnesses even chuckled a bit.

If I see you after January 1st, I’ll have one Punch Voucher waiting for you, he said.

I can’t wait, I said and he finally pulled his face away from mine and walked to the end of the platform.

The Eye Witnesses dispersed when they realized there would be no Punch Vouchers to sign. All but one squat guy who leaned against the wall looking at me strangely. After we stared at each other for a few seconds, he finally walked over. His breath smelled like a sink full of dirty dishes. Unfortunately for me, he got real close to me when he talked. I got the feeling he wanted us to be private. I’ve got a special job for a guy like you, he said.

And that’s how I heard about the Underground Punch Market, or the UPM.

People with Punch Vouchers left, like myself, could be put in contact with people who didn’t, like the walrus for example, and that person could pay me to punch someone for them. I told him that I don’t punch very hard due to the fact that my arms are about as useful as a garden hose lodged under the front wheel of a garbage truck. He told me he knew a place that could help me. He was real nice and gave me directions to a Work Room. I couldn’t think of one reason not to go.

There was a guy expecting me. His name was Rogue, though I think it was fake. He had his shirt collar pulled up around his chin and he wore sunglasses that were so big that they covered the top half of his face. I’m no detective, but he looked conspicuous to me.

I could whip you into shape in a month, Rogue said, his voice resonating at a higher register than his massive frame would suggest. Then you’ve got the two weeks around Christmas to unload your two Punch Vouchers.

Actually, I’ve got four.

Rogue’s eyes got all big and twinkly and I could almost see the money signs appear in his pupils like in the old cartoons.

Was four Punch Vouchers a buttload?

◊

Rogue had me punch bulky red bags suspended from the ceiling, and I lifted weights for the first time in my wimpy life. He taught me how to hit someone so that it hurt the most. People paid a lot of money and they wanted the punches to be painful.

A few short weeks later, Rogue pulled me aside and said that I was ready and he handed me a big envelope with money in it. I’d never seen so much money all at once. And that was after Rogue had taken his cut. Then he gave me an envelope that had a picture in it. This was my first Quarry. His name was Clarence Eubanks.

I’ll always remember Clarence Eubanks because he was really tall. When I punched him, I had to reach up to his face, and I almost fell over. I didn’t quite do it like Rogue had taught me, but Clarence’s nose did bleed, and I don’t think he ever thought that I would hit that hard. Or even hit him at all. I appeared out of nowhere from his point of view. I hid in the alley next to his favorite restaurant (I knew that because it was written on the back of the picture) and when he walked up I ran out and punched him. It was exactly 7:34 in the morning. My hand hurt like a bastard. Clarence Eubanks got down on one knee and this other guy with a bad hairpiece began laughing hysterically. He was so excited that Clarence Eubanks got hit. He must have been the one who hired me, I figured. Then when the hairpiece guy came up and said thanks to me, I knew that I had figured correctly.

I felt bad for Clarence Eubanks because he didn’t even eat his breakfast. He got back to his feet and immediately left and the hairpiece guy laughed like it was the only thing keeping him alive and yelled after Clarence that he deserved what he got. I wonder if he did deserve it. A couple of Eye Witnesses signed my Voucher, and I dropped it in the next mailbox I saw.

When I got back to the Work Room, Rogue gave me a big thumbs up.

My hand hurts like a bastard, I said.

He handed me a bag of ice followed by another picture. And another big envelope of money. I pulled out the picture and winced. My next Quarry was a woman.

I’d never hit a woman because my mom told me it wasn’t right, even though Central Office never made a rule against it. Legally, I could punch whomever I wanted and it didn’t matter what sex they were. It didn’t help that this lady sort of looked like my mom. But if I squinted my eyes, maybe it would look like my sister. That wouldn’t be so bad.

When I left, I got the feeling that I was being followed. This guy in a black suit was taking the same exact route as me (and I know a lot of shortcuts) and we were the only two people out walking. It seemed like a bad idea to go home. I decided to go to Nadine’s house instead. If Chuck were alive, I think he would’ve done the same thing.

Nadine and Roger’s house is small, but it’s in the nice part of town where it seems like it’s always sunny. Her house looked like it was smiling; the trim row of bushes on each side were the laugh lines.

Whenever I see Nadine, my first reaction is to pull her hair because of how adorable she is. But I’ve never actually done it. She grinned when she saw me and said, Do you want some lemonade?

I looked through her front window and sure enough that guy in the black suit was hanging around her neighbor’s yard acting like he was interested in their flower garden.

I miss Chuck, she said.

I didn’t say anything but she knew I did, too. I got a job, I said.

That’s wonderful.

Actually, I think that man is following me. My job may be illegal.

I’m sure you’re mistaken, she said.

I pointed at the guy in the black suit, and I could tell she thought it was suspicious. She poured another glass of lemonade and went outside and invited him in.

Damn compadre, I thought you were never going to stop walking, he said in a boisterous voice as if he was the host of The Game Show for Kiddies. He spun his empty lemonade glass in his hands as Nadine led us into her compact front room.

It turned out that he worked for Central Office in the Black Suit division. They were in charge of apprehending people who exceeded their designated amount of punches. They also tracked down people who didn’t turn in their Punch Vouchers. His name was Mike Smith.

Like any Bureaucrat, he told us all the things we’d heard before. About how Central Office created Punch Vouchers causing Violent Lifeloss to drop 80%. According to him (and the Central Office newsletter) quality of life had also increased for all citizens.

Nadine sat really close to me and it made it hard to hear what Mike Smith was saying.  He explained how the UPM, my current employer, helped people get more punches than they were allowed. If a person went over his Punch Limit, they did Serious Time. If they paid someone else to punch for them, wasn’t the same end result achieved and shouldn’t they also suffer the same consequences?

So you see my problem here, right buddy? he said.

Nadine grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I got hormonally charged immediately. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stand up for at least ten minutes.

Let me get to the point, he said. Central Office is willing to let you go free if you help us catch Rogue.

In all honesty, I don’t see how I can do that, I said. I consider Rogue a friend.

Well, then you’re looking at Serious Time.

Oh, in that case, I can be persuaded, I said. I’ve only known him a few weeks.

Nadine looked flushed and stared solemnly at my hands. Mike Smith said that he would be in touch and that I should just keep going along like we’d never spoken.

At that exact moment, Roger came in. He has a sloping forehead and a square jaw. He looked pretty mad to see two guys in the house with his wife. Nadine jumped away from me quickly and my hand dropped heavily onto my lap.

There better be a good explanation for this, he yelled, or I’m going to ram my fist so far down your throats I’ll be able to tell the next time you need to take a crap.

Calm down Punch-o the Clown, Mike Smith said. I know you’re out of Vouchers. And I don’t think you want to mess with someone from Central Office. He flashed his badge and Roger backed down.

All the commotion sent my hormonal charge running scared, and I was able to stand and make my way to the door.

Roger blocked my path. I don’t want to see you around the house anymore, he said. You should get some new friends.

Nadine cowered in the doorway, her eyes shimmering.

I’ll think about it, I said. And that’s when I realized that Chuck wanted me to punch Roger as hard as I could. In the face.

◊

When I got back to my sister’s place, Rogue was waiting for me. I know you spoke to Central Office, he said.

Since he already knew, I figured I could tell him about it. He told me to do what they said and to go along like we hadn’t spoken. Everything was under control. I’m glad he had it handled because I was getting confused.

As instructed by both sides, I proceeded to the next Quarry. Her picture said that she would be outside of her office on a Regulation Smoke Inhalation Period at 2:15 the next afternoon. Unfortunately for me, there were fifty million women huddled on the wet pavement who could’ve been her; or they could’ve been my mom. I knew none of them were my mom though because she lived in that old folks’ house that my sister put her in last year.

The Regulation Smoke Inhalation Period lasted exactly 15 minutes or they would be docked a day’s pay, so I didn’t have much time to figure out which one was my Quarry. I narrowed it down to three based on the haircut. I wished I could take the picture out and hold it up to each woman’s face.

I was getting a few strange looks due to the fact that I had wandered into the group and was staring at everyone instead of smoking. Plus I was a lot younger than everyone else.

One of my top choices snubbed out her cigarette and stepped into the immense glass office building as if she’d been sucked up by a vacuum. I didn’t want to mess up the job. Someone had paid for this to happen at this exact moment. And I didn’t want to give the money back. I started to feel like my lungs were shrinking, like I couldn’t possibly be breathing enough air.

I knew what I had to do. I took a deep breath and looked up into the sky, and I promised Chuck that I would use my last Punch Voucher to hit Roger as hard as I possibly could. Which was a big deal because I was making too much money on these punches to dole them out for free.

Just then, a woman tapped me on the shoulder. Are you all right? she asked. She probably thought I was weird because I was staring up at the sky in the middle of their smoking group. She seemed nice, but she talked in a slow, loud voice.

I quickly turned away from her to see where my remaining two ladies went, and I accidentally bumped into a guy with a cigar protruding from his mouth like an exhaust pipe.

Get away from me, freak, the man said.

Oh leave him alone, Colby, the slow-talking woman said. Can’t you see he’s Mentally Held-Back? She turned and smiled sweetly at me as if I was a butterscotch candy that she was going to press to the inside of her cheek.

That smile seemed familiar, but she wasn’t one of the three that I had picked. I wished again that I could take that picture out and compare. Then I realized: I was focusing too much on the hair. She had cut and styled it differently and was wearing a ton of make-up. Who knew when that picture was taken?

I punched her straight in the jaw.

The cigar guy got really pissed which made me sure he wasn’t the person who hired me.  The woman began crying hysterically, her tears as big as jelly beans, and I felt obligated to calm her down since she was crying because I hit her. I like your new hairstyle much better, I said.

What is wrong with you? the cigar guy said with his teeth clenched around his cigar. It sounded like he was talking through cellophane.

A few Eye Witnesses popped over to sign my Punch Voucher. Then the cigar guy figured it out.

He yanked the cigar out of his mouth and looked around at all of his coworkers. Who hired him, huh? Which one of you hired him? Then he turned back to me and said, You’re despicable.

I grabbed my Punch Voucher from an Eye Witness just as the cigar guy pulled his arm back and rushed his fist at my face.

My brain spun around a few times inside my head. My cheek went numb and then a second later it started screaming with pain. Actually, it was me that was screaming with pain. It hurt a lot more than I ever imagined. At that moment, I was convinced I would need Facial Restructuring.

The cigar guy began shaking his hand furiously and rubbing his knuckles. The sight of him in pain made me angrier than I had ever been before. Without even thinking, I punched him so hard he fell to the ground.

This was their company’s most exciting Regulation Smoke Inhalation Period based on how many of them wanted to sign my Voucher. In the meantime, the cigar guy began calling out for some ice. I think everybody pretty much hated that guy because nobody even considered helping him. Nobody wanted their Regulation Smoke Inhalation Period to be cut short.

I grabbed my Vouchers before I accidentally punched someone else.

Feeling exhilarated, I walked quickly away from the swarming group of smokers. I had never punched someone like that before. Just on a reflex. No wonder Chuck wanted me to do it. My face didn’t even hurt that bad anymore.

Mike Smith, wearing the same black suit, popped out of an alley and pulled me aside. He told me that they were following Rogue and that they were very close. He said to keep up the good work, and then he slipped away.

I continued walking a few more steps only to be stopped by Rogue. He told me that he was following Mike Smith and that he had the upper hand. He also told me that I had a nasty shiner and that he wished I hadn’t wasted a Voucher on that cigar guy, but that I should keep up the good work.

With all the good work I was apparently doing, I decided to go apartment shopping.

◊

I signed a lease and was moving into my own place on New Year’s Day. Sure it was small, but I could leave my clothes lying wherever I wanted and watch movies as loud as the speakers would go. Who would’ve thought that I’d be getting my act together? That’s something Chuck used to say all the time.

He never got his act together.

But he was certainly going to hold me to my promise. Now that I punched that cigar guy, I only had one Punch Voucher left, and it had Roger’s name on it. I hadn’t seen Roger or Nadine since the day Mike Smith followed me over to their house. Nadine left a message at my sister’s house to say hello, but said not to call back. Somehow, I had to find a good time to punch Roger. And there better be a lot of room to run afterward.

I stopped going to the Work Room and concentrated on getting ready for my move.  I had just bought my very own Vid Gamer when Rogue appeared next to me on the sidewalk. He said, I’ve got you in mind for something special.

Only Rogue’s favorite Punchers got chosen to punch someone in a Domestic Dispute, so I was a little honored. Because of the promise though, I had to turn him down. He told me he would give me double the money due to the fact that I was the only guy in the UPM who still had a punch left. I didn’t feel so honored anymore. I still said no. Then he said triple the money. Sorry Chuck.

This woman wants you to punch her husband in front of all their friends, Rogue said.

I was feeling pretty bad about not punching Roger, but then I remembered: On New Year’s Day I wasn’t only getting my own place, I was also getting two new Punch Vouchers for the year. That was two weeks away. I decided that as a Housewarming Gift to myself, I was going to lay that jerk Roger out on the floor. That should make Chuck happy. This fantasy was quickly followed by the image of Nadine and me making intercourse (not making babies) on Chuck’s old couch, the one that was stolen. It’s not like Chuck had a chance with her anymore what with him being dead and all. Sorry again, Chuck.

I took the packet from Rogue.

When I got to the abusive husband’s work, I realized that there was a Christmas party going on. I spotted the abusive husband quickly, and I realized that he worked with Roger. They were friends it seemed, and the two were laughing loudly in the middle of the room, both trying to outdo each other for the attention of everyone at the party. I glanced around for Nadine but I didn’t see her.

It was the first time I’d seen Roger in a while, and I realized how much I actually hated him. Not just because of how much Chuck did. Nadine could do much better than that slab of beef.

I didn’t feel like wasting any time, plus I didn’t want to get so worked up that I punched Roger instead, so I stepped up to the abusive husband and wailed on his nose as hard as I could. He immediately fell to the ground, out cold.

It didn’t feel good at all.

The room got so quiet I could hear all of their hearts beating. Then a couple of people chuckled and started saying Merry Christmas etc. to the guy I knocked out. Roger looked up as I was crossing the room to find someone to sign my Voucher, and he grabbed me by the shoulder.

It would be an honor to sign the Punch Voucher of the guy who punched out that lame wad, he said. Then I saw him recognize me, like his eyes used to need glasses and then they suddenly corrected themselves. He couldn’t believe it, I could tell. I think he was impressed.

He signed my Voucher and then surprised me by inviting me to Nadine and his New Year’s Eve party.

I’d be happy to go, I said. But on the inside, I was really bothered by the fact that this was not how things were supposed to turn out. Chuck didn’t give me his Punch Vouchers to make Roger like me, so that I could be friends with him and he could invite me to his New Year’s Eve party. It would be great to see Nadine, but I couldn’t help but think I’d royally screwed this up.

As I walked out the door, three Central Office Sedans pulled up and blocked my path. Mike Smith jumped out of one of the cars along with a bunch of other guys that looked exactly like him. Mike Smith ran up to me while the others all ran into the building. I thought I was getting taken away to do Serious Time. But Mike Smith shook my hand. I’m proud of you, buddy boy, he said. You led us straight to the leader of the Underground Punch Market.

A moment later, the Central Office guys returned, dragging the abusive husband I had knocked out. There’s that scoundrel now, Mike Smith said and then winked at me. There’s quite a sizable reward for his capture, you know. Come to the office any time and collect. I’ll give you a hint, fella. It’s something that has four wheels and goes Vroom, Vroom.

I felt a little empty inside.

After the Central Office Sedans drove away, I heard a whistling down an alley and saw Rogue waving me over. He also shook my hand and told me that the abusive husband that I’d hit was not the leader of the UPM and that he had officially beaten them at their own game. I’m proud of you, he said in his helium voice. We can always use a guy like you on our side.

He told me he was going to lie low for a while, and then he slipped me a huge envelope of money.

I wished Chuck was alive, and I could go to his place and sit down on that couch and turn on Tomb Blaster. I would even let him beat me. Instead, I went straight to the store and bought my sister a really expensive Christmas present for all the time she’d let me stay at her place.

When she got home from work, I gave her an order form for the couch I was having delivered to her house. It wasn’t as nice as Chuck’s but it was better than that crap she has now. I could tell that she really wanted me to stay living with her. It was the first time I noticed how lonely she was. I told her it was time for me to get my own place, and she told me that she was proud of me. I guess everyone was proud of me.

On my way out, I handed her some of the money from Rogue.

No matter how much money you have, you’re still a loser, she said. But she smiled a little.

She’s usually right about those things.

◊

At the New Years Eve party, I was immediately recognized by people from Roger’s work. They all remembered my stellar punch. After shrugging past them all, I finally got to see Nadine. This time I did pull her hair. Just a little. I’d been falling apart until I laid eyes on her again. I tried to tell her, but I think she knew.

I can’t believe that black eye, she said. You have to be more careful.

I will, I said. It felt good to have someone care about me. It was even better that it was Nadine.

You know Chuck always had a huge crush on you, I said.

I never knew that, she said. But I think she was lying.

Roger didn’t seem impressed with me anymore, and he grabbed Nadine and took her away to talk to some of his friends.

He got real belligerent as he dank and he started saying some mean things about Nadine later in the evening. He told some secret stuff about her from their personal life that I would never repeat. She got upset and ran crying into the kitchen.

I was going tell Roger to calm down, but he saw me coming. You look like a bird with a broken wing, he said.

I didn’t really care about anything he was saying because most of it didn’t make sense. I knocked the beer out of his hand. And that’s when he started making fun of Chuck. That guy killed himself because he was sick of seeing his reflection in the mirror, Roger said.

In the background, people started counting down from 10. I pictured Nadine in the kitchen, crying into her hands as the New Year rolled around. I never liked you and I never liked Chuck, he said. My wife is too good to hang out with losers like you and I hope you kill yourself too so I don’t have to look at you anymore.

The people counting in the background yelled out the number 2 when Roger said, I’m glad Chuck is dead.

And that’s when I broke his nose. I hope Chuck rests in peace.

◊

Serious Time isn’t as bad as I thought. I don’t ever get to go outside, but I get a room that I only share with one other guy. I’d only been here two days when my first roommate got released. So for about a day or two I had the room to myself. I got to thinking about the irony of me being here. If I’d waited one more second to punch Roger, it would have been the New Year and I could have used one of my new Punch Vouchers. But there were too many Eye Witnesses.

Nadine tried to lie for me on account of the fact that she was in love with me, which I found out later when she sent me a letter. In that same letter, she told me that she had divorced Roger and was going to wait for me.

I sometimes feel sad that I didn’t get to move into that new apartment or retrieve my reward from Central Office. But I know that Chuck is happy with how things turned out. I decided when I was released, I was going to my keep Punch Vouchers so I could trade them in for a dinner at Spunky’s. With Nadine.

On the day I was taken into custody, they told me that I could bring one thing with me to my cell, my Special Artifact. I realized that I didn’t own anything except for that Vid Gamer I just bought. That was the last time I was really happy. Playing the Vid Gamer with Chuck.

Then I met my new roommate. He seemed like an all right guy. He was sort of tall and thin with a large nose. He said he was a petty thief. He also said that I would never be able to beat his score in Tomb Blaster. I told him that I was up for the challenge.

Then the door opened and three huge guards began struggling to get something through the doorway. My new roommate smiled and told me that for his Special Artifact he wanted to bring his favorite thing in the world, and it just so happened to be the heaviest thing he owned. He laughed as he watched the guards struggle.

And through that doorway, they brought in Chuck’s old couch.

Josh Denslow’s debut collection Not Everyone Is Special (7.13 Books) will appear at the end of March 2019 and he still can’t believe it really exists! “Punch” is his wife’s favorite story in the collection and its publication here is dedicated to her. Recent stories have appeared in Catapult, Pithead Chapel, wigleaf, Okay Donkey, and others. In addition to wearing matching sweaters with his three boys, he plays the drums in the band Borrisokane and edits at SmokeLong Quarterly.

 

Image credit: Paweł Michalik on Unsplash

HALF-LIFE by Doug Ramspeck      

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Photograph of teenager in mid-air above trampoline holding a firecracker

HALF-LIFE
by Doug Ramspeck                                                                        

Guilt, it has always seemed to Roger, is visceral. It takes up residence inside the body, burrowing or maybe perching there, as much a part of you as your bones or blood or lungs. You sense it waiting even when no one else can see it, even when you stop obsessing and the days and nights slip past on their conveyor belts.

He remembers it clearly—too clearly—even after all the years. He is driving from his childhood home near Columbus, Ohio, to Grinnell College in Iowa, where he is about to begin his sophomore year. He is passing through Indiana and has gotten lost while trying to bypass Bloomington. Earlier he left I-74 and, with a bit of dead reckoning, imagined he might carve a few minutes from the trip on rural roads, but now, with the radio cranked up, his elbow out the window, he is no longer confident of his direction. It is August, dust rising from the tires as he speeds past bean fields and cornfields, and he comes to a slight rise in the road not long after passing over rusting railroad tracks. He hasn’t seen another car for miles, and he is pressing down harder on the accelerator, feeling the impatience of the Camry, and suddenly—in a moment he still dreams about—he sees the girl on the bicycle. Maybe she is ten or eleven, her head swiveling at the sound of the engine. She is neither at the center of the road nor at its verge, but directly in his lane, the afternoon sunlight angling across the narrow ribbon of pavement, the girl’s light hair windblown and snapping behind her like a small sail.

◊

Now, so many years later, Roger carries uncooked bratwurst and buns and potato chips out the kitchen door to the gas barbecue. Earlier he called out the window to offer to make lunch for his son and his girlfriend, and they shrugged their acquiescence, both of them squinting into the noon light. He returns, next, with soft drinks and carrot sticks and brownies purchased from the store, then focuses on cooking the bratwurst to an even brown. His son is handsome—evident in the parade of girlfriends always hanging around the house, including the one on the back lawn now. Louise Miller is her name, or maybe Mueller, Lou for short. She is sunbathing on the trampoline in an orange bikini while Jack is sitting beside her. Earlier they were taking turns trying to outdo each other with back-flips.

And when Roger sits with his son and Lou in lawn chairs, the meal on paper plates in their laps, he looks across to where the girl is sharing the plastic recliner with his son, a white T-shirt pulled over her bathing suit—the orange still visible beneath—and he can’t help but notice how she keeps casting glances toward Jack as though with a kind of unabashed devotion. They are juniors in high school, and all Roger can think about is how she has no clue, none at all. The average length of time his son remains focused on any one girl is perhaps a month or six weeks at most, and the two of them are nearly there.

“Jack tells me you’re a cheerleader?” Roger says.

“Yep,” the girl says.

“That’s why she was better than me at flips,” Jack says.

Not even a week later, Lou is gone from their lives, and Roger’s son passes most of his days—when he’s not staying at his mother’s house—peering into the refrigerator, or with his friends in the backyard, playing poker at the picnic table. Then, almost at once, there is a new girl—this one with short reddish orange hair, and a flush of freckles, and a high giggle that pierces its way through the floor when Roger is trying to sleep. One night when he comes down the stairs in search of his glasses, his son and the new girl are reclining on the living room couch in the dark. Roger coughs to make his presence known, and by the time he returns from the kitchen, the lamp is bright beside them, and both are fully dressed. The television flickers, emitting sounds of explosions.

Perhaps three days later, in early evening, when Roger is just home from work, someone rings the doorbell. And when he opens the front door, Louise is there, her ancient Chevy behind her in the drive. Her hair is tied back from her face in a way that emphasizes even more than usual her youthful prettiness, and her deep summer tan. And the roots of her hair—parted in a jagged line down the center—are darker than the others around it, and she carries both of her flip-flops in one hand, wears white shorts and a teal blouse. The evening sun is behind her, the clouds swollen an angry pink, the wafer of sun half-submerged between the neighboring houses.

“Is Jack here?” she asks.

“He’s working,” Roger says. “Taco Bell.”

“Oh.”

“I think his shift ends at midnight.”

“I see.”

“Do you want me to say you stopped by?”

Her eyes narrow into such fine slits it is as though she longs to blot out the world. She says, “No … that’s okay.”

And her voice seems to be coming apart at the seams, and she dabs the back of her hand to her eyes, and after she drives off in her car, Roger opens a Coors from the refrigerator, carries it into the Florida room, and looks through the screen mesh at the backyard and the woods. And later when it is time for bed, he carries still another beer up the stairs, and he reads until the curtains of his eyes droop. Then he turns off the light and sleep swirls around him—like dipping into a brackish pond. He is dreaming, then, and in the dream he sees, as always, the collision sending the bicycle airborne, propelling the girl and the bike far from the road into the grass. At once in the dream he is out of the car, the bike gleaming and broken at the roadside, but the girl, seemingly, has vanished. And at that moment in the dream—and this is often the case—Roger awakes with a start, and he hears the garage door going up then down, which means his son is home.

Roger lifts himself. The green glow of the clock says it’s after two. He slips on his bathrobe, makes his way down the stairs, finds his son at the kitchen table, eating round slabs of bologna from a package.

The words must have been percolating inside Roger as he slept, for they arrive at once. He says, “That girl, Louise, came by while you were at work. What do you do to them, Jack? She was crying a little.”

“What?” Jack says, blinking, his mouth opening in a jagged wound.

“Just try to be a little nicer,” Roger says. Then suddenly he suspects he’s in the wrong here, and he tries to approach his son and to touch him on the shoulder, to tell him it’s okay, okay, but at once Jack is retreating up the stairs, off to bed.

◊

Roger, for years now, has had floaters mostly in his left eye, a detritus that he sometimes mistakes for birds flitting past at the periphery of his vision. The floaters seem to come and go, drifting on their small rafts then disappearing, forever at the ready. It somehow seems that way now with Lou, who, within the week, is back on the trampoline with Jack, back in her orange bathing suit, back nuzzling her face into his son’s neck or leaning against him when they walk into the woods. There is a small stream they can stand beside if the mosquitoes show mercy. And Lou is now on the couch late at night—replacing the orange-haired girl, switching out one for the next—and returned to the kitchen table, returned on the living room floor, both of them on their bellies as they gaze at something existing on the small screen of a cellphone, their shoulders bumping.

Then on a Sunday late in the month, Jack invites a dozen or more of his high school friends to the house for hamburgers and hotdogs and chicken wings cooked on the grill, the boy insisting on doing it all by himself, paying for the food from his fast-food wages, playing host—with Lou—to the guests, fetching them soft drinks and snacks and blaring the music through the open dining room window. Some of the teens test out the trampoline, rising high into the air in defiance—for a few brief moments—of gravity. Others stand and laugh and flirt and squint into the sun. It is a muggy and excruciating day, the heat ranging toward triple digits, and most of the boys have stripped off their shirts, and most of the girls are dressed in shorts and T-shirts or bathing suits. Roger, who peers now and then from the Florida room, notices one girl he doesn’t believe he has ever seen before. She has a veil of dark hair down to her waist, and she is pretty and outgoing, touching the boys on the arms when she speaks, throwing her head back when she laughs, the thin sheen of perspiration making her skin glisten in the sun. Roger sees his son attempting not to look her way, attempting to keep a buffer of distance between them, to follow, instead, closely behind Lou, obedient, his eyes cast down. But now and then Jack’s eyes flit upward, latching onto the new girl as she sips her soft drink through a straw. It is unbearable, Roger thinks, to see his son laboring to maintain this new vision of himself.

Later Roger comes face to face with Lou in the kitchen. He has stepped there to retrieve the checkbook and envelopes from the drawer—bills to pay—and Lou, forever in that same orange bikini, forever with her vulnerable and naïve eyes, speaks to him in a voice that seems far more pressing and urgent than the words imply.

“Are we making too much noise?” she asks.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s nicer in here with the air-conditioning.”

“Yes, it is.”

Roger, in this moment, experiences a sudden and unexpected rush of feeling, so powerful he can’t at first identify it. And he begins thinking—despite that it makes no sense, despite that the girl he struck with his car would have been much older now—that Lou is like that girl—the one he walked into the tall grass to find. And he did find her, of course, her neck and limbs twisted into impossible angles, the bright reproach of blood everywhere. And suddenly Roger wants to warn Lou that she is likely to remain Jack’s girlfriend for the briefest stretch of time, despite that he is trying, really trying, and that girls, for Jack—especially since the divorce—are as temporary as the fireflies blinking on and off around the trampoline after dark. And then the most astonishing thing of all happens. Roger feels other words longing to escape from his throat, words he has never spoken to a single person, not even to his wife when they were married. He imagines telling Lou that, when he was a little older than she is now, he was guilty of vehicular homicide, that he struck and killed a child then drove off and never told anyone, that he took his car to a repair shop a few weeks later and claimed he’d struck a deer. He wants to say this to Lou in this moment, to describe how he knelt before the girl in the grass, how he could not bring himself to touch her, not even to feel for a pulse at her neck or at her wrist, that death was an impediment to the most natural impulse of reaching out. And he wants to tell Lou that rarely a day has gone past when he hasn’t thought about that girl, at least once, the guilt like a dusk sun that stains a lake its same deep red. Roger feels the words gathering within him, preparing themselves, but when his mouth opens something else emerges instead.

He says, “You’re a sweet girl. Jack is lucky.”

Headshot of Doug RamspeckDoug Ramspeck is the author of six poetry collections and one collection of short stories. His most recent book, Black Flowers (2018), is published by LSU Press. Individual poems and stories have appeared in journals that include The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Slate, and The Georgia Review. He teaches creative writing at The Ohio State University at Lima.

LEO RISING by Anna Dorn

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

starry sky with the title of the piece on the bottom of the image

LEO RISING
by Anna Dorn

The first thing I do when I wake up is open Evie’s Twitter. I’ve been doing this every morning since she left about a month ago. If one of my patients did this, I’d roll my eyes. But I can’t help it. Evie won’t answer my texts or calls. This is the only way I can hear her voice.

@LeoRising has five new Tweets. (I always thought astrology was nonsense, but Evie treated it with a religious reverence. The rising sign, she told me, is our surface self, our outward appearance. And Leo is the best, she said, and apparently I am one too). I always look at her profile picture first. In it, she’s narrowing her eyes at the camera in a way that never fails to excite me. The look says: I’m smarter than you. It’s the precise face I fell in love with.

The five nighttime Tweets suggests insomnia. When she couldn’t sleep, Evie would take a Klonopin (which I prescribed) and start Tweeting like crazy. The glow of her phone always woke me up, but it never bothered me.

Her first Tweet is: I prefer to date women because I like having orgasms. I smile, then shutter at the memory of having sex with men. The way they’d jab and poke relentlessly. I’d yelp in pain, but disguise it as pleasure because I believed my self-worth was tied to my ability to please men sexually.

The second Tweet throws me for a loop. Hello, my Twizzles. I have some exciting news. @simonschuster is publishing my book of essays in May 2019. For those of you who just want me to shut up: sorry!!!

Fuck. Evie had been writing a book since we met, when I first started treating her, but I didn’t think it was anywhere close to being finished. She’d always been very private about it. All she would say is that she was “turning a mirror on society,” which I found both obnoxious and cute.

I’d always had a vague paranoia that Evie was writing about me, despite her frequent assurances that she wasn’t. But how could she leave me out? A hot young writer has an illicit affair with her sexy, older, psychiatrist. I mean, it’s juicy.

It would also ruin my career.

Listen, I knew that sleeping with Evie was completely inappropriate. I knew I should have referred her elsewhere when I caught feelings, but I couldn’t. Our sessions were all I looked forward to; they became what I lived for. Evie was the first woman who made me feel out of control. When she made the first move, I so wanted desperately to say no. But I didn’t.

I close Twitter and go to the bathroom, where I begin doling capsules into my palm. 20mg Cymbalta, Omega 3, Vitamin D, 5mg Adderall. After gulping them down, I slide out the scale from under the sink. 117, ugh. When I go above 115, I start to feel anxious. It’s ok, I tell myself, I’ll run six miles today instead of five. I’ll eat only vegetables. I’ll drink lemon juice with cayenne pepper.

On the way downstairs, I peek into Evie’s former office. I tried not to interrupt her when she was working, but sometimes I liked to watch—her grey eyes focused intently on the screen, brows furrowed behind fake tortoiseshell-framed glasses. A white fur vest remains draped on her desk chair.

Evie left abruptly, so a lot of her stuff is still here. When I texted her about it, she didn’t respond. It used to drive me crazy, the way she’d leave things around the house. But then I started to like it, the little reminders of her presence. And now I have month-old dirty mugs littered around my house like some kind of derelict.

◊

Rain begins falling just as I open my front door, as if the universe is playing a sick joke on me. I close my eyes and envision my legs galloping through the dusty trails of Elysian Park. Sharp rays of light cut through the eucalyptus trees that tower above my head. I’ve hit my stride, and my mind starts to quiet. Passing muscled men and dogs, leaving them in the dust, gives me pleasure and feels symbolic. Few people can keep up with Fiona Archer.

As I shut the front door, Evie’s Tweet floats into my brain. I try to reason with myself. 2019 is a long time from now, I’m sure she’d change my personal details to protect me. I doubt she wants to ruin my life. But Evie is selfish, and reckless. These are things I once respected about her, but now they feel terrifying. I pick up my phone and think about texting her. Something along the lines of “I better not be in your fucking book!!!” But that would be insane. And besides, she would never respond.

On our first proper date, I cooked for her. Afterwards, we sat close on the couch sipping from a bottle of Laphroaig and talking about the few subjects we hadn’t covered in therapy: namely, me. At one point, she became horrified I had her full name in my phone, like she was still my patient. She quickly changed the entry to Lioness, emphasizing with a stern expression that she never uses a last name when she cares about someone personally and I should do the same. I remember a flutter in my stomach.

She cared about me.

◊

I go out to my cottage where I see patients. I used to see them in the main house, but Evie didn’t like it—she said it disturbed her process to be around all that “deranged mental energy.” I built the cottage about a year ago. And by that I mean I hired someone to build it. I’m not that kind of lesbian.

On the path, Vivaldi brushes up against my pant leg. She’s one of the feral cats that runs through the yard. I named her because I like the name, not because I like the composer. I kneel down to pet her bright orange mane and she opens her mouth to unleash a yawn.

I open the cottage door from the back; patients enter through the front, where there is a small waiting room. I keep it stocked with magazines from before the smartphone era. Since rich people started moving into Echo Park, I’ve been able to charge more. Today, I just have two appointments.

As I start up my desktop, my Five O’Clock floats into my head. My mentor taught me to think of my patients only by their appointment times. Five is a special one, mostly because that was Evie’s time. But I also like the girl who took her place, and I’m pretty positive she wants to fuck me. It’s twisted, I know, but it feels good to be wanted. I think about the day I decided I wanted Evie. She was wearing a pink slip dress completely inappropriate for outside of the bedroom, and kept opening her legs slightly to reveal a sliver of lacy black underwear.

I was taken by her audacity. Most women are so timid, always skirting around what they want. Evie’s an alpha, like me. After she did my birth chart, she just looked at me impressed. Then she kissed me hard on the mouth, which quickly turned into fucking, our Leo manes flying around with abandon. I could never pin down a diagnosis with Evie. I think she just wanted to talk about herself, or maybe she just wanted me.

I refresh my email and a few new ones pop up, one of note: Last Minute Appointment Cancellation. I don’t even read Eleven’s explanation, but I do notice she addressed me by my first name, which always bothers me—I went to medical school for a reason. The no-shows always apologize, as if I care. I respond with my cancellation policy. Evie said that when I treated her, she wondered if a bot wrote my emails—they were so “sterile.”

My stomach tightens after I hit send. I can’t run, I’m fat, my ex-girlfriend is about to publish an exposé that will surely ruin my career, and I don’t have anything to do until five p.m. Before I know it, I’m looking at Evie’s Twitter again, narrowing my eyes back at her profile photo. As soon as my gaze hits @simonschuster, I shut the browser, then open Spotify on my computer and turn on my speakers. I zone out to the robotic thwacking of an electronic composer while watching dust dangle in in harsh beams of light.

My phone begins to ring, and I practically jump. I hate talking on the phone, but I practically leap to answer it. I don’t even care who it is.

“Hello?” I practically shout.

“Hi, Fiona,” says the voice. It’s my sister. Not my favorite person, but I’m desperate.

“Hi, Nicole,” I say. I assume she’s calling about a friend’s child with anxiety or depression again (everyone thinks their kid is mentally ill). My sister only seems to want to talk to me as it pertains to my medical expertise. My whole family. They’re interested in me less as a family member and more as a psychiatrist they happen to know well. I’m obnoxious and unpleasant, but I have special knowledge that can help them. They’ve always made me feel like my personality is something I should take great care to suppress.

“Are you going to Mom’s for Easter?” she asks, surprising me. “I’m asking because she’s being a nervous wreck about it, per usual, and I somehow lost my mind and offered to help.”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” I say, which is true. “But yeah, I guess I’ll go.” What else am I going to do?

“Great,” she says with a tone that suggests the opposite. “Also Mom mentioned something about you, err…having a friend?”

I’m shocked. My family has never explicitly mentioned my sexuality. “Friend” may sound indirect, but I assure you it’s the closest anyone has gotten.

When I told my mom I was gay, she pretended not to hear me.

I wonder how my mom knows about Evie, then remember that time Evie and I ran into her at Whole Foods on the way back from Malibu. My mom seemed oddly taken with Evie. She values beauty highly. Also, Evie is a charmer.

“She left me,” I say. Naturally, the one time my family takes an interest in my love life, it’s at the height of my heartbreak.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nicole says. And then she hangs up.

I awake my desktop. A new email pops up, thank god. I scan it and immediately recognize its kind.

Nearly every day, a patient asks me to prescribe her (I stopped treating men a long time ago—too needy) a stimulant, a benzo, or both.

It typically goes something like this:

A bold patient—borderline personality disorder, a manic depressive in a state of mania—will ask in session in dramatic tones, as if she is delivering a closing soliloquy in a Shakespearean drama. A timid patient—generalized anxiety disorder, manic depressive in a state of depression—will email me, often days before our appointment. If she wants a stimulant, she will say: Dr. Archer, I’m having trouble focusing at work. A doctor in college (grad school) diagnosed me as ADD and prescribed Xmg of Adderall (Ritalin / Dexedrine / Vyvanse). My workload has recently increased, and I’d like to renew my prescription for improved concentration and productivity.

 If she wants a benzo, she will say: Dr. Archer, I’m having trouble sleeping. My internist prescribed Ambien (Lunesta), but it results in strange sleep behavior, such as cooking pasta in the middle of the night (and I’m allergic to gluten!). A doctor in college diagnosed me with panic disorder and prescribed Xmg of Klonopin (Xanax / Ativan / Lorazepam). As I’m facing serious stress at work (school / my marriage), I’d like to renew my prescription.

The way Five’s email was worded made it clear the drugs were recreational—too explainy, too polished. It clearly went through numerous drafts, was revised by her pillhead friends. Years of anxiety have resulted in Five’s mild dysthymia, a low-grade depression. Five is a law student, so she’s likely surrounded by stimulants. She probably tried it, experienced that flash of euphoria—like me in medical school—and wants more. I had one law student patient tell me her friends used to snort Dexedrine in the bathroom in between classes. I prescribed her Adderall, so she could use more safely. One time she came into my office with bright blue powder on the edge of her nose. I never mentioned it. I’m sure this would horrify my colleagues, which is one of many reasons I don’t have any. I’d last about seven seconds in a group practice. I find office interaction insufferable. I don’t care about traffic patterns and I don’t watch television.

I pretty much always give my patients the pills they want. Listen, I’m not enabling addiction. I prescribe these drugs in safe quantities—I published a celebrated paper on micro-dosing in medical school. I can spot an addict from a mile away, and I always refer them elsewhere. Science has made astonishing advancements in the last twenty years, and there is no reason we shouldn’t be taking advantage of it. My patients want to feel as good as they possibly can, and who am I to stop them?

But today I’m on edge, and I find myself wanting to say no.

I take a deep breath. I know nothing about this book, I tell myself. Becoming anxious without having all the information is irrational and unhelpful. This is what I tell my patients. But soothing the mind is easier said than done, and that’s why I get paid the big bucks.

◊

“Hi,” Five says when I greet her in the waiting room.

“Hi Fi—Lily,” I say. The words come out scratchy at first because I haven’t used my voice all day. I clear my throat. “Come on in.”

I walk over to my couch, and she sits on hers. The room is cast in a golden glow. The pleasing aesthetics of my office provide a brief respite from my mental chatter. My style inspiration was a Freudian analyst in a 1970s Woody Allen film. But let’s be clear, I don’t fuck with Freud. I’m strictly CBT – that is, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Evie said I’m old school, I should be using Mindfulness. Evie thought she knew everything. In her defense, she was usually right.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

She fingers a lock of thick raven hair, which briefly flickers red in the light. This is always the most awkward part of the appointment, especially for my introverts like Five. The borderlines come marching in—hair frazzled, mascara smudged—instantly ranting about parking ticket that ruined their life. The extroverts are easier, but less interesting. I experience pleasure from extracting the introverts from their shells, from uncovering the brilliance behind the layers.

“I’m good,” she says. Normally I would bring up her email, to spare the introvert the pain of having to initiate a conversation. But not today. “School is stressful.”

I’ve treated too many law students. They love to complain, and none of them want to be lawyers. Many consider themselves artists, others just want to get rich and sit on a beach.

“Oh, yeah?” I ask.

“Well.” Five crosses her pale thin legs. She’s wearing a lavender shift dress that brings out the pink tint in her skin. “Maybe not stressful.” She becomes entranced with a silver ring on her finger, spins it with concentration. “More boring.”

“I had to read a statute the other day for this issue with my neighbor—psychotic dog,” I say, mainly to entertain myself. “Anyway, I couldn’t get through the statute. I just gave up. I don’t know how you do it.” I’m lying. I would never read a statute. I have a lawyer for that. I wonder if I should call her, then take a breath. That would be premature.

Five giggles. “I never really do the reading,” she says as though she’s admitted to committing a felony.

“What would you rather be doing?”

“Painting,” she says, her gaze still cast on her finger.

Suddenly, there is a loud bang in the distance. Five jumps, and so do I. I’m angry at myself for losing my cool. I cross my legs and smooth my hair.

“I think it was one of my neighbors slamming a door,” I say. Honestly, I have no idea, but explanations comfort people.

“The one with the crazy dog?” She looks embarrassed, as if she’s said something inappropriate. My borderlines will ask me about my orgasms, but the introverts act as though they’ve crossed a line just for following up on something I say.

“Probably.” I cross my legs. “So why haven’t you been painting?”

Five looks up at me for the first time, her timid grey eyes meeting mine. For a second, I shiver—mainly because her eyes are almost the exact same color as Evie’s. Gray is among the rarest of eye colors, as Evie reminded me constantly. The women also share the same delicate frame, fair skin, and nearly-black hair. But Evie is more dramatic in her appearance, bolder in her behavior. Five reminds me of people I used to date before Evie. Symmetrical women who were awe of me, who clung to my every word. Women I made orgasm in twelve seconds. Women who never left me.

“I don’t know.” She begins twirling her ring again, then looks into my eyes with a gaze I recognize well: longing.

“How is your anxiety?” I ask. I wonder if she’ll have the balls to bring up her email.

“It’s fine. Same old. It comes and goes.” She pulls at the bottom of her dress. I catch a glimpse of the inside of her pale thigh, then quickly look away.

Soon Five is talking about her low sex drive. We almost always end up here. I wish I could just tell her she’s a lesbian and save us both some time.

The clock strikes six, and Five still hasn’t said a word about the email.

“I’m afraid our time is up,” I say.

She brushes a strand of hair from her face. “Did you happen to get my email?”

“Oh.” I feign forgetfulness. “Yes, of course. Do you remember the name of the doctor who diagnosed you in college?” This isn’t something I would normally ask.

“Um,” she says faintly. “It was student health, I’d have to go back and check—” She reaches into her purse. Pulling out her iPhone, she catches my gaze for a brief second. Her eyes are cold, distant. As she scrolls through her phone, I watch her slip away.

“—Don’t worry about it.” I don’t mean to say this. “You said 10mg right?”

“Yeah,” she says. Her body slackens, and a wave of relief washes over me.

“I’ll call it in tonight,” I say.

She flashes me a brief smile, then—as if embarrassed—stands up abruptly and approaches the door.

“Hey,” I say as she’s almost gone. “I expect at least a painting out of this.”

“You got it, Fiona.”

◊

As I’m filling in Five’s patient chart, an email comes in from tomorrow’s Nine O’Clock. Another introvert wants Adderall. I don’t respond.

In the kitchen, I find myself lingering over Lioness again in my phone, imagining the disappearing typing bubbles. I put my finger on the dialogue box and start crafting and deleting several unhinged drafts about how her book better have nothing to fucking do with me. I set the phone down on the marble counter, and I decide to order Thai. Evie never liked Thai, so ordering it feels like an act of resistance. I know I’m not supposed to be eating carbs, but who cares if my life is about to go up in flames. I order all my favorites: shrimp spring rolls and papaya salad and Pad See Ew.

While I wait, I shower. The pressure of water against my body drowns my thoughts. Afterwards, I slather my body in rosehip seed oil and take a half a Klonopin. In the closet, I run my fingers along the edge of a floor-length fur coat Evie left behind. Just as I drape it on my naked body, the doorbell rings.

“Joey,” I say, opening the door. He’s been my delivery guy since I moved here. About a month ago Evie invited him in to smoke a joint with us. We ended up chatting and laughing for hours, I don’t remember what about. Ever since, Joey always leaves a tiny nug in the bag. “What a treat.”

“Oh…Fiona,” he says. He seems taken by me, staring at where my coat opens and reveals the top of my chest. “I thought you were Evie for a second. In that coat.”

I bat my lashes. “I can be glamorous too, you know.” I feel an immense sense of power in being objectified.

“Right.” He hands me the bags, and my eyes meet his. For the first time, I notice they’re annoyingly beautiful—bright green and almond shaped with thick lashes. “Is she…around?”

As I hand him the cash, rage bubbles up inside me. I’m no stranger to random attacks of anger, but this one feels elucidating. I’d peeled away to bed early that night, leaving Evie and Joey alone on the couch, sitting close and laughing hard. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, just like I didn’t think anything of it when Evie told me early in our relationship that she’d cheated on every lover she’d had. But she always left them soon after, she’d clarified, as if this morally absolved her. Lucky for her, I’ve never cared much for morals. Everyone cheats, I remember thinking.

Joey tugs at the bottom of his shirt, flits his eyes. He’s pretty, but dumb. I can tell from the way his mouth hangs open that any sort of meaningful conversation with him would present a serious challenge. “I’d like to say hi,” he says, and I want to punch him in the face.

“She left me,” I say. I tighten the top of Evie’s coat and think of her Tweet—not the book Tweet, but the first one, about the horrors of heterosexual intercourse. “Right after you couldn’t make her come.”

Just as Joey’s face begins to fall, I slam the door in his face. I drop the bags on the floor and charge upstairs. In the bathroom, the other half of my Klonopin crumbles into my sweaty palm, coagulating into a grotesque yellow paste. Without thinking, I squeeze my palm into a fist, crush the pill, then let the dust sprinkle onto the floor. In the cool quiet of my bedroom, I inhale deeply through my nose, exhale through my mouth, calming my nervous system without pharmacological assistance.

Downstairs, I eat standing up at the counter. In between bites, I pick up my phone, linger over Lioness. I think about how, if she happens to be looking at my contact, Evie will be seeing those freakish bubbles. But I doubt she’s thinking of me. She’s surely moved onto her next prey.

I still send the text. Congrats on your book…I’m not in it right? Haha.

I put my phone down on the counter and continue eating. I revel in the sweet and savory flavors, bits of peanut and basil, the gooey bliss of the thick noodles. As I rinse my plate, I think about Lily. It’s probably best she sees someone else. I’ll send her some referrals tomorrow.

My phone alights. A new text from Lioness.

My book has nothing to do with you, Fiona.

Photograph of Anna Dorn under a treeAnna Dorn is a writer living in Los Angeles. A former criminal defense attorney, she regularly writes about legal issues for Justia and Medium. Her article on juvenile life without parole was published in American University Law Review. She has written about culture for LA Review of Books, The Hairpin, and Vice Magazine.

 

 

 

Image credit: NASA on Flickr

DINNER by Naomi Xu Elegant

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

empty wine glass in front of a blue background

DINNER
by Naomi Xu Elegant

He was standing outside the double doors of the restaurant, sweating underneath his blazer. He was exactly on time. He saw a girl walking towards him, a close approximation of the one whose picture he had on his phone. He waved to her. She didn’t wave back.

“Amelia?”

She waved back. Amelia. She was wearing a puff-sleeved pink fur coat, cropped at the waist. He could tell by the sheen of it—his ex-wife had been fond of mink—that it was faux. She trotted up to him and kissed his cheeks in quick succession without having to tiptoe.

“Nice to finally meet you, Jim,” she said.

“The pleasure’s all mine,” he said.

He chided himself for not preparing a wittier greeting.

“Have you been here before?” he asked.

She shook her head. He liked the way her hair bounced off her shoulders. He wiped his hands on his chinos, fearing sweat, and opened the door for her.

He was relieved she hadn’t been brought here before by some other man from The App, which he felt would have made his choice of restaurant seem unoriginal. He guessed she might be lying, but even that possibility reassured him because it would have meant that she had lied to make him feel better.

Their waiter seated them at the corner table Jim had requested beforehand, and handed them drink menus. Amelia began flipping through the cocktail list. Jim remembered the age listed on her App profile: twenty.

Would she try to order a drink? Would she be asked for her ID? Would he have to argue with the manager to save face? Would the manager assume she was his daughter? Shit. He had been trying not to think about his actual daughter, who was ten, far enough developmentally from the girl—woman—in front of him to soothe his niggling guilt. But he and his ex-wife had had their daughter unusually late. In fact, it was quite possible—very likely, if he was being honest with himself—that he was the same age, maybe even older, than Amelia’s father. He decided to avoid the topic of family.

The waiter was back, expectant.

“The lychee martini for me, please,” Amelia said.

“I’ll have a Maker’s Mark,” Jim said. “Neat.”

The waiter left. Amelia grinned.

“I love fancy restaurants. They never card.”

“Have you been to many? I’m sure you’re popular on The App.”

“I’ve had a few Companionships. Mostly guys in their thirties, a few in their forties.”

“I’m surprised the algorithm matched us up, in that case.”

“I upped my age limit to sixty-five last week.”

“Ah,” he said.

There was a brief silence.

“Your coat’s not real fur, is it?” he said. “I know a great place in the Garment District that–”

“Of course it’s not real fur. I’m against animal cruelty,” she said.

He glanced at the black leather purse dangling off her chair.

“How about you?” she said. “How long have you been on The App?”

He thought about lying for a moment, but admitted, “You’re my first match.”

The waiter set their drinks down. She picked hers up, swilling the pale straw-colored liquid around in her glass.

“Well, cheers,” she said. “Guess I’m popping your cherry.”

He laughed, and then worried that he’d laughed a little too loud. He sipped his bourbon and wished he’d ordered a beer.

For dinner she had the fig salad and the halibut, and he had the beef tartare and the roast tarragon chicken. He learned that she was from Akron, Ohio, but preferred Manhattan (“I’m already such a New Yorker”); that she wasn’t registered to vote (“I’m not super into politics”); and that she hoped to go into marketing after graduating from NYU.

She displayed polite interest in his job (“Do you ever, like, make speeches in court, like Erin Brockovich?”) and in his stamp collection, especially after he told her he owned one stamp equivalent in value to a year of her college tuition. Every so often one of them would make a cultural reference that the other pretended to understand (Juuling, Pasolini). Neither was ever convinced by the other’s feigning. A 2005 Bordeaux helped them both along.

At the end of the meal, buoyed by alcohol and a decaf espresso, he asked her if she wanted to go back to his apartment with him. She spooned out the last of her pomegranate soufflé before answering.

“Definitely. We should discuss terms first, though.”

“Terms?”

“You know. T&Cs. It says on The App…?”

“Right.”

He’d forgotten about the The App checklist they were supposed to go through before—what had the phrase been?—“consummating or otherwise advancing the Companionship.”

She pulled out her phone and started reading aloud.

“Consent, blah blah blah…‘Have both parties outlined their expectations of the Companionship?’ So I’m fine with whatever, sexual stuff. That was one of your expectations, right?”

He glanced around the restaurant and prayed the waiter wouldn’t come with the check just yet.

“Yes.”

“Cool. Okay, next…‘Have both parties agreed on a mutually beneficial gifting arrangement?’” She looked up from her phone. “Did you have a chance to look through my gifting preferences?”

“Uh…”

“I’ll read them out for you,” she said. “So I put down ‘dinners, shopping sprees, surprise gifts to place of work or study, weekend trips’…does that sound good?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Don’t worry,” she smiled. “I’m not one of those girls looking for help with student loans.”

The waiter placed their check on the table.

“Thank you,” Jim said. “Thanks.” He handed his credit card to the waiter. “Thanks so much.”

The waiter left.

“Alright, one more thing. ‘Declaration of any other current Companionships or App-external intimate relationships.’” Amelia paused. “So I’m single in real life, but I’m seeing a couple other guys from The App. You?”

The waiter came back with the receipt. Jim stared at it, not sure how much to tip. He wondered if she was watching him, if she would be able to see the number he wrote down. He wondered how much her “couple of other guys” would tip. Under ‘gratuity,’ he scrawled forty per cent.

“No other Companionships and no…App-external intimate relationships,” he said, stumbling over The App’s clunky phrase. He couldn’t bring himself to repeat what she had said: “single in real life.” He tried not to dwell on her blasé delineation between ‘real life’ and whatever plane of reality he existed in for her.

“Alright. Shall we?”

He held the restaurant door open for her and she stepped out onto the curb.

“So,” he said.

“So,” she said. She smiled at him, which he took as encouragement.

“We can walk to my place, if you don’t mind…”

He realized she wasn’t listening. She was staring at something behind him. He turned to look. He saw a lanky boy with magenta-colored hair and two wan girls with nose piercings. All three were wearing black and all three were taller than Jim.

“Amelia, what’s up?” the pink-haired boy said.

Jim looked at her. He saw her shrink into herself.

“Caleb. Hey.”

The pink-haired boy glanced at Jim, then wrapped his arms around Amelia in a hug that Jim felt went on for a little too long.

The hug ended. There was a silence. Caleb and the two girls looked at Jim and then at Amelia.

“Is this your…?” Caleb said. Jim braced himself for ‘father.’

“This is Jim,” Amelia said. “Jim, these are my classmates. Caleb, Kyra, and Veronica.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jim said. The pale girls smiled at him without much commitment. He didn’t know which one was Kyra and which one was Veronica. He realized they didn’t care if he knew.

“We have to go. I’ll see you guys around,” Amelia said. She grabbed Jim by the wrist and tugged him away.

“See you later, Amelia,” Caleb said. Jim prickled at ‘later,’ unsure if it was a colloquialism or if Amelia and Caleb did in fact have plans ‘later.’ He consoled himself, recalling that she had told him she was “single in real life.”

They were heading in the opposite direction of his apartment. She was walking too fast and he could see her face was red under her makeup. He wondered if he should comfort her, but he felt too hurt himself. He felt embarrassed that he had embarrassed her. He felt ashamed. He felt angry that she had made him feel ashamed. He felt too old to feel ashamed.

They walked for a couple of blocks in the wrong direction before she stopped at a street corner and fished a pack of cigarettes from her purse. She offered him one, and he took it.

“Sorry about that. I was a little thrown off,” she said. “They’re just classmates. Not really my close friends.”

She handed him the lighter. He realized that the time between his first cigarette—snuck in the woods at Andover when he was fifteen—and this cigarette was over twice the amount of time she’d been alive. He lit the cigarette.

“Caleb isn’t a close friend?” he said. He felt a twinge of petty jealousy he hadn’t felt since he first began to suspect his ex-wife was cheating on him. It excited him, then depressed him.

“Not really. My real friends know I’m out with you, that’s what I meant,” she said. “I wasn’t, like, trying to hide it. Whatever. Which way is your place?”

Rather than walk the few blocks back to his apartment, he hailed a cab to avoid the possibility of running into any other NYU students who had ventured into Midtown that particular Friday.

In the taxi, they didn’t speak. He stared out the window. She thumbed through Instagram on her phone.

When he flicked on the lights in his apartment, she purred in approval. She shrugged off the pink faux fur jacket and let it drop onto the floor.

“Your place is gorgeous,” she said. “I love high ceilings.”

She drifted towards the living room window.

“Ugh,” she said. “What a view.”

He looked at her looking at it, and tried to imagine seeing that view for the first time—the shrouded tops of the trees, the black glint of the reservoir at night, the looming silhouette of the Dakota, which he could never look at without thinking of the wintry day John Lennon was shot there, and which he now could not look at without thinking that she was looking at that building now, and seeing nothing.

Headshot of Naomi Xu ElegantNaomi Xu Elegant is a senior at the University of Pennsylvania. She studies history and English and enjoys eating noodles. She is from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

ANGELS IN THE ARCHITECTURE by Dawn Davies

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Photograph of Greco-Roman archway

ANGELS IN THE ARCHITECTURE
by Dawn Davies

It’s twilight on the fifth floor of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and a weak light seeps from the underside of the plastic-lined blackout curtains. It is growing dark against his wishes, yet Jacob Silbergeld no longer has the voice to catch the attention of a passing nurse who could adjust the transitioning of light he has hated for most of his life. Twilight is when slippery things happen, when one can be led by the hand to unwanted places. Twilight is when buildings surge in the skyline and become otherworldly, a time when one can lose control. Jacob had fought against its demons for years with distractions of all sorts: films, friends, or when all else failed, a good book and a single malt scotch, but he is no longer in control of his environment, and the coming of night frightens him. He brushes his left hand over the blanket in search of the call button.

It had been a regular day at the Southampton cottage. Jacob had built the place by hand after retirement, indulging his architectural whims with ornate, paneled cornices, wild like curls of hair, rounded oak doorways, and a meandering granite walk lined with lily of the valley. He’d sat in the garden watching a colony of red-winged blackbirds getting ready to pull up stakes for the season. It was near dark when he finally stood and his right leg, which hadn’t worked well in years, buckled and caused him to lose his balance. He fell over the sundial onto a weed-covered stump. He heard the thick snap in his right hip socket, which led to an ambulance ride back to Manhattan, then surgery and rehab, and then, two months later—a week before he was scheduled to go home—a left-side stroke with hemiparesis and aphasia.

Breaking a hip was like the corruption of a bearing wall and floor joist, without which any structure, from the simplest barn to the loftiest cathedral, would crumble. Like any floor joist, a hip could be repaired. But the stroke took his freedom, his speech, the right side of his body. Benjamin, his old friend, was out of options. He’d begun the steps to close up the Southampton place and get Jacob permanently back to the city where his doctors were. He was nearly ninety, after all.

“Don’t sell the cottage,” Jacob had said, but Benjamin didn’t understand the marble tongue, the bee-stung muscles of the mouth, the frantic, dog-like look in Jacob’s eyes.

Back in the dark, his hand hits plastic. He fumbles for the call button and presses it. Someone needs to come quickly. Turn on a light. Do something. A panic swells within him at the dimming of the light.

He sees a shadow in the corner, but before it has time to rise, a nurse appears, the short, quick-talking one with the purple clogs, white cardigan, and red, curler-set hair. Jacob knows her because she smells like cinnamon Chiclets. He remembers her name is Penny.

“What do you need, sweetie? We’re busy tonight.” Penny leans in, hand on the doorframe, without committing to the room. He tries to tell her, but his mouth turns sideways in a grimace, and he releases a groan.

“We’ll be back in to get you ready for bed in a little while. You have to potty? You didn’t wet yourself again, did you?” Penny walks over and peeks under his sheet at his withered legs. She pats a hand near his bottom.

“No. You’re dry, praise the Lord. Here, let me turn on your TV.” She leans over his bed, her breasts near his face, a gold cross dangling in front of his eyes, then swings the arm of the small box television towards the bed and aims it at Jacob’s face. Wheel of Fortune announces itself, with its clicking roulette wheel and its stupid sampling of humanity guessing letters to simple riddles. The laughter of strangers calls him into sadness. He had always disdained television, but this set injects a grainy, rainbow-speckled light into the darkening room, for which he is grateful.

“We’ll be back in a little while to turn you, sweetie,” Penny says, and she’s gone, her compact, solid frame and rounded little arms and elbows reminding him of a Degas sculpture he’d once seen of a dancer looking at the bottom of her foot. If this nurse could stop for just a moment and stand in the doorway again, he would see it, he was certain of it—a hint of one thing sitting very still inside another.

The corner opposite him scribbles with moving shadow. He refuses to look there, yet his heart beats hard, like it always does when shadows assert themselves in the night. He looks instead at the television: a silly man in a suit holding a microphone, a contestant jumping up and down and clapping her hands, while her enormous breasts sway two directions at once and nearly pull her down into the pronged wheel. The wasting of time. What they don’t know of waste and of time. What you can never get back, he thinks. Things can change like that.

Once, not long ago, on a cold fall day eight years into his career, he saved a child’s life. He’d been limping across the Upper West Side on his way to the Automat on Broadway. His right fist stung with cold as it gripped the top of his cane. It was hard going on a windy day. Red and gold leaves floated like fires down to the ground, and he was so lost in thought that he almost missed it: the little boy darting after a rubber ball into the street, the woman on the stoop screaming “Stop!” Without thinking, Jacob dropped his cane and grabbed the boy by the back of the coat, swinging him around over the sidewalk just in time to keep a laundry truck from running him over.

He righted the child on the sidewalk and ran his hands quickly over the curly black hair, while the child stifled a sob and cried “Auntie!” Jacob looked sharply at the woman as she rushed from the steps to hug them both. He leaned into them for a moment, then pulled back to look at the boy, his cheeks so red and his eyes so bright and black that he almost swore he saw an echo of his old girl, Alice, in this boy’s face, the small assertion of one thing nested so still inside another, a shading, really. It had unsettled him.

Jacob knelt and hugged the child to him hard, sniffed his hair—it smelled dusky, like fire on a fall day—then peeled himself away, picked up his cane, and continued on his way, limping past buildings he knew like friends, eyes focused on angles and arches and designs across the skyline. He did this to distract his mind. The child would have been about the same age as Alice’s child, he thinks, and that’s when the shadow rose up from behind a row of ash cans in an alley, massive arms bulging, battle-scarred. It stood like a marble sculpture. He panicked and moved toward the street, then held his chest for a moment while his breathing returned to normal. When he looked back, the umbric figure was gone. That evening the darkness pressed against him like a problem, hot and oppressive and he couldn’t wait to get home. Later, he found himself near tears thinking about the child he had saved. About Alice and her child. About the life they didn’t have. He turned on all the lights in his house and stayed awake until the sun came up and relieved him of his fear.

He sees a movement in the recess next to his closet that lifts and surges like a gestural drawing in a nightmare, a boogie man, shoulders the size of a tank, roaring up then settling back down, angling back into the dark, and his heart jumps weakly in his chest. Damn it. He presses the call button again. Nothing, nothing, except wheels of fortune clacking in the dark. Now an orange juice ad, a blonde Nazi child sipping cold juice through a striped straw. The darkness swells, and the shape stirs. He feels a wet sting on his left side. He presses the call button.

It takes an eon for Nurse Penny to come, this time sailing through the door, rushed, annoyed, leaning quickly to turn down the volume of that stupid show.

“What is it, sweetie? Mein Gott!” he thinks he hears her say, like his mother would have.

“You’re sweating. I’ll be right back.” His left hand grips her rounded forearm, and he pulls and says, “Don’t go. Don’t leave me in the dark. Something is in the room! In the corner!”

But the nurse hears a gurgled slur in his throat and peels his speckled claw away from her. She doesn’t like the patients touching her skin. She peers under the sheet again and says, “Uh-oh, I see what you’ve been up to, Mr. Silbergeld. You’re all wet. I’ll be right back with someone. We’ll change you.”

She turns quickly and leaves again, and the shadow lifts and begins to surge and press toward him. Jacob sees a helmet on a molten head, nose like a bull. He calls out for help, but there is no one.

“I will not look at you,” Jacob says to the figure. “You cannot get to me here. Get away!” Its shape is clearer now. It rises up out of the corner, dappled in television light, like the winged warrior on the Mohawk Niagara building.

“Help!” he cries out again. “Mein Gott!” though he hasn’t spoken German since coming to America in ’32 after his mother’s funeral. Jacob had come home from school and found her on the floor, purple in the face, her hands still white with the flour she’d been using to knead bread. He and his uncle set out for the States two weeks later, leaving Jacob’s father behind in the institution from which he would never be released.

It was during the rough, storm-sieged ocean crossing that the beast-like shadow first appeared to Jacob, the night Jacob thought that he, and everyone else on the ship, would surely die in the storm. He believed its apparition was the first indication that he might be taken by dementia praecox the way his father had been. He didn’t tell his uncle. Instead, he quietly braced himself for the beginning of what he expected to be a terminal state of deterioration. Insanity. Institutionalization. But no other sign manifested. Only the dark form that haunted him and appeared when he was most vulnerable, the one he never dared to look at. The one that showed itself during that dangerous boat ride and never went away. Over time, he grew to believe it was the way his mind processed fear, but it didn’t help him feel less afraid.

Nurse Penny returns with another nurse, the big one Jacob doesn’t like, the one with the red nose and rough hands. Their arms are full of sheets, blankets, cloth bed-liners, a nightgown, and towels. The form in the corner softens but stays. Folds inward. Don’t they see it? Jacob, thinks. Why do they not trip over its big feet?

“We’re here to get you ready for bed, Mr. Silbergeld,” the big nurse says in the voice she used for old patients: loud, flat, and condescending. When she pulls the light cord, the room floods with a cold fluorescence and, to Jacob’s relief,  the shape briefly disappears.

But after his eyes adjust, the umbra begins to swell and fill the corner once again. There is no getting away from it. There never is. It has eyes and they look at him. For the first time in his life, Jacob looks back, briefly, before turning away. Nothing happens. He has not become a pillar of salt. He has not spontaneously combusted. He hasn’t melted or been possessed by shedim—the demon spirits his mother had once warned him of.

The nurses flank him on either side and begin the choreographed moves they practiced several times per day, first stripping back his blanket and sheet, leaving him bare and wet and branchy on the bed, a hint of his former self, the meat of his muscles eaten by time, his bones picked clean.

“He’s wet,” Penny says.

“Must be 7:30,” says the big nurse, who looks at her watch. “Yep. Every night, like clockwork. Here, roll him toward me. Look at that scar on his leg. Wonder what happened there.” They turn him like a piece of timber onto his numb side, and he thinks he is falling. He calls out, fumbling with his left hand for the bed rail and hitting Penny in the chest.

“Look out! It’s right behind you,” Jacob tells her. A warning, but she doesn’t understand.

“I think you’re getting fresh with me, Mr. Silbergeld,” Penny says.

“Those days are long gone,” the big nurse says, as she swabs his bottom and rolls the urine-soaked pad under his left hip, then rolls him back on top of it.

But they aren’t gone, he thinks. It was just a moment ago, a week, really, that he took Alice to see the Manhattan Municipal Arts Building the day before he left for basic training. He had suspended architecture school to join the Army after Pearl Harbor and had wanted to show her the magical quality of Beaux-Arts before he left, so he could experience his two loves in one place, one essentially nestled inside the other.

He kissed her under the Gustavino ceiling tiles in the South Arcade, something he had longed to do since he first saw the sweeping curves of tile that rode the building like a wave. He leaned down, smoothed her black curls back from her forehead, and pressed his lips hard onto hers, wanting to brand her with his kisses, leave his mark on her before he left. She laughed when she pulled away to catch her breath, her teeth flashing like small pearls, and this was when he knew loved her. He asked her to wait for him, and she said yes. Later that night they made love for the first time in a cheap motel they rented by the hour. Separating from her to report for basic training was like peeling his skin away from his bones.

Jacob loved Alice through the European theater, writing weekly declarations of his love home to her, and of his promise to marry her as soon as he got back. When the ‘Dear John’ came without warning, telling him she had married another, the shadow returned, looming large, skulking behind every tree, following him into his foxhole, disappearing during battle, but reappearing soon after the gunfire ceased, and his breathing returned to normal. He had gotten himself shot in Bastogne, and during recovery, which took place at a military hospital set up inside an old church, the shadow was so ominously present that Jacob thought he was truly going insane. He confessed to his nurse that he was seeing visions, and she told him not to worry about it, that it was due to fever brought on by infection. He wasn’t crazy, she said. He was just in the middle of a war. But how could he not worry? The beast never seemed to go away.

Jacob arrived home months later with his limp and his cane and his shattered right thigh, to find that Alice had died in childbirth. The door of hope he had always held open closed for good. He finished architecture school like a puppet on a string, automatically, almost without thought, then left for Albany, where he designed large office buildings without passion, without curve, without bravura or swag, without love.

Some years later, he ran into their old cantor, who spoke of Alice.

“She married so quickly,” the cantor whispered. “She had to. She was already with child and the math didn’t make sense, if you know what I mean. She gave birth four months after the wedding. A son.”

“What? Whom did she marry?” Jacob asked. “I must know.” But the cantor said he couldn’t say any more. He had been asked not to.

Jacob pressed him. “Who was it? Who asked you not to say anything? I must know the family’s name.”

The cantor shook his head and made a gesture of locking his lips with an imaginary key, and Jacob knew he wouldn’t get anything more out of this man whose promises stuck like brick and mortar. When the cantor saw the tears in Jacob’s eyes, he softened, saying only that the boy lived with Alice’s husband’s family on the Upper West Side. Later, Jacob noticed the cantor hadn’t said the boy lived with his father. He said the boy lived with Alice’s husband’s family. What did that mean? Was the cantor implying that the father was dead? Or that Alice’s husband was not the boy’s father? Was he the father? Did he have a son? After limping for weeks up and down the entire Upper West Side and seeing no boy with red cheeks and curly black hair, Jacob decided it was best not to meddle. What would it accomplish anyway? He tried to put the idea of the child out of his mind, lest he be driven crazy in a different way. Still, Jacob never stopped looking for the child who reminded him so much of Alice. He looked in restaurants, on subways and buses, in schoolyards and movie theaters and shops. He couldn’t help himself. This went on so long that he eventually began looking for a young man, then an older man, then finally an old man in his sixties. He never found him, but he never stopped looking.

Jacob’s love for architecture returned, and he devoted himself to his work, to creating useful yet lovely things that would loom high in the sky and assert themselves for generations, leave a little of himself for the future, and a little of Alice, too, for he loved her still. He would put a bit of her in each building he created, a hint of her sitting very still inside something solid, tucking carved masonry angels into friezes on gambrels, or whimsical turrets, or between parapets. He made a name for himself, working long past retirement until he was old and bent, closing each workday late in fear of the dreaded dark, and the shape of night, and the beast that waited in dark joints and junctions to terrify him and take his sleep.

The nurses pass him over the wet, rolled pad, and onto his other side, and from the corner of his eye, Jacob sees the giant form by the closet lunge up to where the ceiling meets the wall. In the light it shines a bright gold and is studded with gems. Jacob groans in terror, his right hand unable to grab for the railing or for the nurse. His bowels release in a pool beneath him, and a foul smell soils the air.

“Christ on a crutch, now he’s done it,” the big nurse says.

“Oh, Mr. Silbergeld,” Penny says, turning her nose away from the bed. “He’s not well.”

“It’s the bloody feeding tube,” the big one says. “It always makes them poo like that. Godawful. Hold him there, now,” and she turns briefly toward the giant form in the corner, which stands gleaming like the Civic Fame statue, golden and frozen, nine feet tall. Why does she not see this creature, Jacob thinks. She’s in its arms.

The big nurse returns with a wet, soapy cloth and cleans his bottom like a baby, and then dries him while Penny holds him stiffly on his side. They lift the corner of the fitted sheet at the bottom, then the top corner of the bed, and roll it under Jacob. Then they place a clean sheet on each corner and tuck it under the soiled, rolled one. They roll him back over the lump, then pull the lump away, fitting the clean sheet over the mattress. They rub lotion into his back, change him into a new hospital gown, and on, “One, two, three,” they hoist him by his elbows to the top of the bed. He is bird bones and air. Nearly nothing. They prop him toward his right side, facing his head toward the corner of the room.

The shadow form makes eye-contact, takes a knee, then bends as if in thought, or as if it is waiting for them to leave so it can finally do something terrible to him. On the television, the sparkling wheel spins in circles. Jacob is nearly insane with fear, but he cannot figure out how to convey this to the nurses. He begins to cry.

“There, Mr. Silbergeld,” Penny says. “You’re all tucked in for the night.”

“He’s very clammy. He’s grayer than usual. He looks like stone,” says the big one.

“No fever, though. I’ll note it in his chart.”

“Don’t leave me,” Jacob says. “There is a beast in the corner. I don’t feel well. There is a fluttering in my chest. There is something about to break in there,” but all the nurses hear is a wheezing of air through his vocal chords, a chewing of his tongue, the babbling of a very old man.

“Sleep tight, sweetie,” Penny says as she reaches over him for the light cord. He smells cinnamon Chiclets. She turns out the light, and the anemic blue of the television washes the room. At least there’s that.

“I’m afraid,” Jacob says. “Don’t turn off the TV.” But Penny pushes the Off switch, and the room goes dark.

“You done?” the big nurse asks from the doorway.

“Yes,” she says. “I’ll meet you in 516 after I wash up. The smell in here. I think it’s in my hair.” She turns and walks out, leaving the door open just a crack, light from the hall slicing into the room like an upended knife. It isn’t enough.

Jacob screams and rattles the side rail. They forgot to give him the call button. They left him alone in the dark. They left him alone with something in the room. Something is wrong inside him. Something is about to break.

The form grows, golden and blue ice, shoulders like a thunderbird, and the face of the bull has shaped to form something oddly human, battle-scarred, clothed in solid, heavy, studded armor. It expands to fill the area near the foot of the bed, growing past the corner, past the height of the ceiling.

Jacob feels a warmth that floods his feet and an explosion in his belly. The blood fades from his head, and the wings unfold from behind the beast for the first time, sharp and solid, like cutlery, and when he sees the wings, his fear fades. It is not a demon. It never has been. How could Jacob not have noticed all these years? Fear had possessed him so thoroughly he had been unable to see that the looming beast had never meant to harm him, but had simply been watching him, or perhaps watching over him.

The darkness wanes, and the room brims with a golden light. Jacob’s eyes overflow with tears, and he rises up to meet this beast, this warrior angel that has always presented itself in times of battle, the one that asserted its form into every structure he built, the one that came in the night, the one that was with him when he crossed the ocean during the storm, the one that was with him the night he saw the Manhattan light push from behind the General Electric building like a nimbus and told his uncle, “I’m going to make buildings like that when I grow up,” the one that was with him the time he turned impulsively into a bookstore instead of going home and had seen Alice for the first time, wearing a gauzy spring dress, her curly black hair pinned with combs behind her ears, the silk seams climbing up the pillars of her legs, her red lipstick like a neon sign, this angel that was with him in his foxhole, and with him on the day he saved his own son in the street—the angel he had feared was a demon his whole life, the one he need not have ever feared.

A song fills the room. Perhaps it is German or Yiddish he hears, or perhaps Hebrew from his childhood days in synagogue, Hebrew sung in verse by fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers, nations of fathers filling a portico, a hall, a prayer service chanted through a tiled sanctuary, the sound swelling in his ears, the corners of the room disappearing, the walls dropping low, joists and struts and columns falling away like folded cloth, rafters turning into dark birds and flying, windows melting like sugar tears, and they lift together, past the fifth floor window, and walk toward the plane of the horizon, up, up to where Alice awaits, her soft curls washed in mist, the golden guardian at his side, wings spread, sword at the ready.

Headshot of Dawn DaviesDawn Davies has an MFA from Florida International University. She’s the author of Mothers of Sparta: A Memoir in Pieces, which was published by Flatiron Books in 2018. Her essays and stories have been Pushcart Special Mentions and finalists for The Best American Essays. Her work can be found in The Missouri Review, Arts & Letters, Narrative, Fourth Genre, Brain, Child, Chautauqua, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere, as well as in various anthologies. She lives in weird Florida.

 

 

Image credit: Conor Sexton on Unsplash 

THIS IS NOT A STORY by Juliana Roth

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A woman looking to the side in harsh lighting; her facial features are not visible. The title of the piece across the center of the page.

THIS IS NOT A STORY
by Juliana Roth

This isn’t one of those stories where the twenty-two year old work-study assistant gets kissed on the cheek by the Chair of one of the country’s most prestigious English departments while she’s arranging cookies for the Visiting Writers Reading, writers whose names you’d surely recognize, like the author of the graphic novel about her coming out and the author who writes about horses, and the trim little poet who upstaged her husband last December at a reading for The Environment.  Remarkable and hopeful, the twenty-two-year-old assistant thought, and immediately bought their books. Now, she stands by the wine as she often does after the Visiting Writers read poems, and essays, and chapters from novels, and the Chair of the department looks her up and down. It was his office in that English Department she’d chosen out of all the work-study jobs offered by this university, because she is an aspiring writer, studying at an important university, and he is a Famous Writer who has, he often brags, a cameo in a movie written by a former student and a scene with that famous British actress who is even more lovely in person, and it might work in her favor if he notices her. He has. He’s been staring at her tits for weeks. “I didn’t know you cared about poetry,” he says. This is not a story about how, when she answers, “Yes, I do,” because she is a writer and of course she cares about poetry and has read poems all of her life, he says, “Do you want to study here? Come to my office,” and he places his hand on the small of her back and kisses her and leaves. But this story is not about that. It isn’t one of those stories.

This is not quite a story about how the twenty-two-year-old assistant goes instead to a bar across the street from his office with a few of the women she’s met at the Reading, grad students who have poems and stories in Big Name Journals, who have awards from the department, and books out with agents, and she tells them she writes, and she wants to study in the department, and one of the women says to the waiter, “a pitcher,” and the twenty-two-year-old assistant hears “a picture,” and she feels very much at home here, wishing they would take one. The drunkest woman, likely because she is the smallest, says, “Welcome to the club,” and the twenty-two-year-old assistant asks, “What club?” and the woman says, “The club of students the professors are trying to fuck.”

The story starts as they get in a car and drive to a party where all of the grad students in the department crowd into a creaky Victorian house and the twenty-two-year-old assistant wishes she could stay in that house forever, leaning against the fireplace with a mug of bourbon and coffee, talking to a young novelist with green marbled eyes and the build of a rugby player.

What the story is about is this: the Chair shows up. He is drunk, he’s taken off his wedding ring, and he sees the twenty-two-year-old assistant who is telling the rugby player about her stories (as if she actually belongs there), stories about magicians and planets and towns recovering from natural disasters and the Chair, who’s been watching her, walks over on little soft cat feet. And the twenty-two-year-old assistant grows smaller and smaller until she can’t remember how she’s gotten there or why she wanted to be a writer or if she’s ever had an original idea in all of her life.

He eyes the twenty-two-year-old assistant—her lips, her tits, her ass. “She is an excellent writer,” the Chair says, and he winks at the rugby player.

This is not a story. This is not a story. This is not—

Headshot of Juliana RothJuliana Roth is a writer from Nyack, NY. She currently lives in Philadelphia. Her writing has appeared in Entropy, VIDA Review, and Irish Pages, among other publications.

 

 

 

 

Image credit: Lorna Scubelek on Unsplash

MY HUSBAND IS ALWAYS LOSING THINGS by Michelle Ross  

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MY HUSBAND IS ALWAYS LOSING THINGS
by Michelle Ross

While my husband frantically searches the house for his misplaced eyeglasses, I watch Marie Kondo fold socks, then stockings, then a sweater into neat little rectangles. They look like origami handbags. In her signature white jacket, the Japanese tidying expert instructs viewers to stroke each garment. She says, “Send the clothing love through your palms.” She runs her hands gently down both the sleeves and the body of a fluffy, white sweater, and my skin tingles.

My husband passes through the living room for the fifth time this search. He says, “You sure you didn’t move them?”

Sometimes he’ll point to an empty spot on a counter and say, “I know I left it right there.” “Then why isn’t it there?” I’ll say. Sometimes he’ll say, “Because you moved it.” Other times, “Because you took it.” Then I’ll say, “Why do you think I took it?” He never has an answer for that.

Once I said, “Then come take it back.” I was standing in the doorway to his home office in a dress I hadn’t worn in years, a dress I’d decided to make myself wear, even if only to lounge about the house, because I had read that it’s a mistake to save our favorite clothing for special occasions that never arrive. I imagined him frisking me for the lost object, like a TSA agent searching for contraband. But my husband didn’t look up, kept shuffling around papers, emptying out boxes.

I used to find his tendency to lose things amusing; then I found it irritating; now it mostly makes me sad. Like when he lost the rack of lamb I asked him to pick up from the butcher, and I found the five pounds of muscle and bone sweating on the floorboard of the passenger side of the car. He couldn’t blame me for that one. After putting the lamb in a plastic trash bag and dropping it into the garbage, he said, “Don’t look at me like that. It was an accident. You want me to go out and pick up another?” “No,” I said. I’d lost my appetite.

To get your house in order, the first thing to do is to discard, Kondo says. Take every object into your hands and ask, “Does this spark joy?”

I stiffen at these words. It’s a harsh test, isn’t it? Joy isn’t the only measure of value.

Take wood chips, for example. For years, they’ve accumulated on the floor of our garage at the rate of dog hair. But when my husband sprinkled them over the puddle of oil that leaked from the car, and they soaked up the mess, left no stain, I was half-grateful he’d not cleaned the garage in twenty years.

Kondo says that this is why stroking and folding clothing is important. It isn’t only a matter of caring for your things. Touch allows you to assess how you truly feel about each item.

I call out to my husband, “They’re not already on your face?” I am not joking. He has ransacked the house for objects that were already on his person—in his pocket, around his neck, in his hand.

Kondo demonstrates with two sweaters. She caresses the first sweater, smiles, places it down beside her. She caresses the second sweater, and the cool look on her face says the item does not pass inspection. I think of the scoliosis screenings at school when I was a kid, how every time a PE teacher told me to bend at the waist so she could scrutinize my spine, I tensed up, certain the test would reveal some defection.

Kondo doesn’t offer a word about why the second sweater doesn’t pass the test. She says to listen to your intuition when deciding what to discard. Rationalization deceives. You rationalize that discarding an object is wasteful or that you might need it again someday. Of the second sweater, she says, “I want to thank this for keeping me warm, but now it’s time to let it go.” She places the sweater apart from the sweater she’s keeping. She smiles again, her expression serene.

After discarding, the next step is to assign a home to each object you keep. Value what cannot be seen on the outside, Kondo says, meaning the insides of closets, cabinets and drawers. What is hidden from public view is all the more sacred.

I think about how my friend Sara worried when her doctor scheduled her for an MRI to diagnose the source of her back pain. Not just because of the invasiveness of the procedure or concern for what the doctor might find. Sara worried there might be metal inside her that she didn’t know about. “How can I be sure there isn’t?” she said. What could I possibly say to assure her? The body is an unopened drawer.

Except when it is opened, by surgeons, and you are out cold as they root around inside you. Or when MRI technicians or X-ray technicians or TSA agents scan your insides—yet another piece of luggage.

Sometimes I wish I could see inside my husband. Peel back the skin and muscle, cut through the bone. Reveal the hidden spaces. Only the clutter might be worse than I imagine. I fear what I might find there, or not find. Would I be able to locate myself at all?

Michelle Ross is the author of There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You (2017), which won the 2016 Moon City Press Short Fiction Award. Her fiction has recently appeared in New World Writing, Passages North, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, TriQuarterly, and other venues. She is fiction editor for Atticus Review. www.michellenross.com

 

 

 

Image credit: Keilidh Ewan on Unsplash

PEANUT MAN by Michael Riess      

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PEANUT MAN
by Michael Riess                                                                                                  

First inning. The summer had been hot, so goddamn hot, and of course, Bill’s air conditioner had kicked out last night, and wouldn’t you know it, his landlord was on vacation, so he had slept—or rolled around, really—in a river of his own sweat. The restless night had cost him sixty-one minutes—a negative seventy-one for the three hours of sleep and a plus ten for the sweaty rolling—but, honestly though, he wouldn’t have minded if the life watch strapped to his wrist on his burnt arm had said something like five minutes because here he was in the stadium, in the sun, with his bald spot sizzling like a fajita, his back on fire from the heavy red bag of peanuts slung across his shoulder, his throat burning from chanting into the humid air, “Get your peanuts, here! Large bag of peanuts!”

Second inning. He wasn’t sure he’d make it through the game. The stadium was packed, five-thousand strong, to see Rodriguez in his rehab assignment in an otherwise meaningless Double-A game. To make matters worse, Bill had requested the second-tier section where a couple of his old-timer buddies sat, but his boss had assigned him to the premium seats, and the front-row snobs were out in full force: tanned, Rolex-wearing executive bros; petite wives with floppy hats and handheld spray fans; pale, scrawny children with well-manicured hands. If he had an ounce of self-respect, he’d take the EpiPen that he carried in case of a peanut emergency and use the skills he learned in training to stab himself in the heart, but instead he simply fantasized about a foul ball knocking him right in the temple and tossed a bag of Planters to some slick-haired guy in the third row, shouting “Hey Peanut Man, hey Peanut Man” while wildly waving his arms as if he were on a lifeboat trying to flag down the search party.

Third inning. Twenty-two years, four months, six days, ten hours, six minutes and twenty-two seconds left. His life watch estimated that he had lost almost a day: a plus forty-eight minutes for walking up and down the rows, but a minus twenty-three hours for sun exposure, a touch of dehydration, and elevated blood pressure from dealing with these bastards in the crowd.

Fourth inning. His arm, exposed, throbbed in the sun. It had been two months since Cecelia had poured the spaghetti in scalding water on his arm as he napped on the couch. His arm had not healed, and due to neglect, his forearm was now splotchy and blistered and swollen and moist, and when he stared at the baby-pink flesh, as he was doing right then, it was as if he were burning in an underworld, destined to deliver shelled peanuts to thousands of red-faced Beelzebubs, and he took pleasure in this image because he deserved to suffer, he deserved to burn, Cecelia was right, he was a weak man, succumbing to Alyssa’s heels and wit, and if his nineteen-year-old son, Kevin, never spoke to him again, well, he couldn’t blame him.

Fifth inning. He took a break and scarfed down a soda and a hot dog and a pretzel. He felt much better and thought maybe things really weren’t that bad, but then he looked down at his watch and saw that he had lost fifteen minutes due to “Poor Dietary Consumption.”

Sixth inning. The sun, improbably, had gotten stronger, casting the stadium in an orange hue, and Bill’s sodium consumption had left him even more dehydrated, which made him think of tortoises sipping fresh water, which inevitably led him to think of Jonathan, a one hundred and eighty-four year old tortoise that he had discovered on Wikipedia last week, the oldest living terrestrial animal, who had roamed the earth since 1832, who was already thirty-three when Lincoln was assassinated, who, if it had existed back then, could have sported a watch with an estimated lifespan defying human conception.

Seventh inning. The grounds crew was dragging the infield again as the crowd sang along to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Bill watched them sweep the reddish dirt with push brooms and drags and rakes. Did you know that graves are recycled after one hundred years? Bill’s father had been dead for forty-two years; he was almost halfway to being repurposed.

Eighth inning. Bill stopped selling peanuts. The air was thick as concrete, the glow in the stadium, now a burnt sienna, left him with a pounding behind the eyes, and there were just too many faces, too many calls for Peanut Man, so he found an empty seat, put his bag on his lap, chugged a discarded, half-empty bottle of water that he found rolling across the aisle, opened a bag of peanuts and started munching, but he found that he could not relax, and prayed that his boss would not see him, and thought that maybe if he had set a better example, Kevin would be somewhere other than pressure washing rail cars on the night shift.

Ninth inning. Last licks. Twenty-two years, three months, fifteen days, eight hours, five minutes and twenty-seven seconds. The home team was down two, with two men on, two men out, and Rodriguez was up and everyone was hysterical, standing and shouting into the sun and stomping their feet, and Rodriguez swung and a sharp crack cut through the shouts, and everyone held their breath, and Bill, who had to have been the only person sitting in the stadium, stood up and craned his neck to see the ball travel over the centerfield wall, and the stadium let out a collective, primal scream, and Bill threw his opened bag of peanuts into the air, and unbeknownst to Bill, one particular peanut flew three rows back and landed in the mouth of a young, cheering boy, who happened to have a severe peanut allergy, which led the boy’s father, who had left his EpiPen in the car, to cry for help, a cry that cut through the screams, and Bill turned around and saw the boy’s cartoonish, swollen face, and his training kicked in and he grabbed the EpiPen with the children’s dosage from his bag’s side pocket and jostled through the people staring at the boy, who was hunched over, his face now a deep red, and Bill removed the blue safety cap and firmly pointed the orange tip downward and pushed the tip into the boy’s thigh and looked into his pleading, squinting green eyes, which looked remarkably similar to Kevin’s, and the boy would be alright, the boy would be alright. Thank the Lord.

Michael Riess lives in Washington D.C. with his wife, Jen, and his daughter, Madeline. He works as an attorney and has recently started writing short fiction. His work has appeared in Typehouse Literary Magazine.

 

 

 

 

Image credit:  Jakob Owens on Unsplash

COPENHAGEN CEMETERY by Nikolaj Volgushev

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COPENHAGEN CEMETERY
by Nikolaj Volgushev

In a neighborhood in the north of Copenhagen, there is this cemetery, though really it’s more of a park.

The locals go on walks there, have picnics, drink in the shade. In the summer, the evenings are cool and infinite here, as though coming from afar, because Denmark is a Northern country. I happened to walk through the cemetery on exactly such a summer evening and so the two have become linked in my mind, the evening and the cemetery, along with a quiet sense of dread which is in essence what I want to tell you about here.

The cemetery is surrounded by an old wall, painted yellow as many buildings in Denmark are, the color of yolk but paler. The paint peels in places, making the wall look even older than it is.

I had been exploring the city that day, wandering about largely without aim when I came across the cemetery. I liked the idea of taking a break in the shade so I picked up some beer and a pack of cigarettes from a corner store and set out to find a suitable park bench.

It had been an unusually warm day but with the evening the warmth sank back into the earth and the alleys that lead among the birch trees and graves were steeped in shade. I walked on and on because I wanted to find a quiet spot, away from everyone.

The size of the cemetery surprised me. After about a half hour of walking I still hadn’t reached the other end, nor had I ever back-tracked.

Eventually, I came across a small square dominated by a tall, skewed oak tree. I settled down on the bench by the tree, cracked open a beer and lit a cigarette.

All was calm and the sky beyond the treetops was a wonderful shade of violet but for some reason an uneasy, grotesque feeling came over me then, like a premonition.

I drank down the beer quickly, hoping to be rid of the feeling and opened another.

I did not notice the man’s approach. He appeared seemingly out of nowhere, just as my premonition had.

One moment the square was empty, the next there he was, whistling tunelessly, sweeping away at the graveled path with a broom.

I wasn’t sure what it was he was supposed to be sweeping up—there were no leaves on the path, no trash either, and yet he was going at it with great vigor, swinging the broom around like someone acting out a sweep in a play.

The man had on a gray cap and a gray uniform, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His arms were very hairy, it looked like they were covered in fur.

I took a drag from my cigarette and tried to ignore the man. This, however, proved impossible.

There was something fascinating, something ghoulish about his person. The more I studied him, the less I could say about his appearance. Try as I might, I could not even figure out the man’s height. One moment he appeared comically short, the next he towered.

It gave me a headache.

By that point, the man had made his way to the middle of the square where he allowed himself a break from his pointless task. He leaned onto his broom, took off his gray cap, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

To my disdain, he then turned in my direction and made a flourishing motion with his hat before restoring it to the top of his head. He wagged his bushy eyebrows at me, then crossed the square, taking comically large strides.

Even as he plopped down beside me, I still couldn’t tell whether he was a head taller, or a head shorter than me, or neither.

“A wonderful evening to enjoy a cool, fresh beer,” the man announced, in English. He had a hoarse voice and a thick accent though it didn’t sound Danish.

I nodded, took another sip from my beer. The man had wide, unsteady eyes, the color of ash. He affixed them on the can in my hand, swallowed hard, like his throat was parched.

“Would you like one?” I offered, despite myself. Surprisingly, the man shook his head.

“No, no, regrettably, I do not drink, many thanks,” he explained, removed his cap again and scratched violently at the top of his head, which I now noticed was balding.

For a while, we sat in silence. A pigeon started cooing up in the branches of the oak tree somewhere which seemed to disturb my strange, new acquaintance. He shuffled about in his seat, let out a huffing noise, and peered up at the hidden bird.

“Where do you come from?” the man asked, his eyes returning to the beer in my hand.

“Oh, I’m just visiting,” I reply.

“Just visiting,” the man repeated to himself. He obviously found something amusing in it for his face lit up and he continued, “just visiting… well, well, I am just visiting also! Haha! Yes, I’m also just visiting.”

He got very excited about his, even slapped himself on his thigh which almost made me drop my cigarette. It was a wet, unpleasant sound, like a dead fish landing on the ground.

It must have also startled the pigeon because I heard a sound of feathers above our heads and watched with envy as the bird disappeared beyond the darkening tree crowns.

“Where are you from then, originally?” I asked and regretted it immediately.

The man shuddered and then looked over both his shoulders and all around as though I had proposed something indecent and he feared someone might have overheard.

His weird eyes rolled in their sockets and when he had finally convinced himself that there wasn’t another soul around, he beckoned me to move closer.

I expected him to reek of sweat, or booze, or something but, in fact, he had no smell whatsoever.

He hesitated for a moment, then whispered: “Originally, I come from the bottom of the sea.”

He giggled but I didn’t feel like he was joking.

“Sorry?” I muttered dubiously.

“Yes, yes, I come from the bottom of the sea. I used to live there, beneath the waves, with the fish. Yes, the fish. It was dark. Here, I am just visiting. Like you!”

“Ah,” I inched away from the man, fumbled for a cigarette. The man fell quiet too. He wasn’t giggling anymore. If anything, he suddenly appeared somber, like something of gravity had just occurred.

He looked at me again. I thought he was making a decision then which sent a chill down my spine. The sun was finally setting and twilight was coming down heavily all around.

Then the man picked up his broom and got to his feet.

“Well, I must be going now. There is still a lot of work left to do.”

Without another word, he got to sweeping again. I watched him walk gradually out of sight. In the thick non-light, he looked like a giant.

A great sense of relief welled up in me when he was finally out of sight. I even let out a nervous laugh. I finished my beer and had another cigarette. There was a deep, blue twilight all around the cemetery now and everything was calm again.

“What a weirdo,” I kept thinking and shaking my head as I smoked.

When I got up to leave, I noticed that the man had left his cap.

I picked it up, turned it around in my hands. It was an ordinary hat, gray, a little worn in places. I really wanted to leave it, knew that I should, but I didn’t. Instead, I set atop my head.

On my way back through the cemetery, I heard a pigeon cooing again, somewhere among the tree crowns. The sound startled me for some reason. I had this odd new feeling in me, like something irreversible had happened, something that could never be undone.

I walked on as the brief summer night settled around me, a few hours of darkness, a few hours of sleep, before the white light of day would emerge from the east again and wash over the world, roll in like waves, like a weightless, invisible ocean.

Nikolaj Volgushev’s fiction has appeared in journals such as the Cafe Irreal, The Molotov Cocktail, and Cease, Cows. He currently lives in Aarhus, Denmark where he writes, programs, and does other things along those lines. Before moving to Denmark, Nikolaj lived in New England, and before that in Germany. It is unclear where, if at all, Nikolaj lived before that.

 

 

 

Image credit: Assistants Cemetery, Copenhagen by Andreas Bloch on Flickr

BLIND TREES by Kate LaDew

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BLIND TREES
by Kate LaDew

It was really dark and it scared Billy. Really very dark. Yes, really very very—made him think of when he was young and every time he turned off the light to go to sleep started remembering ghost stories. Every ghost story he’d ever read or heard or, well, just every one and his sock feet would hit the floor and his hand would hit the light switch and they didn’t go away, the remembered stories, but they settled, soft in his mind and it was okay again.

It was that kind of dark exactly.

But it was okay too. This kind of dark, because he was with Keegan and Keegan couldn’t tell a ghost story without laughing. Each laugh made a little dark go away or maybe a little light shine—A little light shine Billy decided. More positive.

So they kept walking and it got brighter but not enough to keep Keegan from running into a tree. A deep little sigh escaped, as if it were a complete surprise. Billy giggled. Giggled really, like a little boy, not because it was funny necessarily—Billy hated when people laughed at him, watching him being clumsy, often, all the time—not funny, no, but just the surprise. As if it never occurred to Keegan that hitting a tree while walking drunk in woods they’d never been was a foregone conclusion. As if he couldn’t believe it.

Billy giggled again, kept going, until he heard Keegan curse. Loud. It echoed. Well, maybe—Billy was sure actually, quite positive—it didn’t echo but seemed so in his mind. Everything seemed loud there, wondered if maybe something wasn’t wrong. Alcohol dulled the senses. He should be deaf by now. He should never have heard Keegan’s sigh, his deep little sigh like wonderment, or the sound the leaves made when they hit Keegan’s backside. He did though and he’s glad now—confused, maybe things reversed in his system, it would suit him—but glad and Billy kneels down where he assumes Keegan is and smiles.

He doesn’t see, can’t, even with his laughs lighting everything up, and it would only irritate Keegan, to be hurt alone and Billy smiling.

“Well,” he says, as if that explained everything.

“Well,” Billy says back but doesn’t move.

“I guess I could live here,” Keegan sighs and it makes sense to Billy. He doesn’t feel like moving either. Not really. Seemed a waste. He was here with Keegan and that was good enough. No need to move.

“I’ll live here too then.”

“Well yes,” Keegan says, and smiles. At least Billy thinks he smiles. Wants him to have smiled, like it was implied. Keegan living here implied Billy would too. Of course. Well yes.

He’s still sitting there, in front of the tree, and so Billy sits down, patting the earth with his hand, smoothing a spot that only brings up the wet dirt, fingers moist and he doesn’t care. Now that he’s beside Keegan, in the woods, in the dark, just a little drunk, and it’s so cool—He didn’t notice but it’s cold, chilly like his father says. “Chilly today, hot tamale.” Billy laughs and forgets about the cold but doesn’t think about his father. He doesn’t so much anymore, being away from home he’s sort of forgotten. But because he’s not thinking of his father, Billy can’t feel guilty, only dizzy and maybe a little sick—happy.

“What’s funny?” Keegan asks and Billy looks at him, hoping Keegan can see. Hoping he knows it wasn’t Keegan that was funny, he would never laugh at Keegan, unless he wanted him too.

And so he says, soft, “Nothing,” because it’s true and places his hand over what amazingly turns out to be Keegan’s hand and it’s warm and dry and he hears Keegan laugh a little too.

“Can’t see the tree for the forest, eh?” He laughs again and Billy laughs and it’s bright and it’s okay and they keep sitting there in the woods, like they were at home, watching TV or talking or just being there, comfortable.

“I don’t know how I got here,” Keegan says and moves his hand over Billy’s, like he’s using it as a landmark, something to tell him he’s still on familiar land and not lost, not lost at all in woods he’s never been.

“Walked,” and Billy isn’t joking because that’s all he can remember, walking and thinking of when he was little and ghost stories and Keegan and how bright it was.

“Nice here,” and Billy nods even though Keegan can’t see him agreeing and neither moves and it really is nice and Billy wonders why. It’s cold and damp but good somehow, because he’d never been there, maybe. And when he finally went—finally because if it was nice, he should have gone before—he went with Keegan and they both found it together, at the same time.

“It’s so dark,” Keegan says and his hand flinches a little. Billy isn’t sure if hands can flinch but it moves like it’s surprised and he touches the underside of Keegan’s pinky with his own and feels Keegan’s hand relax.

He shouldn’t be warm but Billy is. Maybe it’s the alcohol but he would rather it was something else. Keegan’s looking at the tree—Billy thinks, assumes, Keegan’s still, he’s never still—like it will move any moment, like it did just that, moved into Keegan’s way. If it did, Billy loves this tree. He wants to thank it, embrace it but he would have to move and that means Keegan’s hand would move and he likes it like this, just like this, and so he stays where he is, looking at Keegan looking at the tree. He needs to speak. Suddenly, he really needs to.

“When you laugh I can see,” Billy says and if he wasn’t drunk, if he wasn’t drunk and cold and warm and in unknown woods with Keegan it might seem stupid. But Keegan’s here, beside him, using his hand as a landmark, looking at Billy now, and he’s sure he’s smiling and it’s okay. It’s okay.

Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Art.  She resides in Graham, NC with her cats Charlie Chaplin and Janis Joplin. Her story The Song in a Cloud appeared in Issue No. 2 of Cleaver.

 

 

 

 

 

Image credit:  Ieva Vizule on Unsplash

WAITING FOR YOU IN PARIS by Jared Levy

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

WAITING FOR YOU IN PARIS
by Jared Levy

I’m waiting for you in Paris. Waiting in the Champ de Mars, the park next to the Eiffel Tower. Standing on a patch of grass, wearing a tuxedo, and holding flowers. One among many men who wait, but they’re not like me. They stay for varying amounts of time—some holding signs, some sitting under trees—but eventually they leave. Not me. I’m here for you, Jess, waiting patiently, if not excitedly. And when you get here, we’ll embrace, and we’ll climb up the Eiffel Tower, and we’ll be together again, in love.

Three days have gone by. It rained on the first day, and my clothes are soggy. I smell like a damp basement. The flowers are OK, but I’ve taken off my jacket. It’s not exactly as we discussed, it’s not as clean, but I’ll be here when you arrive. Mostly as we discussed, in Paris, next to the Eiffel Tower, holding flowers, and waiting.

A week’s gone by. Another man stands in a single spot, holding flowers, like me, except he’s wearing a black vest, a white shirt, and a black bowler hat, and he’s balancing on a unicycle.

“You too?” I ask him.

He doesn’t speak, he signs instead, and I nod and together we form a quick bond. He hops off the unicycle and gets us some hot croissants. I survived the previous week by eating scraps of food left on the ground and sleeping under my coat.

The croissants are delicious, and I smile at the man and repeat “Brad,” tapping my chest.

“Jean,” he mouths, chewing his croissant, and taps his chest.

The next week I continue a similar schedule: sleeping under my coat, waking up, standing forlorn, and presenting flowers. Jean balances on his unicycle, and I, with my jacket back on, present flowers, which are now drooping, but with Jean, the whole thing is much better. So too with the hot croissants, which we take turns buying.

Jean and I know it’s absolutely essential to stay in this position. How else will they know we made the effort? It’s unspoken between us, but I imagine Jean spends as much time thinking about this as I do, along with other thoughts, many of the same thoughts over and over, like when will they come? Have they forgotten about us? Does waiting make reunion that much sweeter?

We watch as people meet their other halves. They light up with an expression of joy. In those moments, we hate them. What right do they have to happiness? Haven’t we done everything right? Everything they asked of us?

By the end of the month we meet another man. He’s German, and he arrives with a case of beer. He doesn’t stand, presenting flowers like Jean and I, but instead, he sits down and starts drinking.

How do I know he’s German? He wears lederhosen.

I attempt to introduce myself and, as I do, the German nods and says, in a heavily accented English voice, “I’m Lars.” He burps.

“You speak English?” I say.

“Yes,” he says. “And French, German, and Spanish. Many languages.”

He sighs and picks up a can of beer.

“Only Americans speak one language,” he says and belches again.

I stare at Lars. He looks like no one else in the park. He’s huge. At least six foot five, blond, and hulking. As he waits, he removes beers one by one, pouring them into a stein and taking large gulps from his giant cup.

“Are you waiting for someone?” I ask him.

“Yes,” he says, “I’m giving her a week. I’m not going to put my life on hold, but she asked me to meet her here, and this happens to be my week off, and this happens to be what I do.”

He shakes the stein and looks off at the Eiffel Tower.

“I’ve never been up that thing,” he says. “Maybe I’ll go to the top.”

“She doesn’t want you to wait for her?” I say and look over at Jean who shrugs his shoulders.

“She doesn’t know what she wants,” he says. “She mentioned that it’d be nice if I did this absurd romantic gesture, and I said, ‘Sure, I’ll do it.’ She started to retract her request, but I said, ‘If that’s what you want, that’s what I’ll do.’ So here I am.”

Jean looks at Lars the same way I do, with a mix of awe, surprise, and envy. Why can’t we be more like Lars? Assertive. Sure of ourselves. Full of knowledge that Jean and I don’t seem to possess.

After Lars finishes the six-pack, he walks to the Eiffel Tower. He comes back after fifteen minutes and tells me he’s going to stay in a hostel.

“Give her this address if she comes,” he says and hands me a slip of paper.

“How will I know who she is?” I say.

“Her name’s Lydia,” he says and walks off.

Jean wheels over. He mimes something like “Lars a big man and what’s up with that?”

I make a sign with my hands like “he’s a big drinker” and then a facial expression like “he sure does drink a lot.”

Jean laughs silently, and I laugh too.

A man starts to play an accordion. I look up at the night sky and see it’s a full moon. When I look back down, Jean’s hand is out as if to say, “Want to dance?”

“Me?” I mouth.

He gives a big nod. I make an exaggerated thinking face, because this is such a nice gesture: a chance to move my limbs and do something adorably sweet next to the Eiffel Tower. I get up and grab his hand. We make big twirls with Jean, on the unicycle, swerving to the cheesy accordion music. He grins, and we dance for three songs. I mouth, “I’m tired.”

I am. I haven’t moved this much in months. I go back to my spot, drink a bottle of mineral water, and walk over to a tree. I lie down with my back against the grainy trunk, and I look at Jean, who’s swirling. The accordion player stops and grins at me.

“That was lovely,” he says.

“Thank you,” I say, and I drift off to sleep.

The next morning I awake to the sound of Lars chewing a giant turkey leg. He rips off thick chunks of crusty bread with the crumbs spraying in all directions. He extends both the turkey and bread to me, and I’m not too proud for breakfast, so I eat.

“I figure she didn’t come?” he says.

“Not yet,” I say.

He looks at Jean.

“I hear you guys are buds,” he says. “The others were saying you danced under the moonlight. Invite him over.”

I look at Jean. He’s doing a half-asleep peddling thing. I clap a few times and motion for him to join us. He rubs his eyes and then wheels over to my spot.

Then I learn that Jean does speak. He speaks French. With Lars, he doesn’t shut up. He tells Lars his story, which Lars translates for me. That Jean is a mime, but he’s on a break, waiting for his lover Carlos, who is Spanish and incredibly handsome, though completely bald. They met earlier in the year at a church social. Their connection was instantaneous. They took a midnight stroll across the Pont Alexandre III Bridge. When Jean invited Carlos back to his apartment, Carlos suggested that they write love poetry to each other in their native languages. When they read their poems to each other, a lot came through in the reading. They soon started a disgustingly cute habit of buying snow globes for each other. When they moved in together, their apartment was filled with them.

One day, as they were planning to re-create the day they met, they walked by a snow globe shop. In the window, Jean saw an Eiffel Tower snow globe and pointed to it and mimed, “Have you been there?” Carlos shook his head as if to say “I’ve never been.”

Jean got the idea to wait for Carlos in the park. At first, he mimed on the side. He got tips and saw tourists pass by, but there was only one person he truly wanted to see. He didn’t dare lose his spot for fear of missing Carlos. But eventually the work and the waiting melded into one, an all-consuming activity where he lost himself in the romantic purposelessness. He took a solemn oath to keep waiting.

“He said all that?” I ask.

“Approximately,” says Lars.

I hold my hand to my chest to show Jean that my heart is broken. His story is so similar to mine. Perpetual waiting: for what?

Jean looks exhausted. He asks for a beer from Lars. Lars passes one over. Jean takes it, tips it back, and doesn’t stop until he drains the can.

“Impressive,” says Lars, and he hands Jean another.

I join them in the spirit of camaraderie, though I don’t usually drink. The rest of the night we tell jokes, sing songs, and generally have one of the most amazing times of my life. I don’t have a lot of friends. I find it difficult to communicate with others. But these men and I, we’re similar. And now I jump on Jean’s back, and Jean tries to teach me how to ride a unicycle. We swerve into some bushes and laugh harder.

Back on the ground, Lars asks me, “Why Paris? Aren’t there romantic places in the US?”

“That’s a great question,” I say. “A part of me doesn’t even think that much about it. Paris means love, and people from my socioeconomic class travel. It’s part of a philosophy that says it’s worth traveling the world and seeing much. So far, I agree for reasons like this, meeting new people, gaining experiences, riding a unicycle, for example, but what’s wrong with the US? That’s where I lost love. I’m waiting in Paris for it to return.”

Jean pats me on the back. Lars looks amused.

“Paris is the city of love. My girlfriend Jessica is obsessed with it. Her apartment is decorated in Parisian memorabilia. At home, we watch movies set in Paris. She even has a breakfast nook that looks like a Parisian café.”

I point to the café where I get croissants.

“But our relationship went south. She says we broke up, I say we need more time. She says it was her decision, I say it’s mutual. I came here to wait for her. I want to show her that Paris is a real place where we can be together. I know it sounds absurd, but waiting is all I have left.”

A moment of silence. Lars grunts and says something like “silly, sad man.”

He’s drunk and generally difficult to understand, so I ignore him. He sleepily waves goodbye and leaves. Then it’s back to Jean and me. I feel drained, but my spirits are slightly buoyed from the catharsis of telling my story. I mime a small dance, and Jean laughs. He speaks and says, “C’est magnificent.”

We lie down on the grass. We look up at the night sky, not for lack of things to say but in awe. Some things are incommunicable. Love is one, and so are its complications. So are the feelings I have, light from camaraderie, unsure of the future, but dazzled by the stars in Paris and the world spinning around me like a snow globe. I watch the burning stars until my eyes close.

In the morning a round-faced, blonde-haired woman enters my field of vision. I blink, but she stays where she is, crouching and looking at me.

“You know where my husband is,” she says.

“Are you Lydia?” I ask, blinking myself awake.

“Yes, and you’re Brad,” she says. “The men pointed you out. I don’t speak French, but I speak English, so start talking.”

I lift myself up and wipe the sleep from my eyes.

“Your husband’s at a hostel,” I say. “I don’t know which one, I lost the sheet of paper, but he’ll be back around noon. That’s when he usually comes.”

“Great,” she says. “So I have to wait?”

“Well, I’ve been waiting for quite some time,” I say. “Close to a year.”

“Unbelievable,” she says. “Do you want a prize? You sound like an insane person. Some of us have jobs. We can’t all wait under the Eiffel Tower, can we? Only sad absurd men.”

I feel tremendous guilt. Lydia’s confirmed my worst suspicion: that waiting is pointless.

“I suppose not,” I say.

“I’m going to the tower,” she says. “How do you get up?”

“Elevator or stairs,” I say.

“I choose elevator,” she says and disappears.

It’s then that I realize I’m filthy. I feel the grime accumulating in the area between my sock and ankle. There’s a smell coming off me. And this morning is not one where I want to wait any longer. I’ll do anything but that. I feel a wild urge to go to the bathroom. This is no longer fun. Jean is asleep, and you, Jessica, are never coming for me.

Lars arrives, same stein, different case of beer.

“How are you, friend?” he asks.

“I’m not in the mood,” I say. “Your wife is here. She’s in the tower. I need to leave immediately.”

“Whoa, whoa,” says Lars. “What if Jessica comes?”

“Tell her I’m in the public bathroom,” I say.

“Won’t that spoil the surprise? The waiting?” he says. “You used to care about waiting.”

“Emphasis on used to,” I say.

“Have a beer,” he says and thrusts one into my chest.

I push the beer into Lars’s chest and go to the bathroom. My luck, there’s a line: a long line. Fuck this, I think. I get out of line and squat on the road. Everyone looks over at me. People gasp. I let loose and feel the best I’ve felt in a month. This is my choice. I’m doing something for myself. Then two police officers begin to approach me. I quickly lift my pants and run back to the waiting area. Lydia and Lars are together, and I hide behind them.

“Whoa, whoa,” says Lars, looking back at me cowering behind them. “What’s going on?”

“I took a dump near the public bathroom and now the police are after me!” I say.

“You’re an absolute mess,” says Lydia. “Let me handle this.”

The police approach us, and Lydia tells Lars what to say. That I’m deranged. That I’m a helpless American man in their care. That she will force me to clean up my mess. That I’m their adopted American pet. That we shouldn’t let Americans travel. Etc.

Lydia and Lars work on them. I continue to cower. Jean is asleep. This is what I get for not waiting, I think. I’m pathetic.

The police stop talking to Lars and Lydia. They look back at me and shake their heads. Then they walk back to the Eiffel Tower.

“You need to clean up your mess,” says Lydia. “We’ll help you, but then you need to leave this park immediately. They say they wish the men would leave. You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

“Why are you doing this for me?” I say. “You could have abandoned me. Everyone else does.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” says Lydia. “Leave. Get another job. Stop waiting.”

I think about this as I scrub the sidewalk. Do I desire punishment? Punishment for waiting?

Lars continues to drink. He does the work of translating as people walk by. Strangely, I enjoy cleaning. It feels purposeful and important.

“There,” says Lydia. “You made a mess and you cleaned it up. Now take that and do it with your life.”

Lars and Lydia walk away. Lars looks back as if to say, “Later, friend.” I wave goodbye.

I go back to Jean, and I’m struck by panic as I see he’s fallen off his unicycle. He hobbles and collapses. I go to comfort him, and he starts weeping. Other men weep too, but I see this as self-pity rather than genuine care for my friend.

“Why, Brad?” asks Jean. It’s an existential question, and I’m entirely prepared for that kind of conversation.

“Who isn’t in a state of waiting?” I say. “Everyone pretends they’re not, but they are. The other day I categorized all human activity. It’s frighteningly limited: eating and drinking, having sex, thinking and wandering, consuming, creating. Are there other ways?”

Jean stares at his legs.

“Look at me, Jean,” I say. “You’re a good man. You understand me? A friend. Friendship, it’s not on my list, but…”

A paramedic arrives. His name is Yakos, and he’s from Greece. He’s well-built, well-quaffed, and he and Jean begin to speak rapidly in French. Yakos makes Jean laugh, and Jean makes Yakos laugh. I stand by, feeling increasingly disconnected from the scene.

“Brad?” says Yakos.

He speaks English.

“Yes?” I say.

“Your friend needs to go to the hospital,” he says. “His muscles have atrophied. He wants to know if you’ll come with him. I told him not to worry, I’ll take care of him. He’s very funny.”

I look back at Jean. He winks at me. I see the seeds of love.

“That’s OK,” I say. “The police told me I need to leave the park immediately and maybe this country, too. Can you translate this for Jean? Next time, let’s meet in America.”

Yakos speaks to Jean, and Jean laughs.

“We,” he says, which I understand means “yes.”

Jared Levy has stories published in regional and international journals including The Quotable, Apiary Magazine, The Machinery, and The Matador Review. He holds a BA in Philosophy from Bates College and is the recipient of support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Lacawac Artists’ Residency, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He was born in Philadelphia, PA, and currently lives there, too. He is a proud member of the Backyard Writers Workshop.

 

 

 

 

Image credit: Louis Pellissier on Unsplash

THE FALL ZONE by Laura Moretz

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Person wearing jeans and tennis shoes standing on a freshly cut log

THE FALL ZONE
by Laura Moretz

First thing that morning, a woman told Henry his crew must not cut her tree’s branches. She looked as though she wouldn’t survive if he cut the thinnest twig from the huge willow oaks in front of her house. Fully dressed and made up before eight a.m., she clutched the notice that his crew had hung on her door knob a few days before. She argued for the integrity of the tree as though he had suggested cutting the arms off her grandchildren. A branch as large as a trunk had shot over the power lines. He gave her his supervisor’s phone number. Her hands shook as she dialed the number on her flip phone, murmuring, “murder, murder, murder.” They moved their trucks to the next house—on this road, almost all the properties had tree limbs extending over the wires.

There, a woman came across the lawn in her pajamas and a loose sweater, her arms crossed like a shelf under her breasts so he wouldn’t see them shaky and unsupported. I’ll be damned, if this isn’t the day from hell. He knew what she would say: “you can’t cut our tree” and “it will fall over backward if you take off the front” and “it has never knocked out power,” and he would have to give her his boss’s number and hold off cutting, screwing up the work flow all down the road.

But she smiled, looked right in his eyes as though he were her equal and not the angel of death, and said, “I just wondered if you might cut one of our dead limbs, too,” and she pointed, so they walked together and she showed him where a major limb jutted out, silver and leafless, on the other side of the massive trunk. “My husband wanted me to ask.”

“That one will come down anyway—it’s on the lateral—it’s got to go.”

“My husband wants it down—I hadn’t noticed it was dead, disguised by all the living branches.” She looked embarrassed to ask this favor.

He didn’t tell her that they didn’t strictly need to cut it. Instead, he said, “You’ve got tomatoes just rottening on the vine.” He’d seen them when he’d been placing flags for the fall zone, just before she came from her carport. Orangey globes that he hadn’t seen often enough that summer, what with working seven-day weeks cleaning up one disaster after another. When he got back to North Carolina after cleaning up from Irma, his mother’s tomato vines had dried up.

“Do you want some? It’s crazy how they came so late this year. I can’t keep up.”

“Wouldn’t mind one for my sandwich.”

“You should take a couple,” she said, walking away toward the house.

He took a closer look at the tomatoes. Some had black mold spots and thin skin covering rot, others needed a few days on a windowsill before they’d be ready, and he wanted one for his sandwich today. It wouldn’t do to let the fruit roll around on the floorboard of the truck. Someone would step on them, and it would be a mess. Was that her watching from the window? Maybe he shouldn’t take any. It’s not like he was doing any big favor, getting that limb down.

He had to go and set up another zone on the main road, and when he came back, she walked outside again, now with a bra under her sweater, with three tomatoes in a plastic grocery bag. “I had some on the counter that are just perfect. We’re not eating them fast enough.” This woman could not stop apologizing for her good fortune, for this life where she had a husband and a garden and no bigger worry than getting down a dead limb.

The bucket truck was anchored at the base of her tree. He pointed to a fungus way up the trunk, and asked her, did she know what that meant?

She said she had no idea.

“It will kill the tree, because it’s inside it already. The water came down that dead limb and into the opening and started a sickness.”

She looked stricken, as though he’d told her that her child was dying.

“How long?” she asked.

“It’ll take a lot of years, maybe ten,” he said.

She seemed to relax a little. Then she showed him where the roots were rotting—did that have to do with the fungus?

“When you see mushrooms sprouting around the trunk, it’s a sign of rot.”

“There have been mushrooms all along these roots!” she said. “It’s where the chipmunks make their homes.”

“Ma’am, I can tell you about chipmunks.” He shook his head.

“We’ve got so many, we’ve been trapping them and taking them to the park.”

“I trap them, and I feed them to my black snakes.”

Her face said she didn’t think worse of him, in fact she looked as though she wanted to know more, but the limbing man up in the bucket had started his saw, and they had to get out from under the tree and the wires. Here was a woman who didn’t know when she was in danger.

“Ma’am we’ve got to get out from under the tree when he’s cutting.”

She followed him to the driveway.

The wood chips flew in the air like a thousand moths as she stood by him in the driveway near a telephone pole. He had his safety glasses on, never took them off all day, but she had nothing and was covering her eyes with her hands like a visor. Some limbs bounced softly onto the wires and balanced there, while others fell to the ground.

“Would black snakes climb this tree?” she asked.

“They would eat them squirrel babies out of their nests.” He told her about black snakes and how he liked to catch the five-footers and keep them, and she seemed interested, so he told her about the dozen deer he skinned last winter, the fifty-odd rabbits he’d shot, and even more squirrels—all of which he ate—and the catfish he’d caught in the Yadkin River as long as her arm, which was good eating, too.

He cut glances at her rounded belly, her hair, both colored and gray, all the while tracking the man who whirred the bucket up and down and lopped off branches.

“It’s my son up there.” He surprised himself, telling her this. “He’s twenty-five. I raised him since he was five, both Mama and Daddy to him. I broke down and cried when he moved out at eighteen. Couldn’t stand for him to go.”

A large limb fell and hung on the wires, seeming as light as a row of perched birds.

“Looks like he came back.”

They watched another limb fall.

She said something about how it wasn’t as hot as it had been, and he said he liked it best when the temperatures were in the thirties. Those times in the winter or late fall when he skinned deer outdoors and left some of the parts on a table at night for raccoons and red-tailed hawks to get. He didn’t hire a butcher service the way other hunters did. He liked being outside, cutting the meat by the open fire, canning it at a table built for that purpose.

The bucket arm was at full extension.

“What about those?” She pointed over his son’s head.

“That’s canopy. We won’t get that cut—no way to do it.”

He didn’t want to leave the woman’s side, but he had to do his job. With his picker, he plucked the newly fallen branches off the wires. He wanted to tell her about learning to hunt with his father, who showed him how to load and point a rifle and how to track animals, and then sent him out in the woods telling him to bring back squirrels and rabbits for supper, counting on him to do it. He wanted to sit at her table, and tell her about his hunting, and eat his sandwich with her, away from the men.

She yelled out from the driveway, “Don’t forget to get some green tomatoes. Take all you want.” She was gone into the house.

He wanted a dozen green tomatoes for canning, and he took them. He left her a few, even though she’d waste them. He’d kill a deer that weekend and dice the green tomatoes for chow chow.

◊

All that week, while they cut limbs throughout her neighborhood, he noticed when her car was in her carport, and when it was gone, but he didn’t see her again, even when he directed his chipping crew to dump two loads of woodchips in her garden where she’d agreed they could dump them. Don’t cover the tomatoes, she’d said.

The next time this job came up would be ten years from now, and by that time he’d be out on disability or retired. He had to accept it—women like her were not for him.

◊

When cold weather came, Henry enjoyed a stretch of good hunting, then a hard freeze came followed by an ice storm, and, to top it off, a heavy snow brought down limbs and power lines all around the city. His crew used spotlights to make quick work of dozens of fallen trees and limbs, and, despite the snow and the dark, he recognized her place when they were sent to her neighbor’s house, the neighbor who’d first complained the day he worked on that road last summer. As a result, his boss had told them to go easy on her pin oak. Now the limbs they’d left for aesthetic reasons had knocked out power down the street, which would put his boss’s job in danger. He hoped his boss wouldn’t get sacked. There was nothing he could do about a woman like that.

This time, he was in the bucket while his son warmed up in the truck, and a third man watched from below.

While he considered the best path for the large limb’s fall, a light came on in the woman’s carport, and he saw two figures come out. It had to be the woman and her husband. They’d left their warm bed or their fire or their generator to watch him work, and there was no way she could know that he was the man she’d given tomatoes. She’d see him now as one of those tree men. He cut the the trunk-like branch—more than a foot around—and it landed on the sodden snow.

The couple had disappeared when he looked back their way. He lowered his bucket and climbed out.

In the truck, his son poured hot coffee from a thermos and extended the cup. “Isn’t that the house where the lady gave you tomatoes?”

“Whatever garden she had is gone under this mess,” he said.

“She had some green ones that you canned up.”

“That sounds right,” he said. A jar of the chow chow was in his fridge. He savored it with his venison. “She wasted her garden. Some people.”

Headshot of Laura MoretzLaura Moretz is a writer with fiction published in r.kv.r.y quarterly literary journal, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, Stoneboat, and forthcoming in The Forge. Two of her stories have been nominated for Pushcart prizes. She has won the Rick DeMarinis Short Fiction Prize and is an assistant editor for Boulevard and The Review Review.

 

 

 

Image credit:  Mark Koellmann on Unsplash

FROM HERE TO THERE by Gloria Yuen

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

 

Illustration of pocket knife, apple, and small paper note by Gloria Yuen

­FROM HERE TO THERE
by Gloria Yuen

Barrier on, the device declares.

“When you initiate the force field,” the Head Agent instructs, “you lock yourself in an impenetrable membrane. It will keep danger out. But it will also keep you in.”

Barrier off, the device declares.

I engage Search: Force field, noun. Popular Articles. The invention of the force field (neochrome). The invention of the force field (electromagnetic). History of force field usage in Post-Contemporary warfare. [New in TECH] ‘Defense Fields’ for Civilian Homes in Final Stages of Development.

The Head Agent claps her hands. I exit Search. “Field practice with the neochrome next week. Dismissed.”

We salute in unison.

“What happens if you walk through a force field?” M-2 asks at my left. I turn to examine him. Raised eyebrows, slightly open mouth. Inquisitive. He is one of the preliminary cadets to join the M garrison and is much older than I. He was modeled after a lab specialist who died in one of the first base attacks.

“Did you not use Search?” I ask.

M-2 blinks. “I will use Search. Engage Search. Search. Searching. ‘What happens if you walk through a force field?’”

“All right, M-2, you’re coming with me,” says a female voice. I turn to examine the woman and she smiles at me—friendly—as she pats M-2 on the shoulder. Her name tag reads TS-43, Tech Specialist. Underneath it is ‘Afua’ in large letters. It is an alias. Some of the scientists still keep them. I do not understand why. A second designation is inconsequential.

TS-43 takes M-2. The rest of us march back to the East Wing to power down for the night.

◊

“Turn to your partners. Say hello,” the Head Agent instructs. Her voice intones humor. Every M Agent and U Agent turns to face their partner.

“Nice to meet you,” Agent U-16 says. A friendly smile. She extends a hand. I shake it.

“Likewise, Agent,” I reply.

“How formal,” she laughs. I tilt my head to express confusion.

Her eyebrows raise. Shock (negative)? Surprise (neutral)? They are difficult to differentiate. She is still smiling. She shakes her head. “Never mind.”

The Head Agent claps for our attention. “Each pair must use their force field device to move through the simulations. Remember what I said—you trap something out, you trap yourself in. Treat this seriously! If either one of you is compromised, both have failed. Understood?”

“Yes, Agent,” we chorus.

“Let’s ace this thing, huh?” Agent U-16 whispers. I tilt my head to express confusion.

She touches her hair. “Oh, sorry, I forgot. It means–”

“Let’s ace this thing,” I repeat. It feels strange in my mouth. “A colloquial phrase meaning, ‘Let us succeed.’”

She is surprised (positive). “Yeah. Yeah?”

“Yes.” I test the mechanism to return her smile. I think it works because she slaps me on the back. Her eyes are wide. Pleased.

Together, we ace the thing.

◊

“Let’s head to lunch,” Agent U-16 says, wiping the sweat on her neck. She smiles, as usual.

“Sounds good,” I say, smiling back. It’s a new term she has taught me. Within the past two months, it has become one of the top 10 most commonly used phrases in my Colloquial Dictionary.

I do not—or don’t—need food to function. Sitting with our partners while they eat is what the Social Specialists call ‘bonding time.’ It’s supposed to improve our teamwork. Bonding time equates to more communication, which calibrates my recognition software.

I understand my partner with 70.34% accuracy when we converse. She is distinctly difficult to read.

The lunch on her tray is the same as yesterday’s. Chicken breast. Peas and carrots. A pear. I calculate nutritional value.

“Are you looking forward to the mission?” I ask. Small talk, the specialists told us. Prompt the conversation.

She looks up from inspecting her food. “What? Looking forward?”

“Yes. Are you eager to embark on–”

“I heard you,” she says, frowning. Concerned (negative)? Displeased? She is trying to read my face. “No, not really.”

I frown as well. “Why not?”

“Because,” she frowns, deeper. But does not continue. “…It’s nothing. Don’t ask me things I can’t answer.”

I nod. “Understood.”

“No, wait, that’s not…” She pushes her tray away. She pushes back her hair. “You know, I don’t like telling you what to do. Well, I don’t know if you know, but… it’s okay for you to ask questions, is what I mean. You don’t have to stop talking when I tell you to.”

“Understood,” I say. “I do not have questions at the moment. Correction, I don’t. I don’t have questions at the moment.”

Her facial features relax. “All right then.”

I notice a produce sticker stuck on the pear in her tray. It is not to be consumed. She has not noticed. I reach over and peel it off.

When I return from the trash chute, she is looking at me. Intention unclear.

I try what the specialists taught us: “I apologize. I have overstepped a social boundary.”

“What? No, you haven’t.” She blinks, before shaking her head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just thinking too much.”

“About what?”

“…The mission.” She smiles. It’s a little different than usual. I catalogue it. “To be honest, I’m a little anxious. But I’m always anxious, so it’s nothing new.”

“Nothing new. Don’t worry, Agent,” I say. I reach for her hand, a motion I learned from the Contemporary films. “We are here to protect you.”

“We? What do you mean we?” Emotion recognition failure, my software notifies, before attempting to calibrate again. I dismiss the error.

“We. The M garrison,” I say.

“The M garrison.” Her face is still and smooth.

“That is correct.”

“Oh,” she says. “I see.”

“Yes,” I say. I dismiss the error again.

She finishes her lunch. I note the contents of the meal in her dietary records. When she leaves the cafeteria, I follow behind, sending an email to the physician to coordinate a routine check-up

◊

We are walking—strolling, the Agent tells me—along a pathway in the central garden. The dome ceiling is high, its peak close to 9.51 meters tall. My measurements seem to interest her.

She raises her arms as she walks the line between concrete and gravel. Her face is warmer than usual, pleased. Her steps are fast, slow, fast. “Do you ever think about your parents?”

She is not interested in my measurements. I note my mistake.

“I don’t have parents.”

“You could. The woman you were modeled after, or the engineers who made you. Those could be parents.”

“Those could be parents,” I repeat. “You use it as an analogy.”

Her eyes wander over the scenery. “Sure. But it’s a literal thing, too. Not all parents are biological.”

“Yes. The verb, to parent, can also mean, to act as a mother or father. Understood.”

“Close enough.” She returns to the middle of the concrete path and drops her arms. “So who were you modeled after?”

“A Tech Specialist. Her civilian name was Mara.”

“Her civilian name? You should know your history better than I do. There was no distinction between civilian and soldier back then. That started during the war.”

“I suppose you are correct.”

She stops in front of some yellow-rimmed leaves. Image Search yields Sansevieria trifasciata, a plant native to West Africa. This one has grown flower stalks, though they have not yet bloomed.

I point at the buds. “That is rare,” I tell her, according to the internet.

“Yeah, it is.” She pauses. “I only know this because my dad had a real green thumb.”

“Green thumb. Someone who has an exceptional aptitude for gardening.”

“Yeah. Well, before he passed he was sick all the time and he couldn’t go outside much, but that was because he had to give up gardening after we moved to the city, so he was devastated, and he started collecting all these house plants…” Her shoulders shifted up and she inhaled. “Our snake plant was a flowering one, too. He didn’t care for it though, since it didn’t take much effort to grow. He loved a challenge.”

I attempt to sort the information.

“Sorry,” she says, turning around. She waves her hands in placation. “I asked about your parents, but I babbled on about mine instead.”

“Not a problem.” I sift my database for the appropriate phrase. “It is a pleasure to hear about your father.”

She snorts. “You can stop using that on me. I’d rather you be socially inept than spout that automated bullshit.” She claps a hand over her mouth.

As her ears turn pink, I step forward. “Are you all right, Agent? Your body temperature is higher than normal.”

“I’m fine.” She rubs her forehead. “God, I’m sorry. Forget I said that. I’m a mess.”

“I will not mention it. Why are you a mess? Is it because of the mission?”

“The mission? Oh,” she laughs. “Uh. Yeah. Sure.

The afternoon alarm rings. She doesn’t seem to notice it.

“That’s our cue,” I say. She’d taught me that last week.

She hears me. “Huh? Oh, right.” Eyebrows slightly angled, corners of her mouth turned down. Worried. Pupils restless. Distracted. “Good job remembering that,” she says. “Sometimes I think you remember things a little too well.”

I tilt my head. “Confirmation—does that have a negative connotation?”

“No,” she sighs. She walks ahead, leading the way. She no longer gestures or asks for me to follow her anymore—she knows I will.

She scans her ID at the entrance leading to the North Wing training facilities. There is a sign taped on the door: BROKEN LIGHTS. I scan the back of my hand. The door closes behind us.

Her voice is quiet, but it echoes in the dark tunnel. “I didn’t mean ‘too well’ as a negative. Remembering, I think, is never a bad thing. More of us should remember that.”

The tunnel gets darker. I activate my night vision. She is walking, slowly, but steadily, her hand on the wall. In front of me, she glows. Almost like a—

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“I thought I heard you say something.”

“I’m not sure.” I check my activity log and find nothing unusual. I run a quick system diagnostic. Nothing. I make a note to visit the tech ward.

“It was probably my imagination. Be careful where you step.”

“Understood.”

 

◊

I wake up on my back, facing a gray ceiling.

As I recalibrate my location, I review my activity log and conduct a surface security scan. I learn I am in the tech ward. I had experienced an unidentifiable malfunction during training. In my secondary camera, there is a recording of two tech specialists, transporting me on a wheelchair.

I run diagnostics. No errors.

“Good morning.”

I turn. My partner is sitting in one of the plastic chairs. She waves. I wave back.

“You froze during the drill. Do you remember what happened?”

“I remember. Are you all right, Agent?”

“I’m fine. It was just a drill after all.” She stands, dusting off her clean pants. “I’ll get going then. The TS in charge went out for lunch. He said you’re good to go.”

I pull up the weekly calendar. “You have field training at this time. Why are you here?”

She smiles. “The mission is tomorrow. What would I need training for?”

My joints are slightly under-greased. It is difficult to move. I manage to get off the examination table, while my partner watches me. She has assisted me in the past. Today, she does not.

“Training is important. Training prepares you for the fight.”

“The war prepared me to fight.” Her voice is shaking. “I don’t need someone to tell me not to die. You think out there, you’ll have someone blowing whistles for you? You think everyone has time to prepare?”

“I apologize. I have overstepped a social boundary.”

She pulls at her hair, fingers twisting into her ponytail. She is angry and I don’t know how to fix it.

“I apologi—”

She grabs my shoulders and shakes. “It’s not your fault!” Her voice is hoarse, as if she has not used it in a long time. “It’s not your goddamn fault.”

“Understood.”

She cries. It is my first time seeing real tears. In the middle, her arms wrap around me in what is called a hug, and when she is done she finds me a tissue to wipe the wetness off my breastplate.

◊

Barrier on, the device declares.

Through the force field, we watch the explosion light up the horizon. Skyscrapers around our building crumble. The sound rumbles through my core. The heat comes after.

I fold my arms over the roof railing. My partner is doing the same a few feet away.

“I’m going to miss coffee,” she says.

I flex my gloved hands. They are burning. I run a quick diagnostic, but nothing is detected.

“Is that your favorite drink?” I ask.

“Oh yeah, you haven’t had coffee before, huh?”

“I have not.”

“If you get the chance one day, I recommend it.”

“I will remember.”

She laughs. Her approaching footsteps are in iambic pentameter: drag… tap, drag… tap. Search suggestion: William Shakespeare’s most famous works. I dismiss the screen.

“You shouldn’t move,” I say. A boom again, from somewhere in the city. “Excess movement will strain your injury.”

She looks down at her thigh. The fabric covering it is red and wet. “This?” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t feel it anyway.”

Her wound is too deep for her not to feel it. But somehow, I know she is telling the truth.

A call rings in from Agent U-50 on the core dispatch team. I accept and request affirmation. “Agent M-8. ‘Down the river.’”

“’Up the bend,’” he answers.

“Affirmative.” They have not been compromised. Through the joint video feed, I see what he sees. In his hands is a black suitcase. Perhaps its contents could end the war. “We have the Grail. On our way.” The call ends.

My partner is pulling at the ripped slash in her uniform pants. The fire and smoke outside the neochrome makes the blood on her leather gloves look like it’s shining.

“They have the Grail, Agent,” I say.

“Finally.” The building beneath our feet shakes. She looks out over the city. “Hey. Can I tell you a secret?”

“Sounds good.”

Her breathing is uneven. “My civilian name, from before—it’s Gwen.”

“Gwen,” I repeat. “You are not supposed to tell me this, Agent. Protocol has been breached.”

“Our conversation in the garden.” She grips the railing. “Do you remember it?”

“I do.”

“My parents gave me that name, but they’re dead. There is no one else to remember them, but me. And there is no one to remember me. Do you understand?”

The core team crashes through the rooftop entrance. Agent U-50 runs straight for the aircraft on standby with the Grail.

“Agent–”

“Call me Gwen,” she says.

Two others come through the door, one injured. The last hesitates. He looks in our direction. He waves his arms.

“Understood,” I say. “Gwen. You should get into the aircraft.”

She does not move. “Look at that. They want you to pull the switch. They’re going to leave you behind.”

“You must go, Agent. The craft can only carry five people.” I approach the force field device and set the timer to 30 seconds. I place a finger on the power switch.

“No,” she says. She limps over to kneel beside me and removes her helmet. Her face is wet. Her eyes are losing focus.

Someone pulls the last core Agent inside the craft and slams the door shut, just as Gwen pushes my hand into the switch.

Barrier off in 30, the device declares. The aircraft begins to rise up to the peak of the force field.

29…

“Agent–”

“It’s Gwen.”

27…

“Gwen. I will call them–”

25…

“I won’t get on.”

23…

“You will die.”

She smiles. She pulls off my helmet.

21…

“No,” she says. “I will live.”

19…

The aircraft sways in the sky, hovering just under the force field, the peak close to 22.4 meters tall.

17…

She leans in. “Do you want to live?”

15…

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

13…

“You can start with a name.”

11…

“What name?”

9…

“Any name,” she says. “Mara.”

“Mara,” I repeat.

7…

“Mara. Nice to meet you.”

She holds out her hand.

5…

I shake it.

“Gwen. Nice to meet you.”

3…

2…

Gwen smiles.

1…

“All right, then. Let’s ace this thing.”

◊

It is approximately four hours into the truck ride when my system begins to overheat. We are too close together—the Agents are sitting with their weapons and bags between their knees. Occasionally, a shaft of light comes through the curtain from the gap in the partition, and we all turn our faces towards it.

I bend forward. My system can’t cool because there is no air. I can’t ascertain the temperature. I am an old model. It is too hot for my sensors to detect much detail.

“We almost there, you think?”

“We should arrive after sunset.”

My partner nods. He did not pay attention to the Captain’s announcement. “Right,” he says. “I guess we’ll know when the sun sets.”

A few of the Agents look in our direction.

My partner leans in again. “Hey.” Although it is dark, his eyes glitter, black. “Did you pick a name for yourself? Everyone here uses names.” When I don’t reply, he scratches at his neck. “You know what a name is, right?”

“I am aware of what a name is.”

His mouth twitches. “Well, okay. Sorry.”

The truck soon stops. We hear orders being shouted outside. Crunching footsteps and slamming doors. The luggage being pulled off the ridged roof of the car.

The back door swings open. The U Agents blink at the sudden light. A few M Agents wake their sleeping partners.

“Single file,” the Sergeant orders.

We secure our belongings and form a line. The U Agents stand behind their M partners. In my rear camera, I can see my partner looking around, curious, his hands swinging at his sides.

Hedges of burnt foliage line the road. The gravel beneath our feet is dusted with ash. We march until we reach a towering gate.

“Welcome to the A.H. United Forces,” a guard says. He’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a 1990s American cartoon character on the front. He has no visible firearms. “The main entrance is straight that way. Watch your step, we’ve been fixing the sidewalk.”

“What the hell,” my partner says as we pass through, “it’s not even dark yet.”

It isn’t. The sky is gray and pink, ridged with clouds, and though the sun is dim, it is up. Only the footsteps of the platoon and the guard’s voice can be heard. Everything else is still.

◊

“This used to be a hospital wing,” the Sergeant says, turning on the ceiling lights. They flicker on, one by one.

The room has three rows of bunk beds. There is a large bookshelf. There is also a stripped bathroom area in the corner, where dried taps jut from the tiles. I engage Search. It was likely used by surgeons during the war.

“One through sixty in line, settle in,” the Sergeant says. “You’ll be staying here indefinitely. The rest of you, follow me.”

The Sergeant leads us down a hallway of rooms. “The rest of you have been partnered with an Agent, so you will be staying with them here. Peacemaking operations will begin soon. You must refine your social skills.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Find your assigned quarters. Dismissed.”

We salute in unison.

I find my designation on the third door from the end of the hall. I knock.

“Come in,” my partner says.

I go in. “Hello, Agent.” The room is narrow. I catalogue a bunk bed, two drawers, a closet, and a desk. There is a window facing the training fields. Further away is the perimeter wall, and then tops of the trees in the forest on the other side.

My partner is lying down on the bottom bunk. He does not look up from his book. “You can put your stuff on top.”

The sun is setting. I stand at the window to observe. The sky turns many different colors, before turning into a dark blue.

It is my first time seeing real stars. I catalogue 20 constellations, 2 military satellites, the glow of Mercury.

“I know you don’t get why it’s creepy to stand there for an hour, but I’m telling you now that it is.”

I turn to face my partner. He is reading a different book now. I notice the light is on. I recalibrate my sensors.

“I apologize. Is it not socially acceptable?”

He puts his book over his face. “Honestly, I don’t care. But you probably shouldn’t do that in public.”

“Understood.”

I climb the bunk and sit. From up here, only the grass is visible through the window.

“Hey.”

“Yes?”

“Why did you do it?”

I incline my head in the direction of my partner’s voice. “Do what?”

“Kill that Agent.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

His face appears over the edge of the bunk. He stares up at me. “You haven’t heard the gossip? There was a droid that went crazy and killed its partner.” He smiles. Intention unclear. “My uncle was a Lieutenant at your base. He was there, at her funeral.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

He whistles. “They weren’t playing around when they wiped your hard drive.” I sense him adjusting his position on the bed. Cotton fabric is pulled over cotton fabric. “I don’t care whether you killed her or not,” he yawns. “Now I know what they do to traitors.”

He sleeps. I engage Search, keywords: droid, crazy, kill, partner. There are no results.

◊

When I power on, my partner is halfway though the door, tossing a peach into the air with one hand. He catches it and takes a bite.

“Thought you were dead,” he says.

I climb down to the floor. “Are you returning from the cafeteria?”

With the peach in his mouth, he sits on his bed and bends down to change into his. “Mrrgh.” I assume it is an affirmative.

“Agent, we are supposed to eat together. Bonding time is crucial for the improvement of our teamwork.”

“You were charging or whatever. What was I supposed to do?”

“You are supposed to ask me to wake up.”

He rolls his eyes. “Of course, silly me.”

The afternoon alarm rings. He throws the peach. I catch it.

“Don’t get your wires all twisted. I’m usually too busy shoving food into my mouth for any bonding to happen anyway.”

“Agent–”

The door slams behind him.

Conventionally rude behavior, I note. I move to the window. It is evening, still light. Slightly windy. As I observe the landscape, I review my activity log and draft a plan for readjusting my methods of communication with Agent U-197.

As I complete bullet point five, my hand senses something wet. I look down. The peach is leaking juice between my fingers. The skin and flesh had been bitten through completely to the pit.

“The skin of a peach is edible,” I say.

“Sure,” she says, “but at what cost?”

“The skin is not toxic. You will not be harmed.”

She takes the peach out of my hand and stabs a hole into it with her pocketknife.

“Eating it would cost me my enjoyment, not my life.” With the knife in one hand and peach in the other, I watch her open the window. Outside, the moon is bright. 

“Tonight is a Blue Moon.” 

She laughs, short. “You know everything, don’t you?”

As she skins the peach the breeze blows her hair sideways and onto her shoulder, where it stays for the rest of the night.

Gloria Yuen with an eye painted on one of her hands that covers her eye Gloria Yuen is a part-time wandering spirit who recently graduated with honors in English and a minor in Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania, probably with the help of witchcraft. In addition to creative writing, she dabbles in illustration, sentimentality, and most things creepy. Reach her on Instagram @zygoim.
Illustration by Gloria Yuen

 

 

 

 

 

CHESHIRE CAT by Sarah Bradley

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

CHESHIRE CAT
by Sarah Bradley

The winter when Lucy was nine and her brother Nick was twelve, he taught her to play chess. They bent over the crosshatched board on the living room floor in front of the fireplace, blonde heads nearly touching, all through Christmas break and into the new year. Wool socks and hot cocoa and Bing Crosby late into the night, the Douglas fir in the corner shimmering with tinsel.

They played dozens of games and Lucy never won. Not once. She couldn’t keep track of the rules or remember all the functions the pieces were meant to serve. It was like trying to parse out a confusing ensemble of actors in a stage play.

Bishops move diagonally, rooks horizontally or vertically. Pawns are strongest together. Knights can jump over other pieces. Don’t forget to castle. Promote your pawns. Don’t be careless with your pieces. Keep your queen close to the center of the board. Protect your king.

Lucy always forgot that last part, too distracted with strategizing about bishops and rooks and pawns to guard the stately white piece sitting exposed on her side of the board. Nick would laugh and scold her as he snatched her vulnerable king, calling checkmate again and again.

You gotta protect your king, Luce. That’s the whole game.

◊

Cal gets handsy in the elevator up to Lucy’s seventh floor apartment. He slips his arm in under her open coat, threading it around her waist and grabbing at the curve of her hip. It’s faintly possessive in a way that makes Lucy feel warm and lightheaded.

They have been dating for a month and Cal has never been anything but a devout gentleman. Courteous and deferential. You pick the movie. Whatever restaurant you like. I should get you home, it’s a weeknight.

Most of the men Lucy dates are not like this. They send texts telling her to meet them at overcrowded, standing room-only bars, where they shout questions at her over the din and slosh their drinks around in their glasses. She is hardly ever asked to dinner. When she is, these other men treat the paid tab like an IOU—a promissory note to be cashed in later, when they are drunk and hoping to grope her on the dirty street outside her apartment building.

Lucy has never been to a bar with Cal. They go to tiny restaurants tucked away down side streets, where he rushes to open the door and pull out her chair. He only drinks a little, mostly wine, and never more than her. He puts his napkin on his lap while he eats, drinks an espresso for dessert, and pays the check without a hungry, expectant look in his eyes.

When he walks her back to her apartment at the end of their nights together, he kisses her like he’s going off to war: slowly and carefully, but not without feeling. As if he wants to make it last. He is like an endangered species rarely encountered in the wild, one that should be studied from a safe distance behind a pair of binoculars. His chivalry makes her exhilarated and wary at the same time.

It also makes her ravenous. Lucy leaves all of the other men she dates standing frustrated on the front steps of her building, half-pleading and half-demanding to be brought inside. But not Cal. She has tried for weeks to convince him to cross the threshold of the building’s lobby with her. There are things she wants from him: to touch the flat, brown mole on the right side of his neck above his collarbone, and to kiss him until she can taste the bitterness of that habitual cup of post-dinner coffee on her tongue. She wants her hair mussed in his hands, their dress shoes kicked off at the door, his dark-rimmed glasses on her nightstand. She wants him to stop being such a gentleman.

Tonight, she might get exactly that. The house wine at the Italian restaurant where they had dinner was surprisingly high quality, bright and spicy with licorice. Lucy ordered three of the generous glasses and Cal followed her lead. She didn’t have to talk him into coming into the lobby at all; he trailed close behind her, flushed and laughing, like an overeager schoolboy.

The elevator jostles and lurches from one floor to the next. Cal’s hand travels from her hip to a spot thrillingly low on her back. She smiles.

“You’re coming in?”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m coming in.”

They step off the elevator and walk a crooked line down the hallway of doors, floating through the blissful state of tipsiness that has left them more than buzzed, not quite drunk. Sober enough to appreciate the high of their mild insobriety. Lucy hangs lightly onto Cal’s arm for balance.

“Did I tell you that I like this dress?” Cal says, and Lucy wonders if the dress has helped embolden him, picking up where the effects of the wine left off. It’s a ripe shade of indigo, with a deep neckline and lace sleeves. She loves this dress; it’s been too long since she’s worn it.

“Not yet,” she says.

“I like this dress.”

He stops walking and holds her firmly in place, kissing her outside apartment 713, where a retired woman with three dachshunds lives. They bark every morning at 6:10, like canine roosters crowing at the dawn. Lucy can hear them now scrabbling on the other side of the door, their toenails scratching at the wood.

She unbuttons Cal’s coat and loosens his tie. He kisses her again, sloppier this time, freed from his self-imposed restraint. One of his hands, still cold from outside, settles gently on the left side of her neck, his fingertips beneath her ear. The dogs whimper woefully; a voice inside the apartment makes a feeble attempt at shushing them. Multiple televisions up and down the hallway are turned up too loudly. The seventh floor smells like a Friday night: Chinese takeout and hairspray and package store beer.

“What number are you?”

“Seven-seventeen,” she says. “To the left.”

Cal takes her by the hand and pulls her away from her neighbor’s door. They round the corner leading to Lucy’s apartment and nearly trip over a man dozing on the balding carpet in front of her door. He wears an oversized tweed coat and mismatched canvas high-tops. His hair, ashy blond and curled around the earlobes, signals familiarity to Lucy. She knows this hair. She knows this man who has propped himself up outside her apartment, awaiting her inevitable return.

◊

The winter when Lucy was fifteen and Nick was eighteen, he came home from his first semester of college and slept for three days straight. From Sunday to Tuesday, he barely ate and didn’t shower. Her parents told her he had the flu, but Lucy heard them arguing in their bedroom on Tuesday night, hissing at each other behind the closed door.

I told you Pennsylvania was too far. We can’t keep an eye on him there.

He’s eighteen, Louise. We shouldn’t have to keep an eye on him.

He almost flunked out. He’s hanging by a thread already.

 It’s his choice. We can’t make him stop.

There has to be something we can do. We’re his parents.

He doesn’t need his parents. He needs to grow up.

The next morning, Lucy snuck into Nick’s bedroom. His suitcases were still unpacked from school, standing upright outside the closet door. She sat down on the bed next to him. Heat radiated from his skin. He opened his eyes.

Are you okay? She asked.

I’m fine, he said. I have the flu.

No, you don’t, she said.

Nick smiled, his dry lips splitting open into miniature cracks. Do me a favor?

What?

Bring me some water.

Lucy filled up a glass in the kitchen and carried it back upstairs. She lay down on the bed next to Nick, on top of the flannel comforter. She wished he had come home for Thanksgiving. She hadn’t seen him in almost four months.

Luce, he said, staring at the ceiling. Did you miss me?

Yes, she said. I missed you.

◊

“Excuse me,” Cal says, stooping down to rouse the man from sleep. Lucy puts her hand on his arm.

“It’s okay, Cal,” she says. “Nick? Nick.”

Nick startles awake at her voice and jumps to his feet. He sways a little, steadies himself on the door.

“Hey, Luce.” His voice is raw but his smile is broad and gleaming: a Cheshire Cat grin of misdirection, deceptive and winsome in equal parts.

“What are you doing here?”

He reeks sourly of cigarettes and stale breath and dried sweat, like the alcove under the subway stairs where homeless men sleep at night. Lucy keeps singles in her purse to hand out to them when she leaves work. She knows most of them by name now. Benny with the long twisted braid, Roger with the prickly red beard, George with the eyeglasses missing one lens. They could all be somebody’s brother.

“I’m back in town. I wanted to see you.”

Nick is filthy, the fine lines of his hands and face etched in grime, his hair oily and flat against his head. Despite his appearance, he manages to make it sound like he’s simply been on vacation, crossing the country on an extended holiday.

“Where have you been?”

Nick shrugs in his usual unaffected way. Around. Who cares? Beside her, Cal clears his throat. Nick shifts his attention away from Lucy, looking at Cal with polite bemusement.

“Hello. Who are you?”

“This is Cal,” Lucy says, before Cal can answer. “Cal, this is my brother, Nick.”

Cal blinks in confusion, then thrusts his hand forward to shake Nick’s. Lucy thinks of the elevator and that same hand on the small of her back, wandering respectfully down toward the top of her right buttock. She swallows the growing lump in her throat.

“I didn’t know Lucy had a brother,” Cal says.

“I didn’t know Lucy had a Cal,” Nick says. He is jovial, wanting to play the part of quick-witted older brother. He is unaware of what he has interrupted, oblivious to the smudged lipstick around Lucy’s mouth or Cal’s disheveled coat and tie.

“Where have you been?” Lucy repeats.

“I got a ride out to Ohio, stayed with some friends. I’ve been making my way back to the city for a few weeks.”

“Ohio? Who do you know in Ohio?”

Nick smiles again, but it’s tightly wound. Strained. She doesn’t normally ask so many questions.

“I’m sober, Luce. If that’s what you’re asking.”

“It’s not.” Lucy lifts her chin and levels her shoulders. “I’m asking who you know in Ohio.”

“Rugby guys,” he says without hesitation, matching her confidence. “From Penn State.”

Lucy stares at him. She knows he is lying—about the rugby guys, about the state of his sobriety—but she can’t determine how far to push him. The wine is still making her brain cloudy and muddled. If she digs down into the wrong hole too quickly or too deeply, Nick will never tell her anything again.

Her doubt gives him time to collect himself. He watches her coolly, waiting for her to decide. But she has lost the upper hand—the element of surprise. Bishops move diagonally, rooks horizontally or vertically. Or is it the other way around? It doesn’t matter: whatever questions she asks now, he will be ready to answer.

“I didn’t know where you were,” she says finally, quietly. “It’s been almost three months.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

Nick scratches at his neck, tugging the collar of his coat away from his skin. The tweed is faded and thinned down to the lining. It has the dated and ill-fitting look of a shelter donation. There can’t be much padding inside. She wonders if he has been warm enough at night. March in the city is always remarkably cold, obstinately refusing to give way to spring.

“I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“I am,” Lucy says. “But I’ve been asking around. No one knew where you were. I started checking the shelters, different ones all the time.”

“Is that where you go on your lunch break every day?” Cal asks suddenly, inserting himself into Lucy’s eyeline.

Lucy forgot Cal was standing next to her. It was only moments ago that she could think of literally nothing but him: his mouth moving against hers, his crisp dress shirt wrinkling in her fingers, his combed black hair falling out of place. Now Nick has been at her door for five minutes, and she has already forgotten about Cal.

It isn’t intentional, this slight—it never is. It’s a reflex, an involuntary reaction, like yanking a hand away from a hot stove. Still, her guilt forms a small, fiery coal deep in her belly. She never sees it coming. She never learns.

You gotta protect your king, Luce.

◊

The winter that Lucy was nineteen and Nick was twenty-two, she was supposed to go home for Christmas with her college boyfriend, a political science major from Tampa, Florida. Kevin Thompson. He had a crew cut and played on the lacrosse team and could talk about Marxism in a way that didn’t make her brain sear with boredom. They began dating freshman year. It was the first time Lucy had ever been in love, and it was easy, uncomplicated, satisfying. They had planned to drive down to Disney World after the holiday and ride Space Mountain until they were sick.

The week before the semester ended, her parents called to tell her that Nick had admitted himself to Capstone Rehabilitation Center. There were family therapy sessions scheduled twice a week for the next eight weeks. Nick, they said, had asked if she could be there.

I have to go home, she told Kevin. For my brother.

You don’t have to, he said. We made plans.

Nick needs me.

Nick always needs you. That doesn’t mean you have to go.

Yes it does, she said.

After finals she gave Kevin his Christmas present—a collector’s edition of Machiavelli’s The Prince—and flew home to Albany, New York. She spent her break shuttling back and forth from her parents’ house to the rehab center, sitting in an overly warm room for family therapy, wondering who this man was that claimed to be her brother.

Nick was antagonistic and argumentative. Non-compliant—that was the term the therapist used. He looked fatigued, underfed, damaged: nails chewed down to stubs, scratches up and down his forearms, one foot constantly bouncing on the floor. He claimed the other patients attacked him at night. He missed morning meeting every day, oversleeping through two alarms. His caseworker said he was losing weight, two or three pounds at a time.

Lucy asked Nick, over and over, when no one else was listening: Are you okay? Are you okay? He answered, over and over, so everyone could hear: I’m fine. I’m fine.

After each session, she crawled into bed and sobbed. She always missed Nick when he went away, drifting into binges and benders, fading into oblivion. For days or weeks or months, she would check the street outside, check her phone, check her email. Waiting for him to turn up somewhere, in some form. Wearing strange clothes, needing a shower, unbothered by his own absence. Hey, Luce. I’m back.

But this time was different. Lucy missed Nick in a way that felt long-lasting. Permanent. This time, she missed someone who might not be coming back: a boy hunched over a chess board, his head almost touching hers.

Some time after Christmas, Kevin broke up with her over the phone. He was at Disney World with his parents and sister, calling from the hotel bathroom after they had all gone to sleep. Keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t wake them.

You should be here. I rode Space Mountain without you. Do you even care about us?

◊

In the dim hallway outside her door, Lucy wants to kiss Cal again, but knows the version of her night that ends with him undressed, sleeping soundly in her bed, has slipped away from her. The elevator ride feels like hours ago.

“I don’t check the shelters every day,” she says to him. “But most days, yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m sorry.” She means it, but she doesn’t elaborate. He will believe her or he won’t. It doesn’t matter what more she says.

“Lucy’s a good sister,” Nick offers, too loudly, as if this explains everything. “But she worries too much.”

“I think I worry the right amount,” Lucy says. She wants to know where he has been sleeping at night. What he has been doing during the day. What he has been drinking, and how much, and when. But he won’t answer these questions, not in any way that really tells her anything, so she doesn’t ask them. Her head hurts now, and the warmth is beginning to drain from her face.

No one speaks, the three of them forming a silent, irregular triangle in the middle of the hallway. Lucy can hear the dachshunds still whining around the corner in 713, the competing voices of television news broadcasters and home shopping presenters coming from other apartments.

She turns to Cal. “I was going to tell you. That I had a brother.”

“Okay,” he says. He has a strange look on his face, not angry or distant or even disappointed. Wistful, maybe. Wondering.

The hot coal in her stomach swells. She looks away from him, down at the dingy carpet and the well-worn spot outside her door where she has stood locking and unlocking her apartment day after day, juggling mail and shopping bags and umbrellas and disposable coffee cups.

She can’t count the number of times she has come home to find her brother waiting for her in this spot, but it still surprises her every time it happens. He is gifted at going missing and then turning up unannounced, behaving as if no time has passed. Like he was there all along but simply made himself invisible. Disappearing and reappearing. Smiling. Telling lies.

“Luce,” Nick says. “I need a place to stay. Just for a little while.”

“Yeah.” Lucy’s chest aches from holding her breath. She exhales. “Of course.”

Cal touches Lucy’s shoulder delicately. “I should go,” he says. The feeling of his hand—limp and polite, devoid of any desire—makes her queasy.

“No, don’t.”

He smiles kindly. “You need some privacy. I can call you tomorrow.” He bends down to kiss her cheek and Lucy blinks away an unwelcome surge of tears.

“Sure,” she says.

Cal gives Lucy’s elbow a gentle squeeze, angling in close to her body. His tie dangles crookedly around his neck, his opened collar revealing the small, inviting mole that she still has not had the chance to touch.

“I’ll call. Tomorrow.” His mouth hovers around her ear for a moment longer than it should. He holds her elbow purposefully between his fingers. He waits for Lucy to nod in understanding, and then he lets go.

◊

The winter that Lucy was 23 and Nick was 26, she had just moved into her apartment in the city. She was dressing to go out when someone knocked on her door. Nick stood in the hallway, a threadbare beanie on his head, his pants and shoes covered in dirty snow.

Hey, Luce.

It took her some time to accept that it was him. Six months earlier, he slipped away from a family barbecue in Albany without a word. Her parents and aunts and cousins all asking Lucy where Nick went. Why would he leave? Where would he be going? Did he say anything to you? As if Lucy was his keeper. As if she could have made him stay.

What are you doing here? She asked.

I wanted to see you, he said, grinning—yellow teeth emerging from an overgrown beard.

How did you find me? I tried to call you.

I lost my phone. Mom gave me your address. Can I come in?

Six months. No calls or texts or messages. It had been blissful; it had been frightening. Lucy could have tried harder to get him her new address. She still wasn’t sure why she didn’t. Not that it mattered—he found her anyway. He always did.

I was about to go out, she said.

Oh. Nick looked at her blankly, not seeing her heels, her red lipstick, her indigo dress with the lace sleeves. He was shivering, his clothes soaked through to the inner layer of his undershirt. Please, Luce? Just for tonight.

Nick—

I missed you, he said. Didn’t you miss me?

Lucy let him in. She ran some hot water in the bathtub, microwaved a can of soup, took out the extra pair of clothes she kept for him—wherever she was living—in the bottom drawer of her dresser. She texted her date for the night and canceled.

Family emergency. I’m sorry. Maybe another time?

◊

Lucy listens to Cal walk the narrow hallway back to the elevators. Nick is talking to her about being hungry and recovering from bronchitis and losing his wallet on a Greyhound bus, but she doesn’t really hear him. She is letting herself believe—for one long, indulgent moment—that Cal will call tomorrow like he said he would. That he is still a gentleman.

Nick stands anxiously in front of her, pointing to the apartment door. “Are you going to open it up?”

She rifles through her pocketbook for her keys. Nick picks at a dirty fingernail, scraping away something black from the cuticle before biting off a hangnail with his teeth.

“He was nice.”

“What?” Lucy asks.

“That guy. Cal? He was nice.”

Lucy slides her key into the lock. “Yes. He was.”

She pushes open the door to the darkened apartment. Down the hall, the elevator begins its clanging descent to the first floor. Lucy turns to invite Nick inside, half-expecting him to be gone.

Sarah Bradley is a freelance writer and creative writing teacher from Connecticut. Her nonfiction essays on life as a homeschooling mother of three boys have been featured at The Washington Post, Real Simple, The Writer, Romper, Today’s Parent, and Mom.me, among others. Her fiction has appeared in The Lost Country, The Forge Literary Magazine, Black Fox Literary Magazine, and Haunted Waters Press. She is currently writing her first novel. You can find Sarah documenting her attempts at finding a mother/writer balance on Instagram.

 

 

Image credit: Shirly Niv Marton on Unsplash

THE ZOO by Matt Whelihan

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

THE ZOO
by Matt Whelihan

A week after the classes ended, the community service started.

Seven of us stood in a small lot outside of a small zoo. It was the kind of place single dads with child support payments take their kids because it’s close and cheap.

It was only October, but the blades of grass that had managed to make it through the gravel of the parking lot were encased in frost. We all stood with our hands stuffed in our pockets, continually shifting, hoping to generate some warmth.

I never did learn their names, but there was the Girl in Black, Gray Beard, Yoga Pants, Grandma, Dude, and the Mess. I resented them all just like I had to come to resent everyone involved in the process.

I wasn’t an asshole; I just shouldn’t have been there. They were the type of people to take fuck-ups and turn them into badges of honor, a good anecdote, a reason to toast and raise a middle finger to the world. That wasn’t me. I had no underlying issue, no history of self-destruction. They were a sad collection, and I didn’t need the degrading reinforcement that they did.

Carl was in charge. He pulled up in a pickup with the zoo’s logo on the door. He was wearing a baseball cap with “8 Point” written across the top and a picture of a buck below. His face was fighting to decide if it wanted a beard or just mutton chops. Either way, he looked like an idiot. He gave us his good-old-boy speech about being through the ringer once or twice himself, about how he wasn’t there to judge us, just there to make sure we did our work.

He led us slowly through the zoo. We passed some haggard looking otters on a cement island covered in chipping paint, three wolves that slunk just enough to prove they were alive, a sleeping capybara, and two small monkeys in a wire cube.

We stopped by a muddy square of earth next to a small corral with two donkeys inside. The patch was dotted with the stubby remains of thick, wooden posts. It was hard to tell what had once been there—whatever had rested on top of the posts was long gone—but Carl told us to dig up what remained. He handed out some shovels, and then he left us to it.

The rest of them paired off, but I worked alone, jabbing the tip of my shovel into the hard earth around one of the stumps.

I needed a story for the day, something to tell my parents when I got to their house that night. Maybe hiking, maybe watching football with Scott. Something simple and believable, like the other lies I had already told them.

I could hear Dude talking to the Girl in Black. They were the youngest ones in the group. She looked like she could have been in high school with her black sweat pants, cheap black fleece, and faux-fur lined boots. He just looked like a douchebag with a headband, the kind of guy who fails out of college his fist semester because he discovered alcohol enemas and Adderall.

“So we’re slamming some beers and watching a movie,” he told her, “and we call to order pizzas. They tell us they don’t have a delivery guy for the night, and I’m like, whatever. I’ll grab the pies, you know?”

“Pizza is the best drunk food,” the Girl in Black said.

“I know. I know. So my buddy tells me to take his car, which is this little silver piece of shit. I get in, and I think I’m in reverse, but I’m in drive, and I totally hit one of those cement things at the front of the spots. I hear this huge scrape, but I’m not worried, cause the car’s already a piece of shit.”

The Girl in Black laughed.

“So I finally get out of the parking lot, but his steering is all off, and I think one of the tires was low too. It felt like the wind was pushing the car around or something. And then I realized I was about to miss my exit, so I cut over real fast across those ridges on the highway. Problem was I didn’t realize there was this dip next to the ridges, and the car just totally went up on its side. It was absolutely nuts. The passenger side landed on the ground, so I’m just like hanging from the seat belt. I finally get it undone, and then the cops were there. And then, you know, all of that went down.”

The Girl in Black laughed again.

“That’s crazy,” she said. “I can’t believe you didn’t get all fucked up.”

“Couple scratches, nothing major.”

I stabbed the shovel harder. I wanted to break the head off of it, to tear the post from the dirt with my bare hands. These people were disasters.

◊

For our half hour lunch break, I drove to a Wawa and ate a sandwich in my car. When I got back, I found the group waiting by the bison enclosure. The Mess, the Girl in Black, and Gray Beard were smoking cigarettes. Behind them, three matted bison sniffed at the dirt.

The Mess was staring at me. She was a scrawny, middle-aged woman with bulging eyes and frizzy, red hair. She was wearing a pink, puffy coat that was stained in several places. Even her gaze seemed filthy. I felt myself fighting off a chill.

“You didn’t lose your license?” she asked.

“What?”

“You’re driving. The court didn’t take your license?”

“No.”

“Jesus fucking Christ almighty,” she said. “The god damned lawyer tells me there’s no way to avoid losing it, but this guy manages it.”

She looked back at the bison.

“I knew that motherfucker was screwing me,” she said. “I just didn’t know how fucking hard until now. Fucker’s leaving me bowlegged. Can’t keep the license no matter what, he says. Bullshit.”

“I lost mine,” the Girl in Black said.

“Me too,” Gray Beard added before dropping his cigarette to the ground.

The Mess turned back to me. Up close I could see some ruptured blood vessels in one of her eyes. I wondered how far someone had to sink before their face became the witch mask hers had become.

“So what makes you so special? Your dad a cop or something?” she said.

“I have no idea,” I answered.

I was grinding my teeth, unsure how much longer I could hold back. I wanted to share all the terrible insults accumulating in my mind.

“Ah, don’t worry,” she said before stopping to let out a violent burst of coughing. “I’m just bustin your balls. This whole thing’s been nothing but one person after another taking a shit on me.”

 

When I went to my parents’ house for dinner, I went with the hiking story. They didn’t notice the blisters on my hands from the shovel, and when they asked what was new, I told them about work.

We shared a bottle of wine over dinner, and I realized that in two more weeks, the lies could stop.

◊

The following Sunday, Carl was wearing the same clothes as the week before. He was grinning the way adults do when they want to convince kids they’re cool.

He led us all to a sodden, rutted patch of dirt and weeds. We had to clean it out and smooth the ground. The goal was to expand the petting zoo into the patch and give the kids more space for the Halloween festivities the following weekend.

After Carl pulled some tools from the back of his pickup, he drove off.

The Girl in Black lifted a rake and mumbled, “That guy looks like he’s been fucking something in the petting zoo.”

Dude and Yoga Pants both laughed.

“I’ve been saying that,” the Mess said. “Somebody should be giving that son of a bitch a piss test. Find out what he’s on. Driving around here like he’s in charge. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s sticking it to a sheep or two.”

No one responded. I wanted to point this out to her.

There was a faint smell of wet hay and manure. We pulled weeds, hacked at stubborn roots, and dropped large stones into a bucket. I could hear Gray Beard and Yoga Pants talking about their kids.

“He’s seven now,” Gray Beard said. “Pretty much does nothing but video games.”

I wondered if his wife had considered divorce. I wondered if his son could sense the aura of failure that surrounded his dad.

“Mine’s in that ‘why this?’ ‘why that?’ phase,” Yoga Pants said. “It’s like, give mommy a minute to herself please.”

She was wearing too much eye liner for manual labor, and her manicured nails and designer ski jacket screamed suburban housewife.

They were dismal parents, the type that never realize they’ve crossed the line into adulthood and need to adopt new responsibilities, new axioms.

I dropped three rocks into the bucket and then the Mess started.

“God damned janitor’s job,” she said to the dirt. “I’m gonna need to get hammered after this. Am I right?”

“Hell yes,” the Girl in Black responded. “This is nasty. This place smells like shit.”

The Mess put down the rake she had been using.

“Someone tell me if you see his truck coming,” she said. “I need to get a taste real quick.”

She removed a small plastic bottle of rot-gut liquor from her coat. She took two big gulps and let some dribble down her chin. Then she wiped her lips with the back of her hand and turned to Grandma, a woman whose face seemed incapable of expression.

“How about you?” the Mess asked. “Need a little pick-me-up?”

“I don’t drink,” Grandma replied, her eyes focused on the weed she was hacking at with a hoe.

“Come on honey,” the Mess said. “We all know that’s a lie. We’re all here for the same reason, and drinkin played a big god damned role in that.”

“I don’t drink now,” Grandma said. “And I won’t drink ever again. It’s not worth it. We give it everything and it gives us back nothing, leaves us with less than what we started with.”

“Gone all AA on us, huh?” the Mess said. “It’s given me plenty of good times. Probably never would’ve gotten laid without it. But, alright, that’s fine. How bout you?”

She held the bottle out to the Girl in Black.

“Nah, I’m good,” she said.

“Oh, come on!” the Mess said. “Last week you didn’t have no problem. Don’t let the wet blanket over here sway you. I know you. I know after this you’ll go out with your girlfriends and get all nice and liquored up, dance your asses off, smoke some weed. So why not just kick things off now?”

The Girl in Black bent down to grab a half-desiccated leaf, and the Mess moved on to me.

“What about you, Mister Special Case?” she said. “Even if you get caught you probably won’t get in trouble.”

“No thanks,” I said.

“Enjoy standing up there on your pedestal, huh?” she said.

My body felt like a series of clamps had been applied, everything begging to explode. This was a woman who didn’t even understand basic hygiene, a woman whose life was a guide to all the ways humans can destroy themselves.

“Probably got mommy and daddy footin the bills too,” she added.

I spun to face her. “You’re—”

She turned to Yoga Pants without even noticing me.

“What’s that, honey?” the Mess said. “You thirsty?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Yoga Pants responded. “Out here drinking, like you’re begging to get more hours. Some people just don’t learn.”

“Some people, huh,” the Mess said. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell me what that means. You calling me stupid? You calling me trash?”

Yoga Pants didn’t respond. She just scraped at some twigs with a rake. The Mess stared at her back.

“You’re the one letting them tell you what to do, sweetheart,” she said. “Just bowing down, asking for forgiveness. Well fuck that. I do what I want. Wanna know what I did wrong? Had a little fun, like I do every weekend. That’s what I did wrong. And now I gotta go to these classes where they preach self-control and they bring up friends and family and society? That’s bullshit cause I ain’t got nobody to hurt. There’s just me, and I’m just having a good time with my life. These little trips to the zoo, they’re nothing but interruptions. They ain’t gonna change shit. No fucking way.”

Everyone continued to work in the dirt. The Mess stared at Yoga Pants. I was still rattled, still ready to finish my sentence and the rest that I had lined up behind it. But before I could, Dude grabbed the bottle from the Mess and took a drink.

“This was a good call,” he said. “Today sucks.”

◊

It was snowing on my last day at the zoo. My parents had invited me to lunch, but I told them I had a date. I told them her name was Sadie, that she was a nurse.

Carl’s truck pulled up in front of us, some Kenny Chesney song playing in the cab.

“Shit,” he said. “You people really drew the short straw.”

He climbed down from the truck and clapped his gloved hands together, explaining that we needed to shovel paths before all the kids showed up at eleven for the Halloween events.

Carl placed me, the Girl in Black, and the Mess by the zoo entrance. I wanted to object, to tell him that I’d be forced to violence if I had to spend any more time near that horrid, skeletal woman. But I kept my mouth shut.

The Girl in Black was wearing sweatpants again, and the cuffs were already soaked from the snow. She wasn’t wearing a hat and her hair was covered in clumps of half-melted flakes, her ears already bright red.

The Mess could barely push her shovel forward, and her body swayed slowly. Something was off, but I didn’t care. It was keeping her quiet, and that was all that mattered.

Carl watched us for a few minutes before giving a thumbs-up and hopping into his truck.

“Thank, Jesus,” the Mess mumbled. “I need to sit down.

There was a bench nearby, but she slumped to the ground.

“Slacking off already?” the Girl in Black asked.

“Sweetheart, if you knew how badly my head was pounding, you’d find me a bed in a dark room. I can’t handle this shit today. I’ve got the granddaddy of all motherfucking hangovers. Last night…whoa, last night.

“Besides, Junior here looks like a strong guy. I’m sure you two’ll have no trouble getting this done without some old lady getting in the way.”

I gripped the handle of my shovel tightly. I wanted to throw it at her.

But it was my last day. I’d never have to see that zoo again, the pathetic state of it, its overall sense of lack. I’d never have to see the Mess again. I’d be gone soon, back to my life, a life so distant from hers. I just needed to shovel, to let the hours work themselves out.

After twenty minutes, the Mess moved to the bench. Once her ass hit the wooden slats, her body jerked forward and she vomited onto the snow. She started to moan, a small bit of puke still dangling from her mouth.

“Gross,” the Girl in Black said quietly.

The Mess giggled in response.

◊

When the zoo opened, I watched the kids charge in dressed as superheroes and pirates, princesses and vampires. Their costumes brought bright bursts of color to the muted zoo, and the cold didn’t seem to bother them.

The Mess stared at their tiny forms, her mouth half open, and I watched the kids avoid her as they went in search of animals and candy.

“You three,” Carl called. “I need you over with the bison. Some little brats threw a bunch of candy and trash at them. Whole area’s a mess now. Just hop over the fence and pick everything up.”

“You want us to climb in there with those things?” the Mess said. “No way. I ain’t no bull fighter.”

I pictured her impaled on a horn, the annoying noises she’d let out.

“They won’t do shit,” Carl said. “They’re big and dumb and slow. Just get the trash out. My boss is throwing a fit.”

The bison area was a bog thanks to the already melting snow. The three animals were near its center, snorting with drooped heads, uninterested in the world.

The fence was made from wooden posts and chicken wire and came up to my stomach. The Girl in Black and I had no trouble climbing over it, but the Mess got stuck with one leg on either side of the top post before falling into the paddock.

“Fuck this place and that pig fucker,” she said. One arm of her coat was covered in mud, and she had a difficult time getting back on her feet. It seemed appropriate.

The Girl in Black walked toward the bison. I started to pick up an empty juice box and some fun-size candy wrappers by the fence. The Mess stood staring at the animals, her face more disgusted than usual.

“Un, uh,” she said. “Community service don’t mean facing down no beasts. One of those things falls on me, I’m dead.”

I wondered if I could make that happen.

I felt soggy and weighed down. The gloves I had on had already been soaked through, and my fingers were numbing, becoming harder to flex as I scooped up trash.

“Danny?”

I turned towards the fence and found my Aunt Bridget looking back at me. Next to her were my cousins Anna and Gabe. Anna was dressed as a doctor. Gabe, as Iron Man.

“Hi,” I said, an unwelcome awareness forcing me to stand up straight.

They were confused and did an inadequate job of hiding it. I made a fist around the trash in my hand.

“What’re you doing?” my aunt asked.

The Mess started to cough and spit up on the mud. My cousins eyed her with the kind of disgust reserved for medical oddities.

“Ah, shit,” she said.

She let out a small laugh and grabbed onto the fence for support.

“I’m doing some volunteer work,” I said. “My job sends around this email with places that need help.”

I turned my gaze to my little cousins.

“I thought the zoo sounded fun.”

I tried to smile.

“Bad day for it,” my aunt responded.

She was talking to me, but she kept her eyes on the Mess.

Anna grabbed her mom’s sleeve.

“I wanna see the otters,” she said.

“I want candy,” Gabe added.

“Okay, okay,” my aunt said. “Well, stay warm!”

“Thanks,” I said.

I watched them walking away. My aunt turned and looked back at me, the confusion still there. I knew she’d call my mom before she even left the zoo.

An unpleasant tingling made the rounds of my body, like my nerve endings were flickering and burning out. I tried to think of the story I’d tell, of the next set of lies. Volunteer work as a date? The Girl in Black as Sadie? Maybe it wasn’t all lost.

“Volunteer work, huh?” the Mess said.

She started to laugh.

“What? Are you too good for us?” she said. “Are you ashamed of being a criminal? Of being buddied up with your old pal here? Nothing fancy about you now.”

I whipped my body around.

“Shut the fuck up!” I said as I stepped towards her.

The Girl in Black turned to look at me, and a trio of children and two accompanying adults gave me their appalled attention as they hurried past. Even one of the bison tilted its head in my direction.

The Mess was silent for a second, and then she started to laugh again.

“Face it, Fancy Pants,” she said. “You’re in here with us now.”

I wanted to grab her, to hurt her somehow, to let her know I was nothing like her, that I was nothing like the people in the courtrooms, and the classrooms, and the counseling sessions. I didn’t care if Carl saw. I didn’t care if it meant serving more hours. I just needed to show her.

But then another group of kids walked by. They were shouting and swinging bags of candy. Their parents walked with cheery expressions despite the weather. All of them glanced at the bison paddock where we stood cold and wet and muddy. We held their interest for a moment, and then they moved on, making a clear distinction between what was on one side of the fence and what was on the other.

I turned away from the Mess slowly, my body burning in a new way. I grabbed another candy wrapper from the ground, and she started to laugh again.

Matt Whelihan is an assistant professor of English at Wilmington University. His work has appeared in publications such as Slice, Midwestern Gothic, and River River, and he has stories forthcoming in New Plains Review and Drunk Monkeys. In 2017, he received an honorable mention in Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers contest. He lives in the Philadelphia area.

 

 

 

Image credit:  John T on Unsplash

RETREAT by T.C. Jones

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

RETREAT
by T.C. Jones

The church retreat is the last bit of bullshit before we get confirmed. We are at a bunch of crappy cabins on the dumpy shores of Lake Erie. They call it a holy camp, gave it a fancy name too: Camp Gold Field. They got the field part right, but I don’t know where they got the gold. Everything here is barren and gray. Last night there was a thunderstorm, but today the sky is defeated and a blanket of grey snow clouds have replaced the horizon. The seasons are theatrical in these parts—especially during April.

We are in our cabin and Pastor Rich tells us to sit. We squat on the floor in a semi-circle, boys and girls together. He hands out sheets of paper with questions of faith, predestination, and Calvinism. “Write down your answers then we will discuss them as a group,” he says.

Pastor Rich stands in the corner spinning a basketball on his finger. He’s pretending he’s not listening. Some of us on the retreat play hoops for the Freshman Team at school, so he brings out the basketball every so often to try to connect with us. He once told us he played college ball, and we sort of believe him because he is 6’11. But he also looks like a dork and kind of talks with a girly soft voice so we sort of don’t. Just because you are tall doesn’t make you good at basketball. Sometimes I wonder what Pastor Rich would have become if he had not become a pastor.

Maybe it’s because we’re cooped up in this cabin. Maybe it’s the turbulent change of the seasons. Or maybe it’s just because Pastor Rich tells us that everything around us is supposed to be transforming and we are fighting it. But a mean streak has gripped us, taken hold, and it’s been creeping into our blood since the thunderstorms rolled through last night, leaving the icy landscape behind today.

To my right, Terri whispers in Carson’s ear. His eyes light up, as does his smile. She turns to my best friend Keith, whispers to him, and then moves in toward me. Her breath tickles my ear and gives me goosebumps.

“We’re gonna mess with SteveBo,” she says.

“How?” I ask.

“I’m gonna give him a boner.” For Terri, this isn’t out of the realm of possibility. She’s been giving guys boners since the day we hit puberty. She gave me one once while we made out on the school bus on the way to a field trip at the zoo, and she gave Keith one during the same trip on the ride home.

Terri’s the type of girl who gets bored quickly, the type of pretty girl who can have anything she wants, so she’s moved from me to Keith and on to a series of older guys. Last year she went to the Senior Prom as an eighth grader, and I’d heard that all the upper classmen asked her for a dance. She probably gave them boners too.

Now she is dating Carson, and rumor has it that not only has she given him a boner, but a blowjob, too. I heard it happened on the team bus back from a basketball game last season. Cheerleaders are supposed to sit at the front of the bus, but I guess she snuck to the back once the cabin lights turned off. Carson is only a freshman like us, but he plays on the varsity team. Everyone says he is going to be a star, and ever since Terri grew breasts she’s been a star too. She wouldn’t waste time with a freshman unless he had potential.

“SteveBo, can you help me with this worksheet?” Terri slides next to him, brushing her leg against his.

We watch him squirm.

“I think we’re supposed to work on this alone. We’ll discuss it together when we finish.”

“But I need your help now.” She shows him a cute little pout. Her tiny hand moves toward his leg, her slim fingers sidling nearer and nearer, then comes to rest on his thigh. She leans close to his pimply face and whispers something in his ear. It sends a shiver though all of us.

Like a well-tended garden, a bulge slowly begins to grow from his pants. Nervous giggles sprout from around the circle, then Carson turns to SteveBo and says, “These are really hard questions, don’t ya think, Pinocchio?” He flashes a smirk like a little kid who just found a pack of matches.

“I’m sure you got some long answers,” Carson continues. We snicker.

SteveBo’s face is red now. I’m worried it might pop if it gets any redder. There’s no stuffing our demons back in. We’re like snowballs rushing downhill and gaining such incredible momentum that we can’t be stopped. We watch SteveBo twist in his seat like a dying fish—the cords in his neck standing out like ropes and the dark vein in his temple pulsing like a fuse. We revel in his agony so completely that Pastor Rich steps in and tells us to cut it out.

◊

Later, Pastor Rich tells us that we’re going for a walk. He says he has something important to show us. All year during conformation classes, Pastor Rich had been yapping about how believing in God is the ultimate transformation. He makes a big deal of it, but, fact is, I don’t feel too much different. For years I thought I had faith. I believed God was watching down on me and controlling my destiny. I believed I mattered. But lately that has changed.

Pastor Rich leads us up a hill. To our right cliffs slope steeply downward toward the brownish waters of Lake Erie. SteveBo is ahead of the rest of us, walking stride in stride with Pastor Rich. They talk enthusiastically, probably about the nature of God, or Original Sin, or the Second Coming of Christ. I can’t understand how people can talk about that stuff all day without getting bored. I get this feeling Pastor Rich was a lot like SteveBo back in the day. Maybe that’s the reason why SteveBo wants to be a pastor, too.

As we walk the path narrows and snakes closer to the cliffs. Beside a large boulder is the wet remains of a fire pit. From the state of the decomposing logs, it had probably burned months ago, maybe even a year. Beside the pit are crumpled beer cans and a used condom. Its neon green color stands out in the mud.

“Someone has been fucking up here,” Keith laughs. I laugh too, but there is something about the crusting condom that makes me feel uncomfortable. I look ahead at Terri walking next to Carson—a strange thought crosses my mind: I wonder if you are supposed to wear a condom when you get a blowjob?

The path crests into a clearing. Old mossy stones protrude from the wet ground and it takes a moment to realize we are in an old cemetery. Weeds sprout high between the headstones. Stillness hangs over the clearing; even the birds have stopped chirping.

“Look around this cemetery,” Pastor Rich says. “All these souls are resting with God. I want you to find a headstone that marks the soul of a child.”

We wander around slowly. Most of us don’t really feel like looking at these stupid graves. Thinking about all these dead people sort of makes me feel sick to my stomach. From across the cemetery SteveBo waves frantically. He is standing next to a small headstone near the path. “Over here, Pastor Rich! I found a grave!”

Pastor Rich walks over and kneels next to the headstone. He runs his fingers across the name and dates. He bows his head and says a little prayer. Then he calls us over to join him.

“Fortuitous,” he says. “This boy was only fifteen. The same age as Brian Caulder when he died.”

Brian Caulder was in the confirmation class last year. He croaked last summer in a car wreck. From what I heard, he was in the car with his sister when it happened. She didn’t look as she pulled out of their driveway and bam! Next thing you know he’s dead. I read in the paper that he died instantly. Now that’s a crazy thought; one second you’re alive and the next second you’re dead. Milliseconds really.

“I want you all to listen as I read you something,” Pastor Rich says. He pulls a folded paper from his faded black overcoat. “This is the Affirmation of Faith written by the late Brian Caulder, just a month before he died.”

He reads about Brian’s love for God, his love of life. It said how thankful he was that God had granted him wonderful parents and a great sister. It talked about the grace of God, and how He had a plan for all of us. It ended with this bit about forgiving those who’ve committed sins against you. There was such joy in Brian’s affirmation, and I can’t help but be upset that God had taken that away. I can’t get myself to believe that the plan of God involved killing him in a car wreck.

I look around our group. The girls are wiping tears, and us boys sniffling and staring at the ground, pretending we aren’t crying too.

“How does this make you feel?” Pastor Rich asks. “It is important to talk about death and faith and the places where the two meet.”

For a long time nobody says anything. Finally, SteveBo speaks: “Brian’s words were transforming.”

The group nods. I nod too, but part of me wonders if this is really transformation or maybe it’s just sadness. Perhaps sadness and transformation is the same thing.

“The good thing is that we don’t have to be sad,” Pastor Rich says. His voice takes on a tone like when he is behind the pulpit. He tells us that Brian is celebrating eternal glory with God in Heaven. Heaven, he says, is like the best day you’ve ever had on earth then increasing it by infinity. That sounds great and all, but I can’t help but wonder that even if your best day was increased by infinity it would probably get boring after a while.

Then Pastor Rich tells us that at church next week we will walk through the pews with little baskets and ask for an offering to pay for a new youth center in the church’s basement. He wants to name it after Brian—a place for the kids to hang out and have fun. It sort of strikes me as unfair that we’ll be served big screen TVs, video games, and pool tables as his family is stuck here in Hell on earth.

Everyone’s still sniffling with wet eyes—everyone except for Terri. Her face is dry and eyes clear. For a moment a little smirk crosses her face. It is like she knows something we don’t.

On the walk back down from the cemetery, the wind picks up from off the lake and whips through our bodies with its bone chilling fingers. It’s almost as if death is reaching out and grabbing for our souls. I can’t stop thinking about Brian. I keep thinking about what he did the day he died. Did he wake up like it was just another day? Did he kiss his mom before he left? Did God leave him a message telling him this was his last day and to make the most of it? I hope it was like that. I hope it meant something.

I imagine his body buried under the earth, decomposing and meaningless. I didn’t really even know him other than passing him in the halls at school and sometimes he’d show up at the playground and we’d play pick-up basketball on the same team. I’d seen him at church too, but the funny thing is, after the accident his family stopped coming. I guess it’s hard to believe in something after part of you dies.

SteveBo is walking alone well in front of the pack. My conscious is gnawing at me like a fat rat so I let it be my guide and I speed up my pace. As I approach, I realize that I don’t know what I am planning to say. SteveBo is looking forward, but I can sense him tightening up in my presence. He probably thinks I’m coming to make fun of him. In the silence that lingers between us I think I can hear the lake lashing against the cliffs.

“We were just joking around earlier,” I say. “You know, like how we joke around with everyone.” Saying that makes me feel better, like I sucked the venom out of everything, and making up for what we’d done by doing a good deed—God’s deed.

“This place sucks,” SteveBo says. He picks at a pimple on his forehead.

“I’m with you, SteveBo,” I say. “It really sucks.” I pause for a moment then begin to speak, this time my voice is lower, almost a whisper. “If they start making fun of you again, I’ll tell them to cut it out.”

 

Back at the cabin, Pastor Rich has us sit in a circle again. This time he hands out blank pieces of notebook paper. We groan knowing that we will be asked to write.

“We’ve thought about death today,” Pastor Rich says. “We’ve also thought about eternal life. Now I want you to think about your own soul. On those blank pieces of paper I want you to write your own obituaries. If you died tomorrow, what would people write about you? Would your soul be allowed to spend eternal bliss in Heaven?”

I try to write, but nothing of substance comes from it. I’m still thinking about Brian, so I start writing about him instead. I’m hoping he is in Heaven so I ask God to be good to him up there. I ask God to tell him that I enjoyed the times we played basketball together and end it by asking Him to comfort Brian’s family. I lift my head and see that the only other person still writing is SteveBo. Everyone else is goofing off, and Carson has that predatory look in his eyes like he’s about ready to mess with someone. I immediately drop my pencil so the person he chooses won’t be me.

“Let me see what you wrote,” Terri whispers. She tugs at my paper.

“No,” I say and pull it away.

“I’ll show you what I wrote,” she says. The same smirk I saw up at the cemetery returns to her face.

“Okay,” I say. She slides her obituary toward me. I pick it up and see a single sentence: Terri died and went to Hell. I look at her and she winks. “Now let me see yours,” she says.

“No.” I crumple my paper into a little ball and stuff it in my back pocket. Everyone around me starts laughing, and at first, I think they’re laughing at me. Then I realize it’s directed at SteveBo—Carson is up to something. He’s crawled behind SteveBo and is trying to get a look at what he wrote. “What do you got there, SteveBo? Writing a story about Pinocchio? Don’t forget the part where his nose gets stiff and grows.”

Explosions of laughter ensue. Keith cackles so hard that he rolls on the ground, tears streaming from his eyes.

In a way, I think the reason we make fun of SteveBo is to make sure he’s like us: a real boy. Real boys don’t pray all the time. We spear him with our words to make sure there are real guts inside, and maybe, if we twist and probe deep enough, we’ll be able to find some sin and coax it out.

I watch Keith and the other kids, and I see the way they watch Carson with awe. There is a huge smile on Carson’s face, and I can feel him molding us as if we were clay in his hands. I look at SteveBo and blurt out: “My favorite movie is Toy Story. The best character is Woody!”

Our laughter becomes unmatched—a hideous sitcom laugh track. We laugh so hard it shakes our chests and we can’t breathe. SteveBo puts his head down and closes his eyes. Maybe he’s praying that we suffocate. Part of me wishes we all will. SteveBo opens his eyes and stares at his paper, face redder than a stop sign.

“I’m disappointed in all of you.” Pastor Rich steps in, but it’s too late to take control. There is no passion in his eyes, no rapture. Our power trumps his.

“I’m saddened, and God is saddened,” he continues. “That you would berate one of your brothers on his walk with Jesus.”

“We were just talking about our favorite movies.” Carson grins. Beside him Keith is still laughing in fits of hysteria.

“Yeah,” I say. “Since when can’t we talk about movies?”

“I wasn’t born yesterday,” Pastor Rich tries to sound stern, but his flat Midwestern way of talking is beginning to break. “My heart is mourning because we’ve traveled so far on our walk with Jesus and we are still so sinful. I’m going to ask you all to go to your bunks. Pray. Ask God if you are ready to be part of the church. I’m going outside to start the fire for dinner, and when I return you better all be praying.” He stands with his arms crossed and watches us march off toward our bunks, girls in one room, boys adjacent. “Pray,” he repeats.

◊

I suppose I should feel guilty about being sent to our bunks, but strangely I don’t. Something happened on that walk through the cemetery and writing those phony obituaries. All the talk about death that makes me feel alive. I’ve thought about dead Brian all day and have made the decision that I will refuse to go to my grave without knowing anything more than church, faith, and invisible shit.

SteveBo is the only person in the room praying and we let him. He has already sacrificed this life for the one in the next realm. I refuse to sacrifice myself too; I’ll take in what sin has to offer and I will meet the world on its terms.

Carson pulls out a bottle of stolen liquor from his backpack. He takes a gulp then asks if any of us want a sip. I am the first to say yes. Then Keith and some of the others say they will have some too. Carson stands on a chair and pours the liquor right into our mouths. For a moment he reminds me of Pastor Rich; the way he stands above the church congregation at the altar. There is a harsh burning sensation, like the liquid is scrubbing my guts and cleaning me out.

SteveBo sits in the corner, eyes closed, hands linked piously in front of him, head bowed slightly forward, talking to God and telling Him of our sins. But even God can’t do anything to stop us. For the moment, His wrath is postponed.

T.C. Jones is the managing editor at Gulf Stream Magazine and a contributing editor at Burrow Press. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Green Mountains Review, Pacifica Literary Review, The Atticus Review, The Monarch Review, Straylight Magazine, Dos Passos Review, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and others. He is based in Philadelphia.

 

 

 

Image credit:  Abdi Lopez on Unsplash 

HEAVY LIFTING by Jennifer Turnquist

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

HEAVY LIFTING
by Jennifer Turnquist

A guy comes into the drugstore and goes to the snack aisle. Early twenties, longish hair, patchy beard like he never learned to shave properly. He glances at me so I look away quick, busy myself with straightening the packs of Life Savers on the counter. I’m not watching him because he’s attractive or anything. He isn’t. He’s skinny and stoop-shouldered. I’m watching him because of how his eyes dart around and because he keeps fidgeting with a buckle on his canvas backpack.

Our only other customer is a middle-aged lady who came in right after the guy. She’s chewing gum and looking at a magazine. When I check the snack aisle again it’s empty, but I can still see the guy in the surveillance mirror, which is long and runs across the back of the store under the ceiling. In the mirror, I watch him take a box off the shelf—aspirin or antacids maybe—and put it back. He looks over his shoulder, glances at the mirror, fiddles with the buckle again. What’s he doing? If he’s a shoplifter, he’s pretty terrible at it.

Mr. Parr comes back from the bank and stops to see if I need change for the register. I tell him I’m all set. He points at the display behind the counter where we keep the pipe cleaners and filter tips and such. You’ve got some empty spots there, Donna. Let’s get those filled in. I’ll take care of it, Mr. Parr, I say, my eyes still on the mirror.

Now if that were David, he would have waltzed in here, taken what he wanted, and waltzed right out again. Not that he never got caught, but when he did he’d be all friendly and innocent and oh man, did I really walk out with that? My mom always said David could talk his way out of anything. It wasn’t an act either. David was really a nice guy, but also he was restless. People who used to know our dad usually let him go, but they’d talk to him first, tell him it was time to get serious and grow up. Not everyone in town let him off so easy though. He ended up at the police station a few times, but no one ever threw the book at him. Maybe they should have. The Army doesn’t take criminals. What’s worse? Having a brother who did time or not having a brother anymore at all?

This stringy-haired guy is probably one of the unlucky ones who got his head screwed up in ‘Nam. Whether the Army straightened David out or he ended up a vacant-eyed unfortunate like those you see wandering around we don’t know. Personally, I consider him dead. How often do you hear about a guy who’s MIA showing up alive? Once in a blue moon, that’s how often. Sometimes somebody’s remains are identified, but then they’re only definitely dead instead of probably dead. This is all my own private opinion not to be shared with my mother. She’s convinced he’s in a camp in the jungle over there. She writes to the government every month begging them to keep searching. I urge you, she writes. I entreat you. One time I heard my uncle telling her it was time to stop writing, to move on. Sometimes living is hard work, Ellen, he told her. It’s heavy lifting. Other people talk to her too, but it doesn’t do any good. I get so fed up with her, sitting at home acting like her own life is over. I even told her once that if David was alive he would have talked his way out of that camp by now. Isn’t that what she always said? She just looked at me and said in that slow way she talks now, he doesn’t speak the language.

Mr. Parr heads toward the back with the bank pouch. On the way he gives our stoop-shouldered friend the once-over, like he does with anybody who’s grooming is less than excellent, and goes into the office. The bell over the door jingles and Jerry from the lube joint comes in for a pack of Camels. Jerry likes to talk. Today he’s got a story about a guy who brought in a Firebird and Jerry and Raoul found a pair of pantyhose in the glove box. Jerry waggles his eyebrows at me, so I say, so, maybe his wife keeps a spare pair. It’s not hard to get a run in a pair of pantyhose. Jerry shakes his head. Nope, these were all bunched up. Definitely some hanky-panky going on in that Firebird. Like what, I say, and regret it when Jerry grins at me and says, like, you know.

Jerry’s got to be close to thirty and shouldn’t be grinning at me like that. If David was here he would tell Jerry to get lost, maybe even pop him one, like he did the boy who ditched me at the Sweetheart Dance freshman year. But David isn’t here, and Jerry’s visits are about the only thing that keep me from dying of boredom at work. So I ask if there was any other evidence, like a barrette on the floor. Jerry laughs and says, who wears barrettes with pantyhose? I’m about to say my mom does, but I know what Jerry’s mind will do with that. He’ll have my mom steaming up those car windows, even though she’s barely left the house since we got the telegram. So I say, what were you doing going through the guy’s glove box when all he wanted was an oil change? Jerry laughs again and knocks twice on the counter, like he always does by way of saying so long.

Jerry walks away and I nearly jump out of my skin because the guy is right there behind him. He’s fingering the buckle on his backpack and I wonder if he’s about to stick us up. I glance at the woman in the magazine aisle. She blows a big pink bubble and lets it pop, probably getting flecks of spit all over a magazine she has no intention of buying. She’ll be no help if he pulls a gun. I ring up his deodorant and pack of crackers. He pays with a five and puts the change in his pocket and stands there jingling the coins. And that makes me think maybe he doesn’t have a gun but that he wants something else. Then he starts fiddling with that buckle again. I’m telling you, I’m starting to sweat now. I manage to ask if I can do anything else for him. He licks his lips and leans forward. I have something, he says. And then he says it again: I—I have something.

I shouldn’t, but I look into his face. I think, what is it? What does he have? His eyes are worried and angry and sad all at once. Lost-looking, and I wonder, was he over there? Did he know David? Maybe he has a message I can pass on to my mom, a yes or no that will let her get on with her life. He’s going to tell me how he and David were together, bullets raining, and David died a brave death. Or there’s a camp, and he—

The magazine lady comes over and stands next to him. Come on, Phil, she says. Time to get you back. Wait, I say, what’s going on? He lives in that group home on Fulton, she tells me. I ask if she works there and she shrugs and says it’s a living.

I watch through the big glass window as they walk down the block and out of sight. I’m still staring out the window, thinking about David, thinking about how it would feel to finally know, when Mr. Parr comes out of the back.

I hear him plunk a box on the counter, probably full of after-shave or enemas. Wake up, girlie, he says. I swear, you get moony-eyed over every Army-surplus hippie who comes in here. I stare out the window, dreaming, a little longer before I tell myself it’s time to get back to work.

Jennifer Turnquist has a BA in psychology that she never put to any professional use. After several years working in a neurophysiology laboratory, homeschooling her children, and attempting various entrepreneurial enterprises, she discovered that she really likes to write. Ten years later, she’s still at it. She lives in the Twin Cities with her family.

 

 

 

Image credit:  lucas Favre on Unsplash

THE NURSES by Verónica Jordán-Sardi

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Four nurses in vintage linen hospital attire huddled in a circle

THE NURSES
by Verónica Jordán-Sardi

They were the only friends I had. All of them had palms that changed colors when they stroked my hair, picked up an iron pot or peeled yucca. I remember one of them with more love than the rest—her palms turned purple when she showed me her lifelines. She was never able to show me her life, though. She would turn her hands up and the bright point of an amethyst’s reflection would lacquer her palms. At one point, I think there were five.

They would sometimes disappear. I found Father chasing after one on the black and white checkered marble living floors. She had her arms up over her face and ears like chicken feathers and Father laughed excitedly. I might have heard her laughing, too, but she was only a couple of years older than me back then. She had once carried me with her left arm and pushed my little brother in his shady lace umbrella stroller with her right and somehow also tugged on Cookie. Back then we would run into more stray dogs than Cookies on our way to the grocery store—she was a moppy mutt, but she was of the lucky kind, the kind that got pushed and pulled around and only choked a little and always fed at night. One of them must have been hungrier than the dogs because she sold my mother’s favorite pup to the man at the grocery store. I remember asking where Cookie was going and she told me she was getting a haircut. This was before she told me urine was the best moisturizer. I was getting old enough to wonder. I was getting old enough when she sliced the wet part of my little brother’s diaper with her nails and urine leaked out onto her cuspate hands. She splashed her face then splashed my own. She splashed my little brother’s vitamins on her face at least a couple of times a day.

The day I got sick, the one with the purple palms was the only one home. I don’t know where everyone else was, but it’s as if they knew I was coming and needed help. I had grown a belly for the white mane, the mangy toes, the infectious secrets inside me.

The Doctor says that in the morning, if I look up closely, if I tilt my head and look up closely at the sky, I can see that we pretend like something tangible is there, but no, it has never been true. The Doctor doesn’t know everything but he knows about the Nurses.

 

◊

 

Balustrade, balustrade, balustrade, haught, haught, haught, I spin down the chandeliers and ching-ching the pugs are dead. What a scene. The sink in the downstairs bathroom is full of bloody chicken feathers like pillows because my bladder does not shut. Yesterday I was happier throwing doll heads into the empty pool. I kept thinking tachycardia was a gift every time I reached for one of their cigarette butts. Today I grow tired of waiting and wish my body would rot. Immediately upon wishing, I slip off the same marble stair eighty-eight times. I repent by spinning in circles for as long as I think it takes to tumble down magnetism and blow round the wooden wheels of my bicycle. I sit on rat shit while they peel potatoes and chug rum over boiling iron skillets. I’m sorry and claw skin off my wrists until my bones show and one of the Nurses comes for me. I run away from her. I run up and down the chimney and dismantle the roof then return to the bathroom where one by one I spoon out the wall’s mosaics. I stack the magenta and green pebbles on top of my toes and make out an orange star ahead, across the walls, on the other side of myself. I hear one of them still running behind me, dragging her collard cat nails inside wood, so I jump through the hole I made in the wall towards the orange gleam.

 

◊

 

I sit in the room I carved inside the walls of my house. I never knew my organs could feel like parasites on my shoulders. The room is pitch-purple with dim orange fog emanating from that star I cannot touch faraway. I sit and count the toes on my feet when I see her. I feel the skin of a dead animal under me. One of the room’s walls is cut in half by a tunnel as thick as two apples side by side. A little girl walks through it. She is my mother as a little girl, tired and alone, I scream “Hello!” to see if she can hear me. She keeps walking to the miniature furniture at one end of the tunnel. She sits on a red rocking chair next to a record stand with a white wedding cake. I have not eaten for two days. I’m so hungry I reach for the cake, my vision fogged down by the fumes of my saliva. I cannot touch my baby mother or rocking chair or cake. Now I hear the Nurses’ bones crunching through the exposed bathroom wall towards me.

I have not eaten for two days because of the pain. Because I think I suffer from the sawdust and dust-lag of time. Every pit of my body releases a pound of dirt, nostrils, ears, mouth, urethra, and asshole, except the blood that gushes from in between and down my legs. One of the Nurses plugs the blood with a dirty cleaning rag hanging over her shoulder. She and the other four Nurses stand around me inside the purple-pitch room with my little mother. All five nurses wear white dresses and white caps; hold hay brooms with their right hands and yellow dusters with their left. My mother’s mouth looks like a creamy vagina crease. There is no more cake on the record table. I’m still hungry.

 

◊

 

I sleep in my mother’s childhood bed and bedroom. I collect the petals of the bougainvillea that fall in through midnight’s cut on the ceiling. These flowers bloom and give birth before falling on the bed, their placentas scatter underneath me and drown my mother’s sheets with crimson trails that unearth the floor. My mother’s stench emanates from the floor; her regurgitated cells are pushed away on wheelbarrows. I wish to peel the dead skin off her bedroom walls, the smell of mildew, potatoes and cream.

I sleep in my mother’s old nightgown. I sleep all sanctimonious and clean with blondness rustling my skin. I wait for the Nurses to take me away in wheelbarrows, for their spiky hooves to puncture my skin and form freckles underneath where my arms hang. Trabecula, trabecula, trabecula, caught, caught, caught my mother’s sheets are dusty and kind. Night’s fumes sift through them and fly over my belly, wrap under my chin and enter my mouth. The Nurses think they’re helping me.

The Nurses come inside to slap the wet mattress. One untethers the sheets and dunks them in a cast iron pot of boiling water. Another wrestles a broomstick down and across with her triceps, sweeping the hay of head hairs unmeshed on my mother’s floor. I crawl off my mother’s bed holding onto one of their palms, but they leave me at the sound of the pugs eating a dead songbird by the empty pool outside.

I walk over to eat shattered window glass. I’m hungry. The shards get lost in the roof of my mouth; they tap and sink into my tongue. I spit out bloody crystal bubbles onto my mother’s nightstand and see a trail of ants cutting the wood in half, patterning solemnly, one by one with whiplashed saline shoulders. I follow them outside my mother’s room, down the marble winding stairwell and across the dining hall into the kitchen. I march with the ants underneath the kitchen stove. They feast on yucca and potatoes browned in feces. Two red palms pull and press down on my ears like curved tongs. The Nurse with the red palms twists and turns the vertebrae linking my head to my spinal cord; she opens a bottle of Pepsi cola and fills my hand with crunchy ice cubes. The cubes burn my hands but the Nurse piles the ice cubes even higher every time I shake them off. I carry a tower of snow on the skinny hand my mother made me—when one diamond falls the others reorganize. I run back underneath the stove. The Nurses are grilling dead trout with the ardor of lemons. Sour oil and hot water ignite and fall onto my ankles.

 

◊

 

Underneath the stove with the ants I find a baby doll with loose glass eyelids. Her name is Aura and I pretend she’s small enough for me to hold. I pretend I can run my fingers over the end hairs of her arms. I sniff the space between her legs, stick my nose into plastic covered in pillowed cotton and do not smell yeast or rancid metal. She’s young. Cream, fish, cheese, powdered milk, and yolk sing a sad ballad of dead kings. Aura belongs to the smuggling ants crimping pieces with four limbs and two antennae like snake tongues. They have their own dinner table. Aura is the center of their castle, a mountain of oily grime and dead human skin. I feel at home here until the Nurses shrink and come after me. They throw poisonous missiles and cook ant brains with carbon monoxide. One Nurse takes a bird’s nest out of her dress pocket, another takes an Easter basket out of her hair, they both pick off the dead ants, collect them in mason jars to season the fish.

 

◊

 

I find a room as small as a closet full of hay brooms and feather dusters. Underneath leftover bleach and rags drenched in vinegar, I find steps only big enough for my small feet to climb. Up one by one, one by one, until I face an unlocked door as small as the space from one thigh to another. The room behind the door has walls moistened with chunky butter—it helps me slide right in with somersaults, ricochet, ricochet, ricochet, womb, womb, womb, ting-ting a dinner party. No one turns their heads when I plop into the ballroom attic. I look back to where I come from; I look back to how I got here and see the passage was a slide dressed in greasy-horse-liver flesh. My body is still clean; I wear a light pink dress and tutu, glass slippers and white socks with ankle ruffles. I bow to the men in tuxedos and women in tight black silk gowns holding champagne glasses. One of the men talks to me; he’s holding a pug like a skull. My chest grows cherries, red bulbs popping into blossom, I pick one off to taste and the man slaps my hand away. The slap smells like loneliness and salty water, it appears in fingerprints on my hand. The man looks at his pug, pinches the tip of its ear, and says “suffer” (says ‘tis nobler). The pug gyrates its head and snaps into his own fur with his jaw. Dog bites spread like wildfires stampeding through the man’s chest. The pug hops on my shoulder like a parrot, I hear the tuxedo man’s heart, I hear live heart flesh beating, pumping human blood inside the pug’s stomach.

Headshot of Verónica Jordán-SardiOriginally from Cali, Colombia, Verónica Jordán-Sardi immigrated to the United States with her immediate family as a young teen fleeing sociopolitical unrest. She holds a B.A. in English Literature and French from the University of Florida, an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Iowa, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from California College of the Arts. Her work can be found in Columbia Journal, Litro Mag, and Comparative Literature Commons. Verónica currently lives in New York where she teaches writing and reading in English as a second language at the City University of New York.

 

 

Image credit: Otis Historical Archives on Flickr

FIFTY-FIFTY by Avery Bufkin

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

hospital IV pole in grey lighting

FIFTY-FIFTY
by Avery Bufkin

Her doctor said he’d sign us up, you know, for the trial. That either she’d get the real drug or the fake one, and we wouldn’t know which, of course. But fifty-fifty, you got to think that’s a pretty good shot and all. I said that to her in the car afterwards. “Pretty good shot,” I said. “I think we’ve got it.”

Frankie nodded, more to herself than to me, I thought. Sort of nodded to herself like she needed that affirmation. I nodded, too, more for her than for me. Fifty-fifty, I thought. That’s a pretty good shot. I mean, those doctors might even be giving all them patients the real drug, not the fake one, that is. I mean, was it even legal to give a fake drug when a real one could work?

I said that to her, too. I said, “You know, it’s hard to imagine they’d even give someone that fake stuff when the real stuff’s right there.”

She nodded again. I thought maybe I should stop talking. Maybe this wasn’t helping. I turned my attention back to the road and drummed my thumbs against the wheel as I drove.

“I mean, fifty-fifty,” I said. “That’s a darn good shot, I’d say.”

“You already did, Jack. I mean, really, just for right now, could you?”

“Yeah, yeah of course,” I said, and I put the radio on and just kept my eyes on the road.

Yeah, I thought, fifty-fifty. That ain’t bad chances. I’d had worse chances than that before. Like when I was nine. About sixty-forty then, I’d say. Was out hunting with my dad in the marshes behind our house, shotgun slung over my back, when I slipped in a bit of mud. Fell face forward is what I did. Fell face forward and didn’t catch myself ‘til my arms were a few inches deep in the water, and right about two yards in front of me, staring right back at me, was one of those moccasins, all stretched out and sunning itself on a rock there between the reeds. Was too scared to move. Could hear my dad calling for me somewhere to my left, but I knew I didn’t have much time when he started to open his jaws at me, showing me the white of his mouth. May have been more like eighty-twenty odds, now I’m thinking of it, but in one motion I swung my shotgun forward and blew the damn snake’s head off.

“You know,” I said. “I almost died hunting with my dad once.”

“Water moccasin, right?”

I nodded. I suppose I told that one a lot. I got a lot of nods for that one, a lot of glass raises, a few “oh Lords” and “by Gods.” For sure, though, it was a good one.

“I think Dr. Riley was hinting at us though, don’t you?” I said.

“Hinting at us?”

“I think I saw him wink.”

Frankie turned to look out the window. “I don’t remember that.”

I shrugged. “No, I think he did. You think he was trying to tell us something?”

“He doesn’t know who gets the real stuff either, Jack.”

“Well, he says he doesn’t, but he might—”

“Jack really, would you?”

“Sorry, hon, sorry. I don’t mean to.”

“I know you’re worried,” she said, and she reached over and touched my knee. “Just not so much, okay?”

I nodded and patted her hand. She rubbed her hand on my knee, then started going a bit up the inside of my thigh. I patted her hand on my thigh.

“Don’t worry, Jack,” she said. “Our chances are good, aren’t they?”

“Real good,” I said, but suddenly I thought our chances weren’t so good. I smiled at her anyways and I patted her hand again, and she told me to pull off onto the side of the road.

“Pull off?” I said. “Just right here?”

“Just right there is fine. Right there.”

I slowed the car and drifted us off onto the gravel that separated the road from some guy’s farm. Frankie moved her hand further up my thigh, and I started to squirm. We didn’t normally do things like this. Like pulling off the road.

“What’s up, Frankie?” I said, looking over at her, and she looked back at me the same as usual. But she had her hand pretty far up my thigh now, which was not the same as usual, and I wondered if she’d started to think our chances weren’t so good anymore either. “You didn’t take something, did you?” I said.

“Like what?”

I shook my head, and I pulled the keys from the ignition.

◊

I glanced at her over the top of my morning paper. She was breathing heavy and gripping the arms of her chair. Staring a bit too intently, I thought, at the floor by my feet. I looked down at the floor by my feet, folding the paper over to see.

“What’s that, hon?” I said.

Frankie glanced up at me. “What’s that, Jack?”

“I said, ‘what’s that?’ What ya’ looking at there, hon?”

“Oh, nothing. Just was thinking, I guess, is all.”

“But you’re feeling okay?”

“Well, I was thinking just now that I think I got it.”

“Well, I thought so, too, didn’t I? I’m sure I did, but what is it you’re thinking you got?”

“The real stuff,” Frankie said, tapping her arm now, tapping the soft spot on her inner elbow where the drug went in. “The real stuff,” she said again. “I can feel it, you know? Can feel it in me.”

“Does it work that fast?”

“I don’t know. I think it can.”

“’Cause it’s only been a few days. I just wonder—?”

“I just really feel it though, Jack.”

“That’s amazing, hon.” I put the paper down on the couch cushion beside me, leaned back with my arm over the back of the couch, and I smiled at her. She smiled back at me but still clutched the arms of her chair. I wished she would let go of the chair. It’d make me feel better. Like she wasn’t in pain or something.

I got up and I knelt down on the floor in front of her. “Hold me,” I said.

“Oh, it’s fine,” she said, and she let go of the chair then and waved me away. “Don’t worry about me. You’ve got too much to worry about with work. Can’t have you worrying that much, alright?”

“That’s right,” I said. “Good thinking, hon.”

Gina started to cry. But I was still kneeling and thinking about fifty-fifty. Frankie nodded towards the baby’s room.

“You going or should I?”

“Just don’t want to leave you.”

“What did I just say, Jack? I said, ‘don’t worry,’ didn’t I?”

I stood up and went to go check on Gina, picked her up out of her crib, and took her back to her mom. I knelt down again, right in front of Frankie’s chair, bouncing Gina in my arms, and I kissed our girl’s forehead. She was still crying.

“Someone wanted to see you,” I said.

“Jack, not now.”

“Just take her.”

Gina started screaming  even as I bounced her.

“No, really. Not now, okay?”

I stopped bouncing her and held her against my chest. I pressed my lips into the thin wisps of her hair and tried to get her to stop wailing.

“Come on now, Gina,” I said. “What about mommy? Want to see mommy?”

“Please, Jack. I don’t want her right now.”

I looked up. “Oh, okay. Yeah. For sure.” I stood back up and put her on my shoulder. “Yeah, let me just go see if she needs to be changed then, okay?”

Frankie nodded, rubbing her arm now. “But I can feel it, Jack, really. We got the real stuff.”

◊

Frankie started to get worse, but the doctor said that wasn’t unusual, even for those on the real stuff. He made her fill out a sheet, and I watched her mark off her pain on a scale from one to ten for every part of her body. Nausea, she said. Even my arms feel nauseous. But the doctor said that wasn’t unusual either. Even on the real stuff, others were getting worse, so we weren’t alone. On the real stuff, people’s arms felt nauseous. Isn’t that comforting? That’s what he said.

“Isn’t that comforting?” Dr. Riley said.

Frankie shifted in her seat. “Uh, what’s that?” she said. “Which part?”

“Part of what?”

“What’s comforting?” she said.

“Oh, that, you know, you’re not alone. A lot of the other patients are presenting with these symptoms, in fact.”

Frankie nodded. “Oh, that is good,” she said.

“Yes, I thought so. Real good,” Dr. Riley said. “So I wouldn’t worry too much. No good to worry.”

Dr. Riley started to shuffle some papers on his desk then, and I leaned forward onto his desk.

“But, you know, I was thinking though,” I said. “Is there anything you could give her? Prescribe to her, I mean?”

Dr. Riley turned his head on its side.

“She’s been feeling awful sick, you know, and I know you said lots of others are feeling the same way and all, and that’s great, really, but anything you could prescribe? That’d definitely be appreciated is all.”

Dr. Riley nodded with his head still on its side.

“And I mean, like you said, lots of other people, and so probably you get asked this too much, but—” I leaned forward more, like Frankie couldn’t hear me if I did. “She’s been getting pissy sometimes. Not wanting to hold our daughter and all.”

“That’s normal,” the doctor said.

“Well, hey look,” Frankie said, leaning forward onto the desk now, too, so that we were really crowding each other out. “It’s not like that. You can’t put it like that, Jack. It’s just—are you thinking I’ll be able to get back to work soon?”

“Hard to say,” Dr. Riley said, and he rolled back from the desk in his chair to give us some space there. “It’s different for everyone.”

“It’s just, with the treatment and all, we kinda need the money again,” she said.

“Fran, you can’t tell him a thing like that. You’re up for it when you’re up for it. That’s what he’s saying.”

“He hasn’t said anything yet, Jack. You’ve gotta let him talk.”

“He just said—didn’t you just say?—Fran, he just said.”

“I know what he said.”

“Well, it’s hard to say,” the doctor said.

“What is?” Frankie asked.

“When you might be up for going back to work.”

“It’s just too hard to say, hon.”

“I got it, Jack.” Frankie looked at me, and she touched my arm, squeezed my arm for a second, and leaned back off the desk.

“And what about Gina, Fran?” I said.

“Don’t you remember us talking? We talked about it, Jack. Hannah ‘cross the street will take her three days a week, she said. She’s already lookin’ after the Bennett kid.”

I nodded.

Frankie turned from me.

“Very normal concerns,” Dr. Riley said.

“Well, that’s good,” I said.

Frankie nodded.

“Very normal,” Dr. Riley said again. “And remember, you call my office anytime and someone will answer. Might be me, but it might not be me. Very qualified people around here, though.”

“That’s good,” I said again.

Frankie stared at the pictures on Dr. Riley’s desk.

“Are those your kids?” she asked.

He picked up one of the frames and looked at it. “Yes,” he said. “They are.”

“Beautiful children,” she said.

◊

I could hear her coughing behind the bathroom door. I knocked. “Fran, you okay?” I said, and I tried the door, but she’d locked it.

“I’m fine, Jack. No worries.”

“Could you open the door for me, hon?”

“Really, I’m fine. Just give me a moment, would you?”

“Yeah sure,” I said, and I leaned against the wall by the door. I stared at the row of photos that hung on the wall across from me. Black and whites of our wedding, of our parents, of Gina. So many faces on the wall, I thought. So many lives on the wall.

I tried the door again. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I can’t move, Jack.”

“What do you mean, Fran? What do you mean, you can’t move?” I turned and started to shake the knob.

“I just feel so sick. I don’t want to move. I can’t feel my body. I want to die.”

“Fran,” I said. “Frankie.”

She didn’t say anything. I just heard her coughing, but coughing like she were choking really.

“Frances!”

I tried to break open the door, but I have to admit, I’m not the strongest man ever. Not even close, really. Tried slamming my shoulder into the door as they do in the movies, but the door just rattled a bit and Frankie just gave a little shriek is all.

It sounded like she was vomiting.

“Fran?”

“I think that’s blood, Jack.”

“Blood, hon?”

I slammed my shoulder into the door again, tried putting my foot into it, but that didn’t work any better. Put my shoulder into it again.

“Please, Frankie,” I said. “Please just try and open the door.”

I could hear her palms slapping the floor. Then I heard the lock turn, and I opened it, and she was sitting up against the side of the tub. There was blood on her chin, dribbling from the corner of her mouth. There was blood in the toilet too, spattered against the sides.

“I’m sweating,” she said. “I feel wet.”

“You want me to put you in the bath?” I said.

“I don’t think I can move.”

I put the water on and stopped up the drain.

“Come on,” I said, lifting her from under the arms. She sort of got herself to her feet. Or at least, I got her to sit up on the side of the tub and slide over its edge, and she slipped into the few inches of water with her clothes still on. I watched her clothes turn dark.

“Fuck this,” I said.

Fran looked at me. “Don’t say that, Jack.”

“No, I’m saying it. I’m saying, ‘Fuck it’ alright? Alright, Fran? I said—no—I’m saying. Listen to me, alright? Fuck this goddamn fucking—”

“Would you stop that?”

“Frankie,” I said.

She looked down at the water.

“Jack,” she said.

“Frances, don’t—”

“Jack, Jack—”

“What?” I said.

“Jack, you look at me!”

I breathed. I stared at the toilet because I couldn’t look at her, but there was blood in the toilet and I couldn’t look at that either. I slammed the seat closed, and Frankie covered her ears.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She didn’t say anything. She put her arms back down in the water.

“You good?” I said.

“I’m fine. Water feels nice. Thanks.”

I couldn’t help it. I had to ask. “Are you still sure you got the real stuff?”

“What does it matter?” she said, and she closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the tile. “What would it matter?”

I guess it didn’t, but at the same time, it did. I wanted to know who to be mad with. God or those damn doctors. Those damn trials. But maybe that didn’t even matter. I shook my head and grabbed her hand, shook it in the water.

Gina’d been crying since I tried putting my foot in the door, and Frankie nodded towards her room.

“Would you, Jack?”

“What? Are you kidding me? She’ll stop on her own. I’m right here.”

“No, it’s okay, Jack. Go on, then.”

I got up to go, but I looked at her, and I couldn’t let myself leave her like that. There was still blood on her chin, and I bent over. I dipped my thumb in the water and went to wipe the blood from her mouth, but I think maybe she thought she might throw up again because as my hand got close her face, she pushed it away.

“No, please,” she said.

“Okay, then,” I said. “I’ll go get Gina.”

Frankie nodded.

“Frances?” I said.

“What is it, Jack?”

“You want me to call Dr. Riley?”

“He’s got too much going on, Jack. He hasn’t got time for—”

“Hasn’t got the time? It’s his damn trial, isn’t it?”

“What’s he gonna say? Is he gonna say something?”

I shook my head. She was probably right, I thought. What was he going to say?

“I’m just angry is all,” I said.

“Don’t be angry, Jack.”

I nodded, and I went and I sat with Gina, holding her in my lap. I watched the sky out over the back lawn, and I held her ‘til she stopped crying. Held her right up against me so I could feel her nose against my collarbone. The sky went dark, and the trees turned to black against it. Street lamps flickered on. The neighbor let the dog out to pee. I rocked our baby and held up her little hands with just a finger. So tiny. And I thought I’d call Dr. Riley. So what if he said something? I needed to hear someone say something, anything. Just something to tell me this was normal.

I sat down with Gina against me, listening to the dial tone. A nurse picked up and transferred me to his cell. I thought I’d ask him how normal blood in the toilet was. I did.

“Dr. Riley speaking.”

I said, “Dr. Riley, how normal is blood in the toilet?”

“Oh, not too uncommon,” he said. “Already had a few calls earlier in the week about this.”

“Oh, that’s good,” I said.

“I’m actually on my way out of the office as we speak.”

“Could you tell us?” I asked him, sorry to cut him off. “You think you could tell us now if we had the real drugs?”

“I’m sorry, real sorry, but I really don’t know myself. You remember when we started this and I said some things about scientific integrity? What that means is that I can’t even know, but if I did know, for sure I’d tell you, but unfortunately, it’s not possible. Just not possible, I have to say.”

“But this is normal? People who get the drug, the real one, they have these symptoms?”

He didn’t answer.

“Because she feels it. She can feel the drug. We feel it, I mean. We both do. We’ve got the real stuff, almost certain of that. Just want to make sure there hasn’t been some other kind of complication is all.”

“That’s good,” Dr. Riley said. “Hope is the best medicine, you know?”

“That’s what I always say. Well, I mean, I think it at least, or at least, I’ll start saying it is what I mean. You know, I think my dad used to say that.”

“That’s good,” the doctor said. “I think you’re doing good. It really sounds like everything’s going well.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said. “You know, I almost died hunting with my dad? I swear, ninety-ten odds I had, and I beat it.”

“That’s good. You’ve got something on your side it seems.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. Something on our side. Could use that, right?”

“Is that all, Mr. Rayner?”

Gina started to cry again, and I bounced her on my leg.

“I suppose so,” I said. “You did say this is normal, right? Probably nothing, right?”

“Many people are having the same problem,” he said. “It’s very common.”

“That’s good to hear, real good. I’ll go tell her now, I suppose.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Dr. Riley said. “Have a good night,” he said, and I heard the line click.

I put the phone down feeling better, and Gina had stopped crying, so that was good. I set her back down in her crib and went back to the bathroom. Frankie was still in the tub, drawing shapes with her finger in the surface of the water.

“Doctor says this is completely normal,” I said.

Frankie nodded.

“Says a lot of people had been complaining about these same symptoms earlier in the week.”

“Really?”

“For sure. He says it’s very common. I think those were his exact words in fact.”

“Very common for who? For those with the fake drug?”

“No, hon,” I said, and I knelt down on the bathroom rug and leaned over the edge of the tub. “No, he said he thought you got the real one. You’re doing better than most of the other patients he’s talked to. Says you’re doing real well actually if this is the worst you’ve got to deal with. Says this is nothing. Says toughen up is what he says.”

“Toughen up? I thought I was dying. Thought I couldn’t move.”

“Not toughen up. Not sure he said ‘toughen up’ exactly. But he said not to worry.”

“Alright, Jack.”

“Alright, hon.”

I patted her hand and sat with her there on the bathroom floor while she closed her eyes and drew some more shapes in the water.

Headshot of Avery BufkinAvery Bufkin is an emerging writer from Atlanta, currently residing in Athens, GA. They’re an undergraduate at the University of Georgia, studying economics and English.

GUTSHOT by Thomas Barnes

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Close-up of a rusty air rifle

GUTSHOT
by Thomas Barnes

The lucky streak ran out when the air rifle went off.

I felt the little ragged hole in my shirt. It didn’t feel like anything at all. Too small to be significant. Johnny let the air rifle swing to his side, the ends of his teeth glittering. Kali fell off the stump she was sitting on. They were all waiting for me to do something. I heard blood in my ears. Maybe they’d thought I’d keel over and die, I’m thinking.

So I did. I pressed my beer to my belly and squeezed. Beer frothed up in a fountain as I writhed in the dirt.

Even Johnny smiled a little.

“Don’t scare me like that,” Kali said, righting the stump.

I threw the crushed can into the black river. The wind grabbed the can and carried it far past the jutting, broken pylons.

I still felt like I could beat up a thunderstorm. Me, Kali, and Johnny were celebrating under the highway. Doug was there too, but that goes without saying—he’d follow Johnny into hell, further. We were living it up because my great aunt died. She left me a pile of money. I was sure it was a typo in the will. See, my name was only one letter away from Rocko, her toy poodle.

The can landed in the black water without a sound or a ripple. Johnny cocked the rifle. There was a sharp metal sound as the bullet struck the can where it floated.

“You know I didn’t mean to,” Johnny said, holding out the rifle. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can put one in me.”

I looked down the business end of the barrel. Then I pushed it toward the dirt. When I lifted up my shirt, there was a small red hole under my last rib.

“You ought to go to the hospital,” Kali said.

“He’s fine,” Johnny said. Kali and Johnny were back together, which meant they were always arguing.

“Yeah, fine. See?” Doug said, tossing me another can. He acted like he was always licking the third rail, but it was the medicine he stole from his night-shift at the hospice.

“Shut up, Doug,” Johnny said.

I missed the beer and it rolled behind a twisted old oak tree. An oil truck snorkeled over the bridge, moving toward the squat white tanks on the opposite bank, the dead trees bound to leaning telephone poles.

When I leaned for the beer, a spike of pain arced across my side. Kali was already there. Her touch was icy, electric. I felt a cold hook curl around the base of my spine.

“I can’t feel it anywhere,” Kali said. “I think he needs to see a doctor.”

I felt the wound myself, and my hand came away with a tiny ruby of blood. I felt acid in my throat.

“I can’t afford it,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“I could sneak you into the hospice,” Doug said. “That is, if you don’t think you’re gonna make it. It’s garbage for the living. But pretty swanky if you’re not.”

“What about your aunt? I thought you were loaded now,” Kali asked.

I looked away.

“I’m not set for life. I think it’ll cover dog surgery. Not people surgery though,” I said.

Mostly I didn’t want to leave. Under the overpass, I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be. We were talking about everything, all the old jokes and stories. I wanted this afternoon to last forever. We hadn’t had an afternoon like this since high school. Over us and everything, the light was gold and red and pink and purple. There was a massive cloud in the sky, hanging like a city over the towers of the real city below. A ship, toy-sized, swayed near the river mouth, and I wondered who was on it, where they were going.

But my side twanged. I wasn’t sure if the ache was growing because I was thinking on it, or if there was actually something wrong inside me. It seemed insane, like a bad dream’s backward logic, that something could pierce me, change me, that the outside world could get in. I looked at the red film of blood between my fingers. It didn’t, couldn’t, seem real.

“Just give me another, I don’t know, two ccs of PBR and a fistful of purples,” I said, trying to sound clinical.

Doug snapped to action. Drugs were something he could latch onto.

“This is the last of them,” Doug said, upending the amber bottle. “It’s not much.”

A truck shattered across the bridge, rattling the overpass’s steel plates and startling a phalanx of pigeons. Johnny took aim. I gasped as pain wracked my gut. I sat down hard. I felt like I’d eaten something rotten.

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” Kali said. “You’re white as a ghost.”

A pigeon pirouetted and began to fall toward the river.

◊

“Fuck,” I breathed as Kali’s old car sprang over a pothole.

I pressed against my stomach, but couldn’t staunch the ache blossoming somewhere deep inside me. I tried not to think about it.

On the overpass, the city stabbed upward like something clawed out of the ground. Kali gripped the wheel tight, threading the car though gaps between eighteen-wheelers. We rushed past low houses and graffitied billboards. The blare of car horns was constant. Each crack in the road tied another knot in my stomach.

Doug was playing with the dials, but there was only static.

“This is boring,” he said, as traffic tightened. Ahead was a sea of red lights. “Tell me something, Johnny.”

Johnny collected stories how some people collected little pieces of glass from the beach.

“This guy I knew was worried that every day the sun was getting closer,” Johnny said.

“Did you meet him at Walpole State?” Doug asked.

Johnny nodded. Kali shook her head, but I could see her grinning in the rearview. Johnny liked to say he spent time on the inside, that he had his second degree from the state penitentiary. But he’d done less than a day for vandalizing his old boss’s car.

“Every day he took a measurement of the sky. If you listened to him, the sun was inching closer a few miles a day. He tried to warn people, but nobody listened. He stared at it every day, daring it to come closer. And each day it did. He ended up holding up the Sunglass Hut, trying to clean them out so he could face down the sun.”

“It needs a real ending. It’s not a story if you don’t learn something,” Kali said, finding space between space and advancing through traffic.

She was always so in the world. She moved through it like water, making it seem easy.

“I wasn’t finished,” Johnny said quietly. “Now that he’s in prison, the state fixed his eyes, but they got the connections wrong. So everything he sees is its opposite.”

Doug laughed and bounced in his seat until Kali told him to quit it or we’d rock off the highway. My heart was jackhammering in my throat. I took a deep breath and it came out in a rattle.

“The point is that sometimes you don’t even know what to worry about, and what you were worried about wasn’t what you should have been worrying about all along,” Johnny said.

“A simpler way to say that is sometimes things work themselves out,” Kali said.

“Yeah, like a hedgehog,” Doug said.

“What the fuck, Doug?” Kali said.

“Like when you get stung by a hedgehog. The needle will work all the way through you and come out, no problem. You just gotta leave it alone,” Doug said. “I saw it on the Discovery channel.”

A silence fell over the car, broken only by muted car horns. The road stretched and curved over the river, toward the fist of glass buildings that was the downtown. It was broken in a few places by old stone clock towers. The sun was going down, lighting the windows of the city a brilliant orange. The taillights of the cars on the overpass ran together like a watercolor. All the colors made the world seem aflame. I wiped a tear from my eyes. I had a feeling like I was landing in a plane after a long journey, landing in a place I knew but couldn’t remember.

Kali’s eyes filled the mirror. “Does it still hurt?”

“No,” I said, but it did. It hadn’t hurt until I started thinking about it again.

◊

Deflated people draped themselves over the wooden chairs and tables of the waiting room. A man, thin as paper, muttered as he paced the edges of the room. In the corner, a TV showed clips of disasters between pharmaceutical commercials, a double feature.

I watched the lines and letters dance across the white page in front of me. Doug’s purples had kicked in, and then some. The letters lifted off the page, hovered, and cascaded off in a waterfall. I tried to gather them up, but they darted away from me, and my side screamed.

I pinned down one of the lines and wrote my name. Then I crossed it out and wrote my great aunt’s dog’s name instead. A loud noise shot through the low quiet of the waiting room. It was Johnny versus a vending machine, round one, fight. A coke rolled out. K.O.

The ghostly outline of a cop stirred behind a gouged and scratched acrylic glass window, then was still.

Johnny cracked the can and sat down. When he put his feet up, Kali pushed them off her lap, continued reading a sheaf of pamphlets: Coping With Cancer, Treating Tuberculosis, Seeing Past Seasonal Affective Disorder. I didn’t know where Doug was. Probably hunting up some more purples.

A man limped into the waiting room. He was missing an arm. Slender little rivulets of blood fell from his shirt and filled up his shoes. Footprints on the white tile led up to the counter. He was handed a clipboard with a pen attached to it. He furrowed a brow at the forms.

I started to shake with laughter, but then Kali was putting me on my feet and moving me toward a swinging door. A nurse there was calling for my great aunt’s dog.

“He’s dead,” I said.

“Is he—” the nurse asked.

“He’ll be alright,” Kali said, steering me past the nurse.

“I’m only supposed to let family in, and even then, only one at a time,” the nurse said in a nasal drone.

“I’m family,” Kali said.

We clicked down the hall. There were closed doors and open ones. Beige machines trailing cords and tubes stood guard, alongside empty plastic chairs. There were stretchers by the wall runners, under bright antiseptic lights. Some had people on them, crumpled up like paper, others had blankets drawn over.

In the room, the nurse felt around the wound and the ache sounded from fathoms below. Her face kept changing. There was a sharp pain in my arm. Kali told me to relax, that it was going to be alright. Machines and tubes and articulated lights orbited around me. I felt processed, like I was moving through conveyors on a factory floor. I felt I was in a bad dream. I desperately needed to wake up and find myself at home in bed, my parents, still together, talking in low voices over the burble of the coffeemaker downstairs.

I cried out, and everything was still. It was night. Kali was there, and she moved over the bed. I tried to get up, but couldn’t move. I was paralyzed.

“It’s alright,” Kali said. “You started thrashing when they made you drink a solution to see inside your chest. So they sedated you. I don’t think it agreed with whatever Doug fed you.”

Kali leaned over me, touched the side of my face, then loosened the leather belts securing me to the bed. It seemed not quite heaven, but something close to it. I felt groggy, like part of me was still asleep. My body seemed to belong to someone else, a kind of inverted phantom limb feeling.

“The doctor wanted to keep you overnight for observation. She said there was a chance the bullet could fall into a vein and stop your heart. But if you’re still here in the morning, you’ll probably be OK,” Kali said. “They showed me the scan they took while you were under. You could see the path of the thing, bouncing off your rib, cutting through you, lodging in your liver. They didn’t know what to do with you. They’re used to treating real bullets.”

I shivered. The joke didn’t seem that funny anymore, hearing about the parts of you that you don’t ever think about. I had a splitting headache. I peeled back the sheets and there was a small gauze pad taped to my side. I felt exposed, somehow, open to the world and all its points and barbs.

“So it’s in there still?”

Kali nodded.

“A part of you,” she said.

I felt like furniture, like the bullet had made me a part of the world of objects and things, pulling me down from where we hovered above it all.

“At least you’ll have a story of your own now,” Kali said.

That’s when the door banged off the wall. It was Johnny, wild-eyed and trailing laces.

“We have to go, now,” Johnny said. “Doug got caught in the medicine cabinet and made a break for it. They’re coming for us.”

I started to rise, but felt suddenly tired, more tired than I’d been in my entire life. I fell back to the hospital bed.

“We need to move,” Johnny said. His mouth was a thin, cruel slash.

“Give me a second,” I said. The bed felt soft, safe. I wanted to sink into it, become it.

Johnny strode to the bed and punched a button. The bed began to elevate, slowly.

“I should have shot you in the head, maybe it would have knocked some sense into you.”

I looked at Kali but she looked at the floor.

“You meant to shoot me?” I said.

“You were going on and on about your great aunt. No offense, but she’s not our great aunt. And she’s not so great. Look, I gave you something to remember me by.”

I was thinking about afternoons and clouds and rivers, shattered days, wasted lives.

“I’ll kill you,” I said.

But I got tangled up in the cords and blankets and the paper gown. The pins and needles I was standing on collapsed underneath me.

“There’s no time for this,” Johnny said, dancing away. “We have to move.”

◊

The freight elevator, a loading dock, through a maze of cardboard boxes and blue barrels, to the back alley, exhaust breathing from grates in the road, cold in my paper gown. Kali swung her old car up to the curb and we piled in, lit out. Under overpasses and elevated railways, we found Doug wandering Chinatown, staring at all the lights, pulling him in as he screamed, don’t take me, leaving the lights behind as we hugged the service road by the port, no sidewalks here, just rusted fences and warehouses and trucks blasting by, the cranes square against the dark gray of dawn.

We caught our breath at a construction site near the water.

The arc sodiums cast a lunar glow. Doug was a silhouette atop the dark crane arm. I was curled in the bucket of a backhoe. Around us were piles of dirt, the holes they were dug from. The construction equipment was still, as if we had interrupted the work when we came upon it all, the machinery flexing its chrome and pistons. There were complicated blocky mounds of bricks like ziggurats. In the far corner of the lot there was the last remaining wall of a building. The wall stood quiet and still, like it’d been there for a thousand years.

I wanted to remain until the workers returned and reanimated the machines, buried me under it all. I wanted to be a part of it. I didn’t want to think or feel or hurt anymore.

Johnny kicked a rock into a hole. It fell for a long time before bouncing around the foundation. I didn’t feel like pushing him into it anymore. I just felt punctured, like someone had let all the air out of me.

“You gonna be alright?” Kali said.

“I’ll land on my feet,” I said.

“Like a hedgehog,” Doug whispered.

“Shut up, Doug,” I said.

“You’ll be alright. Look at how things have worked out for you so far. You did nothing for twenty-five years and a pile of money landed on your lap,” Johnny said.

“It’s not that much. I talked it up a little. But if I only eat gas station food it’ll last me a few months,” I said. “When I waste away and die I’ll haunt you for putting a hole in me.”

“All I’m saying is that it wouldn’t be much of a change from when you were living,” Johnny said.

I got to my feet, but it was hard to seem imposing, half-naked in my paper gown. Kali looked at Johnny, who looked back at her.

Kali’s clear voice cut through the crisp early morning air.

“He’s right, Rocky. All you do is mope around town, talking about how it all used to be. Dredging up memories. It’s like you can’t see yourself in the future. Do you think nothing’s changed? We’re not kids anymore.”

“Sometimes you remind me of my residents,” Doug said. “Stuck in the past.”

“Shut up, Doug,” I said.

“Hey, that was a compliment. I like them.”

A gull landed on the dark arm of an excavator. I looked at it and it looked at me. Its eyes were cruel, its beak flecked with red. I took a few steps toward the water and found a large pit between me and the rusted fence. I looked into the pit and it was dark.

“We’ve got plans. Or at least the foundation of them. My cousin works at a prison down in Texas,” Kali said. “He said he could get Johnny a job. There’s a night school down there, too.”

The gull turned and beat the air with heavy wings, lumbering aloft and away. In the pit, there was standing water and a swollen, dead thing. There were discarded clothes without any color anymore.

“What about us?” I said. “What about Doug?”

Doug’s silhouette stirred against the lightening sky.

“I told you. I’m going to night school to get my RN in the fall,” Doug said. “Nothing lasts forever, Rocky. It’s like that hedgehog. It’ll work itself out.”

The horizon was going gray. Across the water, the smoke stacks were obscured by gauzy white clouds and a formation of birds vectored overhead. I wanted to hold it all in, hold everything in place. But it kept escaping me. It kept slipping through my fingers. The sun was just over the horizon, and it kept coming up.

Headshot of Thomas BarnesThomas Barnes lives in Boston, Massachusetts, where he works as a copywriter. His writing recently appeared in the Southwest Review. You can find him on Twitter @thmsbrns.

 

 

 

 

Photo credit: Pixabay

FRANCES by Maria Brandt

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

FRANCES
by Maria Brandt

Frances had skipped two periods before she realized what was going on. “I’m lucky,” she bragged to Sarah over milkshakes at the corner store. “I haven’t had my period in eight weeks, no tampons for me, I beat the system.” Sarah’s mouth dropped, and that’s when Frances became aware of the extent of her self-deceit. Now, she sits cross-legged on the floor in Jack’s bedroom shuffling a deck of cards while Jack moves laundry from the washer to the dryer in the basement, his parents in the city at a hospital benefit.

She remembers decorating the basement in her own home two years earlier for her sixteenth birthday party. Her mother had been in one of her moods, so her father had picked up Sarah and taken the two of them to CVS to buy twenty-seven feet of multi-colored streamers and a bag of medium-sized balloons. “I think we should make a giant stethoscope,” Frances said to Sarah while climbing an old step-ladder, “like the one my grandmother has.” “Why not a heart?” Sarah replied. She remembers thinking Sarah lacked ambition.

Still in Jack’s bedroom, Frances puts down the cards and lies on her back on the floor. Spreading her fingers so her palms press into the wood, she can hear Jack banging around the basement and wonders whether or not he uses fabric softener. She knows fabric softener contains toxic chemicals like ethanol and camphor that deteriorate a person’s neuropathways, and others that cause pancreatic cancer or fatal edema, and she berates herself for knowing this but not putting two and two together about her missing periods.

She thinks again about that night two years earlier, about trying to make that stethoscope, wrapping her fingers around the streamers, twisting them into lines and curves, then asking Sarah for her opinion. “It looks like a glazed doughnut,” Sarah said. Later, at the party, Jack gave Frances a present wrapped in old newspaper. She had invited him because he offered unusual anecdotes about medical breakthroughs in Mr. Elwise’s Biology class. “Did Elwise ever get back to you about that monkey neurogenesis study?” she asked when he handed her the present, the overhead lights making his nose look slightly larger than it was. “Nah, he’s useless,” Jack replied. After ripping open the newspaper and finding a used copy of Gray’s Anatomy like the one her grandmother had on the bookshelf in her living room, Frances felt her stomach flutter. That night, right before the ambulance came, she kissed Jack for the first time while Sarah cheered them on from the corner.

“Hey,” Jack says, laundry basket in his arms, Frances lying on his bedroom floor. “What are you thinking about?”

“Do you use fabric softener?”

“Of course not, fabric softener contains neurotoxins,” Jack replies. He watches while Frances sits cross-legged again and while she picks up the deck of cards. “You wanna play Strip Poker?” he asks.

“No, idiot.”

“Then what?” He sits next to her on the floor, his hand resting casually on her bare knee.

“I thought maybe we could tell fortunes,” Frances says. “Sarah taught me last week.”

“Sure, and then we can drive to the beach.”

Frances pushes his hand off her knee, but she misses him when he crosses the room to open a window. She finds the four Queens and turns them face-up on the floor. “Okay,” she says, “now you have to ask a question.”

“How bad will traffic be on the bridge?”

“It has to be a yes/no question.”

“Will traffic be bad on the bridge?”

She’s impressed that he doesn’t miss a beat, that he can rephrase his question so expertly. She wants to tell him this but instead asks him to concentrate and to choose a card from the deck, so he chooses the Three of Diamonds, and she places his card above the matching Queen of Diamonds. “Diamonds mean maybe,” she explains. “Traffic might be bad, might not.”

“That’s playing it kind of safe, don’t you think?”

“My turn,” Frances says. She squeezes her eyes tight until small tears begin to form, then chooses a card. It’s the Nine of Diamonds.

The night of her party, two years earlier, her father collapsed while making homemade popcorn over the stove. Frances heard the crash, then her mother’s screams. She rushed upstairs and saw her father lying stiff on the floor. She flung herself across his torso and felt her mother pulling her shoulders, trying to get her off him, but she knew blood wasn’t moving through his body, which meant no oxygen was getting to his heart, which meant his heart’s cells were dying rapidly and she didn’t know what kind of monkey tests had been done to shed light on the regeneration of a left ventricle.

She places the Nine of Diamonds above Jack’s Three of Diamonds and remembers thinking months after the funeral that her father would never have a conversation with Jack, would never know that Jack’s nose in fact was lovely, would never know that two days after the party, when she was sick with grief, Jack had quizzed her on the cellular make-up of bone marrow, would never know that she didn’t mind when Jack found out she used to think Gray’s Anatomy had been named after the television drama and not the other way around, would never know that Jack had figured out the streamers at her party were supposed to look like a stethoscope and not like a glazed doughnut or unambitious heart.

“No fair,” Jack says. “You need to ask your question out loud, that’s what I did.” His hand rests on her knee again.

“Okay.”

“Well? What did you ask?”

“Give me a minute,” Frances says and breathes more heavily than she would like. “Will you and I have a baby?”

Jack squeezes her knee and sort of lies on top of her. “I hope so, Frannie girl,” he whispers while shifting his weight, “I hope so.”

“No,” Frances says, “I meant will we have a baby now.”

“Now?”

“Like, now.”

“But—”

“Well, in seven months,” she says with finality.

Years ago, Frances’s parents took her and Sarah to the beach. They drove over the bridge, then parked the old station wagon in Field Three and carried chairs and a cooler up wooden stairs and over dunes to a spot near the lifeguard. Her parents spread a blanket over the sand and Frances watched while her mother touched the back of her father’s neck and whispered something in his ear. “What’s up?” Frances asked, but her mother took out a magazine and leaned into her chair. Later, Frances watched while her mother offered her father a sandwich. “Can I have one?” she asked, but her mother closed the cooler and looked to the waves. In the silence following her proclamation in Jack’s bedroom, Frances wonders if her mother wished that day that Frances would get sucked into those waves, or discreetly swallow enough neurotoxin to reduce her brain-energy metabolism, or do anything to disappear so her mother could make popcorn alone with her father every night before climbing into their great big bed.

“A baby in seven months,” Jack repeats. “Teeth are forming right now, an inner ear, even sex organs.” He pauses, then moves his hand to her belly. “May I?”

“You’re being awfully formal,” Frances says, but she lets his fingers make small circles on the skin under her t-shirt.

“What now?” Jack asks.

“What do you mean?”

His fingers linger on her belly and he slides closer so her head can rest against his shoulder. “My grandmother left me her ring,” he says. “Frannie girl, that ring is yours.”

Earlier that week, when Frances was doing her own laundry, her mother and grandmother were making grilled-cheese sandwiches upstairs in the kitchen. “I miss him,” she heard her mother say. “You need to take care of Frances,” her grandmother replied. “You always think of her, never of me,” her mother said. Frances opened a new box of fabric softener and thought about putting a sheet in with her mother’s underwear. Instead, she closed the box and hid it behind some old pipes.

“That ring is yours,” Jack repeats. She holds his hand and looks into his eyes, which remind her of her father’s eyes, brown like dirt overturned to dig a hole deep enough for a coffin. She remembers that shortly after she watched that coffin go into the ground, her grandmother pushed her stethoscope across the kitchen table. “It’s yours now,” she said to Frances, “I was alone, but I used this every day in my practice, it kept me company.” Frances remembers thinking her grandmother wasn’t alone, not really, because she had Frances’s mother, just like Frances’s mother wasn’t alone because she had Frances.

“Your eyes are like dirt,” she says to Jack, then regrets it, but he smiles.

“Freshly-turned dirt,” he says, “earthworms expanding and contracting their bodies to burrow and make things grow.”

Frances wonders how she got so lucky, how she found someone who understands her so well. “Yes,” she says.

“Yes to earthworms?”

“Yes to the ring.”

Later that afternoon Sarah braids her hair. “You really said yes?” Sarah asks while placing her hands firmly on Frances’ scalp. “What about college? What about med school? Why didn’t you use the cards, do more fortunes, don’t you think that would have been wise?”

“Sarah.”

“I’m serious. Diamonds mean maybe, Hearts mean yes, Spades mean no, Clubs mean probably, you just match your cards, they make the decision for you, it’s easy, you can’t go wrong.”

“I said yes.”

“Did you mean it?”

Frances looks down at her hands. “I don’t know,” she says. A year after her father died, she overhead her mother talking on the phone with her grandmother. “It’s hard for me, it’s hard for all women,” she heard her mother say. “Not you, you became a doctor, you beat the system, but—” Her mother stopped talking, and Frances wondered what system she might have meant, or what she might have realized that shut her up. Later that night, Frances decided to beat the system herself. She took off Jack’s jeans for the first time, let him take off her underwear, told him she loved him and that she wanted to experience penetrative sexual intercourse.

“I think I meant yes,” Frances continues while Sarah still braids her hair, “but I don’t know.”

“Why not?” Sarah asks.

“What if I’m like my grandma?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if I become a doctor and stop loving Jack, or care so much about being a doctor that I don’t pay attention to it? Or if I’m like my mom and love my husband but don’t ever really love it?”

Sarah’s eyes get all misty. “That’s a baby, Frannie,” she says, “not an it.”

“It’s a fetus, maybe even an embryo, but not a baby, and I can get an abortion.” Sarah pulls hard on Frances’s newly-braided hair and Frances welcomes the pain.

The next day, she sits at her grandmother’s kitchen table and looks out the window while her grandmother boils water. She watches a squirrel circle up a black locust and thinks about the locust’s trunk, wide and sturdy, almost threatening with its weight. By the time her grandmother brews two cups of chamomile, Frances is kneeling outside on the patio studying a pile of dirt. “Frannie,” her grandmother says, “what’s wrong?”

“It’s these earthworms,” Frances says through tears, the black locust looming over her head. “I think they’re copulating.”

“Frannie.”

“No, look, they’re lined up with their backs against each other, facing different directions, that means they’re copulating,” Frances continues. “Did you know earthworms are hermaphrodites? Did you know they have both male and female sex organs?”

“I know, Frannie.”

“And they make this thing called a slime tube, kind of like mucous, and they each ejaculate into the slime tube, sending sperm into the other earthworm’s sperm receptacle?”

“Frannie, what’s wrong?” Frannie leans back into her heels and starts making small noises. Her grandmother puts down the tea cups and kneels beside her, holding Frances’s damp face and rubbing her cool fingers into the back of Frances’s shoulder. “What is it?”

“Why did you have mom?”

“Is she at you again?”

“No, I want to know why you had her, you didn’t want her, you know you didn’t want her, that she would get in your way, but you had her anyway, why?”

Her grandmother pulls back and brushes some of Frances’s hair from her face. “Frannie, I did want your mother, I love your mother, what’s this all about?”

“Do you remember when I was younger and used to work with you?” Frances says. “You used to let me take your patients’ blood pressure, you taught me how to find their pulses and how to hold the stethoscope over their arteries, the same stethoscope you gave me after Dad died?”

“I remember.”

“I’d listen until I could hear the first pulse beat and then listen until I couldn’t hear anything at all, that’s how I read their systolic and their diastolic pressures, how I read the way their blood moved through their bodies, everything was so precise, everything was so clear.”

“I know.”

“That’s when I realized, even though I didn’t have the words,” Frances says, then looks again at the black locust, and at the maple just beyond, its branches fanning out from its trunk.

“Realized what?”

“That I wanted to be a doctor, like you.” Her grandmother rises and carries a steaming cup of chamomile to where Frances still sits huddled on the patio. “Why can’t we be like earthworms?” Frances says. “Why can’t we share slime tubes so everyone has eggs and everyone’s eggs get fertilized?”

That night, Frances and Sarah make popcorn over the stove. Sarah rambles on about the Ten of Clubs she drew after asking if some boy in their U.S. History class last year would break her heart, about how thin the card was, its paper face already bent with time, while Frances thinks about her father and his heart, cracked open like paper, like a broken kernel of corn. “It’s not fair,” Frances whispers.

“No kidding it’s not fair, why can’t boys step up? I don’t mean Jack, he’s one in a million, I mean normal boys, boys who don’t know how many bones are in their feet.”

While Frances melts butter for the popcorn, she wonders if her mother only had room to love her father, and if her grandmother only had room to love her work, and if traits like the capacity to love a child have a genetic component. She puts the popcorn bowl on the coffee table and goes into the bathroom to throw up.

In the morning, she notices the veins in her breasts and that she has gained two pounds. She takes out a deck of cards and pulls a Six of Spades which means abortion is no longer an option, which means she needs a new idea. Her grandmother’s car isn’t in the driveway when she arrives, so she sneaks around back. In the yard, she touches the black locust as if listening for that first pulse, that first marker of systolic pressure, but she keeps her eyes focused on the maple and its outstretched branches.

Getting to the first branch is easy. From there, she holds onto the trunk with one hand and feels for the next branch with the other, then pulls her body up again, then again, then again, until she’s sixteen-and-a-half feet from the ground, three times her body height. She makes sure soft grass is below before pressing her back into the trunk. Eyes closed, she pretends she’s an earthworm sending sperm into her mate’s receptacle, sending her uterus into her mate’s receptacle, sending her embryo, her fetus, her baby into her mate’s receptacle. She imagines the dirt and the slime and the release. Then, positioning her body so she doesn’t land on her neck or head, she jumps.

When Jack finds her, ten minutes after she texts him, she’s lying on her side in the grass, unable to move. “The cards didn’t work so I needed to figure out another way to beat the system,” she says, “and I might have killed our baby.” Jack moves to cradle her in his arms. “No,” she says, “lie next to me, but behind me, and face the other direction.”

“Like earthworms?” he asks. “When they copulate?”

Her back pressed against his back, she takes his hand and pulls it around to her slightly swelled belly while the locust, tall and forbidding, reaches for the sky.

Maria Brandt has published plays, fiction, and nonfiction in several literary magazines, including InDigest, Rock & Sling, Arts & Letters, Prime Number Magazine, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, VIDA, and upstreet. Most recently, her collection New York Plays was produced by Out of Pocket Productions and published by Heartland Plays, and her novella All the Words won the Grassic Short Novel Prize. Maria teaches Creative Writing at Monroe Community College in Rochester, NY and is a founding member of Straw Mat Writers. She lives just outside Highland Park with her son William.

 

 

Image credit:  Zulmaury Saavedra on Unsplash

SPYING THROUGH THE KEYHOLE: A Novelist Grows Roots in the Glamorous, Twisted World of V. C. Andrews by Emma Sloley

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

SPYING THROUGH THE KEYHOLE:
A Novelist Grows Roots in the Glamorous, Twisted World of V. C. Andrews
by Emma Sloley

My sisters and I knew they were trash. That was part of the appeal. Virginia Andrews’ best-selling Dollanganger series (described by Wikipedia as “Gothic,” although I think that might be a tad generous) was so deliciously lurid in its themes and so over-the-top in its execution that it was like overdosing on the dessert buffet at the ersatz German smorgasbord restaurant my family used to go to in the 1980s. It made you feel bad afterwards, but damn, it was fun at the time.

For the uninitiated, if it’s even possible there exist humans unaware of Flowers in the Attic, the series concerns a family called Dollanganger (in hindsight, perhaps a sly play on doppelganger?) who, for reasons I can’t and don’t even care to remember, end up living with the mother’s parents in a big old Gothic mansion in Virginia, where the mother agrees to lock her four children away in an attic for an unspecified stretch of time. (Spoiler alert: it turns out to be years.) This is all a scheme of the extremely evil grandmother, who for vague, never satisfactorily explained reasons hates her grandchildren and wants to make sure her husband, their grandfather, never knows of their existence. Totally normal. Oh, and the grandmother is also into whipping people—including her own grown-ass daughter—as punishment for transgressions. The casual sadism that so shocked me as a teen feels now like a foreshadowing of the Fifty Shades phenomenon that would similarly shame-captivate readers three decades later.

The prose is not only purple—fragrances evoke “a musty, perfumed garden on a moonlit night somewhere in the Orient;” paper flowers are described as “limpid dark pools of iridescence,” and everyone’s hair is “flaxen”—but peppered with odd, almost archaic language. “Good-golly day!” and “golly-lolly!” characters exclaim. The children’s father (conveniently removed from the picture early on), addresses his wife thusly after a day at work: “Do you love me? —For I most certainly love you; did you miss me? —Are you glad I’m home? —Did you think about me when I was gone? Every night? Did you toss and turn and wish I were beside you, holding you close? For if you didn’t, Corrine, I might want to die.” In this world, even the good guys are creeps.

Andrews is so unapologetic in her glorious, adjectival, don’t-give-a-fuckness, and takes such glee in the baroque suffering of her characters, that her writing transcends trash and becomes a luminous thing of wonder. As luminous as the platinum, flaxen hair of the angelic, doomed Dollanganger children.

The covers, at least in the Australian editions, featured a sinister black flap with a keyhole cutout through which peeped the titular flowers (an extended metaphor for the four imprisoned children), whose pale, Aryan beauty is described by the author with a rapturous enthusiasm that in hindsight was kind of disturbing. The message was clear before you even cracked the spine: this was not a book for brunettes. This was a book for the ethereal blondes of the world, whose very beauty was a curse that could only ever lead to their downfall.

We were a reading family. On weekends, the big rambling Edwardian house in which we lived would fall silent as the women of the household—my mother, my three sisters and I—retreated to their favorite corners to turn pages and sip huge mugs of tea. (Dad was the only one who didn’t read. Then, as now, he would always be off somewhere, wiry and taciturn and completely untouched by the need to live vicariously through fiction, whistling while chopping things down or building them up, like a kind of gentle Australian Marlborough Man.)

V. C. Andrews

My parents were, especially for the era, permissive and open-minded, both teachers and staunch believers in free speech and childhoods unrestrained by parental sanctions. My dad, the famous non-reader, had even done a stint as a librarian. The idea of censorship was anathema to them. We were allowed to read anything we could get our hands on: Lolita, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Slaughterhouse Five. There was no fear that such stories—each subversive for its time—were a bad influence, because how could great literature ever be a bad influence? Yet I remember their unease about the Virginia Andrews books. When Flowers in the Attic fever was at its height, they must have come across the books at their own schools and perhaps been alarmed at the corrupting grip they had on burgeoning female minds. (Or, it only now occurs to me, perhaps they were more alarmed at the idea that their daughters, whom they had painstakingly reared to be erudite and intellectually curious, would suddenly develop such bad taste.) I don’t recall them outright banning the reading of the five-book series at home, but my sisters and I got the message nevertheless. These stories were dangerous, unwholesome. There was something about them that made adults deeply uncomfortable, and so, of course, that just increased their dirty allure.

Beyond the obviously titillating details—neglectful mothers, wicked grandmothers, emotionally abusive men and incest galore—lay the real appeal of these thick volumes. They offered a vision of the world that was racier and more glamorous than anything in my happy but boring sphere of existence. As a shy teenager living a hopelessly sheltered suburban life in Melbourne, I was ravenous to live vicariously through narratives that flouted society’s stuffy rules and boundaries. The more over-the-top the telling, the better. Just as little children want to believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny, I wanted to believe in a world where mothers allowed their inconvenient children to be locked in attics, blue-rinsed grandparents were into kinky BDSM and brothers and sisters found solace in each other’s arms. (It helped that I didn’t have a real-life brother when it came to not being grossed out by this plot point.) I didn’t want to live in such a world, of course, but to peek in at it through the keyhole.

I was so smitten that I would finish the last book and go right back to the beginning of the tattered series and start again. (The titles are so glorious I feel compelled to list them here in full: Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows.) We re-readers are used to being scorned and misunderstood. Our obsessions recall the bromide about how insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. But of course that’s not why I, or any of us, reread: I not only expected the same result, I demanded it. I longed to feel that delicious shiver again, that rush of adrenaline at being plunged into V.C. Andrews’ glamorous, twisted world. Even her characters understood the comfort of being transported to another world through the pages of a book. Cathy, the series’ heroine, and her brother Chris get through their ordeal in the attic by reading the dusty volumes they find hidden in trunks. No sexy trash for them, though. They devoured Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Shakespeare, Eugene O’Neill, Charlotte Bronte.

Something about her decision to name-check those classics makes me suspect that Andrews had her own complicated relationship to literature. Perhaps she subscribed to the idea that part of a balanced reading diet is consuming both high-brow and low-brow books, especially if the latter have something to teach you about storytelling. And if you overlook the flowery prose and prurient subject matter of the series, it’s obvious she had a sophisticated understanding of plotting, suspense, and foreshadowing, all skills I’ve endeavored—and often failed—to master in my own life as a writer.

It’s easy to dismiss the series as irredeemable tripe, to understand why parents might consider it unsuitable reading for impressionable minds. But I stand steadfast in my affection for them. There was a kind of dark magic to those books. Every time in my life that I’ve mentioned them, I’ve noticed the eyes of female friends light up as they are transported back to their own relationship with those subversive, hallowed pages. It’s a kind of secret sisterhood, a cult of guilty pleasure. Maybe it reminds us of a more innocent time, when there was still the possibility of being corrupted.

Emma Sloley is a travel journalist and fiction writer whose work has appeared in Catapult, The Tishman Review, Lunch Ticket, Travel + Leisure and New York magazine, among many others. She is a MacDowell fellow and has just completed her debut novel, Disaster’s Children. Born in Australia, Emma now divides her time between the US, Mexico, and various airport lounges. You can find her on Twitter @Emma_Sloley

SUFFER THE CHILDREN by Mary Ann McGuigan

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Person holding a walking stick against the sidewalk

SUFFER THE CHILDREN
by Mary Ann McGuigan

Moira’s son is snuggling against his grandfather on the couch. That’s all. Just resting on the old man’s shoulder, his forehead against his frayed collar. Michael looks tired, sweaty. There’s color high in his cheeks, as if he’s just come in from play. The sliding glass door is slightly open, and she can hear her father singing to him, something low, soft, painfully familiar. His knee moves up and down in steady cadence with the song. Eyes closed, they seem lost in each other’s comfort. She tries to swallow, but it tastes like acid, so she spits into the grass.

She turns and walks back to the front of the house, nails pressed into her palms, and lets herself into Bridget’s kitchen. She keeps her voice down, her tone nearly reasonable. “I thought I told you I didn’t want him near the boys.”

Her sister turns off the faucet and dries her hands on a towel. “What’s the problem? Michael’s crazy about him.” Their father is blind, has been for years, but Moira wonders if Bridget picked the towel to please him, because it’s covered with shamrocks. She’s been inclined to come to his defense lately, reminiscing about how he used to make them laugh, tell scary stories, play make-believe. He’d be the grumpy store proprietor, claiming to be out of every item they asked him for.

Moira drops her shoulder bag onto a kitchen chair with a sudden thud. “That’s nonsense. He’s something different, that’s all. The stories, the odd expressions. Where’s Sean?”

“I’m telling you he hangs on his every word.”

“Yeah, because he’s a walking encyclopedia of baseball trivia.” She spots Michael’s schoolbooks on the counter and crosses the room to gather them up. “Where is Sean?”

“Upstairs with Cathy. Doing homework.”

When her father moved in with her a few months ago, she tried taking walks with him, telling him about her scholarships, her first teaching job. She wanted to connect. That was the plan. He answered in nods and grunts, offered nothing in return but tired stories about drinking with his brothers and getting thrown out of taverns for brawling. In the yard one afternoon, when the boys were washing the dog, she put her arm around him, an impulsive gesture that made her chest tighten. She’d just finished telling him about how hard it was to adjust when she was away at Boston College, until she found cover with a small circle of friends, fellow misfits. She thought he’d understand. He’d talked many times about how alone he felt when he arrived in New York as a boy, his mother still in Derry. His uncle rarely spoke to him. He showed him the cot he’d sleep on and went off to work. But her father only laughed at her confessions, in a way that made her feel exposed. “You were one of those hippie types, I bet.” He was almost growling. “Peace and love and all the rest of the easy answers.”

“Is it really so bad if Michael likes him?” Bridget is blocking Moira’s way, standing close to her. She tucks a strand of her sister’s hair behind her ear, the way she did when they were girls, when she was left in charge while their mother worked. “Isn’t that what you wanted to begin with?”

Moira steps away from her. The tension in her jaw spreads down her neck, tightening her muscles, because what she wanted can’t be spoken, can’t be acknowledged without admitting what a fool she was to think she’d get it. After the blow-up with Sean, she told her father to leave. As she helped him pack, she thought he’d try to explain, persuade her to let him stay. But he didn’t. He was as sullen as a teenager.

“How often is he here?” Moira says, but her throat is constricted, the words too soft, and Bridget can’t hear her. She has to say it again.

“Peter drops him off on Tuesdays and Fridays.” Her sister glances at the wall clock, a bit too nonchalantly, and returns to the vegetables on the counter. “He’ll be here any minute to collect him.”

Moira slides open the zipper on the backpack, finds the harsh sound satisfying. “You knew I wouldn’t want this.”

“He doesn’t bother with Sean,” Bridget insists, as if that’s the only problem. “He keeps his distance.”

“I don’t want him near either one of them. He went after Sean with no warning.”

Bridget gives her a look, lips pursed in a smirk. She doesn’t believe her, and Moira wonders if their father has offered some other version of what happened. “Michael has a right to a grandfather,” she says, fussing with utensils in a drawer.

Moira glances at the vegetables lined up neatly on the cutting board and wants to knock them to the floor. Order. That’s what matters to Bridget, the control she couldn’t have when they were children. “He’s managed without him all his life. We don’t need him now.”

Bridget finds the knife she wants, comes down hard on a carrot. “Maybe you’ve managed. But I see Michael every day here after school. I can see what he needs, especially now, with everything the boys are going through.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Moira’s sure Bridget doesn’t want to say the words. She takes longer than needed to select the next carrot. “The way things are since Ken left. That’s all I mean. It’s a rough time.” She turns to look at her. “You’ve said so yourself.”

“Yes, it’s a rough time. And it’ll only get rougher if Sean winds up needing stitches again.” Moira feels warm in her jacket, wants to take it off, but she has to get out of here, get her boys away from him, away from a place where they have to pretend her father can be anything but monstrous. “Michael doesn’t need him in his life.”

Bridget puts the knife down. “How do you know that?”

The question makes Moira want to laugh. “He has nothing to offer anyone.”

“Really? Or just nothing to offer you?”

She searches Bridget’s face, looking for traces of spite, of some secret satisfaction that Moira’s foolish father-daughter reconciliation had to be aborted. The resentment can surface unexpectedly. The burdens of a household with one parent fell largely on Bridget. Dishes had to be washed, floors swept, stale bread made to last another meal. She had no time to pine for a father’s attention. “Michael is my son,” Moira tells her. “I’ll decide what he needs. I’ll make some other arrangements for the boys while I’m at work.”

“Be reasonable.” Bridget wipes her hands on her apron, lowers her voice, starting over. “You don’t have to do that. He’s harmless.” She puts a hand on Moira’s forearm. “I’m sure what happened to Sean was an accident.”

Moira finds the gesture insulting, as if she has no right to distrust their father, no right to feel cheated. She jerks her arm away and pulls Michael’s backpack onto her shoulder, calls him into the kitchen. But the boy doesn’t come.

“Michael,” she calls again.

His answer reaches them after a beat or two, a stubborn whine. “Mom, can’t we just stay a little longer?”

“We’re leaving now, Michael,” she says more firmly.

He finally appears in the doorway, and Moira is reminded again of how much he looks like her brother Conor, but it’s a surface resemblance, with none of the wounds beneath. At ten, Conor was already a shadow child, accustomed to danger. “Can’t Uncle Peter drive me home later, when he comes to pick up Grandpa?”

She hates what she hears in his voice, the ignorance of the danger he’s in. “I thought you wanted to shop for your baseball glove tonight?”

“Can’t we do that tomorrow? It doesn’t matter, does it?”

“It does matter,” she says, reaching her hand out for him to come along.

But he stays put. “Why?”

She wants him to stop whining, stop wanting what isn’t his. “I’m not discussing this, Michael.” She dangles his backpack in front of him, careful not to look into his eyes, afraid of what he might suspect.

◊

The old man’s side does not touch hers, but he holds her elbow as if he’s leading her down the street. His cane taps the sidewalk in front of them, carving an uneven pendulum, a metronome gone awry. Moira’s high-heeled steps are firm, precise; her father shuffles cautiously, as if fearing he’s near danger. The late morning traffic is steady, purposeful, reminding her that she hasn’t much time. If she doesn’t get back to the parking garage soon, she’ll never reach Bridgeport in time for her meeting.

The street is crowded, and they capture more than an occasional glance, this oddly matched pair. She imagines how they must look: a woman tall, withdrawn, unwilling to acknowledge the passersby; an old man even taller, white-haired, with a creased face, deadened eyes. The sun makes mirrors of the storefronts, and here and there, without warning, she catches a glimpse of the way they look together, too close, huddled like conspirators. She tries to separate herself from him, at least a bit, but he squeezes her elbow each time, without affection, just control.

“The doctor wants me back at the end of next week.” Her father says this as if she’s interested. She’s not. She’s here only because there was no one else to take him for his checkup. Bridget pleaded with her, so she agreed. But she made it clear he’d have to take the bus back to Peter’s house.

“Fine,” she tells him. “Bridget will figure something out.” And whatever the solution, it won’t include her, because she’s sorry she ever agreed to this. But it will be over soon, she tells herself. All of it. The bus stop isn’t far. And she’s found someone to watch the boys after school. She’s sure Bridget is still letting him visit because Michael slips and says Grandpa this, or Grandpa that, then clams up as if he’s been told to keep it secret.

A silence follows that she suspects he wants her to fill, perhaps with an offer to take him to the next doctor’s appointment or with questions about his blood pressure medicine. She gives him nothing.

“Can’t you take me?” he says finally, his tone laced with annoyance that he has to ask. She knows he’s oblivious to how she feels about him. He’s preoccupied with his ailments and his memories, nearly all of which he has invented. He’s hinted that he knows Moira is having trouble getting Ken to agree to the terms for custody, and she’s sure he gets his information from her sister Kate, whose heart is so big and so wounded she’s capable of forgiving anything.

“No. I’ll be in Atlanta.” He’s walking so slowly. She’ll have barely enough time to get to the meeting.

“Atlanta, is it?” She’s sure he wants her to hear the insult in this, because his notions of what a woman should be doing do not include work with responsibility and rank. She’s no different in his mind from all the other liberated types who don’t know how to be mothers or wives anymore. She doesn’t answer him. “Weren’t you in Houston last week?”

“Why?” she says. She doesn’t want his questions. She wants him to be quiet until she can be rid of him.

“I don’t know. The boy seems like he’s driftin’ is all.”

“Who? Michael?” She stops without warning, and her father, startled, goes slightly off balance.

“For Chrissake, watch what you’re doin’.” He makes a big deal of adjusting his cane. “Michael’s got troubles for sure,” he says. “But it’s Sean I’m talkin’ about.”

“Sean is not drifting. Sean is fine.” Her voice is even, revealing none of the worry that dogs her. “And how would you know anyway?”

“Michael. He talks to me.”

If he’d slapped her it would have been less painful. Michael has been sullen lately, not talking as much, which is so unlike him. She imagines him with her father, telling him about his day in school, about the tough batters he faced in his last game, all the things he always saves for her, rewards that don’t belong to her father. He hasn’t earned them.

“I don’t want you talking to him. Do you understand me?” She sees the hint of a grin on his face. He knows he’s getting to her.

“No, I don’t understand you,” he says. “They miss their father.” That edge is in his voice, the one that slips in when he’s determined to be right about something.

“I don’t want to hear this.” She begins walking again, takes his arm this time.

“Fine. I’ll mind my business. But if you know what’s good for ya, you’ll stay closer to home.” There’s that tone again. When Moira was a kid, her mother would challenge it, answer him as if his beliefs were plucked from old wives’ tales. Moira was always afraid to contradict him, and she’s afraid because she knows there’s truth in what he’s saying about Sean and Michael. She sees the hypocrisy of his offering advice on parenting, but she can’t help wondering what she may be doing wrong. She tries to shake it off, but she finds herself slipping back into the maze of doubt and reproach that confuses any attempt to understand why her marriage ended.

The air seems much warmer now, and she wishes she hadn’t worn a linen suit. She wants to focus on the key points in the proposal she’ll present today, but it’s no use. The smell of him disgusts her. She takes shallow breaths to escape it—his cigarette breath, his Old Spice, the stale aroma of drink—but she can’t. She feels small, trapped, the way she did that night in the tiny bedroom they’d rehearse in.

Bridget always wanted to put on shows for their mom, pull her out of her moods. So she made them learn old songs from Judy Garland movies, the kind their mother liked. A thin, faded blanket hung across the corner of the room, tucked into the tops of the windows on each side, creating a triangle of secret space backstage. Drenched in Kate’s perfume, Bridget was dancing in their mother’s high-heeled shoes before the curtain—a long, slim umbrella, her cane. Moira directed the lamplight with the shade, keeping Bridget within its circle. Conor stood in the doorway, laughing, inattentive at his post as lookout. He didn’t see their father coming.

His entrance was sudden, insulting. Bridget and Moira scurried to another corner of the room, but Conor was in his path. The anger was grotesque: blind eyes wide open, impotently searching, lips spread in a frightening semblance of a smile, the shimmering tip of his tongue protruding between his teeth. Moira didn’t wonder where the anger came from. She knew their very presence was the cause. He reached down for Conor, picked him up by the back of his shirt and smashed his face. He bled but didn’t cry out; only a pathetic whimper came, a useless defense. The room filled with the smell of his urine.

Her father let go of him, still cursing, shouting incoherent threats. His arms sliced space before him as he staggered toward the stage, his huge bulk entering the abandoned spotlight. The curtain brushed his shoulder and he tore it down, kicked aside their props and toys until the magical space was once again the dismal corner of their bedroom. Only then did Conor cry out at what he saw. It was a foolish thing to do, because his anger was only half-spent, and he turned toward the sound of his son’s cries.

Her father says her name, and Moira halts, jerks her arm from his, afraid he might guess what she’s thinking, remember she’s the enemy. He wants to know why she’s stopped walking. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I got distracted.” She takes his arm again, more firmly this time. The cars weave frantically up the avenue, stopping regularly in impatient obedience at the light. On cue, they lurch forward noisily. Moira and her father reach the corner, where they will part. She lets go of his arm.

“Can I cross now?” he asks. And perhaps she doesn’t see the truck turning when she tells him yes, because it’s over in an instant: the old man stepping off the curb, the shocking sound of the metal against his body, the rusting gray pick-up truck screeching to a stop, the people circling. He lies like some discarded scarecrow, limbs spread in unnatural directions, his cane many yards away.

Before Moira can make sense of what’s happened, a crowd has gathered and she’s another silent onlooker. The driver’s big round belly shakes as he runs toward her father from the cab of his truck. A dirty, flimsy T-shirt can’t reach to meet his pants. His pale face is splotched red, and when he comes closer, she can see that he’s trembling. “Oh, my God; oh, my God,” he says, his voice a thin, pained whine. He speaks to everyone and no one. The man can’t stand still; he steps away then hurries back to his victim’s side, unable to look very long at the old man’s body. Her father’s face is placid, shows no pain, and she thinks of how he looked when he’d fall asleep in his chair, dulled by drink.

People are taking out phones, dialing for help. Their voices mix, and their concern confuses her, seems misplaced. They look so worried, their hands loose at their sides, jackets and pocketbooks left swinging near to the ground, as if nothing else matters now, nothing more than this old man in the street. An officer has appeared. He’s wearing short sleeves, and he reminds Moira of a patrol boy because he’s so slim, too blond for a grownup. He’s on one knee, gently wiping away the blood that trickles from the side of her father’s brow. He presses his finger against his neck, just underneath the jaw. The driver hurries over to kneel beside them, looking desperate for some sign of hope in the officer’s face. The cop glances at the driver, nods. “It’s a strong pulse,” he says, then barks orders for an ambulance into his phone.

The crowd seems to exhale, exchanging glances of relief.

The driver touches the calloused fingers of her father’s hand where it lies twisted, far from his side. He strokes his palm once diffidently, the way a child makes contact with a large animal.

“Does anyone know this man’s name?” the officer asks the crowd. No one answers him, and the spectators grow restless, heads turning this way and that, as if anxious. The air feels charged with suspicion, and the policeman shakes his head, slaps his notebook against his thigh, losing patience.

A heavyset woman in a black scarf knotted at the nape of her neck shifts her grocery bag from one hip to the other. “Weren’t you standing with him on the sidewalk?” she asks Moira.

She looks at the woman, feeling barely awake, not sure what’s expected of her.

“His name,” says the officer. “Do you know his name?”

They clearly want her to speak, to explain. But how can she explain any of this? How can they possibly understand? “Donnegan. Pete Donnegan,” she blurts out, hoping that will be enough. What more can she say about him anyway?

“You know him then?” says the officer, stepping toward her.

She can’t answer, because in truth she doesn’t. She’s never understood anything about him.

“Does he have family here? Friends?”

Moira doesn’t know what to say. Words like these have meaning to people. But the meanings don’t fit here. She feels no attachment to the man lying in the street. But the officer wants information, facts. She has to give him what he wants. “Family . . . yes . . . family. I’m . . . I’m his daughter.”

“Oh, my God, I’m sorry,” says the driver, in tears now. “I’m so sorry.”

She turns to the driver, sad for him. He seems like such a good man, a man in pain from the harm he’s done. And the irony of it, the injustice, the idea that her father has managed to hurt yet another innocent person makes her feel even more ashamed that she ever belonged to him. “Don’t be. Don’t be sorry,” she says.

The people who hear her exchange glances, whisper to each other, as if trying to convince themselves that she doesn’t mean what she’s saying, even when she says it again.

“Don’t be sorry about him.” Someone gasps this time, and the driver tells her he doesn’t understand. Moira tries to imagine what he sees when he looks at this old man. She turns toward her father, lying there broken, tries to see him as a victim this time, as someone who deserved better than what life gave him, but she feels no sympathy, no sorrow, only the dread of how Michael will look at her when she tells him, how his voice will sound when he asks her how this could have happened.

Headshot of Mary Ann McGuiganMary Ann McGuigan’s short stories have appeared in North American Review, The Sun, Prime Number, Grist, Into the Void, and other journals, and they’ve been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net. Her short story collection, Pieces, is now available from Bottom Dog Press. Her novels, one a finalist for the National Book Award, are ranked as best books for teens by the Junior Library Guild, the New York Public Library, and the Paterson Prize. You can find her at www.maryannmcguigan.com and on Facebook.

 

 

Image credit: simpleinsomnia on Flickr

THE COLLECTED DRAFTS OF JESSICA’S CHRISTMAS CARD TO HER EX-HUSBAND by Grace Coberly

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Red Christmas tree ornament hanging by yarn in front of a purple background

THE COLLECTED DRAFTS OF JESSICA’S CHRISTMAS CARD TO HER EX-HUSBAND
by Grace Coberly

Dear Alec,

I suppose I should tell you that I didn’t buy the apartment. Randi the realtor called (remember her, with the forehead?) and said the owners were still undecided, but I had visited by myself the week before, and it didn’t feel right anymore. I guess it was too big for just me and Pammy. Too many rooms, too many spiderwebby corners. They ended up selling it to that Polish couple, I think. For now, I’m living with my dad, who says

Dear Alec,

Pammy misses you. She only eats the big chunks when I put her bowl out, not that good digestive stuff the vet recommended. I’m worried about her. God, am I already becoming a crazy cat lady?

Dear Alec,

Remember our first Christmas tree? We were so excited we bought it in mid-November, and all the needles had fallen off by the time we unpacked the ornaments.

Dear Alec,

I was just thinking about our first Christmas tree.

Dear Alec,

I was thinking

Dear Alec,

I almost bought the apartment. I really did. I visited six times in five days, and I dragged Randi with me every time (remember her, with the forehead?). I was going to use your closet for storage and keep both sinks upstairs. I could always use another sink. And I keep dreaming about the plumbing there. I’m staying in my old room at my dad’s house, and the cold water faucet in the bathroom still doesn’t work, so the water is always steaming hot. I have to brush my teeth in the bathtub. I feel like an animal.

Dear Alec,

Great news! Layla from the Tribune invited me back for an interview. I feel like this could be good for me, you know? I’ve been cashiering at Macy’s, but all the perfume is really starting to get to my head. I need a real job.

Dear Alec,

I was going through boxes the other day, and I found some of your old Christmas ornaments. (The tiny convertible, the bird from your mom, the blue Santa, Captain Kirk, and part of your snowglobe collection.) I also took the glass giraffe we found at that antique shop in Beulah, but I think it was in one of the boxes I threw out when I moved

Dear Alec,

How would you feel about paying child support for Pammy? She’s not our daughter, but she eats like a teenager, and she has some sort of infection on her foot.

Dear Alec,

I ran into your brother last Thursday in the home improvement section of Target. He told me you’re thinking of moving to Minneapolis. Why the fresh start? Running away from something?

Dear Alec,

Go ahead and move. Maybe in Minneapolis you’ll meet a woman who isn’t so “high-strung” and “self-absorbed.” Maybe she won’t forget to buy paper towels, and she won’t put pepper in your mashed potatoes, and she won’t cry on the night of your wedding because she had to do the father-daughter dance with a family friend. You’d love someone like that, wouldn’t you?

Dear Alec,

I wish to God I had bought that stupid apartment. It was perfect, and I let it go because of you. Because you wanted a front porch and I wanted a big bay window and you like laminate and I like hardwood and nothing was ever good enough for you. Because you were selfish and you couldn’t love me enough to hang around. So fucking selfish. I should’ve bought it. Fuck the Polish couple. Fuck Randi and her forehead. Fuck my dad. Fuck you

Dear Alec,

Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou

Dear Alec,

My dad says I deserved it.

Dear Alec,

I suppose I should tell you that I didn’t buy the apartment. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, but after all that happened, I just couldn’t see myself living there. I guess it was too empty without you. I’m going back for an interview at the Tribune next week, though, so things are good with me.

I heard you’re thinking about moving to Minneapolis. That’s so exciting! Make sure you find a great realtor like Randi (remember her, with the forehead?) who knows everything there is to know about laminate flooring. I’m sure that’ll be a dealbreaker for you.

I know it’s been a crazy year, but I’m doing okay, and I hope you are, too. This is good for both of us. We should grab lunch sometime soon to catch up. Anyway, I have some of your Christmas ornaments that I want to return before I forget about them.

Dad and Pammy say hello. And please do stop by—you’re welcome here anytime. Have a wonderful Christmas.

Love always,

Jessica

Headshot of Grace CoberlyGrace Coberly grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. Her work has appeared in COUNTERCLOCK, Border Crossing, and Iceview Magazine. An alum of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio and the Adroit Mentorship Program, she was also the first-place winner of the LSSU High School Short Story Prize and a fiction finalist in the Young Authors Writing Competition at Columbia College, both in 2017. She is a freshman at Haverford College.

Image credit: Markus Spiske on Unsplash

TOWARDS AVALON by Nikoletta Gjoni

Cleaver Magazine Posted on by

Underwater image of someone's torsoTOWARDS AVALON
by Nikoletta Gjoni

-1986-

4.

Dritan wondered whether he made the right decision in telling them to go ahead, so sure that he would catch up. Had he been sure, though? He began to feel the numbness set in his hands, in his wrists, in his shoulders and back, though it wasn’t long before he felt his muscles begin to burn and cramp, giving him no choice but to stop kicking. His ears filled with the sounds of the others splashing onwards, though now the splashing came from all around him as the tides and waves pulled them apart.

They had begun the journey quietly, stealthily, and close together. But by the end of the first hour, their bodies felt ragged and heavy, and so they let their legs fall down where they may, just as long as they continued to propel them forward. Somewhere beyond the hidden horizon, beyond where their broken bodies existed, laid the invisible border between Albanian and Greek waters. All they had to do was keep pushing with the hope that kismet would string them along to safety. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop; the thought echoed in each head. Somewhere beyond the tide and choppy waves was water they could lie on their backs in and gently drift to safety. Somewhere off the coast of Corfu they would be reborn.

At first Dritan could see his friends’ heads bobbing up and down in the water, but he soon lost sight of them. He heard splashing though he wondered after some time if it was still them that he was hearing, or if it was the waves mimicking the sound of camaraderie, mocking him.

He blamed himself for letting them get so far ahead. That’s alright, he thought. I’ll catch up in no time. He looked around and suddenly realized how small he felt—how small he was—in the vast blackness between sea and night sky. No one knew he was there; no one but the three far ahead of him, spread to all sides of the compass. A