Queer & Familiar: the trans, gay, and lesbian collection

A CAPPELLA ZOO ISSUE 15 · FALL 2015

Queer & Familiar the trans, gay, and lesbian collection EDITOR Colin Meldrum READERS Sonia Christensen Andrew Henderson Emma Hutson A cappella Zoo (ISSN: 1945-77480) was founded in 2008 as an independent, laborof-love publication of magic realism and slipstream short fiction and poetry. The turtle dragon logo was created by artist ANNA BRON. Support A cappella Zoo and its contributors by sharing your favorite stories and poems with friends. Enjoy.

Copyright © 2015 All rights retained by authors/artists of respective works.

Cover art by CODY SEEKINS: Transgender Buddha Facing Mara, oil on canvas. Artist’s statement: “I created this piece while living in Thailand and traveling through the region, including Cambodia’s Siem Reap where the Angkor Wat is set.

While in SE Asia, I learned a great deal about Theravada tradition historically and in modernity, and used the exposure to iconography and local energies culturally as inspiration for this work. The piece is built upon the basic format of the Buddha’s trial with Mara (a Deva) as Mara tempts the Buddha from attaining perfection (Nirvana/Nibbana). But the inspiration for the piece is multi-layered. In Thailand they have a third gender, the Katooey or Ladyboy, which is a normative accepted aspect of the region. In my own experiences, also, I have come across many instances of gender transcendence—when I was eleven I spontaneously fell into a gender void in my awareness, unable to find anything that defined me as male or female. Later, as a late teen and young adult I began to realize the spirits of various gender types within me. Even the realization of the attributes of my parents merged within me added to this sense. The idea of transgender, as a term, became the transcendence of gender; namely the channeling of many variations of gender, and in due process inhabiting all of them, and yet none with particular ego attachment. It is a very Buddhist kind of meditation, to be aware of the discernments of many genders within one’s being, exploring them, and yet graduating past them as definitive markers of personal identity. One then becomes oriented naturally within the genders as a manner of being and not a manner of categorical reflection.” Please visit www.codyseekins.com.

www.acappellazoo.com

4

Orlando-bound WAYNE BACHNER

15

The Centaur’s Daughter BONNIE JO STUFFLEBEAM

24

The Day Sunday Moved Away CANDICE MORROW

27

Naked BRADLEY CONTENTO

28

Killing Fairies MATTHEW CHENEY

43

Nascent Iodine KATHRYN MICHAEL McMAHON

51

Physical Therapy JAMES R. GAPINSKI

57

Aromatic TAMARA K. WALKER

60

The Dream of an Octopus and Aubergine Netsuke A. HALL

63

Lilith’s Extra Rib ALANA I. CAPRIA

65

The End of the Objects JACK KAULFUS

76

Vishnu Coming Through JEFFREY DAVID GREENE

85

Portals TAMARA K. WALKER

88

What Follows Us ADAM McOMBER

92

Shades of Gray CATHERINE SHARPE

95

The History of Sexuality JOSEPH HARRINGTON

97

Dreaming of the Manananggal VICTORYA CHASE

105

La Chanson de l’Observation BERNARD M. COX

Orlando-bound WAYNE BACHNER

H

ypnotized by what he carries in his big, strong hands, I sneak behind Jim and follow him down the stairs. He doesn’t turn around; I’ve kicked off my shoes and am careful to make no sound. Just as I fear, when Jim reaches the bottom of the stairs he turns left toward the section of basement he’s been renovating but hasn’t completed. Jim walks a few feet out then stands still, raising his head to study the exposed pipes and beams.

It’s not difficult to guess what he’s planning; a professional builder and expert craftsman, Jim’s knotted the rope he carries into the familiar shape now sweeping the world.

I take advantage of his momentary indecision to move beside him and grasp his upper arm. A wave of disappointment moves through me, though I know I shouldn’t blame him; the change is different for men. Culturally, even more than physically. Still, you’d like to believe love conquers all, would like to believe love can conquer what are, after all, inconsequential changes compared with so many of the predicted outcomes. Floods and famine; cosmic radiation frying us all to bacon crisp: none of these catastrophes have occurred. Finally I speak, in a voice barely above a whisper, “Give it a few more weeks, honey. You just need a little more time to adjust.”

Jim doesn’t jump at my touch or my words, although I’m certain he was unaware of my presence until I spoke.

“That’s the problem,” he answers in a flat, tired tone, as if speaking to himself. “I don’t want to adjust. I want everything to be back to the way it was, and I know that’s not possible.”

I don’t answer right away. To my horror, I can’t think of any soothing response. At work, somehow I always come up with an answer—to even thornier problems than the one before us. But it’s different working with clients; they’re not the man I love. Their failure would hurt, but wouldn’t ruin my life.

“It’s one thing for it to be a choice, Jane,” Jim continues in the same dead voice. “But to have something like this just thrust upon you…” He grimaces and shakes his head.

My husband looks like hell. More accurately, like he’s inhabiting hell—one of the personal hells we can so easily create for ourselves. He looks exhausted; there are several new lines of pain in his face to testify to his suffering. Clearly the changes have been affecting him far more than me, something that makes sense for a variety of reasons. Due to my work as

4

a therapist, I’m better prepared: I know what to expect physically and emotionally. Also—perhaps more importantly—current American culture allows women more flexibility of expression, more latitude in physical presentation.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he says. “I can’t stand it anymore.”

You and billions of others, I think. At work they’ve disseminated the most recent statistics: at least twenty-two million suicides already. And those figures only include countries that have bothered to compile statistics; they probably reflect less than half the true number.

“It’s never been a choice, Jim. None of the members of my group ever considered it a choice.”

He turns to face me. I can’t help studying my husband’s face, the face I’ve known and adored for years. Like other desperate men, Jim’s cultivating a scraggly beard, but his facial hair has grown scant. I stroke my own face then stop the instant I realize what I’m doing. Too late: Jim’s noted the gesture and winces. Another line of pain to etch his face.

“How many members of your group tried to kill themselves, Jane?

Half? More than half?”

Instead of answering, I rub his shoulder and strive to imbue each touch with sincere, deep affection.

“Please, Jim: just give it a little longer. Every pharmaceutical company on the planet is searching for a solution—help is on the way. Surely you can hold out for a few more weeks…”

Jim looks away, avoiding my eyes. “I’ve skimmed through your books, Jane. After six months some of the changes become permanent.”

He looks away from me and I notice his hands are shaking, something I’ve never seen in fourteen years of marriage. “It’s been longer than six months, hasn’t it?”

Funny, I’ve neglected to track the time factor. No doubt Jim is right. I close my eyes and strain to come up with a good answer. Despite decades of experience answering difficult questions, nothing comes to mind, absolutely nothing. Not for a robust, blue-collar guy like Jim. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, honey. Everyone’s in the same boat. All our friends and co-workers. Everyone. It’s not like we’re in this alone.”

“No.” Jim nods his close-cropped head. His lips curl in what might be mistaken for a grin by someone who didn‘t know him well. “That much is true. We’re all fucked.”

Tears fill his eyes and threaten to roll down his cheeks, but he allows me to take the rope from his hand, the rope he’s knotted and twisted into an instrument of death. Or an instrument of release, from a certain point of view. The rope is strong and smooth, a surprising comfort to hold. Maybe I’m not adjusting as well as I’d like to believe. Maybe I’ve been fooling myself, at least a little.

Wayne Bachner | 5

“Come with me, honey.” I offer Jim my free hand. “It’s late. Time for bed.”

To my profound relief he takes my hand.

When I began my career at the Ernest Ball Mental Health Center ten long years ago, I specialized in whatever walked through the door. You’d be impressed by the variety of folks who have walked through those doors.

We’re little more than an hour from Boston—my hometown—but once you drive a few miles west of Four-ninety-five it’s a completely different world.

These picturesque New England towns proudly adhere to the classic rural American values: vegetable gardens, country stores, alcoholism, incest, domestic violence.

Our director, Dr. Monroe, is (hawas!) a big, balding prick of a psychologist who, after failing to thrive in the big city, came to roost in the less demanding hinterland.

“Jane,” he calls to me, minutes after I arrive at work. This was months ago, just before the changes began. “I’d like to see you in my office.”

I groan loud enough to be certain he’s heard, but that only makes Monroe smile. Annoying female underlings always brings an expression of delight to his face. “This will only take a minute,” he assures me. “I know how eager you are to get to your patients.”

“Clients,” I correct him, although Monroe, despite his training as a clinical psychologist, has shown himself incapable of appreciating the difference.

As usual, my supervisor’s beautiful maple desk is covered with computer print-outs. Pie-charts of the clinic’s budget, lists of disbursements, graphs comparing staff productivity—everything I hate about working for a formal agency. My personal stats are highlighted in bright yellow; they’re at or near the bottom of every graph.

“You don’t seem to appreciate the business side of our profession, Jane.”

I don’t answer, choosing to wait him out. Everything’s a game with Monroe. Unfortunately there’s only one way not to play, and I’m not quite ready to quit my job. Not yet.

“Your annual review is due in three months.”

He picks up a pile of graphs and raps them smartly on the desk, forcing the papers into a neat pile. “Not enough time for drastic improvement, but even a token effort would be appreciated at this stage.”

I remain silent, mainly out of fear of what might come out of my mouth. Jim’s assured me he’d be proud if I let loose and clubbed my supervisor, but I love the other aspects of my job. My husband grew up in a tough town just a few miles from here; he hates bullies and has offered more than once to stop by the clinic and beat the crap out of Monroe. The big bastard probably deserves such treatment, but I abhor violence, having seen far too much of its long-term effects in my work.

6 | Orlando-bound

Ever a fool, Monroe mistakes my silence for fear.

“Remember what our C.E.O. likes to say, Jane. ‘Just because we’re a non-profit doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make a profit.’”

Philip Monroe, PhD, stands six foot two and towers over me, even when he’s sitting and I’m standing. The rest of his presence is equally imposing: he has thick, bushy eyebrows that actually meet in the middle of his forehead, and a receding gray hairline, compensated for by shoulderlength hair pulled back in a pony-tail. Too late, I realize I have on a tight silk shirt that accentuates my above-average bust. I can feel Monroe’s shrewd eyes focused on my chest. Truly a pig, he’s a smart, cautious pig, reserving any overtly inappropriate behavior for young, easily-cowed secretaries with children to support.

“Those queens are killing your stats, Jane. I want you to end that group.”

“I’m building it up,” I inform him. “We’ve doubled in size the past year. Word’s getting around.”

“This isn’t Boston,” he replies, citing the obvious. “Our clinic has far more need of an additional early-recovery group.”

“I’ve moved the transgender group to my lunch hour.”

Once again I’m a step ahead of the bastard. By having the group meet squarely on my own time there’s no possible objection my supervisor can raise. He gives me his customary smirk, an evil leer that occasionally leaks into my dreams, resulting in some gruesome nightmares.

“I’ll see you next week then for our usual supervisory session.”

Monroe studies my chest a final time and shakes his headin appreciation, I imagine. “Ethel’s going to book time in both our schedules for your annual review. Better bring along a handkerchief.”

As if I’d allow myself to cry before a scumbag like him. I’m generally a quiet girl, more or less, but I can be tough. Despite my dislike of violence, if I ever do lose control while engaged in discussion with Monroe, I’m far more likely to smack him in his leering face than burst into tears. Walking up the two flights of stairs to my office, I feel like I always do after spending more than a minute in my supervisor’s presencelike I need a long, hot shower with plenty of soap. I force myself to stow away the thought. My transgender therapy group is meeting later today and I have two schizophrenics, one bipolar, and a relapsed coke addict to attend to before then.

Shari and Leeza are the only members to show that day. Leeza has been taking hormones for a couple of years, but no local doctor’s willing to prescribe for Shari and the poor girl doesn‘t have the money to travel to the Fenway Clinic in Boston. She’s been considering the purchase of hormones over the internet, a desperate way of bypassing an uncaring medical system, a solution enthusiastically supported by the other members of the group, but not by me. I’ve heard too many accounts of dangerous internet swindles.

Wayne Bachner | 7

“Richard called me yesterday,” Shari announces. “He’s back in the hospital. I have no idea where Samantha’s hiding.”

“Is Richard alright?” I ask.

Like many gender-diverse clients, Richard suffers from depression, a logical consequence to the stress of hating the body you’re born with, and of living outside the social norm. Despite what people like to think, America worships conformity; it takes guts to be different in any obvious way. Religion, ethnicity, sexual preference—there’s a high price to pay for standing out. Of course, there’s a fairly straight-forward solution to the painful dilemma Richard’s in, but he was born with a second defect, a congenital heart condition, so hormonal therapy is counter-indicated. And like most folks, he’s living on a tight budget, unable to save the thousands needed for surgery.

“Richard’s okay,” Shari assures me. “As okay as can be expected.”

“How about the two of you?”

“Not so good,” Leeza admits.

Leeza started out life as a short, slender biological male and would have been absolutely gorgeous if she’d been placed on hormones as an early teen. Starting on estrogen and a testosterone-blocker at the age of thirtyeight has done some goodLeeza has distinct breasts and has lost some of her body hair—but her facial structure remains distinctly masculine and she has to shave twice a day then use makeup to cover her beard. Electrolysis takes years and costs almost as much as the surgery. I sometimes have to remind myself to think of her as a woman and feel bad this isn’t an automatic reaction. Referring to her by the wrong pronoun, which I’ve managed to avoid thus far, would have a devastating effect on her fragile self-esteem.

“I’m managing,” Leeza adds.

“Has everyone purchased their lottery tickets?” I place mine on the table. All the members of my group receive SSI or SSDI as their primary income, giving them little hope of ever saving enough for the expensive surgeries they dream of obtaining. Purchasing lottery tickets once a month has been my best idea yet; if any member wins, everyone’s pledged to pay for the other members’ surgeries as well. Numerous clinical studies suggest the instillation of hope is the critical component in avoiding depression; no one in our group has made a serious suicide attempt since I came up with the lottery idea.

“My numbers came to me in a dream.” Sheri likes to believe she’s psychic, a belief I feel no need to challenge. Any way you cut it, the odds of any of us winning are beyond terrible.

“I’ll pick one up at the drug store on my way home,” Leeza promises.

“Someone’s got to win.” I mimic the ads from TV. “And you can’t win if you don’t play!”

8 | Orlando-bound

Early each morning, before the alarm sounds, I silently tiptoe out of bed and gently close the bedroom door. Carefully, I sneak downstairs, where I close the door to the den and move the coffee table to one side of the room. Then I remove my pajama top, drop to the floor, and groan my way through several sets of pushups.

At first I could only manage a couple, though I run four miles every other day and am in good shape for a thirty-two-year-old woman. I add more pushups each week to the sets; I’m currently up to three sets of twenty. I haven’t decided how high I want to go.

After completing the pushups, I roll onto my back and flex my biceps, poking the pleasantly swollen muscles. It’s a similar feeling to the one I had as a teenager, measuring the development of my chest. If Jim ever catches me engrossed with my new muscles though, he’ll become even more distressed. That’s why I haven’t purchased a set of weights. Yet. Before I wake him I brew a pot of coffee, the same as I’ve done since the day we were married. Not everything has to change, I tell him, an echo of the reminders I’ve given to so many since I figured out what had happened—what is happening—to us. Not everything has to change. But change doesn’t have to be bad; some change can be nice.

Major steps forward, my clinical work has informed me over the years, often begin slowly, invisibly. Then, on an unsuspecting, ordinary day— boom! A sudden, great leap forward! Evolution itself, if my understanding of recent theory is correct, occurs like this, in sudden, drastic jumps rather than the gradual, glacial process we were taught in high school. Sometimes I consider my job to be helping people survive unexpected changes, teaching them skills to cope with the stress. Research shows that positive changes are just as stressful as upsetting ones: marriage is as stressful as divorce, getting a new job as being fired, etc., etc. My hope is to guide the trajectories of my clients’ lives a little—I like to visualize them parachuting from the sky as I gently steer them away from areas of concrete to a soft landing in a field of grass…

Richard returned from the hospital several weeks ago, vastly improved in spirits, my first clue something drastic had occurred, though to be completely honest, I missed the deeper significance.

“No idea,” he says, in answer to my predictable question. “I just suddenly feel better. I feel changed somehow, changed in a good way.”

Then Richard shares with the group about his experiences at the hospital, how amusing it had been when the power went out, as it had throughout the entire world. He gossips about which staff had panicked and which remained calm. The other group members know most of the hospital staff by name and enjoy Richard‘s account.

He really does look better. Happier certainly, but the change appears to go deeper than mere surface affect. To my trained eye, Richard looks a shade less androgynous, a tad more assertively masculine. I study his

Wayne Bachner | 9

appearance when able to do so unobtrusively, but detect no glaring difference: Richard’s cheeks still are smooth as a baby’s, his facial features and skin texture too delicate to fit the face of a mature male. Knowing what to look for, I still can detect his womanly breasts, bound and hidden beneath the thick flannel shirt Richard wears throughout the year, even in summer.

I did my own gender exploration in college, a couple of years before meeting Jim. As a child, I’d been a continual disappointment to my mother.

She had been delighted finally to have a daughter after giving birth to two boys and expected me to be her pretty little doll to dress up and pamper.

That’s not how I turned out, thoughan incidental factor known as ‘personality’ intruded. Instead, I chose to become a rambunctious tomboy drawn to rowdy games with the boys.

By the age of twelve or so, my mother’s constant nagging wore me down and I turned to the more sedate pastimes of landscape painting and reading. I still hated wearing dresses and went through adolescence without a single application of makeup. I wore no jewelry and didn’t even pierce my ears. Soon, though, my expanding chest attracted unwanted attention from the testosterone-raging boys, and I had a couple of close calls with daterape. My response was to become withdrawn; I tried to avoid the company of males completely as the only sure-fire strategy for keeping myself safe.

Not surprisingly, I chose to attend one of the few remaining all-women colleges. Also not surprisinglyat least in hindsightI exclusively dated women for the next four years. Lesbian life was exciting, pleasurable, and a whole lot safer than my experiences with heterosexual high school dating.

Unlike some of my colleagues at the Ball Center, I don’t parade my sexual history, though I’m not at all ashamed of it. It’s given me a broader perspective of the complex array of human sexuality, which has helped immensely in my work as a therapist.

I met and fell in love with Jim while attending graduate school. He was the brother of Joanne, a fellow student I’d befriended.

“Please,” Joanne had begged, “just go out with him once. Jim’s a great guy, but painfully shy. A date with an attractive woman like you, Jane, might help him develop more confidence.”

She was right on the first two points: Jim was a great guy, and also timid as hell around women. Just the kind of male partner I needed.

Fortuitously, I turned out to be the kind of female partner he needed.

Everything fell into place wonderfully. Our life together has been terrific.

Terrific, at least, until the changes arrived…

“I’m feeling better, too,” Sheri reports after Richard finishes speaking.

Leeza made it unanimous. Great, I think; my therapy group is really taking off. Too bad none of their bliss is rubbing off on me. My annual review is scheduled for later this month, and each time we bump into each other in the hallway, my leering supervisor hints my lovely ass is in very grave danger, indeed.

10 | Orlando-bound

I wait until the lights are out before speaking. “Jim,” I say, moving my leg until our toes touch. He doesn’t pull back, a fact I choose to take as a positive sign. “Nothing important has changed; we’re the same people we’ve always been.”

“I don’t feel the same,” he answers in a tired voice. “Perhaps it’s different for men.”

I don’t reply right away. At work I’ve been exposed to the whole spectrum of coping with the changes: there’s a kernel of truth in what Jim’s saying, and I want to communicate respect for his feelings.

“You once said if you lost an arm you’d adjust,” I remind him. Some of Jim’s construction jobs have required the use of dangerous machinery; we’ve discussed this and other gruesome possibilities over the years. “These changes aren’t anywhere near as drastic as an amputation.”

“Perhaps I was wrong about that.” Not, alas, the reply I want to hear.

“You can’t always anticipate how you’ll…”

“I still love you.” I press the back of his leg with my knee. “And you still love me.”

Jim remains silent, so I wait. And wait. Finally, I decide it’s time to take action. I lean over and place my mouth over his chest. Jim’s nipples are as firm and large as my own. Good genetics, I can’t help thinking; he’s going to have a lovely pair of breasts. Jim begins to moan.

“See?” I whisper. “We can still pleasure each other. So what if our bodies have become a little different?”

I spend the better part of an hour doing my best to convince him. After Jim falls asleep, I listen carefully to his snoring and wonder if I’ve succeeded. A long time passes before I’m able to drift off myself.

Overnight, compasses become useless. They aren’t broken, of course; the needles still point to magnetic north—a simple calculation’s all that’s needed to figure out where you are and how to get to where you want to go.

But few people are inclined to perform this calculation. We’ve become tremendously spoiled over the millennia.

Initially everyone’s attention is focused on the ozone layer.

Depletion of the upper atmosphere is the primary disastrous effect predicted should the magnetic poles ever flip. Before it actually happens everyone thinks the change—if it ever does occur—will happen over a period of at least several decades, creating a lengthy period of magnetic weakness that will cause the charged molecules protecting the upper atmosphere to drift away like untethered, microscopic balloons. This loss, it’s believed, will leave our fragile planet without its primary layer of protection from cosmic rays, creating certain disaster for most living things.

No one guesses the change will happen overnight; how could they? Just as no one suspects the other effects the magnetic flip will have on the physiology of most mammals.

Wayne Bachner | 11

Neurons, I’ve learned in the course of practicing my profession, function via an electro-chemical impulse. Like all electrical current, they create a tiny magnetic field. Neuropsychologists have been experimenting for years with magnetic treatments for depression and other psychiatric disorders, although the results have never been definitive enough to enable these treatments to go mainstream. I’m only a Master’s level social worker situated in the trenches of mental health treatment but due to my interest in gender diversity I’m uniquely poised to be among the first to interpret what’s happening to humanity. Not that this knowledge does me or anyone around me a lick of good…

After the poles flip, the human world quickly becomes a very different place. Most electric machines no longer function; they have to be retrofitted to account for the difference in the polarity of the magnetic field created by their current. The other changes are slower to appear. I’m shocked one morning to discover that making the hair on my upper lip disappear now requires more than a monthly bleaching, and several of my male clients complain of unsettling changes in their emotions. But I don’t put it all together until the transgender therapy group meeting in which Sheri flashes us.

“Something wonderful has happened,” she announces the minute we are seated. “I’ve become a woman for real.”

“Have you been ordering hormones over the internet?” My voice must reflect my concern.

“Nope.” Sheri shakes her head and grins. “It’s happened all on its own.

Look!” Then she goes and does it: she lifts her shirt to reveal two beautiful, pear-sized breasts. “Sorry,” she laughs, pulling her shirt back down. “I had to show them to someone!”

“How about this, Jane?” Richard reaches over the table and guides my hand to his face. Tiny hairs cover his cheeks, chin, and upper lip. Suddenly I note the similarity to my own recent facial hair problem. “I haven’t been taking hormones either,” he insists.

“Holy shit!” I wonder if I should call somebody, but I can’t think of who to call to report this amazing development. The NIMH? My congresswoman? The frigging Marines?

I’m proud of how I act at my annual review. Monroe had been behaving more subdued lately and I’m certain I know why.

“You look different, Phil,” I comment, after taking a seat in his office. I place my chin in my hand and stare at him until his eyes turn away. “Now what ever could it be?”

Monroe’s face turns red. I know I should stop, but he’s tried so hard to make me suffer in the preceding weeks…

“I’ve got it!”

My supervisor looks at me with obvious horror. Funny how it works; he’s still over six feet tall, but his presence no longer feels as imposing.

12 | Orlando-bound

“Your hair,” I suggest, causing him to sigh in relief. “It looks terrific, Phil!”

Cocking my head to one side, I ask in a conspiratorial tone, “You haven’t been forking out for hair-restoration treatments, you vain creature?”

Monroe shakes his head, pleased with the suggestion. “It’s completely natural,” he assures me. “Now about your productivity, Jane…”

But it’s my turn to shake my head. I spread my lips into a wide smile.

“I’m not here to negotiate, Phil. If you want to fire me, fine; just put the pink slip in my box and we’ll go our separate ways. Otherwise I’m going to continue doing exactly what I’ve been doing. My clinical work is excellent and I have no intention of compromising quality for quantity.”

Monroe is speechless; it’s amazing. All my life I’ve avoided this kind of direct confrontation with men. How foolish and unnecessary that has been. It would be easy to get nasty, to make an allusion to the developments my trained eye detects in Monroe’s chest, but instead I vow never to cross the line into downright nastiness. However powerfully my altered hormones push me, I vow never to act like a man. Without waiting for an answer from my supervisor I rise from my chair and leave the office, closing the door softly behind me.

Richard is the first to speak. He says the words we’ve all been planning to say in some way, shape, or form.

“I don’t think there’s any point to these meetings any more, Jane.”

I nod in agreement. Everyone looks pleased. For the first time in months, all the group members are present.

“The cost of surgery has been dropping,” Sheri notes, “now that hormonal treatments aren’t working and so many additional doctors are performing the procedures.”

I try but fail to keep my eyes from her impressive bust. Good genetics, I think reflexively. Sheri continues, “I’ve been working under the table, Jane, teaching some of the new trans-women the basics of passing. Makeup, clothing; how to hide what needs to be hid. The subtle differences in voice and movement.” She smiles. “In a few more months, I’ll have saved enough for my surgery.”

“Everyone’s in the same boat now,” I agree. “I’d have to open this group up to every client in the clinic. Perhaps I should.”

Jim would benefit from a group like this. He seems to be adjusting better since the night I caught him with the rope, but I worry he’s still shaky.

Richard rises from his chair. “You can always call us in as consultants, Jane. It would make us feel all that suffering we went through had a purpose.” The others join him in getting up to leave.

“Wait,” I insist. “A final group hug.”

We squeeze our bodies together and pat each other on the back. Tears flow everywhere, down the cheeks of trans-women, trans-men. Who can tell which is which anymore? Who really cares?

Wayne Bachner | 13

· · · Is love a force that can be measured? A force stronger than the magnetic field of the earth? Stronger than aversion, than fear of the unknown?

Stronger than a coil of twined rope?

I’ve been avoiding asking myself these questions, but as certain as next month’s credit card bill arriving after an episode of impulsive buying, they’ve remained in the back of my mind, waiting to be asked.

After my success with Monroe, I purchase a bottle of champagne to celebrate with. I don’t warn Jim: it’ll be more fun to surprise him. Instead, he surprises me. He doesn’t call to me or come to the door when I arrive, although his car’s parked in the driveway. And he doesn’t answer my increasingly desperate calls. He might have gone for a walk… Or—and some part of me knows this is far more likely—he might not have…

What’s there to do? I’m in no hurry to investigate, in no hurry to find out for certain my lovely life has been reduced to tatters. I open the champagne and pour out a glass. Slowly, I drink my way to the bottom, savoring each frilly, bubbly sip. It’s not my fault love isn’t strong enough to conquer all; I know I’m far from alone in reaching this conclusion. I remove my blouse to admire the sturdy new muscles on my arms. A new life is opening before me, one it appears I’ll have to navigate alone. I only hope I’ll be up to the task.

14 | Orlando-bound

The Centaur’s Daughter BONNIE JO STUFFLEBEAM

I.

A

s a little girl I never understood my father’s night self. It’s hard to be a kid whose father is two people. He changed every day with the sky. I cried at sunrise. I had trouble sleeping. Still do, and I’ve had seventeen years to process my father’s differences.

When I was small enough that my hands didn’t fit around a soda bottle, I couldn’t be left alone. The babysitter would coax me from the safety of my closet with chocolate granola surprise shakes and a broom guitar upon which she sang classic Elvis. Despite myself I always laughed. I loved that babysitter, but babysitters don’t follow you into high school. Now when I think of her, I see the woman who, once I was old enough to understand, told me that my father was a monster, warned me that I had his blood, that even though I would never look half-horse like him, I could still develop the night terrors, The Confusion. “You better be careful, Ruby. It runs in families, you know,” she said.

I didn’t know. I was twelve and too old for a babysitter, and suddenly I understood that some of the things I had loved as a child, some people, would not carry over into the grown up world.

II. “I’m sorry, what was the question?” I ask. My therapist’s name is Miss Flowers, the kind of name that makes me want to puke. Every time I see her she has a new flower pinned in her hair. Today it’s a dandelion, which I think is technically a weed. Her office has grey walls with bird shadows painted on them. A lamp in the corner sends out a single ray of light that casts the room in contours.

“I asked if you ever have trouble at friends’ houses.”

I don’t want to answer her question, so I search for a lie.

“I have no friends,” I say. “No one ever liked me.”

Really I’ve had the same two friends, Lisa and Jaq, all through middle school, one loud mouth and a silent girl who followed us around. Even now, senior year, as the thought of leaving my parents’ world gives me night chills, there are only those two girls to talk to, though I am aware that when we part ways for college it’ll be permanent.

15

“We still haven’t talked about your father,” she says, like I don’t know that already.

“I have two friends, but my mom’s weird about my spending the night with them, at least at their houses. She thinks we’re all lesbians.”

“Are you?”

I shrug. “Who cares? There are better things to worry about.”

But Lisa’s face pops into my head. Specifically, Lisa’s lips, cracked and puffy, like they’ve been injected with bee venom. Her grape Chap Stick smell. Lisa burrowing her head into my shoulder during the bloody parts of movies as I stomach through them so I can whisper to her the plot points she’s missing.

“Like what?” Miss Flowers asks.

“The future,” I say.

“Do you worry about your future? Do you worry you’ll be like your father?”

Every session Miss Flowers harps on him. If I didn’t know better I’d think she had a centaur fetish. It’s a thing; I’ve seen a few disgusting websites. Unfortunately, I have to be here, so I put up with her.

Finally, after an uncomfortable silence, she folds the top over her iPad. “Our time is up, Ruby. Let me sign your court papers, and you can go.”

I hand them over. She scribbles at the bottom, writes “unresponsive” in the margins. Even though I was sent there because I lit a field on fire, Miss Flowers doesn’t mention the blaze. Instead, she told me first session, she believes in a deeper approach, working from the past forward. I just want that shit off my record.

“It was Jaq’s idea anyhow,” I say about the fire. “She’s the quiet one.”

“They claim those are the ones who surprise you.” Miss Flowers halfsmiles.

My father’s always been quiet, too. At least in the daytime hours. I don’t say this out loud.

III. When I come home from the therapist, my father’s back from work, freshly showered, his thick black mop of hair still dripping, no shirt. He’s sitting on his special made stool in front of the TV, which is tuned to the centaur races. He isn’t watching. Instead he peers through his wire-rimmed glasses at a Discovery magazine, oblivious to the creak of the front door.

From far away his body looks impossible, the upper human part and lower horse part, the area of his belly where his black peach fuzz hide meets elastic skin. The two competing textures merge into one another there like blended marble, inseparable.

My mother’s always asking him to put on a shirt, but the fabric makes him feel confined. The sight of my father on his haunches, the round nubs of his nipples visible, is not unsettling, and neither are the thick red lesions

16 | The Centaur’s Daughter

across his back from the work harness they strap to him for pulling carriages and hauling construction goods, his two jobs. He’s part of the centaur union, but they can’t really do much about the physical risks of work other than give him great health insurance. The sunset creeping through the window is unsettling. I fight the urge to hide from him in my room. Mom’ll be home soon, I remind myself as I walk past him into the kitchen. The crinkle of an Oreo package gets his attention. We with centaur blood have higher metabolisms, need more calories and nutrients than fullblood humans.

“What do you think you’re doing?” my father’s voice booms.

I bring him two cookies. The living room is bare of furniture except for his stool and the TV screen built into the wall. He extends his hands. I place one cookie in each.

“I was gonna bring you some,” I say. “Didn’t want to disturb your soaps.”

“I’m not watching this. You can change it if you want.”

“I have homework to do. Algebra.”

“How was it?”

“Terrible. I’m awful with numbers.”

“You know what I meant.”

The magazine in his lap is open to a centerfold of two pink brains side by side. In the one on the right, bursts of red like hives swarm the frontal lobe, or whatever it’s called. The caption at the bottom reads: Day and Night. My father closes the magazine and clears his throat.

“Fine, I guess. She seems fake. I don’t think she knows what she’s doing,” I say.

“No health professional does. Remember the support group they sent me to after the incident? Full of quacks who thought they knew what it was like for us. Think the therapy might help though?”

I shake my head. Because all of a sudden if I say anything out loud I will cry, and I’ve already cried once for my father. I struggle a smile and disappear into my room with the rest of the Oreos. I lock the door, shut the shades, and turn my music up as loud as it will go.

Once one album’s over and I’ve started another, I hear his whinnies drifting into my room through the crack beneath the door. He doesn’t speak human words, but his neighs rise up at the end like questions. I haven’t ever brought friends over because he’d embarrass me like this, but I’m not scared. I shove a blanket under the door to further block the sound.

Quaking stomps rattle the floor. We’ve tried letting him outside, even keeping him in a stable, but he’s strong and dangerous, and he only recently got his ankle cuff removed, from “the incident.” The little boy he trampled took a year to recover.

With his health insurance, he could take blockers, pills that would keep The Confusion away. But he says he doesn’t like the way they make him

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam | 17

feel, dull and anxious and out of control of his own body. My mother wishes he would take them, but she isn’t the type to pry.

He crashes against the walls, runs through the hall, and jerks his head from side to side. I don’t have to see him to know that this is what happens.

The doors to the bathroom and dining room are too narrow for him to fit through. They were made that way on purpose. My room wasn’t given the same consideration. They made it large, in case, since there was no guarantee any child of theirs would follow in my mother’s footsteps and not my father’s hooves instead.

The clomp of those hooves forms its own rhythm. I don’t like music with a lot of bass. His horse screams echo in the hall. He’s gotten himself stuck. I don’t save him. Earplugs are a necessity in a house like ours. I block my father out. He deserves this, I think, and immediately feel a tremble in my stomach. It’s unfair to think that, but it’s also unfair for a daughter to be afraid of her father.

Besides, my mother will be home soon. She times her return to avoid the worst of his transformation, the angry confusion. By the time she’s back, his roars will have dissolved into semblances of human language, no longer the strict language of beasts. When she comes home, she’ll help ease him from the hall, angle him out, and he’ll collapse onto the carpet. He’ll ask, again and again, “Where are we?” He’ll ask, his speech slurred, if today is a day, if time is real—what time is it? When my mother calls him by his name, Christopher, he’ll wince. It isn’t important, he’ll say. It’s nothing. I’m nothing.

My mother thinks that’s the easy part. I disagree. His anger I understand. I feel the wild in my own blood, warm as hot chocolate. But I can never feel what my father experiences in the transition from beast to man. And he will never understand what it’s like not to feel that. My mother, she doesn’t have beast in her body. Her brain is one side of a magazine article. I’m a combination of my parents, and so they will never understand me, not really.

I lie in bed and prod my head with my fingers. I know it’s silly, but I check for soft bits, for marble-size spots of red hot brain activity. I feel nothing but a dull ache.

The doctors wanted to test my brain when I was born, but my parents were scared that if the docs found an equine brain, they, my parents, would never be able to treat me as human, knowing that I was just as much, or more, like him than her. My mother might’ve been scared to nurse me at night or let me stay over at friends’ houses, if I had ever wanted to. If I hadn’t been so homesick any time I tried that I’d wake in the night to a belly ache no amount of cookies and milk or toast could fix.

18 | The Centaur’s Daughter

IV. My friends have begged before to be allowed at my house at night, but when I finally invite them, they hesitate. I promise them safety. My father and some of his centaur construction buddies built me a tree house when I was little, and I tell them that we can sleep there. We’ll stay outside until morning. They’re scared because they’ve only ever seen The Confusion in old horror films, Centaursploitation movies. Over-dramatized reality shows.

It isn’t even like that, I tell them. But really, in some ways, it is.

Mom comes home early with a bag of cheese chips and a block of cheddar and some queso. She shrugs. “Teenagers need calcium,” she says.

“Especially you.”

I can tell from the way she watches me that she is nervous, even with my friends being here, under her watchful eye. Because she’s never seen me with a boy, because of the posters on my wall featuring women with pink hair and torn jeans, because I once asked her to buy me a copy of Kissing Jessica Stein, which I then hid from her like if she never saw it again, she’d forget I’d asked for it.

“You and your friends have fun tonight,” she says. “Now I won’t be able to watch over you, not with Dad...” She purses her lips. I get the feeling that she thinks by reminding me that she won’t be hovering over us, she has in effect given me permission to do whatever it is she thinks I’m going to do with Jaq and Lisa. Instead she pulls from her purse a movie rental, a comedy with a lot of sex jokes, from what I’ve heard.

“You’re adults,” she says, handing the movie over like a holy grail.

“And don’t worry about your father. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Lisa and Jaq arrive in Lisa’s off-white jalopy. Jaq’s brought her backpack, but Lisa’s brought a suitcase which looks as if it might contain her whole room. I help her lug it into the house. When I’ve secured the bags in the safety of my closet, I hand them each a trash bag and ask them to pack a night sack for the tree house. Lisa pouts, but Jaq just drops her backpack into the trash bag and smirks.

I told my parents that I was out with two other friends when the field caught fire, that we’d built a bonfire and it got out of control. I knew better than to name Jaq and Lisa. If I’d done that, my parents never would’ve let me hang out with them. Instead they blame these other two girls for the hundreds of dollars in fines, the thousand in lawyer’s fees. My mother thinks Lisa and Jaq are a good influence, minus the lesbo stuff. For the most part, they are.

I tell them to grab their night sacks. We go outside.

In our overgrown acres, the air used to be so still you could only hear night noise: the incessant chirp of crickets, a stream in spring when it ran with water, coyotes stalking across dead leaves. Those sounds are still there, but behind them there are other, less familiar sounds, sounds that I can’t for the life of me associate with home: the whir of cars passing down a nearby

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam | 19

freeway, the zip of airplanes overhead, an alien polka music drifting from the new neighbors’ giant speakers.

We climb the rotten ladder into the tree house. Four thin wood walls box us in. A single window has been cut into the back wall. I open the glass to let some air in. Already sweat has pooled under my arms.

For a couple of hours we play cards: war then spades. I’m bunk at both those games, but Jaq plays cards like she can see through them.

“What are you, fucking omniscient?” Lisa says, jabbing Jaq in the ribs.

The look Jaq gives her, her token shitty smirk, sends us all into a fit of giggles. I’ll miss them in the adult world.

I don’t know what time it is when we finally settle down. Outside time passes differently, and I’ve only been counting how many cigarette butts we’ve hidden in the spaces between the wood planks so I know how many to fish out later so my father doesn’t find them. We unroll the sleeping bags and slide inside them.

One thing I may have inherited from my father is my night vision.

Once I click off the battery-powered light, I can still see details in my friend’s vertical faces, movements. I look over at Lisa, to the immediate right of me, and try to watch the sleeping bag atop her chest rise and fall with her breaths without her noticing me noticing her. I do this until I hear the moan of the sleeping bag. Her hand emerges from it, rests on her chest. I wonder if she’s going to touch me, but then she rests it on the tree house floor on Jaq’s side. Jaq’s hand wraps around it.

I feel sick. My stomach turns as Jaq’s fingers move up and down the skin of Lisa’s hand. I want to be those hands. I roll over. I try to blink away the tears that have sprung up. I’ve almost entered a half-sleep of denial when Lisa speaks.

“I have to pee,” she says.

“There’s a big backyard,” I say.

“No fucking way am I pissing out there. I want to go inside,” she says.

“Jaq has to pee too.”

My mouth pinches up. I roll my eyes even though they can’t see it.

Sure, let them go inside.

“Fine,” I say. “No problem. Follow me.”

We tiptoe down the ladder and through the thick green grass up to our ankles; absorbed in his working and reading and thrashing, my father’s refused to mow, and my mother has sworn out of spite to let the grass grow.

At the front door I usher them inside, not knowing how long it’s been night, I hope they’ll find him throwing himself from wall to wall as sheetrock crumbles in his wake. I hope he’ll charge them, and they’ll inhale his wild fear. Lisa will feel sorry for me. She’ll realize that I’m the one who needs a hand to hold. But instead my father’s whimpers carry over from the living room, where he crouches against the wall. My mother sits holding a water glass to his lips. He doesn’t drink.

The floor creaks beneath me. His head jerks up.

20 | The Centaur’s Daughter

“Don’t look at me,” he slurs. “Please, please.”

I only realize my friends have gone once I hear their footsteps on the deck. When I return to the tree house I can’t shake the unease in my gut, like I’ve eaten a pound of gummy worms who have come to life in my belly and are now wriggling through hours-old dinner. My friends and I try to laugh, but our laughs die before they leave our throats. How can we laugh or speak in air so dense?

VI. Graduation night means a black gown that squeezes my wide shoulders so hard the seams creak. Underneath I wear my jeans and an old T-shirt with holes all in it. I’m at the front of the alphabet. Jaq and Lisa slipped a ten dollar bill to the boy between them so they could sit together. I don’t look back at them because I know their fingers are intertwined between the seats, and because we haven’t talked since they spent the night.

My father and mother clap from the special seat in the bleachers so loud I blush. “Ruby Red,” my father shouts, his voice half-whinny. There is only one other centaur in the audience, as there are zero centaurs in my class, but she doesn’t yell for her graduate.

After clodding across the stage, we’ve been instructed to return to our seats, but I can’t stand sitting there in that stuffy auditorium anymore, so I bolt for the fire exits, setting off the alarm. Out in the parking lot I’m confident I’ll get away before my parents catch me. Running feels wild. It feels like the only sensible thing to do, like nothing ever mattered as much.

My heart terrorizes my body. I let my fists pump at my sides.

When I get to the bus stop the city bus is about to pull away. The driver thinks I’m running to catch it, and he waits for me in my ridiculous gown.

“Well, congratulations,” he says. “Congratd to the graduate.” He gives me three half-formed claps. I shrink into a seat and pull the gown off, wad it up beside me so no one will sit there. Exit near my house. My parents’ car isn’t there yet. I fish my keys from my pocket and climb into my car.

I drive there without meaning to. The grass is still black. It will be black for a long while. I look out over it, breathe in the stale fire smell. I imagine I can feel heat still rising from it. Sweat beads slide down my forehead.

On the day of the fire, I was holding a lighter, igniting a Parliament. I flicked the ash into the grass, passed the light to Jaq, who passed it to Lisa, who passed it back to me.

“I think we’re gonna explore those trees,” Lisa said, standing with her cigarette. “Coming?”

I stayed seated. Something about an open space soothed me, made me feel smaller. I watched my friends stumble into the brush. I flicked the lighter to relight the cigarette that had gone out between my fingers. The heat in my hand like that, it was as if I had contained it in my palm. I

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam | 21

wanted the heat to spread. Wanted to be surrounded by heat I had created. I tossed my cigarette into the grass. It hadn’t rained for a month. I didn’t know fire spread so fast, didn’t know it consumed like it did, a whole field in one night.

As I look out at the black mess I made, I hear another car on the gravel.

I crouch, crawl away from the fence. If it’s the farmer who owns this land, I’m screwed. My sentence extended. More of Miss Flowers. The crunch of footsteps comes nearer and nearer, and then I’m looking up into the dark eyes of my father, staring at him like a deer in headlights.

“It can be hard,” he says. “The night sky.”

There is something different about him, but he seems together enough.

No thrashing, whimpering, no holding his head as if it’s pounding under his hands.

“Is it safe for you to be out here?” I ask.

“I took a blocker,” he says. “My daughter’s graduation only happens once, you know.”

“But you said they made you sick and numb.”

He shrugs his broad shoulders. “Sacrifice.”

I rise and brush the burnt straw from my clothes, and we stand together in quiet until he shakes the hair from his face.

“Race you,” he says so soft I almost miss it.

Without a word I start running. I don’t check at first to see if he’s behind me, and then I don’t have to check because he’s beside me, meeting my strides, and we gallop together for a while over blackened ground and fallen logs charred to bone ash. He passes me, and I run behind my father, watching his flanks move, so animal, and he bucks up into the air, and for once I’m jealous of him for knowing how to move like that, for knowing what that feels like.

We go until we can’t breathe and have to collapse in the grass, where he kicks the grass up with his back legs. The dust dances through the air.

“I’m tying up,” he says, meaning his muscles are cramping, a holdover term from back when people used to stable centaurs just like horses. He carries me on his back.

Mom sits in the car with the windows down, the radio turned to Soft Jams with Daphne Glow. She moves her head back and forth, eyes closed.

“Did you have a good run?” she asks as Dad eases himself up the ramp into the trailer in the back.

“We did,” I say.

I drive my own car home. As I drive, I think about forgiveness and how no one is perfect, and would I trade my father’s imperfections for the imperfections of other fathers? I can’t answer that question, not right now, but it makes me feel lighter, somehow, like a great harness has been lifted from my back.

The morning comes without warning. Mom cooks us up a breakfast of biscuits and gravy and apple oats. Dad shakes on the patio, coming down

22 | The Centaur’s Daughter

from the inhibitor. I bring him his food on a paper plate, and he barely eats a bite. We stand and watch the sun rise in a haze of orange and cotton candy pink, pollution at its finest. When the moon’s disappeared, we exhale sighs of relief. My father drapes his left arm around my shoulder and squeezes. I feel a great warmth in my stomach that I can’t blame on the oats. He says nothing, and I can’t blame him. Nothing is the exact right thing to say.

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam | 23

The Day Sunday Moved Away CANDICE MORROW

A

t three a.m. Max is batting a stick against a swing in his Spiderman underwear. Genius, we think. Our other kids might bat or swing, but who among them would bat the swing? Clever, too, to perform the task without clothes. No pants to muddy, no shirt to tear as he, illuminated by a street lamp, falls backward into Sunday’s bushes. When he springs out, red scratches on pale skin, we think how strong, how resilient, like a dancer, like a ninja. This boy will survive us yet.

Max is our neighborhood’s albino, and by that, we mean we have adopted the little bastard. Not as some communities adopt a cripple or deaf kid and campaign to erect ramps or signs that read, Deaf Children Playing.

(Not that there’s more than one. It’s just nice to say. Nice to say, You’re not the only freak out there, even if you take the cake on this street.) No, by adopted, we mean he lives with us. By with us, we mean in our homes.

He was born of the neighborhood, and though several of our wives protested in the beginning, we have kept him. Max brings us together as his father, our lover, brought us together, though we didn’t know it back then.

Back then we slipped through the alley and fucked him beneath his magnolia trees or at the bottom of his empty swimming pool or in his house on the kitchen table, under the piano, over a windowsill, or, on special occasions, between his sheets. Push a preposition against a piece of furniture, and we did it. We knew his skin, his smell, his impeccable taste— in books, and, oh, the way he shouted their titles while coming: “Grapes of Wraaattthhh!” “Anna Kareninininahhh.” “The Unbearable oh, Baby, oh, Likeness of Be-e-eing.” We did not know we were taking turns.

The swing is a tire hung from an old willow on Sunday’s lawn. Max’s cheeks are puffy and wet. White hair sticks to his forehead. When he misses, the force he exerts causes his body to spin round to his starting position. When he stops, his face is pinker, more scrunched. We wonder if it will eventually fold into itself, and what will that look like?

We should thank him. For five years, we’ve been faithful to our wives.

Coming straight home from work, we ask, “What can I do for you?” We tell them they are beautiful, and we mean it; they are. They care for us and for our children, and for our child. We should say to Max, Thanks to you our lives are bigger. But we’ll wait for the day when he can understand, and until then, all we can do is feed him and make allowances for his funny looks, his runny nose and his poor depth perception.

24

When we find him lying on the curb, crying his baby-blue eyes out (contrary to popular belief, human albinos do not have pink eyes!) over a dead bird, what do we do? We carry him to one of the houses and feed him ice-cream. Hardly is there a Day that doesn’t attend the bird’s funeral.

Like him, Max has a tender soul. The life of a fly is as precious as that of a bird, as that of a cat. As that of the dog that ate the cat that ate the bird that ate the fly. As precious as that of a person, and some of us say his sensitive spirit deserves respect, and some of us say we’ll have to teach him to prioritize.

There were, before today, seven families involved. We don’t believe in signs, but if we did believe in signs, this—7 men, 7 houses, 7 breakfasts, 7 bedtime stories—would be a sign we could sink our teeth into. Our arrangement, made shortly after our lover’s disappearance and on the edge of his empty pool, is that Max stays with each man and respective family for one night and one day a week.

At first we competed over whom he would love most. It was silly, really. We bought him designer binkies and lambskin rugs on which he could roll his dimpled and delicate skin. We paid for nannies—female and aged past beauty so as not to fret our wives—to bounce him on their knees.

Though he moped in closets and beneath beds, he did so in Ralph Lauren jeans. He sobbed over shiny, new toys. He wept into real Cheerios, not the bagged Honey O’s our other kids ate.

Then we realized we were as significant as flies to him. We realized the only person Max desires is him, our lover. And isn’t that just goddamn peachy? Doesn’t that make him perfect for our neighborhood? It’s perhaps the only thing we truly have in common with our new son. We are prisoners of war, Max and us. We are monkeys in space. We are a goddamn school for the blind.

In the beginning, we accepted his pale skin and hair as another sign we couldn’t bring ourselves to believe in. We saw nothing and everything in him. We knew he reminded us of him, notably and at times horribly so, around the eyes. But as time passed, we wanted our wives to buy the kind of detergent that didn’t make our skin itch, and we thought that maybe, just maybe, we could make love to them. In the dark.

Max’s small, cold feet against our legs used to remind us of his small, cold feet against our legs. But then it was annoying, and then Max slept in guest rooms and then on couches and then on floors.

When we watch him fumbling under Sunday’s willow tree, we do not see the illusion the moon used to create of his hair—an incandescent halo, a glow and a light and a safety in a sign. We see our sins in each strand and they burn white.

We met on the sidewalk in front of our lover’s house.

We said that someday we would be forced to make difficult decisions, because an albino boy crossing lawns every evening with his blue backpack and orange teddy bear, is not exactly normal. But what could we do? Let the

Candice Morrow | 25

state have him? Erase any evidence that our lover ever existed in our arms, that we ever existed in him? Besides that, we have an obligation. We are fathers.

Last night when Sunday pulled out of his driveway in a loaded minivan, Max stood alone in the doorway of Sunday’s empty house.

Sunday’s wife blew Max a kiss. Max caught it and stuck it in his pocket.

The children fogged up a window and drew hearts in their breath. Goodbye.

So long.

Max, squinting, scanned the faces of our homes. Then he went inside Sunday’s house and closed the door.

The swing is winning—the boy tired, the stick broken. Max flings it into the street where Monday is likely to pick it up tomorrow. Max plants his feet and throws his fists into the tire. We should tell him passion does not equal victory, and we should know.

He limps over to the for-sale sign and rips it from the ground with the strength of seven men. Dirt rains down, and for a moment, this, earth’s confetti, surprises and delights him. His eyes widen.

Aw, there is our lover.

Now that it’s an option, Sunday having paved the way, who next will leave? Who will take a chance on life without our white noise, the sound that puts all others in perspective? Who will stay?

We should thank Max and release him, but we won’t. The remaining days will feed him and clothe him and teach him to throw baseballs and to play the system. To excel in school and in all things. To love a woman. To understand and to emanate goodness and fairness and forgiveness—above all forgiveness.

Because one day we will come to him on our knees.

26 | The Day Sunday Moved Away

Naked BRADLEY CONTENTO

wo obscene spoons lie in limpid mist at a sink’s moist corner. Resting bare atop a jagged metal netting of filthy strewn silverware, one balloons its bulbous curve into the other, gently enveloped while spines align. A fork’s skeletal silhouette, erect against the liquored moon’s fragile blush, injects syringe-prick shadows across the basin.

Rusty syrup grows crisp over the unpolished bed of blades. Yet the spoons linger lustrous, boldly unmolested, quiet like mushrooms. For the perch so perilous, to shift would mean a clatter into bedlam, severance’s rigid clink. So they hunker, beset by threats of faucet mouth dribbles, bodies seeming to fuse in the murky blur. For a moment, one naked spoon.

T

27

Killing Fairies MATTHEW CHENEY

I

met Jack at the end of my first year of college, a year that had begun in misery and ended in something else, though even now I’m not sure what to call it. Jack was two years ahead of me and like me was one of the few people in our program who wanted to be a playwright and not a screenwriter. He was six-foot-four, scarecrow thin, with short sandy blonde hair and green eyes that won all staring contests. We had our first conversation during the height of a frigid winter. This was back in the mid’90s, when you could still smoke inside buildings in New York City, and the smoking area for the Dramatic Writing Program at NYU was in a stairwell of the seventh floor of 721 Broadway, headquarters of all my shattered dreams. I regret I wasn’t a smoker—it would have been easier to make friends, easier to have the casual conversations that led to connections, especially since the stairwell was an egalitarian place where the distinctions between faculty and students disappeared; the only distinction was between those who were fond of nicotine and those who were not.

I ended up in the stairwell with Jack because we were continuing a conversation we’d begun in class. It was a class called, simply, “Cabaret”— we all wrote and then performed two cabaret shows during the semester.

Jack and I had somehow started talking about Arthur Miller, a playwright revered at DWP (he’d taught a course or two just before I enrolled). In class, I’d told Jack I thought Death of a Salesman was sentimental drivel, and he said he was thrilled to hear someone say that. Class ended, and we walked through the narrow DWP hallway to the stairwell, where a couple of other students nodded to Jack, though he paid no attention to them. As our evisceration of Miller’s entire career wound down, and as I told Jack for the third time that no, I didn’t need to bum a cigarette, he said, “So, tell me something about you I don’t know.”

“I’m left-handed,” I said.

“I know that,” he said.

“I’m from New Hampshire.”

“Everybody here knows that.”

“I used to read a lot of science fiction.”

“How cute.”

“What about you?” I said.

“Me?” “It’s only fair.”

28

“Fine,” he said, exhaling smoke. “I kill fairies.”

I’m sure my face displayed exactly what he wanted: wide-eyed shock.

“People give them to me,” Jack said. “Fairies. Plastic or glass. Dolls.

Icons. And every one of them, I smash with a hammer, or I cut off their hair and wings, or I throw them in front of the subway, or I bite their fucking heads off and spit them to the ground.”

Perhaps I chuckled nervously. More likely, I stood silent.

“You should come over sometime,” he said. “It’s fun. We can have a fairy-killing party.”

I had a dorm room to myself at that moment, a welcome relief after my first roommate. His name was T.C., which stood for Thomas Charles, but for some reason T.C. was considered more appropriate, or at least faster to say.

He came from a place that still holds a legendary aura in my mind, though I’ve never been there: Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which I imagine to be a Disneyland of medical specialists and corporate lawyers, a place where taste is not cultivated but bought, like everything else. No other such place could have produced a creature like T.C., a high-wire act of pointless energy and yammering self-involvement unhindered by self-reflection, the human apotheosis of gregarious kitsch.

He was, of course, a Musical Theatre major. Or not exactly a Musical Theatre major per se, because NYU’s acting program was broken into various studios—studios for people who wanted to study along the lines of the pioneers of American Method acting such as Stella Adler or Lee Strasberg, or who wanted to study experimental theatre, etc. Or who just wanted to sing and dance and be happy. T.C. was one of those creatures.

His favorite movie was one that had been released recently, The Mask, starring Jim Carrey’s face. “I am The Mask,” he told me the first day I met him, when we were hauling our stuff into a dorm room that was much smaller than either of us had planned for. He spent at least five minutes showing me all the great contortions his face would bear. Then he plugged in the TV he had brought with him and which was, I soon discovered, an extension of his being.

“I’ve memorized Charlie’s Angels,” he said. “Every episode.”

The show was on one of the New York stations in the afternoon, and when it came on, he demonstrated to me his skills, first by lip-synching, and then, to prove that he wasn’t just good at anticipating lip movements, by saying lines before they were uttered on the show.

I didn’t know how T.C. found enough time in his life to memorize every episode of Charlie’s Angels. If he had enjoyed solitude as much as I, then it would have made more sense, but he hated to be alone and he hated anything resembling quiet. People constantly came in and out of our little cinderblock room, and where we went, it seemed everyone knew T.C. During the first week, we did a lot together, trying to get to know the city and the school. We went out to cafés and clubs, and, because they were free,

Matthew Cheney | 29

to uninspiring NYU events. I fell into the habit of identifying myself as “T.C.’s roommate.” At a party somewhere in the dorm one night, a woman who was openly contemptuous of T.C. stopped me and said, “Why do you call yourself that? Why not just be you?”

“Because,” I said, “in T.C.’s world, you are defined by your relationship to him. And I am T.C.’s roommate.”

“Yeah, in T.C.’s world,” she said. “But it’s a pretty fucking empty world to be stuck in, don’t you think?”

I did, but I didn’t dare admit it. He’s fun, I’d say to anyone who asked me about him. He makes life more exciting. It’s better than being alone with myself. And I tried hard to believe it.

T.C. quickly managed to get a job at The Gap, a few blocks from our dorm. If he couldn’t be the Jim Carrey character in a musical version of The Mask, being an employee at The Gap seemed to him to be the best possible alternative. “They require us to wear their clothes,” he said, “and I told them they didn’t need to require me, because I already wear them, and all I want to do is wear them, because, my friend, I am a Gap Man.” Much was amazing about T.C., but perhaps the greatest amazement came when he told me, quite early on and quite emphatically, that though some people occasionally and thoughtlessly assumed he was gay, he was in fact one of the most heterosexual people I would ever meet. I don’t know what sort of heterosexual people he assumed I would meet in my life.

Perhaps in Cherry Hill, New Jersey an encyclopedic knowledge of Charlie’s Angels, an obsession with musical theatre, and a worship of The Gap are markers of macho, hetero virility. To a naïve boy from New Hampshire, they had been signs of something else.

Moments before T.C. came out as straight, I had been about to tell him I was gay. I decided to wait on that, and continued waiting when, soon after announcing his profound heterosexuality to me, he looked out the window and saw two men holding hands. “Why do they have to rub it in our faces?” he said. “They’re disgusting. They’re all disgusting. I mean, I know there are lots of gay people in the theatre, and I can live with that, but I really do wish they’d just die already.”

I had come to New York to be a playwright, and I had thought I would take the city by storm. Through the first semester at NYU, though, the city had stormed me more than I had stormed it. Once classes began and T.C. made friends at his studio, I was cut out of his life. I had expected to make lots of friends in the Dramatic Writing Program, but that didn’t happen. Most of the people in my classes wanted to write movies, and I thought only sellouts and hacks wrote movies. They would rhapsodize about the steam coming out of a manhole in Taxi Driver, while I wanted to write abstract plays that would give Samuel Beckett scholars a headache. Later, an attentive playwriting teacher would point out that everything I wrote, no matter how abstract or absurd, was about somebody torturing and

30 | Killing Fairies

inerrogating somebody else.

Those first months in New York were the loneliest of my life. I am not a person given to loneliness; I like solitude and privacy. The problem was that I had desperately wanted to escape New Hampshire and I had built up an idea of the city in my mind that made it into the opposite of everything I hated about my home. New York wasn’t a city, it was a savior—a mecca of culture and intelligence, a place where I, because of my own inherent sensitivity to culture and my, I thought, better-than-ordinary intelligence, would finally be recognized for the prince I was. I think I’d been reading too many science fiction stories, too many tales of awkward, unheralded people who possessed the secret that saved the universe. What I found was that New York was a mansion of locked rooms, a magical maze that defied all maps, a place one could get to know only by already knowing.

Guidebooks didn’t help, because no guidebook told me how to find the person who would recognize my genius and give me a fan club and a Pulitzer Prize. I should have explored the city more, but I mostly stayed within the small precincts of NYU, rarely venturing more than a few blocks away from Washington Square. Anything farther became terra incognita, the realm of dragons. I spent most of my time lurking in the Strand Bookstore and the NYU library, opening favorite books to familiar pages— revisiting these, my oldest friends.

I hadn’t the slightest idea how to make friends, because I’d never really had to make friends in my life. My friends had been the children of my parents’ friends, and we all went to school together. Friends, for me, had never been something to make; they were something that was just there, whether I wanted them to be or not.

Thus, after the first week, once T.C. realized I glittered about as well as a chunk of old cement, I had no one within three hundred miles who knew much of anything about me, or cared that I was alive. Even for someone invigorated by solitude and privacy, this is a lonely realization.

Things got better after a few months, once I had a job working for the AmeriCorps program at a high school on the Lower East Side, once I’d become at least a familiar face going to classes at 721 Broadway.

Disappointments and disillusions still swirled around me, but we’d grown familiar and even almost fond of each other.

The best things that happened, though, were that T.C. almost died and I got my own fag hag.

After six weeks of making friends with everyone in Manhattan, T.C. came down with jaundice, hepatitis, and mono. He left school for a few weeks to recover, and shortly after he came back he told me he’d found an open room at another dorm and would be moving into it. NYU’s housing office didn’t seem to pay any attention, and I had our room to myself for the rest of the school year.

Meanwhile, I had somehow attracted the interest of an ebullient sophomore in Dramatic Writing, a woman who aspired to write sit-coms,

Matthew Cheney | 31

and who came from the same town in New Jersey as Kevin Smith. “I know everybody in Clerks,” she told me. (I had no idea what Clerks was—the film had only hit theatres that month.) Her name was Melissa, and she talked faster than anybody I’d ever met in my life. Like T.C. (and, for all I could tell, everybody from New Jersey), she was a social extrovert, but she wasn’t as skilled as T.C. at attracting groupies. In fact, many people thought she was insane. Perhaps she was. Nonetheless, she was the only person who paid any attention to me, the only person who seemed to find my company enjoyable, and that counted for a lot.

“I’m your hag,” she said to me one day while we were walking up Waverly Place to Broadway.

“What?”

“Your fag hag.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, do you?” she said.

“Nope.”

“I’m like your boyfriend, but we don’t have sex. Because I’m straight and you’re gay. Which is hard to understand, because I have way more fashion sense than you and I’m much more of a diva, so maybe I’m a gay man in a straight woman’s body and you’re a straight woman in a gay man’s body, I mean that would make sense, don’t you think, unless it’s just that you’re from New Hampshire and they do strange things with moose there so even the gays are not like gay gays but more like, I don’t know, lesbians or something. Maybe I’m a lesbian. I’ve often wondered. I should experiment. They say college is for experimenting, so I think I should get a girlfriend. What do you think? Maybe you should get a girlfriend. Maybe I could be your girlfriend and we could experiment. But that wouldn’t make a lot of sense, though, because how could I be your hag if I was your girlfriend, and you need a hag much more than you need a girlfriend, so I think we should just stick with things as they are.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” I said.

Melissa was determined to turn my sexuality into an identity, something I had failed to achieve for myself. To signal my gayness, I tried to cultivate more effeminate behaviors, but I’ve always been more nerdy than effeminate, really. I attended a few meetings of the Tisch School of the Arts gay club, but it seemed to lack any purpose beyond the social, and any situation that lacks a purpose beyond socializing makes my personality hibernate. And the one fundamental element of homosexuality—the having sex with men part—frightened more than inspired me. There were guys I saw that I found attractive, but the attraction was more aesthetic than lustful. They were pleasant to look at and aroused in me a faint desire to be near them, but if any had offered to spend a night in bed with me, I would have been terrified, and my desires would have immediately shifted to revulsion because their bodies would produce odors and secretions and words.

32 | Killing Fairies

“What’s your ideal man?” Melissa asked me one night in her dorm room while we played Uno. (She loved Uno.) “A deaf-mute,” I said. “Blind, preferably.”

“You want to fuck Helen Keller’s twin brother? Ewww.”

“Don’t be prejudiced.”

“You don’t need a boyfriend, you need an inflatable doll.”

“Probably true.”

“We can get you one.”

“Thanks. No.” “Suit yourself…”

During my second semester at NYU, Jack and I started spending time together after the Cabaret class. Sometimes we’d go to a café with a few other people from the class and share gossip while drinking strong coffee, but usually it was just us, and usually nothing more than a fifteen-minute walk in Washington Square Park to finish a conversation we’d begun earlier. He always had somewhere to go, something to do in another part of the city. “Well, I’ve got to go this way,” he’d say, and then, “See you later.”

And I’d say, “See you later,” and he’d be gone, across the street or down into a subway station, lost in the crowd.

People were fascinated by Jack, but they were wary of him too. His sense of humor was sharp, and he cared too little for most people to protect them from its edges. But he wasn’t a performer; he didn’t seek out moments to display his wit, and most of the time he seemed indifferent, aloof. He had a disconnected presence, an ethereality. Conversations seemed to happen around him, not with him. I’ve met people similar to Jack over the years, but never quite the same, because everyone else like him has an arrogant, misanthropic streak—talking with them, you feel judged. It wasn’t that way with Jack. Once he chose to pay attention to something or someone, he’d done all the judging he needed to do.

But his attention carried no loyalty in it. I often felt that if I dropped dead in the midst of a conversation with him, he would shrug and move on to something else of interest. Life, he seemed to think, was too short to bother getting all worked up over.

And then one day in the spring he didn’t say, “See you later,” but, instead, “Show me your dorm room. I want to see what books you own.”

In my room, he stared in silence at the stacked milk cartons I used for bookshelves. “Kafka,” he said finally. “Glad to see that. One of Kafka’s stories, any one, is worth more than any play ever written. Büchner, excellent. Chekhov. You like Chekhov, it seems.”

“I took a class last term on Chekhov. It was great. I’d never understood how to really read him before, it just seemed—” “Why so much Brecht? I mean, who needs a copy of Saint Joan of the Stockyards?”

“They were cheap at The Strand.”

Matthew Cheney | 33

“But you’re never going to read them all.”

“I might.”

“No, you’re not. It will make you a terrible writer if you read that much Brecht. Read a few plays, his famous ones, read the poems and essays, and then move on and call it a phase and look back on it with nostalgia and shame.”

“Okay,” I said, mostly to get him to change to another topic.

“The Greeks, Shakespeare, Büchner, Chekhov, and Beckett. They’re the only playwrights you need to know. Well, plus some of the Japanese theatre, that’s important. A bit of Brecht to know why political theatre even at its best is shit.”

“No Americans?”

“Theatre in America is light entertainment for people who want easy emotion. There’s not a single American playwright who is as significant a writer as even our most middlebrow novelists. Steinbeck is more substantial than any American playwright, and I fucking hate Steinbeck.”

“Tennessee Williams?”

“Oh, please. Overwrought piffle. Self-conscious poeticizing like some angsty seventeen-year-old. Spare me.”

“He’s a gay icon.”

“So’re the Village People.”

“You’re hard to please.”

“Yes,” he said, moving closer to me. He put his arms around me. He kissed me. “If this were a campy movie,” he said, “you know what I’d say now?”

“What?”

“I like your taste.” He smiled and kissed me again.

And then he left, saying he had places to be, things to do, people to see, tra-la-la.

I stood without moving. Twilight inched in, shading everything grey. I sat down on the edge of my bed and cried. I pressed my fists into my eyes, then dragged ragged fingernails down my cheeks, then let myself slide to the floor.

If you asked me, I wouldn’t have been able to say why I was so devastated by Jack’s teasing, and I don’t think it had a whole lot to do with Jack directly—he was the catalyst, an icepick that found the fatal fissure in my defenses and, with just a little pressure, sent cracks cascading across my facade. New York had done me in.

“I’ve seen your place, now you need to see mine,” Jack said to me a few days later. We hadn’t talked in the time between, hadn’t even run into each other, though it’s not like I’d been wandering all over the city—mostly, I’d stayed in my room, writing a play about a misunderstood artist and his angst. The artist encounters a beautiful, mercurial young man, convinces him to be a model for a painting, captures his heart and soul, then

34 | Killing Fairies

sadistically kicks him out into the street and refuses ever to acknowledge his existence again. I finished a draft of the play and decided to get a sandwich at a deli a few blocks down from my dorm, and as I waited to cross the street, Jack walked up to me.

“Hi,” he said.

After writing for two days straight without much sleep, I was not capable of quickly negotiating social interactions in the real world, but I managed to remember the word “Hello” and to say it.

“Feeling okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “Fine.”

“What are you doing right now?”

“Standing on a sidewalk with you,” I said.

“Perfect. Let’s go to my dorm.”

There are many things I should have said to him then. Some of them were things I had written a thousand variations of as I worked through my new play, dreadful lines like, “What, you want a quick kiss and then goodbye again? You want to feel powerful over a puppet—over me, your little toy?” I knew such words were overwrought and melodramatic, but I’d needed to write them. I couldn’t say them, though. Not in real life. Not without stage lights and makeup and hours of rehearsal.

“Sure,” I said. “Okay. I mean, I don’t have a lot of time. I just. Well.

Yeah.”

“Do I need to kiss you again?” he said, then smiled. “Come on, it’ll be fun, I promise.” He grabbed my arm and led me up Broadway.

Jack had a single in Third Avenue North, one of the newer dorms at NYU (and the dorm to which T.C. had moved). I could never get a sense of the building’s actual size—it was like a couple of giant boxes pressed together, with stores and hair salons on the ground floor, and then dorm floors dominated by the antiseptic decor de rigueur in 1990s institutional design, muddling the differences between midscale hotels and university dorm rooms and psychiatric wards.

Jack’s room had just enough space for a bed and a desk. A window the size of a license plate offered some sunlight. The room was a mess—clothes and books everywhere, tapes and CDs scattered across it all.

“Pardon the conflagration,” Jack said. “Housekeeping is for people who have nothing interesting to do with their lives. Move anything out of the way that you need to.”

I was feeling brave, so I pushed a pair of jeans off his bed and sat down.

Jack handed me a pink cardboard gift box big enough to hold a terrier. I remember the box seeming terribly light, as if even its cardboard didn’t weigh anything.

“A box of fairies,” he said.

I opened the hinged top and peered inside. Dozens and dozens of

Matthew Cheney | 35

fairies—plastic, cloth, porcelain, glass; blue, yellow, green, white, pink; piled atop each other —looked up at me.

Jack’s hand darted into the box and pulled out a plastic figurine so fulsome with cuteness it would likely even nauseate people who collect Thomas Kincaid paintings. Its hair was bright blonde with streaks of silver, its eyes were giant blue sparkles, its scarlet lips were puckered, giving the face an absurd come-hither undertone that was probably meant to look like sweet innocence. Its thin, breastless body had a lime-green dress painted on it that made the figure look almost like a mermaid clothed in radioactive seaweed.

“Let the fun begin,” Jack said. He held a hammer in his other hand.

Jack kneeled beside me on the bed and placed the fairy up against the cinderblock wall. He cackled as he smashed first the fairy’s left arm, then its right leg, its right arm, left leg, torso, and, finally, holding the head by the hair, its face. Splinters and shards of fairy fell to the bed and floor. By the end, I was cackling, too.

We killed the entire box of fairies that afternoon and evening. Now and then, we’d pause to talk about something or other, nothing memorable. At the end of it all, leaving the room littered with the specks and splinters of our fun, we went out for a celebratory feast at a Thai restaurant half-way between my dorm and Jack’s. I thought he’d invite me back to his room afterward, and that there would be another kiss, and more than a kiss. But no. We split the bill for our food, and outside the restaurant, Jack gave me a quick peck on the cheek and a slap on the ass. “See you around,” he said, and dashed off into the night.

“He’s going to become a serial killer,” Melissa said to me after I’d told her about my escapades with Jack. “I’ve known him longer than you and long before you told me about any of this, I thought he was likely to climb to the top of a tall building and start shooting people with a high-powered rifle, and now I’m absolutely certain of it, though I’m going to revise my opinion of exactly what sort of psychopathic behavior he will display and instead say I expect, as someone who has taken an abnormal psychology class, that what he’ll become (if he isn’t already) is a stalker and killer of women, probably by capturing them, holding them up against a wall, and beating them with a hammer, that seems obvious, why are you hanging out with him?”

We were sitting in her room, trying to figure out what to do with the evening.

“He’s fun. He’s smart—” “Do you hate women?”

“No.” “Because some gay men are awful misogynists. They think to be gay they have to be repulsed by vaginas. You’re not repulsed by vaginas, are you? Because if you are, I can’t, obviously, spend time with you, because,

36 | Killing Fairies

in case you hadn’t considered it, I have a vagina.”

“No, I don’t mind vaginas.”

“You just don’t want to put your dick in one.”

“Not really. Not right now, at least.”

“Do you want to put your dick in Jack? Or have his dick in you? Or his dick with your dick and your dick with his dick and—” “No.” “You’re lying.”

“Possibly,” I said. “I don’t know. I mean, yes, I hoped, when I sat on his bed, and after we had dinner, I hoped that we would…I hoped something might happen. It might be fun, you know?”

“Of course! It’s sex! Sex is supposed to be fun! It’s supposed to be more than fun—it’s supposed to be ecstatic and transcendent and dirty and wonderful and—” “Right.”

“But not with Jack. Jack is a menace to society, and one day the FBI will have an entire section of the Behavioral Analysis Unit devoted to him, and they’ll write about him in textbooks and teach him as a case study in classes at Quantico, and if you have sex with him, then they’ll be studying you, too, and I don’t think that’s the kind of fame you want for your future, do you?”

“Probably not.”

“Definitely not. So give up on him. I’m going to watch Friends, have you seen Friends, it’s fabulous, it’s the story of my life, except it’s not, because it’s like a fantasy New York where all the people are pretty and white and funny, so it’s like perfect in a sort of Aryan Nation kind of way, but pro-Jew. Watch—” She turned the TV on, and, though I stared at the screen, none of the images or sounds penetrated my brain, since my brain was too busy thinking about Jack.

Years later, though, whenever I happened upon a stray episode of Friends, I’d think of Melissa, and wonder what sort of fantasy world she’d ended up in.

For our first cabaret performance, I cast Jack in a skit I’d written that made fun of Trent Reznor and, by some extension, myself. I’d been turned on to the music of Nine Inch Nails by a high school friend, and I found its loud, violent, self-pitying bleakness to be the perfect soundtrack for my New York days (it helped that Trent Reznor’s voice seemed to me then just about the sexiest thing in the world). My skit had Trent talking with his agent about problems with his new album—he was struggling to come up with appropriately miserable songs, because his life was going quite well, and everything he wrote came out like a Hallmark card. Jack played the agent and proved himself an excellent straight man.

Outside of the class, I only spent time with Jack once. After a

Matthew Cheney | 37

brainstorming session about possible skits for the second show, Jack stopped me in the smoker’s stairwell, grabbing my arm and pulling me close to him. “I’m ready to let you see something,” he whispered.

“Something important. Come over tonight.”

I hesitated. I’d begun to enjoy having distance from him. Life seemed comprehensible, even manageable if I kept him away. Without him, my mood swings had settled into mere mood sways, and I had little desire to return to a life of grand hopes and megaton hurts.

“Please,” he said, letting go of my arm.

I didn’t resist.

Jack turned the lights off in his room. He held a grey metal cashbox and sat next to me on the bed. He opened the box.

“Do you see anything?” he said.

I looked inside. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I made out some sort of amorphous shadow-shape in the box.

“Watch,” Jack said. He moved his hand toward the shadow. The shadow shifted and a weak blue light flared briefly.

“I’ve almost killed it,” Jack said. “It’s been centuries, but I think, now, perhaps…”

I reached my hand toward the box, but Jack closed it quickly. “No,” he said. “It will…feed.”

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“They live off us. It’s why they say we can’t kill them. They can kill us—they do kill us—but because we value our lives, most of us won’t do what seems most obviously to kill them. But I think I’ve finally found another way.”

“But what is it, in the box I mean?”

“By day, by light it looks a bit like a worm. A dusty worm. In darkness, though, if they want to feed, they reveal their actual form.”

“Can I see it again?” I asked gently.

“Don’t try to touch it,” Jack said.

“Okay.”

He lifted the lid of the box. My eyes were used to the darkness now, and the shadow seemed more defined. It looked like one of Jack’s figurines, but more delicate, silken. Like a tiny child crossed with a dragonfly.

Perhaps, though, I was just making sense of a meaningless shape, perhaps there was nothing in there at all. I didn’t see any more light. I saw what Jack wanted me to see.

“How do you kill them?” I said. “With a hammer?”

“No no. That doesn’t hurt them. I’ve tried. I even shot it once. With a handgun, a .44 magnum. Useless. They love the attention. That’s what I discovered. Everybody thinks you have to love fairies to keep them alive, but that’s not true. Any attention works. I expect hatred—pure hatred—is their favorite meal. It’s so rare. Pity sometimes, yes, and joy and happiness.

38 | Killing Fairies

They get those a lot. But absolute hatred, not much. It must be a wonderful treat. Invigorating.”

“So you just ignore it.”

“Yes. They never leave you alone. They scream through the night.

Laugh, cry, everything. They know every trick to get us to pay attention to them. And then they suck us dry. It took me so, so long, but now I don’t care about them, one way or another. Not the real ones, this one. I just leave it in this box. One day, the dust will smother it. A year, a hundred years. I don’t care. It’ll be dead. And I’ll be free, then. Finally.”

He closed the box, set it on the floor, and pushed it under the bed with the side of his foot. He leaned over to me and kissed me on the cheek, then the lips. He put a hand on my leg. We lay down on the bed, our hands moving beneath each other’s clothes. My tongue touched tears on his lips.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We can’t.”

He stood up and moved to the other side of the room. “You should go,” he said.

I wanted to scream a thousand melodramatic monologues at him, but could only squeak out a word: “Why?” “I like you a lot,” he said. “I do. I wish we could do this, what we’re doing. But I’m not free. Not yet. Please. Wait for me. I promise I’ll—” But he couldn’t keep speaking.

“Please,” he said after a long time. “You should go.”

I stood up, buttoned my pants, tucked in my shirt, and walked out into the night.

During the days after that night, my brain burst with questions for Jack, but I never asked him any. During the nights after that night, I cried myself to sleep more often than not. By daylight, I spent a lot of energy fighting off self-pity; by night, the effort hardly seemed worth it, because who, after all, was there to pity me if I didn’t do it myself? I figured Jack got some sort of erotic excitement from teasing me, some kind of sadomasochistic pleasure from letting me get close then pushing me away. Once I’d stopped paying him the sort of attention he desired, once I’d stopped returning after being pushed away, he came up with the fairy story to bring me back. It worked.

We saw each other during class, but we never had a conversation. I hadn’t cast him in my skit for the second cabaret show, nor had he cast me in his, so we didn’t need to work together during rehearsals.

I didn’t tell Melissa the details of what Jack had done, because I felt embarrassed about it all somehow. For a moment or two, I’d believed what Jack had said about what was in the metal box. I’d convinced myself that there was a light there. I’d convinced myself that the shadow was something other than a shadow, something that could, in fact, somehow, enslave him.

An hour later, I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been, but in the moment, I’d believed.

I did tell Melissa, though, that I wasn’t really on speaking terms with

Matthew Cheney | 39

Jack anymore. “What happened?” she said, eyes wide with hunger for gossip, as we sat on her bed reading scripts we’d been working on for our different classes.

“Nothing happened,” I said. “I just realized he’s an asshole.”

“Hooray! You came to your senses!”

“Or something.”

“We’ll find you a boyfriend, don’t worry.”

“I don’t want a boyfriend,” I said.

“Of course you do. Everybody wants a boyfriend. Or at least a fuckbuddy. Do you want a fuckbuddy?”

“No,” I said. “What I really want, I mean honestly, right now, what I want is to become a monk and live in a monastery.”

“You’d have to have some sort of religion. They pray all day. It’s central to the job description.”

“I know. That’s the problem.”

“I’m going to write a sitcom about you. I mean, your character will have to be straight, because, you know, even though Billy Crystal’s character in Soap broke all sorts of new ground, the ground’s gotten pretty hard—pardon the pun—and network executives are just not going to accept a gay main character, especially if he ever had sex, which is kind of the whole point of our show, or the Macguffin at least, kind of like who killed Laura Palmer, so I think we’ll just have to give in to the realities of commercial television and make you heterosexual, though you can still be adorably geeky, of course, because really, that’s your selling point.”

“Thanks,” I said, inching my way toward the door.

“You’ll be the lonely neighbor that everybody’s kind of wary of, and I’ll be the Jewish-mother-in-training who lives upstairs and bakes you latkes and hires a matchmaker and inevitably has the perfect yiddishism for the moment and—I’ve got to go write this down! It’ll be like The Nanny, but cuddly!”

As the audience was settling in to our second cabaret show, Jack sneaked up behind me backstage and whispered, “I’m working on getting you proof.”

I turned around and nearly punched him, mostly from surprise.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m grateful to you,” he said. “For, well, everything. I’d wanted things to be different. But it’s not all going according to plan. I need a lot more time than I thought. So I’m going to give you some proof of my affections.

And proof of—well, fairies come in all sorts of different guises, you know.”

Then the show began.

Afterward, as I was getting out of costume (the last skit I performed in had required me to wear a giant red velvet dress), I glanced through the curtain that separated the backstage area from the audience and saw Jack talking with somebody near the door.

It was T.C. They were laughing. Jack’s eyes radiated adoration.

40 | Killing Fairies

I didn’t stop staring until T.C. took Jack’s hand and led him out of the little theatre.

I never saw either of them again.

Jack didn’t return to NYU in the fall, and nobody I asked knew anything about him. What happened to T.C., though, everybody knew. I didn’t hear about it until I got back to school, because I didn’t have any final exams at the end of my freshman year, so I had gone home earlier than most students.

Melissa, of course, was the one to tell me. “Sorry about your roommate,” she said.

I thought she was talking about my current roommate, a club kid who spent more time going to the Limelight than classes.

“Did the police raid the clubs again?”

“What? No, not Danny. You don’t know?”

“What?”

“T.C.” “Oh. Yeah, him and Jack. They were made for each other. I always thought he was—” “No no no.” I’d never seen her look so serious and disturbed.

“What?”

“Oh god, you don’t know. T.C.’s dead. He jumped off the roof of Third Avenue North at the end of last year.”

I don’t remember how I responded. After that moment, I don’t really remember anything from the beginning of my sophomore year.

I didn’t see Melissa much after that. I had joined the NYU environmental club, and we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to be radical environmental activists in New York City. I look back at that time with amusement and fondness; we were ridiculous, going to protests at corporate headquarters, dreaming of trees to chain ourselves to, but it was a good ridiculousness, entirely appropriate for college kids. It gave me a solid group of friends, we had something to believe in, and our adventures helped the rest of my time in New York be less lonely and agonizing.

I knew I was in the wrong place, though. I didn’t really want to enter the world of professional New York theatre. I didn’t know what I wanted.

My disillusionment was complete. I transferred to the University of New Hampshire as a senior, and enjoyed that year more than most of my time at NYU. After college, I got a job teaching English and theatre at a boarding school in central New Hampshire, and teaching satisfied me in ways the quest for fame and fortune never had.

Now and then I thought about Jack and about T.C., but less and less as the years went on. I was too busy with work to think about events I didn’t understand; too busy to bother with such complicated love. Sometimes at night, though, real loneliness hit me hard, and I indulged insomnia with wild imaginings about proof and affection.

Three years after I started teaching, I received a postcard of Aubrey

Matthew Cheney | 41

Beardsley’s drawing “Withered Spring.” On the back, a simple note: Why do you always go around wearing black?

Love, Saint Joan of the Stockyards The question, famously, comes from Chekhov’s The Seagull, where Masha’s answer is: “I am in mourning for my life.”

I’m generally contemptuous of celibate people who say they’re saving themselves for just the right person, but, like so much else, my contempt is probably an extension of self-hatred.

I’m not sure I believe that, though. I’m not sure what I believe.

No, that’s wrong. I believe a lot of things.

I know, for instance, that I believe in fairies.

I know because I’m still waiting for one to die.

42 | Killing Fairies

Nascent Iodine KATHRYN MICHAEL MCMAHON

Monday

A

ddie had just laid the wedding portrait on the bed when something sloshed in the teapot. The fan pivoted twice past her before she edged to the dresser where the teapot sat beside a clean mug. It sloshed again.

Then the lid wobbled off and Addie caught it as a squid climbed out.

Addie stepped backwards and sat on the framed photo of her and Viv. She shot up right away, staggering between safety and surprise, and the glass survived.

The squid wasn’t big, maybe half the size of her palm. Its skin pulsed and a pattern of roses erupted over it accompanied by a trio of dappled butterflies, all edged in gold. Apparently, the squid had her grandmother’s penchant for hot drinks in summer as well as her taste in china, while Viv had always made fun of Addie for keeping it. Addie raked bony fingers through short blond ringlets, half-grown out since June and damp from the Washington humidity. It must’ve come from the tea she’d bought yesterday at the Dupont Circle farmer’s market, dragging Viv with her as they took a break from moving.

Kelp tea, high in nutrients, the salesman with the boater hat had told them, twirling the inky black tips of his mustache.

Like iodine, good for babies, Addie had thought, washed in a tide of hormones, her fallopian tubes curling towards a toddler ambling away from his mother. Viv wanted to wait to have children. After all, they didn’t even know how long they’d be in DC for and she didn’t want to drag kids around, army-brat style, the way she’d been raised. Couldn’t Addie wait?

She tossed money on the table and picked up a brown paper bag of powdered seaweed.

It’s called Konbu-cha—not kombucha, the man added, looking at Viv like she ought to know. Addie bit her bottom lip, watching as Viv’s nostrils flared and she informed the idiot that she was fourth generation Chinese American, why in the hell did he think she should speak Japanese? And the man withdrew into his straw hat.

Addie took a pencil from her checklist and poked the squid with the eraser. It hooked itself around the shaft and she extracted it from the teapot.

The squid changed and iridescence streamed over freckled skin as the suckers on its dancing tentacles gleamed with mother of pearl. It twisted to get a better view of her, modestly concealing its mouth. She prodded at the

43

body with her finger. Though not completely soft beneath its mantle, it was as slippery as she had imagined. If she’d still been teaching second graders, she would have hunted down a Tupperware container right then.

The squid untangled itself and dropped back into the still hot teapot.

She should get her camera. Addie turned away, but froze mid-step. If she were going crazy, she didn’t want the proof. She picked up the teapot and carried it down the stairs, dark from windowless walls shared with other townhouses, so unlike the Ardmore home they’d rented while Viv went from law school to legal aide in Philadelphia and Addie taught at a Montessori school on the Mainline.

Viv had been eager for her to find a teaching position in DC. That morning, shower-wet hair slid over Addie’s pillow to her cheek as Viv kissed her temple and said, “I’m off to fight fascists. The conference ends Thursday and I’ll be back sometime in the evening. I love you.” Addie rolled over and Viv bent to her lips. “And don’t worry about unpacking, babe. Please, please, please keep looking for a job. It’s almost fall.” But the idea of even another year of teaching exhausted Addie and she sunk back into her pillow.

In the kitchen, the squid thread one of its longer tentacles through the fluted spout as if to observe where she’d taken it. What did it need? More salt? She rummaged through the boxes that Viv, unsurprisingly, had mislabeled. She found the shaker, but when she lifted the lid, the squid inked and slipped into the dark. Maybe not. Sugar? She popped open the canister and sprinkled some inside. The squid’s freckles flared into bright spots of bioluminescence and it jetted through the inky tea, sending waves of violet bubbles cresting over the top.

Addie swiped at a trickle and picked up the teapot. The squid slowed.

She set it back down and rinsed instant coffee sludge out of Viv’s mug.

Hands shaking, she poured blue-black liquid inside. Sea salt vapor bit at her eyes as she sipped. Like roasted Marcona almonds. Her ears popped. The taste hummed through her, dragging her down into herself where her soul was wrapped up in Stygian blue.

With a splash, the squid hurtled out of the teapot and landed on her bare shoulder. Addie reached up and stroked it, leaning over the sink as black water ran down her arm, missing a chance to Rorschach her white camisole.

Suckers vibrated against her neck as ten tentacles explored the silver rings in her earlobe. She quivered from the rush, but it was too intimate and with a gasp, she pulled it away. This time it had mimicked her blond curls and for a moment Addie thought she might have scalped herself, but then the squid shuddered back to iridescence.

It must need to eat. There was nothing in the house but bread, peanut butter, and maybe a bag of M&Ms, if Viv hadn’t swiped them for her flight.

Suitable for a vegetarian, but not for a predator. She plopped the squid into the travel mug her last class had given her bearing We love Ms. Clarke! looped in cursive under their class photo. She wished she had another,

44 | Nascent Iodine

plainer one. She grabbed sunglasses and keys and pocketed a few twenties.

Heat blasted into her, muggy air sucking at her skin with invisible mouths.

Sweat coursed down her back into denim cutoffs already rimmed with salt.

Row houses flicked past, gray and yellow between patriotic shades.

Addie followed Seventeenth Street to Corcoran where Viv said locals had nicknamed the store the “Soviet” Safeway. She paused below the air conditioner vent, unclinging her camisole and stretching it out behind her, then hurried through and bought the last can of tuna in water. Outside, she scanned around, but no one was looking, so she peeled back the lid and flicked tuna into the mug. Fins beating, eyes staring, the squid scooped up flakes of protein.

As the squid finished the can, Addie’s stomach growled. It was nearly noon and Viv would have been annoyed to know she hadn’t eaten anything yet. She’d passed a vegetarian food truck, but what she was really craving at this time of the month was iron. She swallowed the lingering taste of ink and it hummed through her. Vegetarian or not, no one knew her in this city; no one would catch her slipping and judge her for consuming red meat.

Alone, but giddy, Addie laughed, and two gray-haired black women hurried away with their groceries.

Addie flushed and wished she had her own mug to dive into. But then came the smell of grilled buns and onions on the wind. Addie found the source in a dive a few blocks away. She plunked into a cracked vinyl booth with the requisite sticky table smeared with ketchup, but the menu itself offered too many precarious combinations. She didn’t want kimchi or a patty sandwiched between glazed donuts. She ordered the all-American with cheddar and fried pickles on the side from the ponytailed teenager skating around.

The burger arrived and she devoured it, classic and correct, oozing mustard down her throat and out the sides of her mouth. She opened the mug and dropped a crumb of beef inside, but the squid ignored it and camouflaged itself as a bottle of sriracha. Maybe it was full.

Addie had fished out the meat and balled it into a napkin when a shadow appeared between the door and the bright outside, somehow familiar. The tea salesman approached in yesterday’s red and white striped boater hat and jacket and Addie wrapped thin hands around the mug in a protective membrane. The oily black mustache stopped in front of her booth.

He eyed her mug. “Is that the konbu—kelp—tea?”

“Just Earl Grey.” She sipped, hoping he couldn’t hear the humming within her.

Mustache looked like he wanted to ask more, but he only muttered, “Farewell,” and bowed slightly before gliding back into the heat.

He’d come for the squid, she was certain. He can’t have it, it’s mine.

Addie pushed away the remaining fried pickles and sipped her squid tea,

Kathryn Michael McMahon | 45

closing her eyes as the hum built through her. Dizzy, she stood and fished out her cash, leaving an eleven dollar tip for an eight dollar burger plus tax.

In the sun, the portal to the sea beneath her skin came uncorked and even her feet were sweating, the pavement radiating heat up through her sandals. She stopped for iced tea at a bookshop on Connecticut Avenue and a glimpse of the shady park at Dupont Circle drew her to it.

If Viv were there, Addie would have felt safe on the bench, bolstered by the company and perhaps her legs draped over Viv’s lap. Viv would’ve commented on the passersby and Addie would have nodded or laughed, always encouraging. Addie had put Viv through law school and she’d gotten her degree and now the lobbyist dream job while Addie drifted in her wake, out of gas. So why should she feel guilty for taking a few weeks off work?

If she could eat a hamburger, she could sit on a park bench. She skipped like a stone across the current of Circle traffic. The fountain slopped, boiling falsely, but the heat from the marble and concrete was real and Addie stayed in the shade, shifting carefully over the wooden slats to avoid splinters, then wedged the mug between her knees. The squid pushed a tentacle out of the hole on the lid and Addie plugged it with her pinky.

In the fountain, water fell above the heads of three carved figures. One, a woman, faced her, holding a ship and crushing a dolphin under her foot as a seagull alighted on her shoulder.

Addie took a sip of her cold, real Earl Grey, set it beside her and peeled the silicone top off the squid’s mug. “Sorry,” she murmured to the squirming animal. “I can’t lose you in the fountain, nor can I let anyone see you.” The squid’s eyes shone like wishing coins underwater and it had tried to camouflage itself like the children in the mug’s photo, except it had only managed to look like an embryo, red arteries mapped out across its mantle.

She sealed the mug and leaned back onto the bench to watch a three-yearold chase his older sister around. The hum in her rose, became an ache.

She people watched. If Viv were there, she would have chatted to them, the Californian in her unabashedly reaching out. But most of the people Addie could look in the eye were in second grade. Addie sighed, watching a pair of white, college-aged butches on the ledge of the fountain laugh into the sun, knees touching.

She had met Viv in work study their first year at Bryn Mawr, de-sexed in dining hall aprons and ball caps as the kitchen whipped round them like a high calorie hurricane. Viv learned she liked to cook, while Addie swiped ID cards and watched her and found she could finally lift her head and look at another human. Together, swarmed by a teuthoidean sea monster of college experiences, they explored hair lengths and political views. They came out, Addie to pursed New England lips, Viv to no one who hadn’t already guessed, but she didn’t care, and spinning with the joy of vicarious outrage, majored in sociology. The maelstrom never left Viv and Addie

46 | Nascent Iodine

stayed caught like a pail of water swung round by some polar centrifugal force; love or the habit of loyalty.

Two Latino men walked by, one pushing a stroller, the other cradling an infant, and her uterus convulsed. How long had they waited? Hers and Viv’s plan for babies kept changing. It used to be next year, next year. Then it became in two years after Addie had agreed to move to DC, towed by Viv’s career.

A shadow brimmed across her lap and Addie stiffened.

“Two teas?” asked Mustache. Neat, round incisions covered his hands as if something tentacled had nibbled them. He saw her looking and flicked them behind his back.

“This cup isn’t mine.”

“Oh, but it is. I watched you buy it, Adelaide. I saw you carrying it, drinking out of it.”

The hum in her belly flattened into a chill.

The dads with the stroller rolled up. “Is this man bothering you?” asked the man with the baby.

Mustache scurried away. Addie stood and forced herself to meet their eyes. “Thank you?”

The men showed off their new daughter, but their words slid around Addie as she took the baby girl in her arms. Her body sung.

On her way home, she passed a parade of parents collecting their summer-schoolers. She could have gone online, found out if the school was hiring. But Addie had taught for eight years and she didn’t want to go back; she wanted to nest.

In the house, she returned to unpacking and her phone rang. “Viv?” “Hey babe! I’m in Boston. It’s so full of queers here. I’ve done so much networking, I can’t even tell you. Maybe we should’ve moved here first. Oh well. Anyway, I’ve got news for you.”

“Oh?” “I sat next to this woman on the flight and she’s a principal at a private elementary school in our neighborhood and she says they are still looking for one more teacher! I got an interview set up for you this Wednesday.

Write this down. It’s at 9:30 on the corner of...” Viv’s voice disappeared as every part of Addie clenched.

The doorbell chimed, strange in their new home. “Someone’s here.

Love you. Bye.” Addie should’ve looked through the peephole. Mustache stood outside her door wringing his hands in front of left behind pots of marigolds and begonias.

Addie kept the chain on. Heat whispered itself inside the house as she peeked out at his pink-rimmed eyes.

“Can you help me? I don’t know what to do. I’ve forgotten everything I ever cared about. Tell me, where do I go from here?”

His head was oddly blond. “Where’s your hat?”

Kathryn Michael McMahon | 47

“What does it matter?” He huffed. “I need the squid. This is my life we’re talking about!” Just behind him, the hat blew past and, as if sensing it, he turned and propelled himself back down the steps, his mustache stiff against the wind as he chased the red and white ribbon beckoning him down the street.

Addie yanked the door shut. Cool air flowed around her as she picked her way through cardboard stacks to the yellow laminate countertop in the kitchen where the squid sloshed, contained. Had Mustache’s mustache been blond once? She poured the contents of the travel mug into a water glass and held it up to afternoon light foiling the curtains.

Oily rainbows shimmered through liquid dark enough to hide behind.

She sniffed. Delicious madness. She closed her eyes and drank and when she looked down, she’d taken out her phone and was calling a Maryland number.

Reading the name, she slipped into a moment of ice, but hung on.

Thursday The mail has arrived, but Addie squats on the stoop, sunburned, shuffling pots and deadheading flowers as late afternoon sops her up and she waits for a special delivery. A truck pulls up and a man in a blue uniform skips up the steps. It’s Mustache, bald and bare-faced. He hands a package to her and she notices the marks on his skin have healed. “Good luck,” he says and saunters back to the truck. For a moment, she’s terrified the package is actually from him.

But inside, she opens it and it’s been properly sealed by the cryobank.

She reads instructions she has already memorized from the website. She pulls on yellow dishwashing gloves and opens the canister, freeing smoke rings of frozen air that unfurl from a vial.

The vial takes thirty minutes to thaw in her glove. The squid pushes out of the teapot, watching her, siphoning comprehension. She takes a swig from a cup of salty tea. Then she removes the glove to further warm the vial, holding in her hand a specimen of twenty-something, collegeeducated, five-foot-eleven Chinese-American man juice.

With a needleless syringe, she draws the sperm out of the vial and carries it upstairs to the bedroom. There she lays it on the nightstand on her side of the bed and picks up the pillows, plumping them, setting them in the middle of the bed beneath where she has hung the wedding portrait.

In the photo, it is green Pennsylvania spring behind their white dresses.

Viv stands in fluid damask draped simply and cut to her knees, a red gecko tattooed on her ankle. A breeze pulls at Addie’s layers of fairy-wing organza, pooling them behind her, floating them across her chest and shoulders. She just might fly away, except she is clasping hands with Viv, anchored. A microsmile hovers on her lips while Viv grins. After four

48 | Nascent Iodine

years, Viv’s mouth is not as soft as it was and it doesn’t stretch as far at the corners while Addie’s looks remain unchanged, stuck, but for her conspiring cells.

She lays towels over the pillows to catch extra liquid, strips, plucks up the syringe, and crawls onto the bed. She lies with her hips on the pillows and reaches inside of her, exploring territory Viv knows best. Addie finds what should be her cervix, round and smooth, and guides the syringe in. She releases the sperm and feels almost nothing as it squirts. She stays there, funneling blood to her head and sperm to the ovum suspended somewhere inside, ready, waiting for just this, like the rest of her.

Semen drips out of her, caught on the towel. What if she didn’t squeeze it in high enough? The instructions recommended an orgasm, claiming that the contractions help lift the sperm. But orgasms are Viv’s job. It’s been a while since she tried by herself and she’s out of practice, but she gets there.

In two weeks she’ll know if it worked.

She pulls the sheets free of the bed to wash before Viv returns later.

Downstairs, she makes a grocery list and pours the last of the konbu-cha down the drain. She puts the squid outside between two pink begonias and it thrashes its arms and scampers behind a pot. She walks to the supermarket, not wanting to be there when Mustache takes the squid away.

Dusk drops on the wings of mosquitoes and fireflies. Viv walks in, her suitcase smacking the hall door. Addie stops folding laundry on the newly cleared sofa to go and kiss her wife. But Viv returns it dry and lifeless.

“What’s wrong?”

Viv kicks the suitcase across the oak floor. “You didn’t go to the interview, did you?”

Her chest pinches. “You checked up on me?”

“I had to! You haven’t found a job yet. You haven’t even been looking, have you? How can I trust you?”

Addie wonders the same as she slams the door. The streetlights have come on and trees bloom alien yellow. She sits on the front stoop and her tears sparkle with firefly glow. Inside, Viv clatters the kitchen to bits, finding the pots and pans she needs to make dinner; to soothe herself. It’s never fair how quick she angers or how fast it drains away. Meanwhile, Addie feels flash-fried.

She kneels and the gravel in the cement burrows into her skin. She shoves terracotta pots out of the way looking for the squid, but all she finds are glimmering slug trails until she notices inky, fetus-shaped blotches leading up to the house and chases after them.

They dot the floor all the way to the kitchen where a wooden chopping board is streaked with parsley and the air is pungent with garlic and butter, spry with lemon. Viv stops sautéing and comes over all smiles, black hair flapping across her shoulders, and kisses Addie’s forehead.

Kathryn Michael McMahon | 49

“Babe, what do you call a lesbian squid?” Viv pauses for her to guess and returns to the sizzling food, picking up a spatula. Around her, tendrils of steam curl delicately nutty.

Addie’s knees have locked.

“A Sappho-lopod. Get it? Thanks for getting the calamari, sweetie.

Though next time, buy more than one because the tentacles just get thrown out and you know how much I eat. Want to try a teeny tiny bite of my risotto nero? Here, look how dark it is, like Lovecraft’s brain. And you know, if you need to wait a few months, or switch careers, that’s fine. Let’s just talk, okay? I want to know what’s going on inside of you. Babe?”

Wrapped in blue-black, an answer swims up to Addie. “I’m pregnant,” she says, holding the whisk of a dream.

50 | Nascent Iodine

Physical Therapy JAMES R. GAPINSKI

fter four weeks of physical therapy, Oliver’s knee pain wasn’t getting any better. He still woke with pain every day, and a steady throb lulled him to sleep. Every time he moved, the joint buckled. The tendons slipped over each other, twisted like drunkards. No noticeable improvement, despite the physical therapist’s insistence that “Your range of motion is so much better” or “Your balance is good today” or other unquantifiable bullshit.

The therapist pretended to listen to Oliver’s concerns, then set him up on the same exercise machine from yesterday’s session—a stupid pulley system that put stress in all the wrong places. “It may be uncomfortable, but that means the exercises are working.” More bullshit.

Oliver tangled himself in the contraption while the physical therapist welcomed another patient. Oliver hadn’t seen the guy before, but he was cute. Maybe a little too corporate-looking—gelled hair, nice shoes, gold watch—but still not bad. The physical therapist gave the new guy some tiny dumbbells and showed him a couple overhead maneuvers. The cute guy winced and rubbed his left shoulder. Oliver finished on the weird pulleys and walked over. “Hey, surgery or injury?” he asked.

“Injury. AC joint separation,” the guy said. He looked upward, avoiding eye contact. Oliver leaned against the wall to take some weight off his knee.

“I’ve got tendon damage. Poor patellar tracking. A couple pins. The works,” Oliver said.

“Oh, okay,” the guy mumbled.

“So who’s your doctor?” Oliver asked.

“I don’t know. Dr. M-something.”

“Mollrich?”

“Sure.”

“Me too!” Oliver was excited for some common ground. He sprung from his position on the wall, eager to discuss Dr. Mollrich’s bad breath and nondescript accent, as if these were pickup lines. Oliver’s knee didn’t agree with the rapid movement; it felt like his joint had been lined with sandpaper, grinding against itself, and a loud snap resonated through his body. He was used to a specific kind of knife-like pain—plunging from the outside in—but this time, he lost something, bursting from the inside out, as if his knee had finally ruptured.

Oliver leaned against the nearest wall and closed his eyes. The cute guy walked away without a goodbye. Oliver rolled up the cuff on his baggy gym

A

51

shorts. A couple vines protruded from beneath his kneecap. On one vine, a little white flower peeked out. He called over the physical therapist just before completely collapsing and passing out.

Following some inconclusive tests, Oliver was prescribed a new painkiller cocktail. By nightfall, the bud had opened, and a few new vines snaked around the old ones. With each painful step during Oliver’s day, the foliage grew a little denser, a new bud emerging every time the joint buckled. Most of the greenery came out clean, but some was slick with blood. He washed the vines and flowers in his bathtub and dabbed antibiotic ointment near the base of each protrusion.

At his next session, the physical therapist began by pinching two vines and moving them back and forth like miniature jump-ropes. “Keep manipulating the vines for two sets of twenty. We don’t want the area to atrophy,” he said. “I’ll come back to check on you in a minute.”

The cute guy showed up a few minutes later and began shoulder exercises in the opposite corner of the small gym. The cute guy glanced over at Oliver a couple times, but whenever Oliver looked back, the guy’s eyes averted to the ceiling or floor. Oliver wasn’t sure if he should be proud of his knee’s new outgrowth, or if he should hide it.

Oliver finished up the day with some lunges. When his knee cocked into its ninety-degree position, he felt something slip, and a thick vine shot directly out of the kneecap, hoisting a mass of cartilage, yanking out one of the glistening surgical pins with it. Oliver screamed, but despite the gruesome display, the pain wasn’t much worse than usual. He was just hoping that the cute guy might come help him—or at least look up. He didn’t.

The physical therapist removed the metal pin with some tweezers and deposited it in a plastic bag. He recommended ice, then heat, then Roundup weed killer.

That weekend, the cute guy wasn’t there. Oliver ignored most of his physical therapist’s commands, half-assing his way through the day’s work.

He refused to even bother with the pulley contraption. “Who is that guy with the AC problem?” Oliver asked.

“What do you mean who is he? He’s a patient,” the physical therapist said.

“Yeah, but what’s his deal? Do you guys talk during his sessions? Does he live around here?”

“I don’t know, man. Go ask him yourself next Monday.”

“Oh, so he comes in every Monday?”

“Come on, just drop it. I can get fired for even letting that slip. Just do your leg lifts and let’s call it a day. Remember to ice it when you get home.” Oliver did as he was told. Vines curled over the icepack and drew it inward. Oliver freed the icepack with some gardening sheers, then he took a hot shower. His knee throbbed, and the vines wiggled in-time with his

52 | Physical Therapy

pulse. Back and forth, they jostled to the beat of his blood, almost like they were dancing.

On Monday, Oliver bought some better fitting gym shorts. He combed his hair—something he hadn’t done in years. He placed a Listerine breath strip on his tongue, but he didn’t like the taste, so he ate a spoonful of peanut butter to overpower the flavor.

The physical therapist set Oliver in motion, and the rest of the session took care of itself. He exercised in silence, flowing through his routine as if his knee were brand new and pain free. However, the blood dripping down his vine-riddled leg suggested otherwise. In time, blood streaked the floor, creating wide swatches of color in the otherwise benign gym space. Oliver kept his eyes locked on the door, waiting for the now-tardy cute guy.

When the cute guy finally showed up, he exercised with some elastic bands for a while, manipulating his shoulder and wincing at each rotation.

Oliver tried to rehearse what he might say, but nothing came to mind. He tried to remember some detail about Dr. Mollrich, but the man might’ve been a faceless gray blob for all Oliver knew. He couldn’t focus. His nervous pulse caused the vines to shimmy and shake and spritz some pus onto the already lightly glazed floor. He mentally rehearsed: Hi, my name’s Oliver, was the best he could imagine. He began mouthing the words. Then he voiced them for good measure. “I already know your name,” the physical therapist said. Oliver hadn’t realized anybody was in earshot. The physical therapist shook his head and went to his office for some paperwork.

The cute guy dabbed his forehead with a towel, then he took off his windbreaker, revealing a beautiful cluster of greenery on his shoulder.

“Holy shit!” Oliver muttered to himself. He hurried over to the cute guy, eager to take advantage of this newfound commonality.

A couple steps from the cute guy and Oliver’s knee popped. Another pin shot out, and the destabilized appendage went limp. Oliver slid across the floor and reached out, grasping anything that might brace his fall. He clung to the cute guy’s t-shirt and they both toppled into a rack of yoga mats.

“Hi, my name’s Oliver.”

“What the fuck? Get off of me,” the cute guy said. He shoved Oliver, but nothing happened. Oliver could feel the force against his skin. He wasn’t bracing himself or resisting, yet there was no give, no movement.

“Oh, well that’s just great,” the cute guy pulled at their intertwined vines, writhing from separated shoulder to damaged knee. The mess of greenery wouldn’t budge. A few white and red flowers blossomed, and lush stalks formed tight spirals. The vines melded into a series of mighty branches in a matter of seconds—it reminded Oliver of those flash-forward sequences on Nova. Leaves began unfurling. The two became one in a more literal sense than Oliver had envisioned.

“We’re not liable for any injuries,” the physical therapist said, emerging from his office. “Read the release forms.”

James R. Gapinski | 53

“Can you call Dr. Mollrich, please?” The cute guy asked.

“So what’s your name?” Oliver asked, completely ignoring the gap since his last awkward sentence.

The cute guy rubbed his temples. “I have a headache.”

“I have Tylenol,” Oliver offered. The cute guy swallowed a couple pills and finally answered, “Ryan.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“How long have your vines been growing?” Oliver asked.

“A couple days.”

“I’ve had mine for a week or so.”

“Shit, so it doesn’t go away?” Ryan asked.

Oliver shook his head.

Dr. Mollrich pulled at the vines and huffed his rancid breath into Oliver’s face. He poked the flowers with a tongue depressor. He listened to a pod with his stethoscope. After a few minutes of examination, Dr. Mollrich decided to call an expert from some hospital in Denver. “He knows all about Siamese twins.”

“I think they’re called conjoined twins,” Oliver corrected.

“We’re not twins,” Ryan said.

“Nevertheless, you’re fused together, so I think Dr. Abbott can help.

He’ll be here in a few hours.”

The physical therapist brought them a bag of McDonalds for dinner.

Oliver tried to remain solemn—after all, this was a medical emergency— but he couldn’t stave off the occasional smile. The bag of greasy fast food was tantamount to a first date, and Oliver was determined to make the most of it.

“Where did you grow up?” Oliver asked.

“Close by. Near Boulder.” Ryan said.

After a while of waiting for Ryan to lob the question back, Oliver volunteered his own answer: “I grew up in Portland. It’s nice there. Lots of trees.”

“Sure, okay,” Ryan said, fishing through the bag for more ketchup.

“What do you do for work?”

“I manage a hotel. You?” Oliver couldn’t picture this standoffish guy in the hospitality trade, but he was glad that the conversation was turning into a real back-and-forth. “I work in marketing,” Oliver said. “But not regular marketing. Guerilla marketing. Grassroots stuff.”

Ryan nodded and slurped some Pepsi.

“Family?” Oliver asked.

Ryan didn’t answer.

“What TV shows do you like?” Oliver asked.

“Just because we’re stuck together doesn’t mean we need to chitchat.”

54 | Physical Therapy

“Okay, I just thought maybe we could watch something. You know, to pass the time,” Oliver said. “I have an iPad in my gym bag. I bet the physical therapist can grab it for us.”

Ryan finally smiled. They watched back-to-back episodes of Breaking Bad. Oliver shifted as much of his body as possible amid the vine outgrowth, resting his head on Ryan’s right shoulder. Oliver expected to be shooed away, but Ryan didn’t mind—or maybe he didn’t notice. In either case, Oliver nuzzled closer. He watched the vines twisting over their bodies while Ryan watched the glowing screen.

Dr. Abbott interrupted just as Oliver felt he might be able to ask a couple more questions, or maybe even sneak a kiss. Dr. Abbott’s nimble fingers wiggled between the vines. He plucked a few representative petals and leaves. He rubbed his chin and said “I see” a couple times.

“And you say there’s no history of vine outgrowth in your family?”

Oliver and Ryan both shook their heads.

“And no history of Siamese twins?” Dr. Abbott asked. Dr. Mollrich crossed his arms, pleased that this expert was using his same out-of-date and politically incorrect terminology.

“No. And we’re not twins.”

“I see,” Dr. Abbott said. He rubbed his chin some more. “I think I know somebody who can help.”

“Dr. McDowell?” Dr. Mollrich asked.

“No.” “Hayes? Vindali?”

“No, not a doctor. Some guy named Craig. He did landscaping for me last summer. Good guy. Great rates. Quality work. He can get these vines cleared right up. I’ll give him a ring, but he probably can’t come until tomorrow morning.”

“How the hell do we get home?” Ryan asked.

“You don’t,” the physical therapist said. He flicked one particularly thick vine with his index finger. The vine had woven itself into the floor, breaking through tile and concrete. Smaller offshoots clung to pipes and workout gear, and one spindly branch snuck skyward, curling around a light fixture.

“Great, so I’m stuck with this guy all night?” Ryan asked.

Oliver brushed off the callous comment and nuzzled a bit closer. Ryan wiggled a bit, trying to inch further away. Oliver suggested they watch more TV, but Ryan just wanted to get to bed. Oliver considered what he might say tomorrow, once they were separated. Want to grab a coffee sometime? How about we watch more Breaking Bad this weekend? If all else failed, maybe he’d feign professional interest, suggesting that he look over the marketing plan at Ryan’s hotel.

They ate McDonalds breakfast sandwiches in silence. Ryan slurped his black coffee, while Oliver drank his two-cream, two-sugar blend in slower,

James R. Gapinski | 55

deliberate gulps. Craig was punctual, arriving just after the physical therapist had delivered the fast food.

“Alright, let’s see what we’ve got,” Craig said, opening a yellow toolbox.

“Will this hurt?” Oliver asked.

“Nah, no more than physical therapy,” Craig said. He patted his left shoulder. “I messed up my shoulder a few years ago. Rough stuff. I feel for you guys.”

“Oh yeah?” Ryan said. “I hurt my shoulder too. AC joint separation.

You?” “Torn rotator cuff,” Craig said. He retrieved a gigantic hooked saw and began slicing through the thickest outgrowths.

“Man, too bad,” Ryan said. The two began chatting. They both took their coffee black, and they both watched Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy, and they both hated McDonalds, and Oliver hated every minute of their chummy banter.

The vines and roots and branches and leaves fell away in a series of buzz-cuts and snips and snaps and slices. Blood and sap bubbled from various trimmings, each becoming shriveled and useless within minutes of being excised. The procedure didn’t seem to cause Ryan any pain, but Oliver felt each cut. It wasn’t as bad as physical therapy—that was true— but it wasn’t painless. Each time a vine died, a cold prickly sensation washed over Oliver’s body. By the time it was over, he was numb, barely able to move, as if his whole body had atrophied in those hours they spent conjoined and motionless. He remained curled and lifeless as Ryan stood and cleaned off layers of sawdust. Ryan inspected his once vine-ridden shoulder and found nothing but fresh, pink skin.

“Give me a call sometime,” Ryan said. He gave Craig a business card.

Craig said, “Yeah, sure,” and pocketed the card.

They both left, but Oliver remained on the floor until the lights went out. “Time to go,” the physical therapist said.

Oliver moved his stiff limbs. His knee felt a little better. Maybe the range of motion was improving after all. He brushed sawdust off his clothes and picked through the decaying vines still strewn across the floor, searching for any piece that might still be green and alive.

56 | Physical Therapy

Aromatic TAMARA K. WALKER

T

he visceral, vital organ-scrambling fear strikes Leah before they leave.

Her family is bringing the (spray-on, dries-clear!) sunscreen, and a few of those little spray-bottle fans with foam blades, but she knows that’s not going to be nearly enough.

Leah’s cousins and siblings are running around extending themselves like sportswear logo silhouettes, and everyone is worried about whether the park changed much since they were kids or how much to budget for food or if the person that they think they like will ride the roller coaster with them.

Her concerns are much less ephemeral if only because they’re hinged on the fact that she is: how to avoid dissolving in her own accidentally malignant sweat, becoming a murky puddle on the asphalt subject to the flavorless rubber gum, soles of tourists, and, eventually, the water cycle.

She knows it happens, that it happened to her grandmother, that it can happen to her, but Leah has absolutely no idea how to stave off this gruesome fate as the car rolls fadingly out of the driveway. Her fear is palpable, but it’s the kind of fear she’d rather have come true than disclose to anyone, so she remains a silent little insect in hardening amber. She busies herself with looking very practical to no one in particular, sifting through her pack and offering belatedly to take the small children’s random knick-knacks and sandwiches, even though she knows that once they arrive she’ll be wandering off on her own, far from them, because becoming a gradual victim of one’s own perspiration is not the kind of event children should witness even at a place with sideshows.

She simultaneously hopes and dreads that the black and yellow sports bra she’s wearing is absorbent as power lines zip by. Will that help? Or will the lycra merely accelerate your liquid destruction? As she was putting it on her mom breezed in and remarked that she could really use some vitamin D. The irony of this is more pitiable than amusing to her.

As her parents pull into the parking lot and deliberate in calm frustration about where to find a space, Leah starts to panic as the temperature rises in the mobile solar oven that she has the distinct misfortune of sitting in. They inquire offhandedly about her opinions on the parking situation and she feels like C batteries must.

At the admissions gate she recalls a cute little truism she’s heard around: “Ladies don’t sweat, they glow.” She wonders if she qualifies yet.

That’d be kind of a nice little consolation, at least then she’d glow her way beautifully out of existence like a slow-motion fireball.

57

She read somewhere that female sweat is many times more alkaline than male sweat. Thankfully it’s not more acidic, which conjures images of her body fizzling burningly away. Acids and bases. She thinks of buffer solutions and her chemistry textbook with the Ferris wheel and the coffee beans on the cover, vainly searching for a solution. Nothing.

The Ferris wheel here resembles a benzene molecule diagram, which is exactly what the park smells like: benzene, the balanced hexagon with its alternating single and double bonds, sweet fragrance in concentration, and quick evaporation into air. Perhaps her bonds with other atomic people don’t alternate in strength and that’s the problem. Benzene is ubiquitous.

She chases the shade, her wiry, fluffy, waist-length steel wool hair flying around lanyards.

People mostly languish anxiously in winding anonymous lines to board rides that offer prepackaged, predictable, and somehow humiliating exhilaration. She rides again and again on a mellow swing-carousel and thinks of the boys at school who secretly huddle around smartphones when they’re supposed to be working in groups, watching lurid videos of straight women who are paid to halfheartedly mimic a commercialized, exploitative distortion of what in fleeting private moments she occasionally envisions herself doing with another girl. Pornography is a lilac cliché made of the same impulses that comprise these lines.

At around dusk she meets back up with everyone and purchases some ice cream in oversized waffle cones. She gazes at her cone with sad apprehension as she knows that it could be her, secreting herself into something hideously formless at any minute if she isn’t careful. She feels her skin start to become gelatinous, on the verge of melting. She took a few more rides in direct sunlight, forgetting briefly. The ice cream should help.

Night falls and she feels decidedly calmer, as the degrees dip and she emits deadly moisture much less. She purchases some chocolate-covered espresso beans from the gift shop and loiters by the neon Ferris wheel. A girl she recognizes from school spots and approaches her in the most paradoxically apathetic way. Her charcoal hair, even darker than Leah’s, spiderweb tights, and graphite gaze are all, as usual, intensely sensual, though that seems to be only a byproduct of her particular way of navigating the world. She has the idiosyncratic ability to make someone feel special and devalued simultaneously with just her presence. The girl reminds Leah of a film noir archetype stripped of damsel-in-distress-ness, a cross between the lady of the night and the PI, but she doesn’t say that.

Reasonably certain she’s not going to fluidly disintegrate drop by glowing drop, she gets in line with the girl for the Ferris wheel having exchanged perfunctory and directly indirect words. As the wheel ascends she grows rapidly more anxious, relishing this new and benign fear she has the glimmering luxury of enjoying for once today. The girl faces her and opens her mouth many times without saying anything, closing her ashen pink lips with a series of slight hums. Leah wants to kiss her, but she

58 | Aromatic

restrains this ill-advised passion, for now. The top layer of her skin begins to dissolve again, but she doesn’t panic. She munches the espresso beans and offers some to her sudden companion; the girl accepts with a salacious glare, the gondola sways, and no one speaks.

Tamara K. Walker | 59

The Dream of an Octopus and Aubergine Netsuke A. HALL

I

woke up, uncurled eight stiff arms from around my jade aubergine, and dragged it down the felted steps of the display case. It made a little kadunk sound. The other netsuke1 remained just as still as ever, but I had a special purpose.

I placed one carved arm against the glass, tip-tap. I held my aubergine with another arm. Perhaps I am foolish, but after centuries together, it comforts me.

As regular as the tides, my young master came. He bent over the case and placed one finger against the glass to mirror my arm. Our greeting.

Then he unlocked the cabinet and held out his hand so that I could climb aboard. He was always very respectful.

“Good evening, little fellow,” he said.

I climbed up his arm and settled on his shoulder.

“I have a surprise for you,” he said as he went to fetch his coat. I hid in one of his deep pockets as we left the museum. I hated the noise and bustle of the city, but Ichiro stroked me as we got on the train to ease my fears.

Back at his flat, he lifted me out of his pocket and placed me on the table.

“My father wants me to return to Tokyo,” he said.

I could hear the pain in his voice.

“He says there is a position opening up at the Mori. His friend is on the board. He would like to help me.”

Ichiro often spoke to me about his father, a businessman in Tokyo. He had allowed Ichiro to study art in London, and to stay in the city after graduation. He had visited him at the Victoria and Albert Museum and taken tea in the café courtyard. He had told Ichiro he was proud.

“I don’t know if I’m ready,” Ichiro said. “I came here looking for something, but I haven’t found it yet.”

Ichiro frowned and brushed his fingers through his floppy hair. He wandered the apartment, abandoning his clothing across the furniture, then pulled on loose pyjama trousers and a kimono. It was old and worn, a faded 1

A netsuke is a small figurine which was worn in feudal Japan by samurai as a decorative fastening for a pouch that would have fastened to the obi (belt/sash). There is a display of them in the Victorian and Albert Museum in London.

60

wave pattern rippling across the silk. Ichiro bought it second-hand before he came to London. I recalled a time, long ago, when he had worn much finer clothing—a time when I had sat proudly on his obi. He fastened the kimono loosely with a chord and I felt a pang of disappointment, but also determination. It was my purpose to remind Ichiro of that other time.

Ichiro bent down and looked at me. He smiled.

“Now for your surprise, my little friend.”

He held out his hand and I climbed aboard once more. He took me to his bedroom.

“I thought you might like to take a swim.”

He held me in front of a globe of water, lit up with blue light. Inside the tank, coral undulated around a small stone temple. Just the dream of an ocean. But I was only the dream of an octopus.

Ichiro held me up to his face.

“Would you like me to take care of your aubergine, whilst you go for a swim?”

Ichiro had the kindest eyes, soft and brown with big long lashes. I trusted Ichiro. I uncurled two legs from the aubergine and stepped away. He picked it up and held it tight in his other hand.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t let it go.”

He released me into the water. I had never swum before, but I had dreamed many times of the sea. I moved my legs as I had often felt I should and, to my relief, I didn’t sink straight to the bottom but drifted down. I floated to the gravel floor, crawled my way across to the coral, and felt it tickle my arms. It was a wonderful feeling but frightening too. I scuttled across the gravel and tapped the glass with one arm. Ichiro mirrored my arm with his finger. Ichiro understood.

My aubergine was waiting for me. I embraced it with all eight of my limbs and clung on until I felt calm again.

“Maybe next time, you could swim a little longer,” Ichiro said.

Perhaps he was right. Next time I would feel more confident.

I watched Ichiro eat noodles from a plastic bowl whilst he bent over a notepad, scribbling line after line, crossing it out, and starting again.

Sometimes he would read his poetry to me and I could feel his yearning.

Ichiro didn’t yet know why his heart yearned, but I knew.

When it was time to sleep, Ichiro placed me beside his bed and curled up in a ball under the duvet. I waited for his breath to slow, then I uncurled myself from my aubergine. I walked off the side of the cabinet and plopped onto the mattress. I crawled across the sea of sheet, along his shoulder, onto his face. I placed the end of one my arms on his temple. I remembered back across the centuries and, as I remembered, I gave the dream to Ichiro. This was my purpose.

Two young men stood on a bridge, watching the last of the plum blossoms fall. One, my young master, was reciting a poem about transience

A. Hall | 61

he had written for the other. Seize the moment, he said. Life and this love are fleeting. He finished the poem. “Kyoshi,� he said.

The other man nodded. Their fingers brushed.

I knew their love was not so fleeting, for surely it was their love that had brought me back.

I hoped Ichiro would remember in the morning. I knew he must return to Tokyo and find Kyoshi, wherever he might be. I knew he must stand on that bridge and tell his heart once more, as the last blossom fell. I knew, in that moment, he had found peace, and that, without his Kyoshi, he would know only yearning.

62 | The Dream of an Octopus and Aubergine Netsuke

from Lilith’s Extra Rib ALANA I. CAPRIA

2 [I raise fruits in the kitchen cabinets.] When they ripen, they splatter me in the face. Their juice burns. It is too acidic. Then my thighs itch. I sit in the sink and Lilith washes me. She soaps my shoulders with baking soda and adds a layer of all-purpose flour. [We did not bake in the garden, she says and I drink chocolate directly from a plastic bottle. There was no chocolate, either, she says.] She has told me stories about the garden before. She mentioned the enviable fruits and all the trees that were like living skyscrapers. The branches were made of glass. When Lilith glared, the wood shattered and cut the Adam man's upper lip. Then she smiled and all the glass grew again.

[What if the trees had been mirrors, I ask and Lilith eats a pineapple, thorns and all.] [We had no need for mirrors, she says. We weren't supposed to know we were naked.] She shows me the spot under her ribs that the extra breast came from. The breast was so small, I could barely see it. The mammary gland was more like a birth mark, a strange little mole. I poked the nipple and Lilith shivered with excitement. [You don't understand, she says and opens every door in the house.] She lets the air in. She lets Adam in. He sits in a corner, crying. His eyes are bruised. We force the swollen lids open. There are fruit peels shoved into the gray corners.

63

3 {Perhaps it isn't only a rib Lilith has a spare of.} There is an extra eye and teat and leg. She milks herself in the kitchen sink. I collect the droplets. [Her milk is bright yellow. It is amber. Honey colored. Rotten. It is liquid cheese.] I drink a glass and vomit. Lilith paints her face bright red. She rubs her fists against the walls and leaves furrows in the plaster. [Was this how you left Eden, I ask and Lilith shows me photographs of the forbidden tree.] It is really a shrub. A tiny bush. With branches covered with thorns. Lilith's name is written across the roots. I take a razor blade and scrape along the outer lines of the letters. [Once upon a time, Lilith says. I knew a man who thought he was more than just mud. We were born simultaneously, sprouted from the same dirt clot. But the man said he was metal and I was leaves. So he tried to tear me apart. I threw water in his face and he ran off like liquid. And that was the end of the garden. It flooded with his organs and I flew away before the fluid could touch me.] Once upon a time, I found a hidden garden and climbed inside. The dirt was pale gray and dotted with brilliant red flowers.

I plucked the petals and every bloom had a nectar head at the center. They oozed. [Now, Lilith digs the pollen out of the corners of her eyes and smears the yellow across the stove top.] She pulls spinal cords from her neck.

64

The End of the Objects JACK KAULFUS

t wasn’t a complicated passage, from one life to the next, unless you had difficulty making decisions. Mirelle silently gave thanks to an anonymous god (conspicuously absent at this stage in the afterlife) that her head remained level and her judgment unimpaired.

Mirelle knelt over a pile of blue sweaters and picked one that looked well-stitched. It was more used than others, but sturdily made. She had no way of knowing at which point in the next life it might be needed.

This was not the hereafter Mirelle had bargained for. She tossed the small sweater back onto the pile. Next to her, a blonde child laid four of them out for consideration. His bag was about half full. Mirelle wondered if he’d died young, or if he just felt like a seven year old. She’d noticed fewer gray hairs at her temples in the mirror herself, and had a feeling she’d been rewound a decade or so—before her body had begun its quiet, slow-moving rebellion.

“This is taking too long,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “I just can’t decide.” His face was a child’s, but his voice was tense and old.

Mirelle handed him a size 4T with a picture of a rocking horse sewn on the front. He turned it over in his hands for a few seconds, sighing, and handed it back.

“She’s a girl, she’s Black, she’s not in America. These sweaters just mock her.”

“Maybe if you go with a bigger one, there’s a better chance she’ll get more wear out of it. You know, statistically, we’re adult-sized a lot longer than we’re child-sized." Mirelle decided this was how she herself would choose, and she dug back in to find a generic looking size large. They watched a man kneel before the pile for approximately three seconds, grab a sweater, stuff it in his bag, and walk away.

“Careless,” the boy said. “But he can probably afford to be. Maybe he’s got a whole envelope full of possibilities. What about you?”

“Oh, I think I’m going with this one—” Mirelle paused to open the envelope and slide the card out so he could see. “Female, controllable mental illness, no parents. America.”

“Wow. No parents?”

Mirelle shook her head proudly. She felt pretty solid about the whole thing. Enough strife, enough safety net, and a familiar setting. The choice between the two had been easy. She wouldn’t have had the first idea about how to prepare for the boy’s complicated situation with his coach and the

I

65

kinds of problems it might bring him. “I made it,” Mirelle said. “She can make it.”

Mirelle was originally the son of a self-loathing, speed addled mother and philanderer of a father. Her particular gender issues, she now understood, had been chosen for her just the way she was about to choose mental illness for a future self. Her predecessor had likely found himself or herself in this same spot, forty two years previous, with a bad hand of cards: Shit family.

Wrong gender. Surprise gun barrel in an alleyway. Cancer.

Tens of thousands of dollars in debt for necessary surgery to reverse the gender assigned at birth, she’d died at 55 after making a strong showing against lung cancer. She felt strangely indifferent about all the drama of life and death now. She’d been in love a few times, fostered dogs, been fired for dubious reasons, then employed as a counselor after returning to school for a license. She’d made a go of it, despite the absence of family.

After she died, they assured her at the gate that she’d done well.

“You didn’t kill yourself or anyone else,” said the woman in the first booth. “That puts you ahead of the game.” She looked over the files in Mirelle’s folder and presented her with an over-the-shoulder bag and a pad of paper. “Write down your worst fear and your deepest desire. Be literal.

Take your time.” The woman winked at Mirelle and wrote a large number seven on the front of the folder. She put the folder in a basket full of other folders, and waved at the next person in line.

Mirelle took a deep breath and followed the arrows on the floor. The absence of pain in her chest and legs was still a new feeling, and she suppressed a sudden urge to jog down the corridor.

At the next booth, a man in a cap pulled her folder from the basket in front of him. He inserted an envelope and handed it to her, smiling a golden toothed smile. “You will choose your future self from the envelope: your location, your situation, race, parentage. You will then find seven gifts from the available objects. These will be presented to your future self when they become necessary.” He pointed to the window in the wall right next to her.

Receding into the white space outside the booth for an eternity were piles upon piles of clothing, bins of toys, fruit, shoes, dishes. Tents. Sofas.

“Put them in your bag. Remember your worst fear. Your deepest desire.

Those, along with the objects, are your only legacy.”

“You sound like the Wizard of Oz,” she said to the man. He scratched his head, but did not look offended. “Do you think I can fit a sofa inside this bag?” Mirelle asked, but the man motioned toward the window and invited the next person in line to step forward.

On a bench under the window, Mirelle sat down and put her head into her hands. She thought there’d be rest in the afterlife. Light and dead pets and maybe a buffet. She wasn’t ready to start everything over again. Her deepest desires on earth had always involved safety or paychecks, but she

66 | The End of the Objects

knew she’d have to do better than that. How? She opened the flap of the envelope. Two cards. Easy choice. She chose the girl.

At the pile of blue sweaters, Mirelle let the boy look through her bag: an inflatable raft, a tangle of keys, and a pair of sturdy brown walking shoes.

She had three more objects to choose after the sweater: three more messages sent from beyond. She pushed away the apprehension and forced herself to think instead of the way it would feel to shave her young future legs the first time. Age eleven? Twelve?

The boy looked up at her. “I’m Frank,” he said.

Mirelle shook his hand and introduced herself. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Arrested development, I think,” Frank said, not waiting for the question. “I was in a boating accident when I was eight and I got stuck with a bum body, but I grew up all right. The last time I could move freely, I was this size. That’s the only explanation I could come up with. Were you this age when you died?” He swept his hand from her head to her feet.

“A bit older, I think. I was wondering.”

“I don’t know how all the dying part works. But my future choices are limited.” He pulled his envelope out and showed her the only card inside.

“There was a meltdown in my teens,” he explained.

“Oh?” “That’s right. Hard to imagine that I was the one who picked that terrible life for myself.”

Mirelle shrugged. “You hadn’t lived it yet. How many things do you get to pass on?”

“Four gifts. You?” “Seven.”

Frank sat back on his heels. “This sucks.”

Mirelle thought it didn’t suck as much as cancer, but she didn’t say so.

She couldn’t—not to an ex-quadriplegic with suicidal tendencies. She was pain free now, but the memory of sickness wore at her like the memory of someone she used to love but didn’t want to call. She’d died alone, afraid at the end, wishing for an afterlife much different than this one. Secretly, she’d always believed that people should get exactly what they want after the whole thing was over: Mormons their Celestial Kingdom, Baptists their Right Hand of God, Agnostics their Pleasant Surprises. This white room had no walls. She couldn’t even sense a source of light.

They decided to go as far as they could in one direction to see if they could reach the end of the objects. Just to see what was on the other side.

“The world is big outside of America,” Frank said. “And it’s not like I even saw that much of America, at least not until 2000 or so, when we got the internet.” They passed a woman weeping over a stack of high heel shoeboxes. “She looks famous,” Frank whispered.

Jack Kaulfus | 67

Mirelle couldn’t place her. “Is this it? Choose a card and a few items and then go back as someone different? What’s the point of a revolving door?”

Frank shook his head. “There’s a point. I been here a while. You have to search for the things that will bring you the life you want. If you choose the wrong things, you can break your future self. I broke, kind of. You obviously almost broke.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, seven objects is more than four, but some people have, like, fifty. And they have a whole stack of possible selves with problems like ‘Too Many Boats.’ They can just about plan an entire life.”

Mirelle did not believe him. “With chess boards and crock pots?”

Frank fixed her with a critical eye. He directed her to a table full of watches and demanded she pick a real Rolex from a stack of knock offs.

She had never even thought about Rolexes. “I was a public servant. I don’t have a clue,” she said.

“That’s the difference between you and Too Many Boats,” Frank replied.

Rolexes had been the least of Mirelle’s worries; once she was old enough to leave the house, she was never invited back. She recalled her father wearing expensive looking cuff links and ties, but she didn’t remember anything about a watch. Her parents weren’t around much for fashion advice, anyway, even when she’d been properly engaged in football and high school dances.

Mirelle met Abraham in Syracuse while she was still uncomfortably inhabiting the body of a young adult male. Abraham was the first to suggest that perhaps she was not yet who she might be. They were in an acting class together first, then auditioned to be regulars in a gay political theater group called GAYTES OF JUSTICE. Abraham’s roommate was brewing beer in their shared dormitory suite bathroom, so he showed up without notice one evening and installed himself in the spare bunk above Mirelle’s. He brought a suitcase, stacks of CDs in cracked jewel cases, and a poster of Morrissey in his underwear.

“Shit’s about to blow in that place, and I need this scholarship,” he said. Not a month had passed before Mirelle convinced herself they were in love.

He was growing his usually well-kept fade into something he called a “halfro,” and one night after one too many Miller Lites, Mirelle let herself catch one of the longer curls between her thumb and forefinger as Abraham drifted off into a comfortably buzzed slumber.

He didn’t push her away when she moved in to kiss him, but after a few minutes, he slid out from under her and went to the shared bathroom. He

68 | The End of the Objects

emerged with a small case beneath his arm and sat down on the bed across from Mirelle.

“Let me try something, Mitch?”

She leaned in to kiss him again, but he flipped open the case between them and extracted a tube of mascara. “Your eyes are amazing. I’ve been thinking of trying this color on you for weeks.”

Mirelle looked at the tube in his hand. Abraham gently brushed Mirelle’s hair back and brought her chin forward. “Look up,” he said. She did. His breath was cool and smoky on her cheek as the mascara wetly darkened the edges of her vision. He opened a compact and showed Mirelle her eyes. “Look how beautiful you are,” he said.

Mirelle took the compact from him and went to the mirror over the sink. She leaned in and swallowed hard, tears springing from nowhere.

Behind her, Abraham assured her that the mascara was waterproof.

Mirelle jotted down possibilities in her little notepad as she followed Frank from table to table. Maybe a trenchcoat. A radio headset. A book about divorce law. She felt the tiniest flicker of excitement inside her chest. She imagined her new self being born of nothing, alone in a white room; at thirteen, in the dining room of another strange family, praying before a meal; at thirty two, living around the corner from a handsome, clever man who claimed to love Miles Davis but only knew his music from a college music appreciation class. Above all, the clothes against her skin, the men turning their heads to watch her pass. The home within her self, finally. At least she would be a girl. That part wouldn’t be a struggle next time around.

Another life. More bad food, head colds, roaches, awkward sex. Dogs, hot rain, global crises. Coffee. She let her fingertips graze the tops of several ferns, and spotted a familiar-looking lamp in the hands of a large woman two tables over. She grabbed Frank’s hand and walked over.

“What?” The woman drew the lamp to her chest protectively as they approached.

“That lamp just looks familiar. I’ll give it back. I don’t want to keep it.”

The woman handed the lamp over, and sure enough, on the bottom of the base was a crack in the shape of Florida.

Frank watched the woman take the lamp from Mirelle. “Tasha?” he asked.

Tasha tucked the lamp into her bag and raised her eyebrows at Frank.

“What are you still doing here, Frank?”

“I told you I’d been here a long time,” he said to Mirelle. “But I haven’t been here as long as Tasha.”

“So what?” said Tasha, throwing her head back defensively.

“So nothing. I just thought you’d get a handle on things by now.”

Tasha’s face closed into itself, her lips disappearing into a straight line.

“I can’t,” she said. She dug through her bag and retrieved a worn looking envelope. “One card. One. I can’t go back on this card.”

Jack Kaulfus | 69

Mirelle took the envelope from her. Afghanistan, educated woman, mother of three girls.

“I know what it’s like. I was in the military.”

“You’ll be on the other side now, though,” Frank said. Mirelle could tell that this was not a comforting statement. “So, what, you’re just going to wander around here for eternity?”

“I haven’t decided. I think I might.”

“Is that allowed?” Mirelle asked.

“I don’t know who’s in charge, actually.” Tasha sighed and looked around. “Nobody’s stopped me so far.”

“Well, carrying that lamp around is not going to help you make a decision about going back,” Frank said.

“So what? I like it.” Tasha snatched the card back from Mirelle and turned away abruptly.

“I can’t believe it,” Mirelle said as she watched Tasha stalk off between the tables.

“That was confusing,” Frank said, clearly exasperated. “Why in god’s name would you have passed that useless lamp on to yourself?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t exactly use it to kill an intruder and save my family. It was just there. My mother loved it.” Mirelle shrugged. “I wonder how many people are just killing time like Tasha,” she said.

“I wish I had a card to give her,” Frank said.

“You can’t just trade lives with someone else.”

“Who says?”

“It just doesn’t seem right.”

She couldn’t decide a thing about her deepest desire or her worst fear, and felt at a disadvantage because most of it seemed as distant as a dream from three nights previous. She asked Frank if he felt the same way.

“I know what I know,” he said, shoving a pair of sunglasses deep into his bag.

Mirelle stopped sleeping after her first makeover. She lay awake listening to Abraham breathe instead, wondering how she had neglected to notice such a crucial element of basic selfhood. For a while, gender panic eclipsed the plain fact that Abraham didn’t return her love. She leapt back and forth through her own history, piecing together clues that had always before just seemed merely pointed in the direction of effeminate—never actually feminine.

By way of contribution, Abraham kept the fridge and the printer stocked. During the week, he tossed off translations for French and Spanish classes while working his way through one cheap beer after another. Mirelle struggled to keep her eyes open in class and rarely finished her assignments with any alacrity. Instead of working alongside him in the evenings, she watched Abraham study and thought about what it might feel like to wear a bra.

70 | The End of the Objects

On the weekends, he coaxed Mirelle out of the dorm for rehearsals, though she refused to audition for parts and insisted on writing or working backstage.

“But it’s acceptable to wear makeup on stage,” he teased one day on the way home from rehearsal.

“I prefer to watch my words in action,” she said, unconvincingly.

“You lie,” he said. “You just don’t want a boy part.” It was maddening the way he threw those words around when she could barely utter the truth.

He had no idea.

She loved him every time he slept with a professor, unsuccessfully wooed a basketball player, or shopped through her clothes to prepare for a night of sneaking past bouncers. Sometimes she went with him, but it felt like death each time he trained his beautiful brown eyes on someone else.

Frank said he needed to rest, so they picked a bench beside a fountain and sat down. He opened his bag and began unloading its contents. Mirelle watched the passersby. Most of them walked alone, looking bewildered.

She elbowed Frank and he looked up to watch the weeping celebrity pass, pushing a wheelbarrow.

“What do you think her deepest desire is?” Mirelle asked.

“No idea. But I’ll tell you mine,” he said. He held up a tennis ball and a pair of green socks. “After you advise me on which is most ridiculous.

Ball? Socks?”

Mirelle held out her hands and Frank relinquished the items. He flipped through the pages in his notepad. “My deepest desire is to be alone in my thoughts and my actions,” he read. “It took me forever to get that much down, and it’s lame. Tasha tried to help me make it better, but she has no idea what she’s doing, either.”

Mirelle stood up and threw the ball as far as she could and watched it disappear. “There are no walls?”

“Focus,” Frank said.

Mirelle sat down and looked at Frank. “I think we are supposed to somehow prepare our future selves to achieve that deepest desire, Frank, and I think you might be wrong about how it’s all done.”

“I should keep the socks, then?”

“No. You probably don’t need anything.”

“That’s not what the guy with the gold teeth said.”

“You made it through a shit-hole life, Frank. You didn’t hurt yourself or anyone else—” “Not that I didn’t try—” “—and you’re about to embark on another life, just as difficult. Quite possibly. A tennis ball and a pair of socks won’t make or break you. I don’t think you need anything at all.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Jack Kaulfus | 71

“I might be. I mean, I think I can do this next life. In fact, after all this meaningless wandering, I’m looking forward to going back. It won’t be a walk in the park, but there are drugs that can adjust my brain chemistry, and I know I figured out how to make family out of friends last time around.

I’ve got some useful things here in my bag, sure. They might help me, but I think I’ll make it regardless. In fact, I doubt you’ll be back here if you survive this next time. You ever think that you’re just about done, Frank?

Just about ready to bypass the revolving door?”

“On to what?”

“I can’t say. But this can’t be it.”

“I think you’re deluded.”

Mirelle shrugged. “Maybe I am. And maybe you’re too comfortable here. Making up stories about your own victimhood.” Frank shot her a look that did not belong to a child. “You want to hang out with Tasha the rest of your days? Never grow up? It’s nice to be tall, Frank. It’s very nice,” she said. “We’ll go together.”

“You don’t have to take care of me, Mirelle,” Frank said.

The memory of the gun in her mouth was the only one that remained alive in all the fog. Long buried in her lifetime, it shined now. It was a sharp wet night, years and years after they’d moved out of the dorm and into a faux Victorian with vaulted ceilings and bedrooms connected by a long bathroom. There was a big autumn moon, reflected in the puddles on the sidewalks, everywhere at once. The air outside Club DeVine was a welcome surprise—a rainstorm had ushered in a cold front while they’d been inside, and the sweat beneath Mirelle’s clothes turned chill the minute the doors closed behind them. She’d been dancing most of the night with a beautiful young dyke who had a bar code tattooed at the base of her neck.

Since beginning the estrogen, she’d found her tastes ventured from beautiful fey men to beautiful butch women—something about the hard line of the shoulders and the softness at the top of the thigh.

She and Abraham lived together like there could never be another way.

He’d been dating Justin for almost two years, long distance. She’d gone back to graduate school after losing her job for wearing a dress into the office, put her near- brain-dead mother into assisted living, and fallen out of love with Abraham three times.

Abraham stuffed his feathered vest into her bag and reached for her hand on the street. They did this as much for protection as for closeness.

From the back they could pass as a straight couple headed home after drinks.

“So sad we’re going home alone,” he said, with mock sincerity.

“Speak for yourself. I got some digits in my purse.”

“Please, Mirelle, BarCode Butch was still in diapers. Do not call her unless you want to converse solely about drag king performance art and socialized medicine.”

72 | The End of the Objects

Mirelle squeezed Abraham’s hand. “Call Justin when we get home and I’ll confirm your victory over temptation tonight. I saw that glitter boy all up in your face. I could read his mind.”

“It’s seven in the morning there.”

“So what?”

Abraham leaned in affectionately. His head upon her shoulder was the last thing Mirelle felt before she came to with a piece of metal in her mouth and a knee in her crotch.

“I wonder what would happen if I chose more than my allotted items,” Frank said. Mirelle threw the socks into the fountain, feeling guilt-free for littering. They sank beneath the surface of the water and disappeared.

“Want to hear my biggest fear?”

“Not right now,” said Mirelle.

They couldn’t agree on which direction to go. The fountain was circular. Three people wrote feverishly at the base of it. There was only white above, white below, white ahead, white behind.

It was difficult not to bite down on the barrel of the gun that had torn the inside of her cheek so deeply she was choking on blood. His knee ground bright white pain into her thighs and stomach, and she thought she might pass straight out into the static shrinking her vision. He was saying things to her, things she couldn’t hear, or things she didn’t understand. Mirelle raised an arm. He swung at it with his free hand, and someone else’s boot came down hard on her palm.

Then he was up. The gun was gone. She coughed, turned her head and vomited blood. There were three or four of them, the moon like a spotlight over their heads.

“You want me to take care of your little problem?” He was saying. Or one of them was saying. She heard someone mutter, almost kindly, “Get up, freak.”

She tried to stand, but dropped her head into her hands when the new pain and sight of blood on her skirt threatened to knock her out again. Two of the guys stepped forward, lifted her to her feet, and pushed her against the wall. They held her up. The gun that was once in her mouth was now pointed directly at the bloodstain on her skirt between her legs.

“You want me to take care of you? Say it, say yes sir, make my dreams come true. It’s what you want? Right?”

Mirelle didn’t answer. One of her back molars was loose.

In a sing-song voice, he continued: “Or you can say no, no sir, I want my dick. I love my dick. God made me a man, and men love their dicks.

Just that, and I’ll leave you alone. Walk away.”

One of the men holding her up let go to light a cigarette. He exhaled into her face and said irritably “I’m bored, man. It’s late. Just tell us what you want us to do.”

Jack Kaulfus | 73

Mirelle spat. The left side of her peripheral vision was gone. “Don’t shoot,” she said, quietly.

“Not good enough,” said the one with the gun. The guy smoking a cigarette sighed loudly.

“Where’s Abraham?” Mirelle asked.

He rushed her, his face in her face, the metal now pushed against her pelvic bone. “We already killed the faggot,” he said. “Speaking of dick lovers.”

Mirelle found his eyes. She told him she loved her dick.

“Do you ever get hungry here?” Mirelle asked Frank. He shook his head.

They approached a table of firearms. Mirelle leaned over the selection and tried to make a decision. “Know anything about guns?”

“Not much, but not for lack of trying.” Frank picked up a semiautomatic rifle, and the sight of him—such a small boy and such a big machine—was strangely pleasant.

“This might be the cure they’re talking about,” she said. “For the mental illness.”

“That’s not morbid.” He put his eye to the sight, aiming at nothing.

“You’re not supposed to kill anyone,” he added.

Mirelle dropped a nine millimeter into her bag. It had a satisfying heft.

A great size for a purse. Two items to go.

Frank put the semi-automatic into his own bag. Mirelle smiled at him.

“What?” He said. “I can always drop it later if I change my mind. I’m sure your nine millimeter will suffice, you know. I don’t have the same kind of choice.”

Abraham wasn’t dead. He was unconscious, but not shot. Mirelle crawled to him and lowered her swollen face to his chest to make sure she could hear his heartbeat. Then she stood and pulled herself into a 24-hour gas station to call an ambulance. She returned to him and waited for half an hour, her fingers near his mouth, counting every breath.

They let her ride with him to the emergency room, where she had difficulty explaining the situation with any clarity. The nurse called her Mitchell and sewed her back together. They threw away her skirt and found her a pair of sweat pants to wear home.

She called Abraham’s parents in Puerto Rico and soothed his mother the best she could.

“I laughed in that fuckwad’s face,” he told Mirelle the second morning.

“That’s why he jacked me up. I was never scared, and he knew it.”

“Hell of a way to prove your manhood,” she said, unfolding an ice compress from his crusted, yellowing forehead.

“Yeah? Well, where were you, Mirelle?”

“What do you want me to say? I was enjoying a cold beverage while they beat the shit out of you? I was unconscious, Abe.”

74 | The End of the Objects

“You also never fight for shit.”

Mirelle turned her back. She returned to the kitchen to refill his water bottle, thinking he couldn’t mean what he said. He was only upset, hurting, scared. He’d always been able to fend off attackers with his loud mouth or his fists. This time, he hadn’t had the chance.

Mirelle heard Abraham on the phone that night, speaking in angry low tones long after he’d said good night to her. Justin arrived the next day and Abraham left with him within the week. His face hadn’t even lost its patchwork bruising, and he was gone.

“I fear there’s no end to this place,” Mirelle said, looking around. Frank asked to see her bag again. She handed it to him as she circled a pile of things with little screens that lit up when touched. She had no idea what they might be used for, but she chose one and began to experiment. A man next to her was speaking quietly into the screen, and he seemed to be listening to something that she couldn’t hear. She looked up to ask Frank his opinion, and didn’t see him. She called his name a couple of times, returning to the spot where she’d handed him her bag. He was gone. His bag was there, emptied of all objects, save his original blue sweater. She dug around and below the sweater, she found that he’d left her own notepad, and her own envelope minus the one card she’d chosen for her future self. Her future as a woman was gone, gone with Frank.

She ran a few futile steps toward nothing and then sank onto a bench.

Anger punched its way through the fog of distance that had overtaken her memories. Biggest fear: being blindsided. Complete loss of control.

She opened the envelope and pulled out the remaining card. Male, Ritual Abuse at Hands of Trusted Family Friend, Divorced Parents, Southern United States.

Mirelle retrieved the notebook from the bag, and then dropped the bag on the floor and kicked it underneath a chair. Beneath her worst fear, she wrote her greatest desire: retribution. Then she set out for the beginning again.

Jack Kaulfus | 75

Vishnu Coming Through JEFFREY DAVID GREENE

ishnu comes through, every night, at midnight—and it’s always the same.

First the fax machine turns on in Human Resources. Then a warbling transmission comes through, emitting blue, sparkly dust which settles on the floor. Then he appears with his four arms moving in a quasi-hypnotic swirl that almost looks artful. He sets his conch, discus, mace, and lotus down on some accountant’s desk and then secretes a sweet smelling oil from his palms (he says it’s for meditation, but we just use it for lube), and then he presses me up against a Xerox machine and we have hot sex. It doesn’t mean I’m gay. I wouldn’t do this with just anyone.

Afterwards we lie on the ground and smoke cigarettes, staring at the knotty, plaster ceiling. Sometimes we fuck again. Other times we talk about books or sports. Vishnu is very well read. Then, at some point, the fax machine turns back on, and the screeching transmission starts again, and the potpourri dust appears, and in a few moments, he’s gone.

And I know I’ve got to wait until tomorrow.

V

Around here some people call me Shakespeare or Dr. Berger because I’m in college. Not many Pinkerton Security guards are. I suppose that’s where the stigma comes from—the regular, yuppy employees that we work for see a bunch of foreign-sounding minorities in tight-fitting suits and assume that none of them are educated. When they see me they’re especially surprised—“A white security guard who’s not a supervisor? Weird. He must be some sort of crackhead”—they don’t know that I’m nearly done with a degree from Emerson College, and even though I’m floundering through a single class a semester, I’m still educated.

When they hear my voice, they’re doubly surprised. I can speak standard English, and I don’t use Ebonics or slang or any sort of street vernacular.

I’m a goddamn English major, thank you very much.

“Hey, Shakespeare,” Rowley said from his station behind the fourth floor security desk. He was a short, bald Haitian guy with big eyes and a sublime grin that bore a startling resemblance to Baby Godzilla. I often found myself waiting for him to let out a diminutive battle cry and pick up a double decker bus, just to lick each occupant before eating them.

I tapped my clipboard. “You being good, Rowley?”

76

He nodded, yawning. He was tired. We were all tired. Night-shifts were hard. But I preferred them to working in the daytime. If you worked during the day you had to deal with the real employees judging you every second, and I absolutely hated that shit.

“Morris is looking for you,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rowley said, grinning. “I think you’re in trouble.”

“Oh, come on. Morris loves me.”

He shrugged, flipping through an issue of GQ. “I don’t know. He probably thinks you’ve been sleeping or something.”

I saw the secret door behind the security desk crack open and the eerie light of the CCTV monitors glowing within. Morris poked his head out. As the acting night supervisor, he was the only white guy in the building, besides me. It was rumored that Quincy Morris had taught history at a private boys’ academy in Alabama until he was quietly phased out for an unknown transgression. This, combined with his two ex-wives and estranged son, made him a lonely, bitter man. He took it out on the guards that worked under him. Especially me.

“Jason,” he said. “Get in here.”

Rowley nodded at me. I prepared to get chewed out.

“You look a lot like my son, Berger, I ever tell you that?”

“No, sir, you didn’t.”

Morris sat down in a creaky office chair, the CCTVs illuminating his face, servers buzzing behind him. “Well, you do.”

I shuffled my feet. “Umm, thank you, sir.”

Morris snapped up from his seat, standing, getting in my face. He was a good foot taller than me. “Why’re you acting so squirrely around me, boy?”

“I’m, not, acting, you know—squirrely.”

“Yes, you are,” he said, keeping a bloodshot eye on me. He walked around me once in a full circle, like a man inspecting a young mare, and I strained to keep looking at him. “Have you been keeping your Nextel off?”

“Sometimes,” I said. “When I go to the bathroom and stuff.”

Morris grunted, raising a styrofome cup to his mouth, draining the rest of his coffee. “Montego says that you’ve been lingering up in HR. That true too?”

“I guess.”

“You ‘guess,’” Morris said, continuing his odious habit of repeating whatever the offender says. “You’re a rover, boy, don’t you know what that means?”

“No sir,” I said. “What exactly does that mean?”

His face went beet red, and for a second I thought he might hit me.

Instead, he ran a hand through his buzz-cut and touched my shoulder.

“Don’t mess with me. It means you’re supposed to be roving. Not sitting around up there, doing god-knows-what. You’ve got to keep moving or else

Jeffrey David Greene | 77

you’ll fall asleep. And if we catch you asleep too many times, we’ve got to fire you, y’know?”

I nodded.

“Good,” Morris said. He sat back down, pulling out a tin container of Canadian Lakes chew. He stuck a big greasy wad in his cheek. Once he’d spat a black stream of juice into the empty coffee cup, he offered me some.

I declined. “You don’t dip? Shit, son, when I was your age I was already big into chew. It’s good.”

“That’s okay, I don’t think I need any.”

“Screw that cancer baloney. You can get cancer just from breathing the filthy air outside.”

I scratched my cheek. “Okay, Sir. Are we done?”

Morris rolled his eyes. “Yes. We’re done.” I turned to leave, but he wasn’t finished. “Wait. One last thing. I want you to remember something.

We’re of the same kind around here. You know what I mean? We’ve got to stick together. I need to be able to rely on you. Understand?” He made it sound like the entire Zulu nation might pounce on our meager fort at any moment.

I nodded.

When Vishnu and I first hooked up, he forced himself on me. Oh sure, I kind of enjoyed it, and he and I could laugh about it later on, but at the time it was frightening.

“Remember what you did when we first met?” I said, kissing his blue chest. We were lying on the carpeted floor outside of Accounting. We’d built a makeshift teepee out of cubicle dividers.

Vishnu blew smoke rings in the shape of centaurs. His many arms were all about me, plucking carpet fuzz off of my back. “What? When we first had sex and you screamed like a woman?”

“I didn’t scream like anything,” I said, tweaking a navy blue nipple. “I just got scared. I mean, how often do gods come out of fax machines?”

Vishnu thought about that for a second, blowing on my face. His breathe was both warm and cool, like Ben-Gay. “More often than you’d think.”

I thought about that. Maybe there were gods everywhere, right at that moment, popping out of fax machines. Odin, Thor, Zeus, Apollo, Athena, Dionysus, Aphrodite, Jesus, Mohammed, maybe they were appearing everywhere at once, sexually assaulting young, pimply security guards. A deific-softcore-porn going on in every corporation, all across America. I liked the idea and said so.

“Good.” Vishnu snuffed his cigarette out on the tip of his thumb. “I’m glad.” He re-arranged his golden headdress that had somehow come astray.

“So, Berger, we’re often intimate, but we don’t talk. It’s not often that I pick a human paramour. Tell me about yourself.”

78 | Vishnu Coming Through

“Wait—“ I said, sitting up, poking Vishnu. “Who do you usually have sex with? Legendary beasts? Hippogriffs and chimeras?”

“No. Usually sleazy showgirls or dancers. You’re just a temporary diversion.” Vishnu coughed. “Seriously, I want to know about you.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know,” he said, a cigarette dangling from his lip like a gumshoe. “Y’got family, Berger? Start with that.”

“I’ve got a mother, father, sisters.”

“You guys close?”

“No, not really,” I said. “They’re all back in Connecticut right now, sleeping, probably dreaming about shopping or eating lobster dinners.”

“That’s sad.” Vishnu clicked his tongue and lit his cigarette with my Dukes of Hazard Zippo. Up above us a smoke detector’s red light hopped on. In a minute it’d be blaring.

“Shit,” I said, waving the smoke away. “Be careful with that. All I need is for a fire alarm to go off and for Morris to come up here.”

Vishnu nodded and hugged himself with three of his arms, holding the cigarette away with his spare. “It’s chilly in here. Tell me more. You got a girlfriend?”

I shook my head.

“Boyfriend?”

“No.” I sneered. “You’re my first—y’now, that way.”

Vishnu snickered. “That’s hot. So, I’m your first. I’m flattered.” He nudged my side with the head of his mace. “Funny, for a virgin, you sure seemed like a pro.”

“Asshole,” I said, trying to hold a straight face.

“So, you’re in school, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “A good one.”

“What’re you studying?”

“English,” I said.

Vishnu handed me his burning cigarette and scratched all his armpits at once. “Do you love it? Are you passionate about it?”

I thought about that. “Not really. No, I’m not.”

“Is there anything you’re passionate about?”

I thought about that too. Other than my nights with Vishnu, his touch, his breath, his body—no, there was nothing. I could care less about everything and anything. My life just seemed so over and done with, boring and totally predictable. At twenty-one I was used up and bored: ennui to the max. But I didn’t want to admit any of that to Vishnu. “Sure. I’m passionate about lots of things.” I left it like that.

Vishnu raised the cigarette to his lip once again and made a face.

“These Marlboros suck. Maybe you should bring us some nice cloves for next time.”

I turned to him: “Yeah, well, maybe you should shave that unibrow, you know, for next time.”

Jeffrey David Greene | 79

A few nights later Vishnu and I were sitting on a radiator, looking out at the Boston skyline. Vishnu said that the Prudential sort of looked like my erection. I thanked him. The Pru is pretty big. We made out and I squeezed his four bisceps.

“You’re muscular,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. “I don’t even work out.”

I’d promised Vishnu that we’d smoke up at work sometime, and so I made good on my promise by rolling up a blunt on the floor. He watched, nodding his head, bells jingling from his wrists. Once I was done I put the spliff to his lips and lit it for him. He inhaled deep and hard.

“You know I could get fired for this,” I said.

“I appreciate your risk,” he said, exhaling classy o-rings and smoky hook shapes. Once he was done, a glassy smile lingered across his face. “I like this stuff.”

“Why do you come here?” I said.

He quirked a brow at the question. “What do you mean?”

“Why do you come to this building? Why do you come out of that fax machine? What are you doing here?”

“That’s a stupid question,” he said, offering me the remains of the crumbling blunt.

I put it to my lips and smoked, trying to blow the same rings that Vishnu was capable of. No go. My smoke came out like miniature, mangled clouds. “It’s not a stupid question.”

“Yes it is,” he said. “Why do you come here? Why do you always come through the door?”

“I don’t know,” I said. The had pot started to take effect. I felt lightheaded and shady, like every movement I made was illegal. “Because I just do.”

“Exactly.” Vishnu grinned widely; his teeth were overly white. I told him so.

“I use Crest whitening strips,” he said.

The next day, Morris cornered me in the break-room as I did my tie. He stood in back of me as I worked in front of the mirror. He clearly wasn’t happy. For a second I saw something strange in his watery eyes—a flash of something broken or odd—but that faded.

A moment later he shook his head and snarled.

“Where the hell did you go last night? You turned off your Nextel again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” he said. “Turn around.”

I didn’t comply. He grabbed me by the shirt, whirled me around, squeezing my lapels, and pushed me up against a locker. “Now you listen here, boy,” he said, “I want some fucking answers. You keep disappearing

80 | Vishnu Coming Through

like that and I’m going to have to report you. Do you want that? You want to get reported and fired? Do you?”

He was an inch from my face. Spittle rolled down my lip and onto my chin. He shook me once again, as if trying to rattle the answers out of me like a broken vending machine that’s stolen your quarter.

I said no.

“Right,” he said, easing a little. “No, Berger, you don’t want to get fired. You need this job, right?”

“Yes.” It was true. I needed the job. My father had cut me off months ago because of a stupid fight over my refusal to take up golf. “I need this job.”

Morris let me go. I sniffled and felt warm tears welling in my eyes.

Before I’d come to work, I’d had a few drops of Schnapps with some guys in the dorm, and I was feeling emotional. I wiped my eyes and Morris started to smooth my shirt and do my tie for me. “Berger, I know you’re a good boy. I know that. Just don’t let me down, okay?”

“Yes, Sir.” The tie he made for me was something elaborate, something more refined than the Windsor—the only tie I knew how to make.

“Do you know who I think is the greatest president in the history of the United States?” he said, abruptly, as if just thinking of it.

“No, Sir.” Morris finished my tie and smiled. “All better now. The president I liked—no, loved, actually, was Jimmy Carter. He was compassionate—a peace president. That’s what I think was so great about him. I try to be that way, you know, to lead like him, especially around here. That may be part of the problem. I’m a big softie.”

I nodded. “Yes, Sir.” “Okay, kiddo. Get out there, and keep that damn Nextel on.” Morris looked me square in the face and sighed. “You and me, kid, we gotta stick together.”

“I did a little research on you yesterday,” I said to Vishnu, who was sitting on a desk in front of me.

He pushed the hair out of my eyes. “Yeah? What did you find out?”

“That you’re the god of preservation and maintenance.”

Vishnu leaned over, pecked my cheek, loosened my tie, and ran a hand over my chest. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I shivered from his touch. “Which is why I’ve got a theory as to why you keep showing up here.”

His lips lit my neck. I strangled a moan. “You’re here to preserve and maintain the fax machine.” Vishnu laughed so suddenly that our heads collided, and I got a bloody nose. Then we laughed all the way to the water cooler, toasting with triangular cups. · · ·

Jeffrey David Greene | 81

“Back in Haiti,” Rowley said, “I never thought I’d end up like this.”

“Like what?” I said, leaning against the reception counter. “A security guard?”

Rowley smiled and nodded, and for a second he looked less like baby Godzilla and more like a whistful poet. There was a camera above us in a black dome, mostly for recording if either of us tried to use the reception phones or sit on the nice couches. “I never thought I’d be working here, wasting my life away.”

“You’re not wasting your life,” I said. “You’re waiting for something bigger to come along.”

Rowley shook his head, pulling out a large, cheaply printed issue of Computer Shopper. “I was supposed to be doing something meaningful. Be a doctor or a professor. Living in a big house and driving a nice car.

Thought I’d have lots and lots of girls. Instead I’m thirty-two, working here, driving an ’83 Nissan, and living with my mother. And only the big-piggirls at church will even talk to me.” I didn’t ask for specifics as to what these girls looked like, but they sounded suitably horrible. “And I’m never going to get out of here. They pay me just enough that I’ll never be truly happy, but I’ll also never, ever leave.”

I opened my mouth to say something but then didn’t.

“You, Shakespeare—you’re in college. You’ve got a chance,” he said, holding up a finger as fat as a sausage link. “Don’t waste it.”

The next night Vishnu and I had rough sex on one of the couches near the elevators and once he’d shot off all over my chest, he manipulated me to climax with all four of his soft hands. The orgasm was so strong that it made me convulse and want to curl up into a ball—like a spider with a cocktail pick through its thorax.

“Y’ever want something more than this, Vishnu? Something real? Like a relationship?”

“Something more than this?” he said. “More than our dalliances? No. No, I don’t want. Here I feel free. Why would I want anything else?”

I sighed. “Because.”

“Shit,” Vishnu said, and I’d never heard him swear before. “Not again.”

He got up, his four arms working frantically, pulling his loincloth, headdress, and bracers on.

“Hey,” I said, “where are you going?”

“Why do things always have to get so sordid and serious, especially when I’m having fun? I pick a mortal lover, and it always ends up like this.”

Vishnu swaggered through the offices, gliding past cubicles and printers, network hubs and blue pencil holders, broken monitors and PCMCIA cards. He stood in front of the fax machine like Captain Kirk, waiting to be beamed up.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yeah,” Vishnu said. “I’m leaving. It’s about that time.”

82 | Vishnu Coming Through

My pants were still around my ankles. The fax started to cough out strangled beeps and blips. The pixy dust coughed out. I grabbed one of Vishnu’s arms, but he yanked it away. “How come I feel like this is the last time I’m ever going to see you?”

He sighed and chewed his lip but then ruffled my hair. “Hey, kid, you’re going to see me again. Don’t worry about that.” But I knew he was lying, and he knew that I knew. “Things always have an end, Jason. If it wasn’t now, when would it be?”

And he was right. There wasn’t any future in it. Vishnu couldn’t come home with me. He couldn’t sleep in my bed, and I couldn’t introduce him to roommates, my friends, my country-club parents, and my yappy sisters. It’d never work.

Vishnu touched my face again and his fingers glided across my cheeks and left a trail of goo that smelled like ginger. “There-there. Buck up, kid.

I’ll be back, someday, maybe.”

Before I could say anything, he disappeared.

I sighed and clicked my Nextel back on. A loud series of beeps came through, and Rowley’s voice screamed, “Jesus, Shakespeare! Answer your goddamn Nextel! Morris is coming up there, and he’s going to bust your ass if he catches you sleeping—” I turned around, and there he was: Morris, standing by the water cooler, his eyes wide and a hand covering his mouth. His Nextel hit the ground, beeping. I didn’t know what to say or what he’d seen. Instead I pulled my pants up, zipping them. I wiped some of Vishnu’s stuff off my cheek and tasted it. It was incredibly sweet.

We were quiet a long time.

“How long were you standing there?” I said.

Morris didn’t make a sound.

“Does this mean I’m fired?”

Morris and I never spoke again. For the next few weeks we avoided each other, except for strange glances in the cafeteria and a moment in the break room where I thought he wanted to ask me something, but instead he just quivered and looked like he might cry.

Rowley and the guys tried to pump the story out of me about what happened up there in Human Resources. I didn’t tell him anything. They made up a rumor that I’d fought him, wrestled him to the ground, and dominated him completely and thoroughly. They said that I’d somehow broken Morris’s spirit and that he would never be the same. I knew otherwise.

A few months later Morris was fired for stealing that very same fax machine from HR—the one that Vishnu used to come out of. After work one night, Rowley caught Morris stuffing the fax machine into the back of his Chevy. Rowley ratted to the top, and they made him supervisor.

Jeffrey David Greene | 83

Although they shit-canned Morris, the fax machine was never returned.

I’m not sure exactly what he was trying to pull. It’s not like the fax machine was a magic genie lamp or anything. I didn’t get any of my wishes answered. But Morris probably just wants all the same things we all want: Love. Success. Sex. Acceptance. Companionship. Like everybody he’s just trying to get it wherever he can.

It’s my last semester at school now, and I’m happy. I still work security part-time at Landmark Center, and it’s great. Rowley lets me study during the overnight shifts. Every once in a while I go back to Human Resources during my rounds. There’s a yellow spot on the plastic table that outlines where the fax machine used to be. I sniff the counter. Sometimes it smells like persimmon, or I think I see some of that sparkling dust. But then I come to my senses. It’s all gone.

84 | Vishnu Coming Through

Portals TAMARA K. WALKER

t feels wrong to call them vortexes. They don’t swirl. Watery purple holographic circles, my portals shimmer softly with the serene gaze of patient elephants. Watching? Waiting? I don’t know if they care whether or not they’re used. Since they vanish afterwards, I like to think so.

I

I’m waiting for my aunt, who I’ve never actually met, at her mountain home. She insistently claims to have babysat me exactly thrice. I’m here to set the record straight. No: I’m here to show her that I exist. I: dimensional person, adult, woman, anything other than the meek little boy she supposedly remembers me as. Best raspberry blouse, hair done up, tied in a bow of its own at the back of my neck. My no-nonsense working-class unmet aunt doesn’t care about such things. Neither do I, in my own way, but efficacious presentation is integral to my image itself. On the phone, my mother tells me: 1. Relax.

1.5. Just be yourself.

1.75. You’ll be fine.

2. But for god’s sake don’t comment on her hideous décor, 2.25. or tell her anything about me in the last decade.

My mother also warns me that she’s blunt, in-your-face, not the most ‘politically correct’ of her sisters. I sigh, promise to abide advice #1-2 on her list, and hang up.

Portaling comes easy. My uncle, who I’ve just met, shows me how to do it.

Contrary to my expectations, you don’t have to have a great imagination for detail. In fact, my uncle tells me, the more detailed the mental picture of your destination, the more likely you are to fuck it up. You don’t want to fuck it up. Imagine a place, he tells me, without all the little elements that make it truly unique. Just the essence. Don’t envision a photograph; nothing fancy. I trust him. His beard is scraggly at the ends and far too long for his face, but he’s extremely calm and exudes patient wisdom.

I portal in and out of a test zone a few times: blank white space, just to get the feel of it and practice the vagueness of setting my uncle advised. To get there I imagine margins and focus on them too intently the first few times, ending up in a frightening nether-realm in which inky shapes flit in and out of existence intermittently on the horizon. · · ·

85

The first actual place I portal to is a burnt-out city. I have speculations as to its exact location, though I simply cannot know that and it doesn’t matter.

When I arrive I’m in a short above-ground tunnel made of an abandoned concrete pipe. The sun is still high in the sky and contrasts eerily with the dark conduit. I freeze for three seconds and just breathe. Portaling feels like that pins-and-needles sensation of your arm falling asleep, except it washes indiscriminately through your entire body. It isn’t long before I know why I’m here. A small black bear is at the end of the tunnel, glaring menacingly at nothing in particular. Fortunately, the tunnel is too narrow for it to get through. I scuttle quickly out the other end and try to climb atop the pipe.

Slipping several times I finally ascend it at the expense of my palms. The bear disappears and I scratch my shoulders in bafflement. When it reemerges on the side I deftly tranquilize it and empathize as I succumb to the sedative effects of the violet visual gel.

7 pm. My aunt still isn’t off work. My stepbrother joins us and wants to try portaling from here too. I know this is a mistake but chalk the feeling up to older sibling arrogance. Confiding in him as I always have, I describe my excursion, which he unwisely decides to replicate. My uncle gives him a similar crash-course and he brings his friend, who has inexplicably accompanied him to my aunt’s. When they get to the tunnel it’s midmorning and an irate rooster is there. It bites and pecks at their cocks. They portal out, shrug and give up. My aunt arrives and is more perplexed by me than anything.

Reportaling to clean up my stepbrother’s mess. I’m more skilled at minimal visualization now. Same tunnel, different area. Not necessarily a city.

Rhino. I try to save her life by gently shaving her horn.

The girl takes off running. Seeing no one behind her and feeling like a bloated superfluity, she slows mirthlessly to a stumbling amble. Recently, she yearned achingly to be seen, for recognition as herself, but now she would give anything to just be invisible, to be an unsuffering, imperceptible lacuna between the plastic piano keys of adolescence and spacetime.

Though headed down the west hallway she can’t see any of the classrooms.

Everything resembles a giant aquarium into which someone is dropping viscous fluid. Her mascara runs much as she ran. Black streaks stain her teal sleeve. She dashes into the women’s bathroom—risky, but she doesn’t care doesn’t care doesn’t care—into a stall without bothering to lock the door, throws an old compact mirror over the partition, and holds her head in her hands.

My aunt excuses herself immediately after my introduction, her beige chalky skin having predictably gone an even paler shade. I can hear incredulous muttering from the next room containing my mother’s name.

86 | Portals

She emerges to stare at me with dish-plate eyes and a false smile that looks more maniacal than friendly, awkwardly asking a few perfunctory questions and mumbling some thick soup of words containing the phrase ‘…live and let live…’ My uncle announces “Dinnertime!” with equally artificial but less creepy cheeriness after a nebulous pause, and my aunt uncovers a baking dish on the stove. She shoves some sort of potato casserole dish at me that is simultaneously far too bland and burning of cinnamon.

I land in a carpeted hallway. A school. I know this without any other details, just by staring at the crushed multicolored tapestry beneath my feet, so many flecks of crayon wax on a charcoal canvas. Two doors are ahead, side by side, marked by signs that I barely catch a glimpse of before everything fuses into one entrance. Bathrooms? I tentatively enter the mono-door and hear glockenspiel notes. One of the stall doors is slightly ajar and swinging limply on its hinges. Gently pressing it with my fingertips, I see the girl and wordlessly ask her consent to enter. Perched above the toilet, she looks up at me with a distorted expression of fear that turns with a blink to fatalistic resignation devoid of embarrassment. We need each other. I lock the stall door behind us. Her short black hair in a cut I’m fairly sure she didn’t choose looks like it feels like it smells softly of detergent. I don’t tell her of the sour trade-off she’ll likely make as she and the world mature. As the glistening iris portal hovers above us and the blinding linoleum, I simply hold her close.

Tamara K. Walker | 87

What Follows Us ADAM MCOMBER

London August 21, 18— cherton purchases tickets at the wooden kiosk in front of Lord Mayor’s House and slips them into the pocket of his summer suit. The phantasmagoria isn’t scheduled to begin for another hour, so we have time for a walk. A barker dressed in theater rags and corpse makeup attempts to draw a crowd for the show by announcing the details of his own murder.

We cross the muddied street, leaving the barker and the carriage clatter of Knightsbridge behind, making our way into the silent depths of Hyde Park.

I follow Acherton, observing the hard line of his shoulders and the strength of his pale neck. This is to be our final outing. To a casual observer, I suppose we might seem a pair of boyhood friends on a last lark. But it’s far more painful than that. Acherton is to be married the following month, and he’s made it clear we cannot continue our longstanding visits. “I intend to become respectable, Tom,” he says, gravely. I cannot respond. How can I speak when I have known him for so many years, and the idea of life without him seems impossible?

We find a quiet stand of yellow oaks near the pond. Acherton talks, and I listen. He avoids further serious topics. In his mind, all the serious topics have been dealt with. He tells me instead the history of the phantasmagoria, attempting the sort of exuberant tone that once charmed me. But he cannot achieve true levity. There’s weight in his voice—gravity that pins us both to the Earth.

“The phantasmagoria is the newest thing from Paris, Tom,” he says.

“It’s all done with mirrors and light. There are no actors. A projector is hidden behind a false panel in the wall, and a series of mechanical slides create the illusion of movement—a real moving picture show. They bring all sorts of ghouls and hobgoblins to life on the screen. You’ll love it.”

“People pay to watch these horrors?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Horror stimulates.”

I wish I could take his hand and ask him not to leave. But we were growing distant even before the announcement of his engagement. His visits to my rooms were becoming rare. He would say simply that we are putting boyhood games aside. This is to be an amicable separation, after all. I remain outwardly composed, glad to be wearing my coal-colored traveling suit. Such clothing, I imagine, better conceals my feelings. Acherton is

A

88

twenty-five, and I am a year younger. When he marries, I will be left a bachelor, aging alone in my rooms with no one to visit me. I wonder if it’s possible that he does not care what becomes of me. He reclines in the grass, pale jacket open, necktie slightly loose. I can’t help but admire the way he’s grown his dark hair longer than fashion permits. At least he hasn’t entirely surrendered to convention. He smells of French cigarettes and shaving talc, and I wish I could make a home inside his scent.

I try to remember the first time we ventured into the leafy preserves of Hyde Park together. We were still boys at school, and I felt as though we’d fallen into the wilds of some fairy book. We’d been testing the boundaries of our physical relationship. In between our bouts of wrestling, Acherton attempted to frighten me by recounting the tale of a boy who’d drowned in the big pond. He was Lord Croydon’s son, Acherton said. You’ve heard of Lord Croydon at school, haven’t you, Tom? I had, of course. Croydon was a retired dean and an antiquary, famed for his investigations into the Roman cult of Mithras. Traveling Roman soldiers were said to have brought the cult to London shortly after the death of Christ. Next to nothing was known about the ancient god of Mithraism other than that he held some terrible sway over his followers. Bloody sacrifice was common. Lord Croydon discovered a subterranean temple devoted to Mithras not far from the nave of Saint John’s Cathedral. The temple was cut from the earth, decorated with odd blue tile that, despite its age, appeared almost liquid. There was a dark stain at the center of the temple—a memory of sacrificial gore. The god Mithras was represented as a boy emerging from a stone. His brow was pale and wide, his eyes large dark holes bored deeply into his face. The stony boy-god stared down at the stain with his depthless, hungry eyes. He seemed desperate—a lonely god of wrath, waiting for worship. Lord Croydon wrote that as he was dusting the surface of the god’s face, he felt a power pass through him. “Like an awful cosmic tide, pulling me out into a vast sea,” Croydon wrote. “For a moment, I saw all of London in ruin. The only thing that moved in our precious city was Mithras himself. Free from his stone prison, he dragged himself down the empty streets, searching for what, I cannot know.”

Croydon’s son didn’t care anything for ridiculous old Mithras or any other portion of his father’s work, Acherton said. He was like the rest of us, Tom. The poor boy only wanted to fall in love. One has to imagine that his death in the cold water of the pond came as a terrible surprise. What were his last thoughts, I wonder? Something about a girl he’d never see again?

Or a boy, I added without speaking.

Acherton prepared for the climax of his story. Croydon’s son haunts the woods. I’ve seen him myself.

You have not, I said, a bit offended that he’d expect me to believe such a thing. I made better marks than Acherton in almost every class.

He took a long drag from his cigarette and squinted at me as he exhaled. Oh, I’m afraid so. I was walking, trying to get my mind off school,

Adam McOmber | 89

and I saw a form ahead of me. I was annoyed, of course, hoping to be alone. It looked like another boy from our class up ahead in the shadow of the trees. But when the form turned to face me, I realized he wasn’t from anyone’s class. He had chalky skin and this awful mass of black hair that was wet and limp, as if he’d been for swim. And— And what? I asked.

His eyes were, well, there were no eyes. Just fleshy holes. But he wasn’t blind. He could see me well enough. And he stood staring. Surveying me— to see if I had what he wanted. It was then that I understood he wasn’t a boy at all.

What was he then?

Acherton shrugged. Something that didn’t belong in the woods. A presence that had worked its way out of the past. Some people say Croydon’s son watches lovers by the pond—that he’s heartsick.

I wanted to ask Acherton if Croydon’s son would look at us. Were we to be lovers? But I held my tongue, of course. Instead, I drew myself close to him, and he put his arm around me, and we sat together like that in the darkening woods.

But the thing I saw wasn’t heartsick, Tom, Acherton said. If I had to wager, I’d say he didn’t have any heart at all.

Such memories of our history are painful, but I cannot help but think of the dead boy and Croydon’s old god as I sit with Acherton. My mind casts forth, searching for distraction. Shadows of oak branches glide across Acherton’s body like a conjurer’s hand. I gaze up at the oak leaves. They’ve started to change color but have not yet fallen. The pond itself has a leaden, blackish look. There’s a woman walking her dog near the water, and she glances briefly in our direction. I wonder what she makes of us—two men in suits sitting in the shadow of the oak trees. Are we respectable?

I am unsure of when precisely I begin to pray. I’d been a rational atheist since a young age. Yet there in the woods, in that moment of duress, I find I cannot help myself. My prayers, at first, are strange and formless. I pray to the forest floor that it should leach my sorrow into the dark of its soil. And then I pray to the melancholy trees for the wisdom to let Acherton go. Before I can stop myself, I sense something unnatural happening.

Something beyond my control. I imagine the energy of my prayers is beginning to coalesce somewhere deeper on in the woods—forming a kind of white and shimmering body behind the trees. It’s a body made of prayers and desperate wishes. The body watches Acherton and me. I pray harder still and the body begins to breathe. I realize I’m bringing the thing to life, but I cannot stop myself.

“Are you going to take Anna to the phantasmagoria as well?” I ask, almost breathless, trying to forget the thing in the forest.

Acherton’s expression softens as he looks at me. His sympathy makes me uncomfortable, and my woolen traveling suit begins to itch in the heat.

90 | What Follows Us

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about Anna,” he says, checking his pocket watch. “This is our day. Tell you what, Tom—let’s go have a look at the magic lantern machine,” he says. “Let’s see the horrors.”

He’s pulling me up from the grass. I don’t want to move into the trees. I fear the thing I’ve conjured—the white body. It’s not the dead boy. Nor is it the old god, Mithras. It’s something beyond the two. A cosmic willfulness.

Surely it will trap me, and once it has me, it will not let me go. Acherton and I are moving together like we used to move—almost as one body. We walk along the narrow path, and I can feel the presence following, passing stealthily between tree trunks. Stalking us. I turn to look. But the woods are empty.

We cross back over Knightsbridge and enter Lord Mayor’s House. The corpse in rags holds the door for us, grinning hideously. Once inside, Acherton and I stand together in the darkened hall, staring up at a large blank screen. Other patrons whisper around us in anticipation. The show begins with flickers of light. I watch as one awful image melts into the next.

A bleeding nun descends the convent stairs. An imp rides a wooly he-goat out of Hell. There are writhing serpents. A blue specter manifests, swelling and contracting like a lung. None of it frightens me. I can think only of the thing in the woods.

Near the show’s end, the odd specters disappear and a primeval scene spreads slowly across the screen. Dark and curling ferns blot out a projected sun. The high, airy call of some long ago creature sounds from a distant corner of the hall. “We are moving through time,” says the barker’s voice.

“To an age when the great gods themselves walked upon the Earth.”

Acherton leans close and whispers playfully, “They’re coming for you, Tom.” I close my eyes, press myself against him. He puts his arm around me like he used to do. It’s dark enough in the theater so that no one will know.

I allow myself to speak. “Am I going to die without ever seeing you again?” I whisper.

He does not answer.

An image begins to rise from deep inside me. It’s a flickering picture like the ones on the screen. I see a boy at school meeting his dark-haired friend for the first time. They read a book of poetry in the common room, shoulders pressed together. They laugh at the wistful romance of the lines, kicking each other’s feet. It’s a simple scene of youth. Nothing horrible.

Then I watch as my younger self stands and walks away from dark-haired Acherton. I’m holding the romantic book of poetry to my chest and wearing a half-smile. In that long ago moment, I believe I’ve gained some control over life. There are no sacrifices to be made, no gods to fear. I wish, more than anything, I could tell my younger self about the horrors to come. There are so many temples waiting beneath the earth—so many, they have made the Earth a hollow thing.

Adam McOmber | 91

Shades of Gray CATHERINE SHARPE

P

en was surprised to hear the cell phone ring.

Yesterday, she had washed it, buried as it was in a load of dirty laundry. She often piled things on top of the laundry basket for trips up and down the stairs—library books to be returned, her daughter’s toys, her laptop, empty coffee mugs, water bottles.

She discovered the phone a few hours later when she shifted a white load to her dryer. There it was like a miniature submarine in a frozen whirlpool. She pried the battery out and put both parts in the sun to dry before snapping everything back together. She should not have been hopeful, but still.

Then it rang. But there was no way to know who was calling so she pressed it to her ear.

“Hello?” she said.

“You’ll find it in Dryer Number Seven. Remember to twist to the right only. The more you use it, the less effective it will be, but the less you’ll need it. You’ll see what we mean. Dryer. Number. Seven. Try not to be late, Pen. Goodbye, Pen. Good luck, Pen.” The speaker’s voice had clearly been disguised, jacked up from a contralto to a funny falsetto, or maybe digitally generated, hard to be sure.

Maybe she had left herself a garbled reminder message, like a difficult-todecipher note written in the dark, in the middle of the night, in between dreams.

Dryer Number Seven? It had been many years since Pen had been to a laundromat. Together, they had become Homeowners, capitalized like a brand name or a breed of dog or a job title. Now she had her very own machines for washing things like clothes and dishes. She had a house, she had a driveway with room for more than one car, she had an apple tree. She had all these things to herself.

She rested the phone back in the charger.

There was a laundromat next to the apartment building where she and Kate used to live. Dryer Number Seven was the one that ran the hottest.

There had been no apparent difference in age, brand, wear or tear among the machines. But Pen was Pen, so before committing even dull, well-worn quarters, she had tested each dryer—she had put her full hand flat on the glass face of every machine at the height of its cycle. Dryer Number Seven ran hot and fast, the fastest.

92

When they were new to each other, Kate and Pen never bothered to separate the lights from the darks, cramming everything into a triple loader.

They would hold hands through every cycle and then stuff the hot clothes and sheets and towels into the laundry bag, charge up four flights of stairs to 5D and empty the bag on the naked bed; undressed, they would burrow under the still warm pile of clean laundry. The clothes cooled as the sweat cooled their skin. They lay together, fully visible to the ceiling and each other, thrilled at the impulse of their own thrills. Much later they would make the bed and accomplish other domestic duties.

She couldn’t concentrate. Periodically the cell phone would beep, as if there was a message. She was trying to decipher the literary analysis of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, sitting cross-legged on her couch in her long tshirt. Something about literature as a diagnostic tool for cultural neurosis. It was muck. It was too hot, too summer, for muck. It was twilight forever.

She felt ridiculous after checking the phone a third and fourth time after it beeped, only to hear No… New… Voicemail. But this did not stop her from checking the fifth, sixth, and seventh time. Finally, she pried the battery out. She was so tired she was untired, like the undead.

When it beeped again without the battery, she didn’t bother with shoes; she got in the car.

The laundromat was closed, the front door locked. So Pen studied the names on the directory at the front door of her old apartment building. She did not recognize any—everyone she remembered had moved on. She pushed 5D for old time’s sake.

“Something was left for me just inside,” she said into the intercom.

“I’m supposed to pick it up.” Trustful 5D buzzed her in.

She crept out the back fire exit and straddled the low fence between their apartment building and the laundromat next door.

The back door was ajar, propped open by stacks of folded cardboard.

There was still enough light to see—the sun was not anxious to lay down for the moon—but even so, the laundromat had always been locked and empty at 9 p.m. But because of the phone call, Pen believed it would be open, believed it would be there, whatever it was that she needed.

A waste bin, full entirely of uneven tufts of lint the varied grays of rainclouds, had been knocked over. She eased in through the back door, stepping over the lint. The expected step down from the landing was somehow not there and she jerked to find her bare feet so suddenly on the cool linoleum.

Pen would trust. The device would be waiting for her. She believed, she knew it somehow, the same way she knew her bank account balance, roughly, without having to add or subtract; she knew it the way a bat knows fruit, knew it like the lines on her own palm. Pen knew it like the curves up

Catherine Sharpe | 93

to the knob of her smooth alabaster bedside lamp, the one she’d depended on for so many years, the one that remained of their matching pair.

She felt pulled inside, drawn towards the fading light bouncing like a dull ball from machine to machine, just the last bit of light rebounding off the gunmetal gray of the giant capacity front loaders. She walked past Dryer Number One, and past Dryer Number Five half full with an abandoned, disconsolate load of almost dry laundry. She patted her hips as if to find pockets, as if to find quarters to finish the load, forgetting for a moment that she was dressed for sleep, not household chores, or charity.

As she crouched in front of Dryer Number Seven, she worried that someone might peer in through the painted “O” of “LAUNDROMAT” stenciled on the front window and see her, might call the police, put her away with the crazies because, Oh!, what was this person, this grown woman, this Homeowner, this citizen, doing in her bare feet, her t-shirt washed thin and her legs prickly and not recently shaved, what was she doing alone in this closed business establishment?

And what were her fingers scrabbling at—unknotting a scarf?— squatting on the floor, unwrapping some kind of long instrument, an odd tube with a viewfinder, a telescope of some kind, or a periscope, or an oscilloscope of the heart, a device curlicued and etched with words that could only be understood looking back. If anyone had bothered to watch solitary Pen through the laundromat window, they would see, just before the sun vanished without explanation, a baffled woman sitting cross-legged on the floor between the triple loader and Dryer Number Seven, holding some apparatus out straight from her eye, looking east.

Pen draped the scarf around her shoulders—a perforated loosely-knit warmth woven from some muted rainbow of clay, tarnish, brick, mud, and slate. She repositioned her thumbs on the underside of the instrument, resting them into two smooth divots. With her legs bent, heels pressed into the linoleum, her elbows jutted into her knees. She turned the eyepiece rightwards against the stationary main shaft; she was holding her breath, prepared for anything, prepared to take it in. Each turn produced a tiny click, there was no going backwards, no recovery from this rightward movement. Click. Blur. Click. Blur. Click. Blur and then blurring finally collapsed into focus.

Pen could see nothing close with this fancy device, and not even anything in the mid-distance, but she zoomed through washers and dryers and laundromats and lies and stairs and walls and buildings and bridges and hills, all the way to that other city, balanced on another body of water, all the way to a room she couldn’t recognize, to a bed she couldn’t sleep in, to a familiar alabaster lamp. And that light clicked out.

94 | Shades of Gray

The History of Sexuality JOSEPH HARRINGTON

Chapter 1 Once upon the beginning, the founder of Safety Day bred on this treeless plain.

The zoo had its lean years: the animals served us food, the barking ribbed-face deer consumed whole trees when the shelling ceased.

Chapter 2 “Will the distinguished animal please declare himself a bug or a bird? We cannot abide generic ambiguity in unidentical flying objects— Condom and Gomorrah perished thus!”

Chapter 3 Erotic fantasies disturbed him when he was not having them; their lack of evolutionary function caused him to write: “Mommy o mommy my head and my body want different things.”

Chapter 4 “The peristyle is a clerestory,” he wrote, “penetrated by console brackets forming a transition to the ribbed surface of the cap.”

Thus did the dome expand and contract,

95

a symbol of the cheerful government where daddy is in charge of alphabets, where suffragettes in the basement rise from living rock like the ascent of man.

96 | The History of Sexuality

Dreaming of the Manananggal VICTORYA CHASE

T

he body was actually half a body, slender legs leading up to a perfectly curved waist, and then nothing. Clothed in dark blue jeans and red pumps, it leaned against the bark of a barren tree in Central Park—not the one in New York City, the one in Schenectady, although neither is particularly safe to walk through at night. Where the jeans’ waistband stopped, soft skin curled up into the night, fine threads of flesh caught in some invisible breeze reaching, stretching, and somehow sighing.

I tried loving a cancer patient once. We walked through the park. We ate ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s. We even made love despite the doctors still debating if one should while on chemo. Together we’d check her T-cell counts and pray and pray and pray while we caressed each other, while our tongues lingered on lips and hips, on shoulder blades, on pert nipples reaching forward while our breath caught in gasps. Our bodies fit, and I loved the feel of her hair against my face, of the fuzz on her head after it began to grow back. I loved her chemo curl, thick voluptuous hair that wound its way around my fingers when I pulled them over her scalp. Our breasts were the right size for each other’s mouths; hers were butterscotch and cotton candy. Then, later, I’d drink the tea she couldn’t have while she sipped water, while she added in lemon and sugar, while I wondered if I had just killed her.

While in love, I gave up smoking. I gave up lazing on the couch after work.

I gave up bitching about every little indignity life brought my way. I started to read so I’d have things to say other than, “Are you okay today?” I thought of rescuing a dog from the pound. I didn’t because she couldn’t be around animals while her immune system was suppressed, but the point is I thought about it. Some days she was too tired to feign happiness and her idea of normalcy, and I was thankful for those times. She’d ask to lie on the couch, her head in my lap, eyes closed. Her eyelids were so thin, like rice paper over the ocean. I counted the veins. I saw her eyes moving under her eyelids even as her breathing slowed. She asked me to tell her stories about my life, my family. I told her fairy tales instead. I told her about the Manananggal, a beast that could split itself in two. I spoke of the Aswang instead of my mother. When she asked if I had brothers or sisters I told her about the Tigbalan. She enjoyed hearing about the Tigbalan’s long limbs, that smooth equine face. I told her how they liked to trick travelers, how

97

they had spikes hidden in their manes, but if you had a spike you could use it to subdue the Tigbalan. Sometimes she’d have me lean against her, and she’d braid my hair. It was a thick black to her curling vibrant red.

When I neared the legs, they moved a few steps away, heels crunching down into the snow. I was smoking; it was after midnight. I had walked to the store to buy a case of cigarettes but only had enough money for three packs. I decided to go back through the park despite the night. My lungs were groaning at the return of nicotine and tar but my brain was screaming in neural pulses of pleasure. I was on my fourth cigarette when I saw the legs. I tossed my cigarette stub near them, and the toe of the pump ground it into the snow. I lunged at the waist and tossed it over my shoulder. The legs kicked out at me, bruising my back, but there was no mouth to scream, so I carried it home and locked the door. The living room was a wreck of fast food wrappers and clothes. For the first time, I noticed the smell— processed food product, factory cow and grease and sweat, my sweat, on every piece of clothing that trailed from door to couch to bedroom. I had recently begun unbuttoning my clothes before I reached my door, in the car even, so anxious was I to release myself from the trappings of the hospital where I worked.

After she passed—no, after she died, the cancer spreading, the chemo only polluting her blood, poisoning her, leukemia added to the uterine cancer, her insides a mass of replicating cells (“I always wanted a baby,” she joked, “but not like this, not asexually. I like sex.”), her blood killing her with each beat of her heart—I went to the pound. There I met Nuttley, AKA Nutt the Mutt. His eyes were clouds (“Cataracts,” the volunteer said with a laugh, “or, as we call them, dogaracts.”), his fur wiry, one ear stood at attention while the other flopped against the side of his graying muzzle.

“He just needs some love,” the volunteer said, kneeling next to him, patting him on the head, scratching his ear. He closed his eyes, useless as they were, in appreciation.

“A little love is all he needs,” she repeated. Then, “He never does this,” referring to the puddle of yellow that was slowly spreading, that had wet the knee of the jeans she was wearing.

My mother always called me a bad girl, and in that I was like her. I was a tomboy, playing sports and winning. I was also violent. It took a long time for me to realize that the difference between kickball and baseball was that you couldn’t hurl a baseball at people to get them out. It took me bruising a lot of people before I conceded that the rules might be different. I fought. I bled and made others bleed. I didn’t mind being covered with dirt yet loved brushing the hair of my friends, braiding in pink ribbons, smelling their floral perfumes and kissing the chemical of freshly painted nails. I loved them for the very girliness I didn’t have. For that, and so much more, my

98 | Dreaming of the Manananggal

mother warned me to always carry a red sack with ginger and coins—to ward off the bad spirits. It was the only protection she thought to offer me from the world. That’s what she had for me, fairy tales.

The legs and waist laid itself down on the couch and pushed off its heels. I could feel the satisfaction in that act. The toes proved themselves to be quite dexterous. They immediately found the remote control and were flipping through channels, the volume turned up to its max. I left to return to the park; surely the top half of the Manananggal would be returning soon—the sun was due to rise in a little over an hour.

I met Jennie over the phone. She was scheduling an appointment with the doctor I worked for. I was labeled a ‘Physician’s Office Assistant,’ which really meant ‘Babysitter who Schedules Patients.’ When I wasn’t telling my doctor how wonderful he was for doing his job, I was telling him he was a really good dad even if he did miss his daughter’s recital, and after all, I sent her a card and flowers. I also sent out cards for birthdays and anniversaries and kept his wife and boyfriend separated and ordered his lunch and ushered him from meeting to meeting and prepped him for the patients on clinic days.

Jennie’s voice was sad beauty queen. It was Disney princess in reality land. She sent in her scans and chart, and I had gleaned enough medical knowledge to know her prognosis, to know my doctor would take the case, to know I shouldn’t fantasize over a patient, and I never had before, so why now? But damn, she had some hot scans. I made an excuse to catch a glimpse of her in the clinic room and ran into her at the cafeteria during lunch, and when I said, “Hi,” she recognized my voice. She sighed, and I told her that coffee probably wasn’t good for her in her condition.

“If you sit here, you have to talk about something else,” she said.

“Fine, then reinvent the rainbow,” I said. “I’m sick of those same damn colors.” I don’t know why that came to my mind, but she laughed and I was hooked.

Nutt the Mutt with clouds for eyes peed in the car on the way home and barked at every stoplight. I told myself he was barking them green, not that he missed the sensation of movement. He loved riding in the car. He loved walking on the leash, his one pert ear turning in every direction, picking up noises only a blind dog could hear. He loved eating, and he loved sniffing.

He sniffed everything, big snotty snorts led him around the house that first night, from living room to bathroom to kitchen and bedroom. He didn’t try to get up on the furniture, but when I sat on the couch, he curled on my feet, his nose sniffsniffsniffing my toes.

The Manananggal was not happy I had taken her legs. Her hair was wild and her wings as fragile as my lover’s eyelids—taut, cappuccino skin with

Victorya Chase | 99

veins highlighted by the rays of the moon. She hopped on my shoulders, strong arms holding on to my chest—the touch exciting me—and I carried her home. Her heart beat against my spine, and I wondered if it was always this fast or if she was nervous. The TV was playing a QVC special on sneaker pumps. She slid off my back and walked fist over fist to where her lower half lay on the couch. Tendrils from her top met those from her bottom half, and they slowly merged together. She opened her mouth as if to scream, but only squeaks came out. She signed furiously, but I only knew three things in sign language—the words ‘fuck,’ ‘horny,’ and the chorus of ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ None of those seemed fitting. I went into the kitchen and made tea. She followed, and it was then I realized she was topless. Her hair, black like mine, was tangled from a night of flying. I set a cup of tea in front of her, sitting down with my own cup. She took a sip and winced. I went to the cupboard and fetched sugar.

Jennie wanted her rainbow to have patterns in it, not solid colors. She wanted a paisley stripe, a checkered stripe, a polka dot stripe.

“But the colors,” I asked. “What colors would be in your rainbow?”

Then she changed her mind and wanted her rainbow to be made of cheesecake. Of bacon and pizza and French fries drenched in fake cheese sauce. Of whiskey ice cream and salted caramel.

Schenectady, NY was burned down in 1690. I found this out in a musical my mother took me to. It was commissioned to celebrate the tri-centennial.

Through song I learned that the French came from Montreal, along with Algonquin Indians. They stormed across the Mohawk River under orders from King Louis XIV and slaughtered the residents who had, it seemed, left the door to the stockades open. Over sixty people were killed, their blood freezing on the streets. It was February, the coldest month in upstate New York. Since then the population grew and shrunk, grew and shrunk. The whole time our history was danced by more performers than had initially died, my mother smiled and looked over at me, her knee bopping to the rhythms.

Now I lived across from a field that buzzed, supposedly from chemicals left over or spilled when the old Alcoa plant was around. The city was dying once again. Recession, progression, evolution—pick your enemy, it was storming the city, abandoning factories, taking jobs away. I asked the Manananggal why she picked this city, why she left the Philippines for here. She signed frantically, and I sighed.

“Don’t you eat fetuses?” I asked. This time she sighed. Her eyes were big and the irises as dark as her pupils. Her skin looked so smooth, so soft.

She smelled of winter and woods, of earth and snow. Her fingers, slender, curled around the mug. She held it in both hands.

“You can borrow a shirt,” I said. “I’ll lay a few out.”

I put three on the couch and went to my room and fell asleep.

100 | Dreaming of the Manananggal

Nutt the Mutt never wet the house. He’d sniff his way to the door for his walks. He’d whine for car rides, and I’d take him to Central Park, to the Lochs, to the Mohawk River where he’d gently, oh so gently, put in one paw and then shake off the wet, then put in the other paw and shake, then cry and walk into the water, waiting for me to follow. He’d never go in far, but I could hear his contented snotty sniffs, see his cloudy eyes looking up at their brothers in the sky. Could he see the rainbows through his clouds?

Even before he was blind, could he see the colors, or was it true that dog vision is shades of gray? Did he only see streaks of gray curving across the sky, a promise unfilled?

My love is a death knell. I loved Jennie with everything I thought I had, and that wasn’t enough. I left the door of my heart open for Nutt the Mutt, but he only lasted a little over a month.

“Kidneys,” the vet said. “But kudos to you for making his last days good ones.”

I mouthed the word “kudos.”

My mother had to rescue me from school often. In kindergarten I kissed Susie Patterson during story time. In third grade I skipped class with friends to sit under the slide and giggle at the fact that we could sit under the slide instead of taking another math test. In fifth grade I went into the restroom during recess and wadded up paper towels with soap and water, throwing them on the ceiling and at boys that passed by, pushing their noses in, hoping for a peek at the mysteries of girlhood. I beat up a boy for asking my best friend out in junior high, for not asking me, for trying to take her from me. I swore in chemistry class when I dropped the glass rods we were bending into perfect ninety-degree angles. Each time my mother would come to school to pick me up, her hair in an impossibly neat bun at the nape of her neck, her skin leathery brown, her accent thick still despite living longer in America than her homeland. I’d be embarrassed when she spoke, when she betrayed our heritage, but not enough to not get angry. Not enough to reign myself in and sit still and pretty, to be anything other than the child, teenager, and then adult that I was. And each time on the way home, she wouldn’t ask why, she wouldn’t look for an answer. She’d pat my leg and tell me to be careful. She’d beg me to remember her stories, to be sure that the folklore of her childhood not devour me in mine.

It wasn’t Jennie’s death that led me back to cigarettes, to drive-thru meals and midnight walks through parks. It was Nutt’s, and that made me hate myself even more. Did I not love Jennie enough to want to kill myself over her death, was she not as important as a mutt I had for a month? · · ·

Victorya Chase | 101

I woke to a clean house. Manananggals didn’t clean, did they? I woke to being pushed out of bed. To a woman, fresh from the shower, long black hair draped down her back, damp, smelling of my shampoo, of pomegranate Suave, wrapped in my good towel trying to scream but only letting out hollow squeaks, memories of words, nudging me awake.

“Just leave your lower half here at night,” I said. “It will be safer.”

When I meant to say was, “God you’re beautiful, can I just touch you?”

She pushed again, and I sat up. She sat next to me. Where were her wings during the day? I couldn’t imagine the towel hiding them, yet I didn’t see anything. Maybe they were wrapped around her waist somehow. I closed my eyes.

Jennie had a mother and a father who divorced when she was little. She had a brother who went to Iraq and got hit with a mortar shell. He was in a special home now. He could walk and talk but saw the world differently. I loved her more for saying it that way, “He saw the world differently after that.” For not saying what her mother did, that “He suddenly thought he was Gandalf. He kept searching for that damn Frodo to give him the ring and ended up being picked up by police for harassing children and little people alike, handing them curled pieces of wire, hair tied in knots, bottle caps.”

Jennie never condemned him for those fantasies. We never condemned each other for our scars.

“I always wanted a child,” she confessed. “But now I have no choice.”

I fingered the scar across her abdomen. My doctor thought a hysterectomy would remove all cancer cells. He was wrong.

“The Cyclops smiley face,” I told her, tracing the curve with my finger, kissing her belly button softly, kissing my way down.

“The Manananggal eats fetuses,” my mother said. “It sticks a proboscis up a woman’s pookie and sucks out the unborn child. The Manananggal can be born a Manananggal, or can be made one by eating a piece of another Manananggal, or ingesting its sputum. You can become a Manananggal by swallowing a black chick and it lodging in your throat. The Manananggal separates from its lower half and leaves it hidden, and then flies around at night. You can ward one off with a red pouch filled with coins and ginger.

You can kill one by rubbing the top of the torso with garlic and salt so the halves can’t connect. The sun will kill an unattached Manananggal.” All of this she told me in place of hugs or hellos or questions about school. She spoke often of the Manananggal with real emotion in her voice, with fear and awe and unbridled belief. But Manananggals are fairy tales. Then, so are Snow White and Cinderella and all those tales of rescued princesses. A kiss is not enough to save a princess. Sometimes the princess can’t be saved. · · ·

102 | Dreaming of the Manananggal

The Manananggal did not leave my house. She kept it clean. She left me notes, sometimes forcing them in front of my eyes.

“I’m lost,” she wrote.

“Aren’t we all,” I said.

“I hurt,” she wrote.

“You’re never alone in pain,” I said.

“You’re pretty fucked up, aren’t you?” she wrote.

“I’m not the one who splits in two to dine on the unborn,” I screamed at her, storming out. Then I returned after slamming the door and threw a key at her.

“It’s my spare,” I said. “For when I’m gone, like now,” and I slammed the door again.

I fought with Jennie once. Not knockdown drag out. I was being protective; I knew the routine for a cancer patient. I knew the diet, the allowed activities. I made up the packets to give to patients and their families. I knew it all. She set the packets on fire and told me to just love her. She kicked me and told me to ignore the information and kiss her. She hit me and hit me and told me to listen to her, goddammit. To let her live and to live was to kiss and to screw and to cry and to eat bacon and, fuck the doctors, she knew her body, and I stayed away and stayed away and then fell into her and she died. She didn’t follow the packet and I followed my heart and she died.

With Nutt, he got into the chocolate. I left some on the counter; I was going to make cookies from scratch. I was going to try and bake and live through that act, small as it was, but I left it on the counter and he ate all the chocolate and I couldn’t blame him but by morning he was curled in his own mess and by evening the vet said, “Kudos.”

“Please,” I asked the Manananggal. She unbuttoned my shirt. She kissed my neck. Her fingers were more dexterous than her toes.

She unzipped my pants, and I took off her t-shirt (actually, one of mine). I wrapped my arms around her, feeling for wings but finding none. I took off her skirt (also mine), tugging it down her hips and felt a smooth rise of scar where her two halves met. She kissed me and then picked up a sharpie.

“I don’t eat paslit,” she wrote across my stomach. The smell was thick, acrid. The ink cool. I kissed the nape of her neck, tasted the salt of fiction, of sweat and homelands. Also, I tasted soap.

“You suck fetuses out of women,” I said. She moved her mouth over my breasts, hovered there breathing desire. Then she wrote on my thigh.

“No, I don’t.”

She separated, her top half pulling silently from the bottom, wings sprouting from her back while my fingers fumbled to meet them, to understand their mystery.

Victorya Chase | 103

“My mother said you go up the pek-pek, the pookie. You suck out the child.” My breathing was heavier; it took a while for me to get all those words out. I was whispering in her ear, her wild hair wrapping silken history around my neck. She pulled away and with the marker made arrows next to her ‘No’ before lowering herself down on me.

When medicine failed, I prayed to God. I prayed to St. Peregrine and learned his prayer by heart. For so many years you bore in your own flesh this cancerous disease that destroys the very fiber of our being, and who had the recourse to the source of all grace when the power of man could do no more. Ask of God and our Lady the cure of the sick whom we entrust with you. Every day at lunch I went to the hospital’s chapel and prayed.

Every night in my sleep I prayed. And when those prayers failed I prayed for the Manananggal. I prayed it would come and mistake Jennie’s tumors for a fetus and suck them all out. I prayed Jennie could swallow its spit and then split herself in two and leave the sick half hidden in the bushes. Then I cursed the beast. I decided it had poisoned her, had reached up and in the act of removing her womb filled it with a black chick, with the disease.

Every morning Jennie and I were together I woke up to her arms around me.

I lay in the fetal position, tears streaming down my face, and her arms were there, loving me, protecting me. I always thought myself the prince, but I was wrong.

“What do you dream of?” the Manananggal writes on my arm. The sun is streaming through the window. She’s together now, her legs wrapped around mine. I feel the tears on my face, her fingers wiping them down my cheek, away from my skin.

“History,” I tell her. “A rainbow of history—of lovers and mothers and dogs and those slain at the stockades.”

“What do you dream about?” Jennie asked, her breath warm awakening in my ear.

“The Manananggal,” I’d say. And she’d hold me even tighter. Kiss me behind the ear. I could feel her smile even as she tightened her grip, even as I reached for her once more.

104 | Dreaming of the Manananggal

La Chanson de l’Observation BERNARD M. COX

Preface: With Theo asleep it was easier. With him asleep, he couldn’t ask why I came into his life only to leave. With him asleep, I could be selfless and not hold onto him.

This, my twenty-eighth iteration, may be my last. Soon I would no longer be able to feel his arms around me, or the flitting of my heart when he calls out to me, or delight in his scent. Soon I’d be reduced to molecules, a new observer would take my place and it was possible that I would not even survive as a node—no longer sent on missions to observe, never a chance to see him again.

With him asleep, I could leave this world and save him.

Abstract: The phenomenon of entanglement, referred to by humans as “love,” caused a network failure for node AR1x40 and resulted in individuation of the node and, subsequently, in its break with The Commonality.

I woke up and inside was quiet and clear. The internal, sometimes deafening, slow churning of the data stream—the calculating, compiling, tallying, and transmitting—ceased. I could hear things like the crinkling of the sheets under my head, the faraway sounds of birds in the park, the trolley coming to a stop at the corner, and the slow, measured breathing of Theo’s sleep. The world was different to the touch, so much sharper and full. I was the sole operator. I was the data stream.

He woke and said to me, “Morning, Beautiful. You’re up early.”

“Isn’t it just wonderful?”

Introduction: Coupling is a common occurrence among species that have not developed the ability to bypass indirect perceptual filtering. We recognize these pairings as an interstitial step, substituting a physical/social pairing for a direct connection (such as conduition or telepathy) with a community of minds in an effort to eliminate the sense of isolation that indirect connection produces. Similarly, these species often develop some theological framework in an effort to comprehend direct cognitive connection.

105

The following account is a participant observation study of node/observer AR1x40’s experience coupling with one human participant, “Theo Zedek.”

Node/observers inhabit human biological archetypes in order to better interact with and report on true human behavior. This node/observer’s archetype is named “Javier Flores.”

Theo smells of fresh bread, and his lips taste of chocolate. His hands are strong from sifting flour and working dough. At night he brings home failed cookies and cakes, which are moist on our tongue and soft in our mouth, and our cheeks sweat at their richness, and we ask how they can be failed. He says that they aren’t really failed, they’re just too good for La Chanson but not good enough for us. We disagree as we devour them. Sometimes he pretends he’s a bunny, and he hops around the house, his hands limp, shaking his tail, begging us to chase him, which we do with abandon until we catch him and fall on the bed laughing. He says “Javier, I love you.” And we say, “Je t’adore, mon chéri.”

We were not to get involved. We were to stay “we” and not become “us,” not become “I.” He doesn’t know, we never tell.

Aims of the study: This experiment is a longitudinal study in fifteen year increments. The original intent of the study is to report on behaviors and developments of humanity on “Earth” in order to determine when they can be welcomed to the Symposium.

Review of Past Studies: Though this was not the goal of the study, a small number of experiments have resulted in a true pairing of an observer and a participant.

Often pairings are just to preserve cover of the observer; seldom do they result in a connection which disrupts the network.

Recollection provides us with a few examples. Node qW2-RR, infamously, was consumed by a Gammens participant in a courtship study which overloaded the network in a field of euphoria. As a result, The Commonality needed to reboot all observers on the Gammens’ system.

Similarly, node LEA*2626, while observing early humanity, escaped recall and forfeited one hundred iterations of research to swim across a strait in an attempt to remain paired to a human counterpart. The subsequent event became a myth, and, as with such myths, details become inexact over the years.

106 | La Chanson de l’Observation

Sample: Archetype Flores interacts with approximately 500 participants on a daily basis through his position as a bank teller. However, he is fixated on only one participant, Theo Zedek. As such, most data retrieved from node AR1x40 in some way relates to the relationship between observer and participant.

Method: Our objective is to become integrated within the society in a position where we can collect the most data. We seek a position where we are not directing other humans but rather receiving directional input so to minimize interference in their behavior. Positions such as the mentally infirm, domestics, and customer service representatives offer the most expedient and direct data.

For example: our job as a teller at a bank provides us with examples of how humans treat those in positions of service. Many customers hand over checks and deposits without acknowledging our participation. They look at their shoes, talk to a companion, or fiddle with communication devices.

They do not acknowledge our presence. We only operate to serve them. But for some we are an integral part of their day.

Professor Holiday, age 64, comes into the bank to check her balance twice a week. She smiles and says our name. She asks us how we are doing. During our first interaction she stated: “I will try not to be too much of a bother since you are new.”

We told her she was no bother. Then she asked, “Did you see that new French bakery open across the square? It’s just like a real boulangerie, but it has coffee. Excellent coffee, not French coffee. It makes Rittenhouse feel like a small part of Paris. Have you ever been to Paris?”

“Yes, a long time ago.” For further details see iteration 23.

“It’s just like that. I’ll bring you a croissant next time.”

She did. The pastry was hot, almost burning in our palms.

“You must go,” she commanded.

Results: Despite the communication collapse, all transpirations of the data stream were coded by The Commonality and remained intact for analysis.

This being said, most observations related only to the pairing.

Notwithstanding the resulting individuation of the node/observer, AR1x40 has provided valuable data. While we are no closer to understanding how pairings cause conduition collapse, we can be certain that individuation needs to occur in order to instigate the pairing and, subsequently, the cessation of communication between the node/observer and The Commonality. This inciting action of individuation results in a

Bernard M. Cox | 107

binary commonality within the pair—each identifies as a separate entity but the individuals refer to the pairing as “we.”

On Sundays La Chanson is closed, and we go to Charlie’s in the afternoon. It’s a small bar but has a dance floor. We two-step and swing for hours on end. We float through the crowd, around and around, following the line of dance. Sometimes, when we are lucky, we are the only ones, and we become the resident Fred and Ginger. Everyone watches as he leads me across the floor. He dips me, spins me, and when the song ends, the patrons applaud and ask for more.

On slow songs, his hand is firm against my back and I lean against his chest. I am filled with warmth in his embrace and “we” is no longer the network or the Common, but us, he and I. The first time he took me, I knew we were now us, and I was Javier, and he was everything.

Though it must be noted, a pairing does not always result in equilibrium, such as the connection to The Commonality provides and, thusly, is not always a desirable condition.

In our fifteen years together, life has not always been easy with Theo. Sometimes we argue, over money or other trivialities.

Sometimes we wouldn’t see each other for stretches of time due to his work, and I would feel this immense, dreadful feeling of drowning. I’d be alone in the house but instead of feeling space, I’d feel like the house was falling in on top of me, crushing me.

I remember the transmission of node DIR58*7 which stated, “While taking a partner in a society where it may be the normal modality to do so, take care to not become attached to this mate.

Such attachments deliver a complex pleasure that can be more desirable than becoming a full conduit for The Commonality and create a sense of individuality that may lead to madness and result in a terminus of the operating node.”

But when we are together, I no longer remember.

Additionally, we are unsure if nervousness, manifesting in physical, actionable quirks, is a necessary element for human pairing. Physical displays in other species are usually grander and much clearer, allowing us to discern the motive behind them.

He kept rubbing the palms of his hands against his jeans when he first asked us out. He also had difficulty looking at us. He said: “Hi, I’m Theo Zedek.”

108 | La Chanson de l’Observation

Theo Zedek’s face is big and welcoming, and his eyes are sapphire blue; and when he did look at us it seemed as if the twin O-class stars of the Wyn system orbited us. We grew warm, and our clothes became uncomfortable as they stuck to our skin. We responded, “Hello,” involuntarily giggled, and forgot our assigned identity.

He said, “You come in a lot.”

“The food is very good.”

“I make it.”

“Really? I’m impressed.”

“What’s your favorite item?”

“You’ll laugh. I’m a bit simple.”

“Tell me, I won’t laugh.”

“The hot chocolate with chantilly.”

“Oh so yummy. I have to be careful, or I drink it all day.”

“How could you? It’s so filling.”

“Honey, I haven’t always had this body,” he said as he patted his belly.

“Neither have I.” “What gym do you go to?”

“No gym, just a nip there and tuck here every few years or so.” At that point, we knew we had a problem. We told him that we were making a humorous statement and that it was just self monitoring that kept us in a healthful condition. “Though I can see that if I continue to come here for hot chocolate, I will have to join a gym.”

“Go for long walks, like the French. Speaking of which . . .”

We knew our answer would be yes.

Contrary to most ethnographic observations of other species, in humans, interaction with members of a partner’s family helps establish a more intimate connection through the sharing of embarrassing or relevant stories of each partner’s past. The following are two examples.

Theo’s mother is a big woman, about the size of the crimson helium puffers of Ftsi. She’s only dwarfed by her personality.

When she enters a room, usually carrying some wonderful concoction she has just whipped up, or the best bottle of Beaujolais we have ever tasted, or an entertaining story, she is the center of attention.

“When Theo got it in his head that he was going to be the next Pelé, he’d practice in our backyard for hours and hours. Kicking the ball against the garage, flipping over on his back and spinning his legs in the air. The couple behind us would phone and ask us to call him in because the sound of the ball would boom throughout

Bernard M. Cox | 109

the neighborhood. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. You remember, Theo?”

“Yes, Mom, I remember.”

“You know, Javier. Our backyard wasn’t very big. About fifteen steps in any direction and you’re up against the fence or at the garage. Well, one day he’s kicking the ball around, and I hear this crash. I run to the window, and there is Theo, out cold lying in the grass. He had run through the wooden fence. I thought that’s only something you could do in a cartoon.”

“Thanks, Mom.” When he blushes, his shoulders turn as red as his cheeks.

“After the concussion he couldn’t play for the rest of the season, so I taught him how to cook and bake.”

“And that’s how I became Julia Child.”

“Bon appétit!” Mrs. Zedek chirped.

Example 2: He has told me on occasion that he wishes he could have known my family. I don’t tell him I was recombined from the residuals of past nodes, that I am engineered. I tell him my parents died and, instead, I trade him stories of my childhood—compiled from records of human interviews and previous observers’ experiences—for stories from his childhood. I provide a deception out of a myriad of truths.

He told me that during high school he dated Sarah Bouchard.

At prom she got them a room, and after the dance they went back to it. The place was all done up with rose petals and candles. He got so nervous he went into the bathroom and threw up. When he came out, she was naked on the bed. He didn’t know what to do.

He started crying and ran out of the room. He just left her there.

She never spoke to him again.

I told him that I grew up in a tough, poor neighborhood in Chicago. I was bullied all the time because I was so “swishy.”

They used to call me “girlie,” “sissy,” and throw tampons at my head. Once I was on my school playground, and Tommy Rosario depantsed me in front of the entire school, gave me a bloody nose.

He started shouting, “Look at the faggot crying. Faggoty faggot.

Faggoty faggot.”

When I got home, my younger sister had already told my parents. I ran upstairs, locked myself in the room, and cried. My dad came home from work early. We seldom got to see him because he worked fifteen hours a day in a factory running the boiler system. He finally convinced me to unlock the door. He sat down next to me and told me it would be alright. He told me he loved me no matter what and that those kids were just ignorant.

110 | La Chanson de l’Observation

Then he started rattling off all these people in history that were gay, like Michelangelo, Jane Addams, Reinaldo Arenas, k.d. lang, people like that. He told me, “Come down to eat, you’ll feel better.

Things will get better.”

“Your dad sounds wonderful. I wish I could have met him.”

“I wish you could have, too.”

Moreover, inappropriate comments from said family members informed the observer to how much they were welcomed into the family.

Mrs. Zedek often says things like, “You know, if you two could have babies you’d have the most beautiful children. Like little gingerbread people. I’d just want to eat them all up.” Aside from what many may take as an alarming statement of cannibalism, she meant it to be taken as a term of endearment, much like the early society of Gammens who had to eat their partner in order to generate offspring. However, I often want to say that with our advances in genetic engineering, Theo and I could have oliveskinned or even pink-skinned children like those of the Gammens and that, unlike the Gammens, she would not have to consume them to show how much she loves them.

Further analysis of this particular case study suggests that the node/observer associated food with his partner. We are still unsure as to what this purpose served. We can only surmise that the food “Theo” provided was some sort of symbolic offering that may have represented sexual consummation.

The gateau à l’absinthe that Theo makes is verdant and rich with notes of licorice and citrus. It climbs into our nose and curls behind our eyes, and the hair on our arms dances and reminds us of the orange and purple sunset over the great green seas of Hemus. And if we eat too much, we stare at the ceiling watching the fan in La Chanson spin round and round. We sip hot chocolate, gaze at his arms roped in muscles as they hand off orders, and wait for him to take us home.

The symbolic interchange of food and sex also permeates ordinary discussion. These dialogical interchanges are often preludes to actual consummation.

“You know what they say about a happy baker?” Theo smiled.

“They have happy hubbies,” I postulated.

“No, they say their baguette always rises.”

Bernard M. Cox | 111

“Well then, is that a soufflé in your pants?”

“It’s more impressive when it’s still hot.”

I said, “Let’s dig in before it deflates.”

Another peculiar development was the observer’s attachment to particular body parts of the participant. These unnatural attachments prevented higher-level decision-making, and, during the node/observer’s debriefing, resulted in alarming statements about humanity’s ability to act as a mediator in Quorum.

Have you seen that man’s ass? ¡Ay, dios mio! Theo’s ass is reason enough to allow humanity into the Symposium. If there was ever a quarrel in the Quorum all you’d have to do is trot Theo out, have him show his ass, and then, just like that, the universe would be in alignment.

Discussion: In looking at the case of node AR1x40/Javier Flores alongside data from other iterations from the same node and data collected from other experimenters, we have found it difficult to pinpoint why the pairing took place.

He’s pretty and funny. He makes me feel like I am the only person in the world. And when I kiss him, touch him, or we have sex, I am struck with unending waves of excitement, wonder, and love.

We are aware that sexual euphoria occasionally leads to breaks with The Commonality—such as the case of node qW2-RR and the Gammens, or node 5TT&2 and the Thousand Benevolent Emperors of Xandnax, or node YYY and the Ticklewisps of Ibré—but these are instances of extreme, overwhelming physical input. In the case of humans they have only so many appendages, chemical signals, ways of communication, and technologies with which to stimulate their physical selves.

It wasn’t sex. It was something else. We knew when our answer would be yes. It was when he said: “Go for long walks, like the French. Speaking of which, I normally don’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“Well, ask a customer out.” And he blushed, this light crimson. And then he tried to smile, but it came out as a bit of a frown.

“Which customer?”

“You. I’m trying to ask you out. I know I am failing here.”

112 | La Chanson de l’Observation

“You’re doing fine. Yes, I’ll go out with you.”

He made a small gesture with his right arm, closing his hand into a fist and moving it horizontally along his waist, and he whispered, “Yes.” I asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“Some place with you.”

With me, he wanted me.

It must be noted that, while this is a typical interaction between human species—proposing an excursion to determine ultimate compatibility— other observers have been propositioned in similar manners, and these interchanges seldom result in a true pairing.

Conclusion: Node AR1x40 reported the disconnection from the central Northern Hemisphere’s correspondent and did not resist recall. Additionally, humanity has not progressed past indirect perception, neither through biological evolution nor technological progress. As such, we advise the Symposium that The Commonality continue observations on Earth without interruption until such time when they have achieved this phase and direct contact can be made.

Furthermore, AR1x40’s data stream has been adjusted accordingly to monitor for entanglement. No threat seems to exist from the node/observer’s pairing, and the engagement has resulted in valuable data about human/node parings.

I didn’t do it out of a sense of duty to The Commonality. I reported for recall because I didn’t want anything to happen to Theo.

And while The Commonality would like me to remind the reviewers that correlation does not equal causation, when node qW2-RR submitted to consumption by Ewi, Ewi was subsequently obliterated in a freak meteor storm. When node 5TT&2’s orgasm blew its network channel, the Thousand Benevolent Emperors faced summary execution at the hands of their people, and two millennia of war began on Xandnax. When node YYY hid from recall agents, a virus infected all Ticklewisps resulting in an inability to tickle and subsequently the end of their species.

Finally, node LEA*2626’s resisting recall led to the death of her partner and her subsequent drowning. Eventually, the empire of Greece fell, and a legend was born of our interference.

I knew all this, but I remained silent while he made dinner every night, while we danced in our kitchen, while I chased after my Bunny. Given a chance I’d chase him forever.

Bernard M. Cox | 113

I loved him, so I left him asleep in our bed and headed to recall.

Archetype Javier Flores was subsequently recycled and the molecules put to use in the spawning of other observers’ archetypes. Node AR1x40 was debriefed, purified, reconstituted, and sent back to Earth.

The node is currently operating archetype Helen Vapiski. This was in keeping with the protocols of the experiment in order to continue uninterrupted observation. We see no further complications. At this time we cannot recommend humanity’s assimilation into the Symposium.

Postscript: The following is supplemental data pertaining to node AR1x40, after its reconstitution.

We see him every day. We sit in the square with the birds and watch him open La Chanson. Sometimes, we dive into the dumpster behind the bakery looking for evidence of his mourning or his anger. We only come up with stale, broken bread. We hear that he no longer makes le gateau à l’absinthe.

On one very cold day, he came running across the slush slicked road and into the square.

He said, “Why don’t you come inside?”

“Where you taking me?”

“In there.” He pointed to La Chanson.

“You’re not with them, are you?”

He hesitated, and then he smiled, “No, I’m not with them.

How could I be? I don’t even know your name.”

“Helen.”

“My name is . . .”

“I know you. I’ve always known you.”

“Okay, then.”

There was no one in the store, and it looked like no one had been in for a while. The store was warmer than outside but colder than it should have been. He sat us down and we said, “There’s no birds today. Too cold.”

“That’s right.” He brought us a cup of chocolate chaud.

“It’s not right. No snow.”

“Snow?”

“On top.” We pointed to the cup of chocolate.

He scooped chantilly into the cup, and the white cream melted down the side. “Better, huh?”

Our mouth engulfed the cup.

“Don’t. That’s hot.”

114 | La Chanson de l’Observation

We drank it down in one gulp and pushed the cup towards him. “Sunny sunshine.”

“I’ll get you another.”

“The birds, they tell me things.”

“Really what do they tell you?”

“Stuff about oranges and licorice. About broken fences.”

“Is that so?”

“So. You happy?”

“Sure. No customers, but I guess so. How happy can you really be anyway?”

“You know what they say about a happy baker?”

He stopped behind the counter.

“Soufflés are for rising bread,” we said.

He placed the cup in front of us. “Yes, that’s what they say.

You know you should find a shelter. There’s a church over on Twentieth and Walnut that has a shelter.”

“Gods are cruel. No promise there.”

“Well, I’m sure the city has something.”

We finished our cup and placed a quarter on the counter.

“No, really,” he said. “I can’t.”

“Is it not enough?”

“It’s plenty.” He picked up the quarter and placed it in the register. “Thanks.” Outside it began to snow.

And we said, “He knows. It was hard for him. So many lives.

The node just churns. It churns and churns out information. It never knows who it’s going to be next. Boy, girl. But then you came. Information wasn’t important. Just one life. It was hard.

Hard for him. He had to go far away. Farther than the birds go, farther than the dust spinning off the planet. Past the rings of Saturn. Over the red cascading nebulas. Out of swirling galaxies.

Far away. There’s no God, though we think we are. We just observe and record and wait. But then you were there. Every word he took. Every word. Now all to read, forever. Written in the stars.

But the birds don’t come to tell you because it is too cold, and it’s snowing now. Things will get better, Bunny. It’ll be better, Bunny.

I’ll be your moon on the square.”

And we hugged him, and he smelled of bread and chocolate, and we wept.

Bernard M. Cox | 115

CONTRIBUTORS

DMITRY BORSHCH: The Making of Brothers, ink on paper

Wayne Bachner (“Orlando-bound”) is a graduate of Columbia College and the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. He has written over a dozen stories combining his two passions—psychiatric social work and fiction writing. You can find other stories by him on mindmagazine.net and in the recently published book, Compass Points: Stories by Seacoast Writers.

Dmitry Borshch (artwork: “The Making of Brothers”) was born in Dnepropetrovsk, studied in Moscow, today lives in New York. His drawings and sculptures have been exhibited at the National Arts Club (New York), Brecht Forum (New York), ISE Cultural Foundation (New York), the State Russian Museum (Saint Petersburg).

Alana I. Capria (“Lilith’s Extra Rib”) is the author of the story collection Wrapped in Red, the novel Hooks and Slaughterhouse, and the chapbooks Organ Meat, Killing Me, and Lilith. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Capria resides in Northern New Jersey with her husband. Her website is http://alanaicapria.com.

Victorya Chase (“Dreaming of the Manananggal”) lives in the mountains of New Mexico. Among other teaching endeavors, she has taught doctors to write in hopes of improving patient care.

116

CONTRIBUTORS Matthew Cheney’s (“Killing Fairies”) work has been published by One Story, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and others. A collection, Blood: Stories, will be published by Black Lawrence Press in Jan. 2016.

Bradley Contento (“Naked”) lives in the desert of Tucson, Arizona where he works in PR and marketing for a health care accreditor. He has authored non-fiction articles professionally on topics including foster care, disability employment, and volunteerism. He is a former student in the Writers Studio, a workshop founded by poet Philip Schultz with locations in Amsterdam, New York, San Francisco, and Tucson. For fun, he plays in adult kickball, softball, and flag football leagues.

Bernard M. Cox (“La Chanson de l’Observation”) is a San Diego-based writer and writing instructor who dreams of snow and cold. His stories have appeared in Up the Staircase Quarterly and Collective Fallout. He survived the 2015 Clarion Workshop along with seventeen other fabulously talented writers. Bernard is honored to be a part of this issue of A cappella Zoo. Visit him at bernardmcox.wordpress.com or on Twitter @BernardMCox. James R. Gapinski (“Physical Therapy”) holds an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College, and he’s managing editor of The Conium Review. His fiction has recently appeared in Juked, NANO Fiction, Lunch Ticket, Word Riot, and elsewhere.

He lives with his partner in Portland, Oregon.

Jeffrey David Greene (“Vishnu Coming Through”) writes his fiction at a small desk covered in action figures, sometimes discussing his ideas with a chorus of opinionated Chihuahuas. He lives in Smyrna, Georgia with his wife and many pets.

A. Hall (“The Dream of an Octopus and Aubergine Netsuke”) is a queer writer based in Hertfordshire, UK, who writes magic realism, literary, and speculative fiction. You can find out more about previous and current work and read some of his short stories at https://mrvolpone.wordpress.com.

Joseph Harrington (“The History of Sexuality”) is the author of Things Come On (an amneoir) (Wesleyan), a mixed-genre work relating the twinned narratives of the Watergate scandal and his mother’s cancer; it was a Rumpus Poetry Book Club selection. His creative work has appeared in Hotel Amerika, Bombay Gin, Colorado Review, The Rumpus, 1913: a journal of forms, Tupelo Quarterly and Fact-Simile, among others. He is also the author of a critical study, Poetry and the Public.

Jack Kaulfus (“The End of the Objects”) is a writer and teacher in Austin, Texas. You can find Jack’s work online and in print in various journals, including Heavy Feather, Barrelhouse Online, and Off the Rocks.

Kathryn Michael McMahon (“Nascent Iodine”) writes stories that feature sea monsters more often than not. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Subtopian, Apocrypha and Abstractions, and Jersey Devil Press. She was raised in too many countries to say she is from somewhere, but her passport is American and she has found herself living in Vietnam for the last nine years, somehow having acquired a British wife and houseplants.

117

CONTRIBUTORS Adam McOmber (“What Follows Us”) teaches creative writing and literature. He is the author of The White Forest: A Novel (Touchstone, 2012) and This New and Poisonous Air: Stories (BOA Editions, 2011). His work has appeared in publications like the Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, Fairy Tale Review, and Third Coast.

Candice Morrow (“The Day Sunday Moved Away”) received her MFA from New Mexico State University and has been published in the Colorado Review. She has won several short story contests, including the Frank Waters Prize and the Jacobs Prize.

Cody Seekins (cover art: “Transgender Buddha Facing Mara”) has lived in the United States, Germany, Italy, and most recently Southeast Asia. His interest in fine art began through concurrent influences: the cover art of fantasy and science fiction novels, the saturation of cultural history woven in the fabric of European society, and a sense of personal relevance to the arts in his boyhood home in Naples, Italy, where his mother took private painting lessons from a professional Neapolitan artist.

Since then, he has earned an MFA in Figurative Painting from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Cody sees painting as illuminating a visual cosmology inclusive of both objective and unconscious forms and their relationships. His work has been exhibited internationally. Please visit www.codyseekins.com.

Catherine Sharpe (“Shades of Gray”) lives with her daughter in Oakland, CA. She is delighted to see her story reprinted here and would like to note that it was titled sometime in 2008. It never occurred to her to offer an exact count. Of the shades.

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam’s (“The Centaur’s Daughter”) fiction has appeared in magazines such as SmokeLong Quarterly, Lightspeed, Room, and Interzone. She lives in Texas and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program. She curates the annual Art & Words Show in Fort Worth. You can visit her on Twitter @BonnieJoStuffle or online at BonnieJoStufflebeam.com.

Tamara K. Walker (“Aromatic” and “Portals”) is a writer of experimental flash fiction, short stories, and poetry who lives near Boulder, Colorado with the love of her life. When she’s not writing or searching for new calls for submissions, she enjoys reading and analyzing surreal/irreal/magical realist lit and lesbian mystery fiction, taking long walks, cooking, crafting, snuggling stuffed animals, fixing and maintaining manual typewriters, contemplating the nature of existence, daydreaming, miscellaneous domestic activities, and going on outings with her wife.

118