CCLaP Weekender, June 5th 2015

CCLaP Weekender

From the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography

June 5, 2015

New Fiction by TJ Davis Photography by Elina Ruka Chicago Literary Events Calendar June 5, 2015 | 1

THIS WEEK’S CHICAG

For all events, visit [cclapce SATURDAY, JUNE 6

3pm Paper Machete

The Green Mill / 4802 N. Broadway / Free, 21+ thepapermacheteshow.com

A “live magazine” covering pop culture, current events, and American manners—part spoken-word show, part vaudeville review—featuring comedians, journalists, storytellers, and musical guests. Hosted by Christopher Piatt.

8pm Blackout Diaries

High Hat Club / 1920 East Irving Park / $10, 21+ blackoutdiaries.info

A comedy show about drinking stories, a “critic’s pick” at Red Eye, MetroMix, and Time Out Chicago. Comedians share the mic with “regular” people, such as cops, firefighters, and teachers, all recounting real-life tales about getting wasted. Hosted by Sean Flannery.

SUNDAY, JUNE 7 10am

Sunday Morning Stories Donny's Skybox Studio Theatre / 1608 North Wells / Free

We performers are pre-booked. We feature novice as well as seasoned storytellers. On or off paper.

7pm Uptown Poetry Slam

The Green Mill / 4802 N. Broadway / $6, 21+ greenmilljazz.com

Featuring open mike, special guests, and end-of-the-night competition.

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GO LITERARY EVENTS

enter.com/chicagocalendar] 7pm Asylum

Le Fleur de Lis / 301 E. 43rd / $10

lefleurdelischicago.com

A weekly poetry showcase with live accompaniment by the band Verzatile.

7:30pm Truth or Lie

Firecat Projects / 2124 N Damen / Free

Five to six storytellers spinning true or fictive tales and leaving the audience to wonder, truth or lie? Hosted by Sarah Terez Rosenblum.

7:30pm Here, Chicago

Theater Wit / 1225 W Belmont Ave / $8 or dish to share, 13+ herechicago.org

The potluck reading series. Formerly Here’s the Story, each installment starts with dinner at 7:30pm, then continues with readings at 8pm—five featured storytellers and five sign-up storytellers. No pages, no stage, just “the kind of old-timey storytelling that is practiced under porch-lights and on street corners by people who have a truth to tell, whether through fact or fiction.” Everyone is encouraged, but not required, to bring a dish for the potluck. Hosted by Janna Sobel.

MONDAY, JUNE 8 8:30pm Kafein Espresso Bar

Kafein Espresso Bar / 1621 Chicago Ave., Evanston kafeincoffee.com

Open mic with hosts Chris and Kirill.

June 5, 2015 | 3

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10 6pm Lyricist Loft

Harold Washington Library / 400 South State / Free youmediachicago.org

“Open mic for open minds,� presented by Remix Spoken Word.

Hosted by Dimi D, Mr. Diversity, and Fatimah.

9pm

In One Ear Heartland Cafe / 7000 N Glenwood https://www.facebook.com/pages/In-One-Ear/210844945622380

Chicago's 3rd longest-running open-mic show, hosted by Pete Wolf and Billy Tuggle.

9pm

Elizabeth's Crazy Little Thing Phyllis Musical Inn / 1800 W Division

An open mike for poetry, music, comedy, performance, and whatever else. Featuring Andy Karol.

To submit your own literary event, or to correct the information on anything you see here, please drop us a line cclapcenter@gmail.com

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Know thyself and nothing in excess. Just as the doomed sailors of Homer’s Odyssey fail to heed one or the other of these maxims, and end up getting turned to swine or lured to their peril by the singing sirens, so too do the doomed characters in Joseph G. Peterson’s new collection of stories fail idiotically in one way or another and end up, like those ancient sailors, facing the prospect of their own mortal twilight. Set mostly in Chicago and by turns gruesome, violent, comic, lurid and perverse, these stories are suffused with a metaphorical light that lends beauty and joy to the experience of reading them.

CCLaP Publishing

Download for free at cclapcenter.com/twilightidiots

June 5, 2015 | 5

ORIGINAL FICTION

Connor “I’ll be right back,” she said. Ava pushed her chair back and walked toward the restroom. The platter of sushi rainbowed underneath the warm lighting. I maneuvered my chopsticks to pinch a piece of tuna that was so red, it was nearly purple.

It was buttery smooth and crowning a tiny brick of fluffy rice.

My Sapporo lapped down the slope of the glass until it was gone. The waiter saw my empty glass and asked if I would like another beer, but I waved him away. Leaning over the table to make sure Ava wasn’t yet returning, I finished her beer too.

Same Old,

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“Beach, Vietnam” by Thomas Walsh [www.flickr.com/g4egk/]. Used under the terms of her Creative Commons license.

Same Old

BY TJ DAVIS June 5, 2015 | 7

Ava strode back to the table, smiling in the way that only a person coming back to a table full of delicious food can. The din of conversation from the other dining patrons was hushed enough that we could hear the smallest sounds of the restaurant. Chopsticks clicked. Bottles and glasses returned to the tabletops. A chair readjusted and scraped the tile floor. Surrounding it all, like a fog, were the sounds of Japanese string instruments trickling through the speakers. Ava plunked some raw octopus into her mouth. She didn’t use her soy sauce like she had at the beginning of the meal. Ava was wearing a sleeveless white top with buttons marching down the middle. It looked like a corset. Her top button had been unfastened during her interim in the ladies’ room, allowing a tiny mole to greet the world. Her black hair hung in an intricate braid over one shoulder. She flipped it back, before picking up the empty glass and wiggling it from side to side, as if the action would make the beer return. She frowned for just a second, as if trying to remember whether or not she had drank it.

The waiter came back and gave me a quick shiv of a look that told me he had seen what I’d done. Would the lady like another beer? She blinked eyelashes so big that I swore I could hear them.

“I think I’ll have a rum and cherry Coke.”

“Right away, ma’am,” the waiter said. “And would you like another Sapporo draft, sir?” he said, concentrating on his notepad without writing anything on it.

“Yes, please. And the check.” He whisked our empty glasses away and headed back to the bar.

“But we just got here,” Ava said. “I’m still hungry.”

“You can go to the Pizza Hut next door. I’m going home,” I said.

She put on a pout for a second, but she couldn’t hide her smile for long.

“You’re getting better at spotting me,” she said.

“And you’re getting faster at tracking me down.”

“You’re certainly not making it any easier. I’ve been sitting in Charlotte’s body all week. Do you have any idea how boring it is to be a manicurist?”

The waiter came back and deposited our drinks, before handing me the little black bill holder. I had my check card at the ready and handed it to him without so much as glancing at the bill.

“Does she at least still have a job to come back to?” I asked when the waiter hustled away. “Or did you get her fired?”

“I really thought I was getting the hang of it,” she said with a sigh, tracing her finger over the rim of her drink. “But yes, your little Charlotte woke up to find herself unemployed and with no memory of the last ten days.”

“You’re a monster,” I said.

“No, I’m not. You shouldn’t say such things.” Ava’s hand fluttered over 8 | CCLaP Weekender

the sushi platter, dancing like a murder of crows deciding where to start on a battlefield. She took two maki rolls of eel and shoved them both in her mouth. She moaned as she chewed. “I love this place. Thanks for me taking me here again.”

“I didn’t bring you here,” I said.

“Oh, yes, you did,” she said. She swirled her rum and cherry Coke with the tiny black straw and drank it in two gulps. “Ahhh,” she said. She cracked an ice cube between her teeth, and I flinched. She knew I hated when she did that, so she did it again.

The waiter came back with my card and the receipt. I signed it with a flick and walked out the door. Before I had gone three steps into the night, I heard the Japanese music get louder for a second and the tinkling of the entrance bell. I told myself not to look back and to just keep walking.

“Connor! At least give me a ride home. I don’t even know where home is,” came the voice behind me. The clicking of Ava’s high-heeled shoes was gaining on me. Still, I did not look back.

But I did stop. She was right. I moved under the streetlight, took out a pen, and wrote down Ava’s address on the back of the restaurant receipt. We stood under the lamppost while passing headlights swung our shadows along the storefronts. When I handed her the scrap of paper, she grabbed my hand.

“Are you sure you can’t just drive me home?”

Big eyes again, but I knew that the real Ava was no longer behind them.

“Call a cab.”

“I don’t know the password to unlock her phone.”

“You should’ve thought of that before—.”

“Before what, Connor?”

I saw an open taxi coming down the road, and I flagged it down. The woman that had been Ava was still holding my hand when I opened the door for her.

“Do I at least get a goodnight kiss?” she asked.

“Watch your feet,” I said, slamming the taxi door shut and walking to the parking lot. After turning the ignition, I glanced over to the street. The taxi was still there, but I couldn’t see inside. Had she told the driver to follow me?

No, she wouldn’t need to do that. She knew where I lived. The taxi pulled into traffic, but I stayed in my idling car for a good, long while before heading back home.

It’s been said that we never really know the people we are closest to. That, in my limited experience, is a bullshit statement. We know more than we even realize. I suppose I know more about Harper than just about anyone.

June 5, 2015 | 9

I know the obvious stuff: her past, her favorite drink, her favorite holiday (Halloween, of course), and how she never wants to have kids. But I didn’t realize how many of her little quirks I had picked up on. The way she says “supposably” instead of “supposedly” or how she washes her hands with water but never soap. And the ice chewing. Always the ice chewing. I didn’t used to care about all of this. When we were together, I thought her foibles were cute. Now, it’s like I’m a poker player hunting for tells with every girl I meet.

At anytime, a sign might pop up. And if I let down my guard for a minute...

For Ava, it was the drink order and how she didn’t use the soy sauce for the octopus.

For Kaitlyn, it was when she started listening to Bon Iver.

For Leah, it was when she started getting headaches. Harper must have realized that Leah was a chain smoker, and I almost felt sorry for her on that one, having to go through withdrawal for an addiction she never had. I almost felt sorry, I swear.

For Nora? She made a Monty Python reference. The real Nora had confessed on our third date to having never seen The Quest for the Holy Grail after what must have been a confusing comment I had made about cutting down a tree with a herring.

Audrey? The way Harper drinks bottled water by squeezing it until it makes that annoying squeesh sound.

For three years, I’ve been haunted by her ghost. As soon as I think I’ve eluded her, she returns, a whack-a-mole with a new mask.

So I’m not exactly surprised when I see the woman formerly known as Ava sitting on the doorstep of my apartment.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

“You’re not coming in.”

“I could scream rape.”

I sighed and looked up to see a checkerboard of light sponging out from the apartment windows. I stepped around her and unlocked the front door, holding it open for her and motioning her inside with a heavy sweep of my arm.

“Always holding doors open for ladies. And people say chivalry is dead.”

“Like you’re supposed to be.”

“If I was supposed to be dead, I wouldn’t be talking to you, and then where would we be?” She glided through the door and up the stairs. Ava had never been to my apartment, but Harper walked right to my door and waited

As soon as I think I’ve eluded her, she returns, a whacka-mole with a new mask.

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for me. I walked through before her, and she braced her foot against the door to make sure I wouldn’t slam it in her face. She went straight for the fridge.

“I’m still hungry. Got anything good in here? Oh! Philly cheese steak!”

“Ava’s a pescetarian.”

“Good for Ava. I’m starving.” She unwrapped my leftover sandwich and took a massive bite. “One of the nice side effects of possessing bodies is you can eat whatever you want and not have to worry about the calories,” she said through a dripping mouthful of bread, meat, peppers, and cheese. “You want a beer?”

“I’d like you to leave.”

“You’ll have to settle for beer.” She pulled two out and opened the drawer for my bottle opener. She handed me one and took out my block of Gruyere cheese before closing the fridge with her leg. After giving the cheese a quick sniff, she took out a knife that was too big for the job and cut a few slices.

When she put the knife down, I wondered what would happen if I ran it through her neck. She would probably flee Ava’s body, leaving me with a confused and bloody murder to explain. I’m sure Harper would find a way to visit me in prison, or in hell.

Instead of murder, I took my beer and sat down on my couch. Harper came out of the kitchen with her hands full with beer, the remainder of the sandwich, cheese, and slice of cherry cheesecake. She sat down next to me and began eating and drinking in silence. After wiping up the last of the red cherry sauce on the plate, she sat back and unbuttoned Ava’s pants.

“I’m so full,” she said. She cocked her head and lifted the waistline of Ava’s black dress pants to look underneath. “Nice panties,” she admired. “This one had taste. In underwear at least, not in men.”

Most people will tell you that it’s a person’s eyes that give them away.

Once again, most people are idiots. It was still Ava’s eyes looking at me. It was the mouth that revealed who was really in control. That particular way that Harper smiled so big, like a teenager who had just had her braces removed after years of self-consciousness.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” I asked.

She took a quick swig of beer and moved her legs up on the couch, so she was facing me. She propped one arm on the back of the couch and placed her cheek in her palm. I had seen this pose before, too.

“We have unfinished business, Connor. I’m here to make a deal. Aren’t you sick of all this cat and mouse espionage? If you want me to stay as Ava, I can do that. If you want me to go possess a celebrity, I can do that. She just can’t be prettier than I was. C’mon, there’s got to be somebody at work, at the gym, or a waitress somewhere that never gave you the time of day that you would like to be with. I can even trade in my body every couple of years if you June 5, 2015 | 11

want something new, just like updating an iPhone. We could be rich. I can go be Melinda Gates for twenty-four hours and bury a million dollars under a stone wall in Buxton, Shawshank style.”

“And all I have to do is agree to spend the rest of my life with a psychopath?”

“Bingo. You want another beer? I want another beer.” She jumped off the couch before I could respond and came back with two fresh bottles. She handed me one, failing to notice that I hadn’t so much as taken a sip from the first one. “I know you don’t believe me, but I’ve actually shown an enormous amount of restraint these past few years,” she said. “Whenever I’m not in the bodies of your latest mistake, I’ve been watching you. I could have made your life very uncomfortable, and I still can if you don’t start showing me a little respect. I didn’t want to play the blackmail card, but here we are.”

“Don’t you have someone better to haunt?”

“I don’t really have a choice, Connor. This is as much your fault as it is mine. You think I don’t wish I could be attached to someone else? You don’t know what it feels like when I’m not around you. Whenever I don’t see you for a while, I get physically ill. The closest thing to this I’ve ever felt was when I was in whatshername’s body while she was going through nicotine withdrawal. Then, of course, there was that time I died. Dying hurts more than anything you can imagine in that cute little brain of yours. And the afterlife? Don’t even get me started on that rollercoaster of razorblades. No, I’m stuck with you, and you’re stuck with me. My only peace comes from being with you. Who knows? Maybe, if you fall in love with me again, I’ll get my wings and get to be a fucking angel in heaven or something.”

“If there is a heaven, I seriously doubt you have a chance of getting in.”

“You also used to scoff at the idea of ghosts. Now you’re married to one.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Figuratively speaking, of course, or literally, for that matter. Supposably, they have it in the dictionary as meaning ‘figuratively’ now. Can you believe that?”

“Harper, I’m begging you. Please. Please, leave me alone.”

“No can do, mon frere. Would if I could, but I’m under orders on high to haunt you until the day you die.”

“Then what happens to you? When I die, I mean.”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get there. For now, why don’t you tell me what you want, and I’ll see if I can oblige you. I can be very persuasive,” she said, taking her hand from her cheek and moving it onto me knee. I flinched outwardly at the touch and inwardly at the unexpected tightening in my jeans. Christ, I thought, even my cock is against me.

At times like these, I don’t think it would surprise you that suicide flashed in my mind. I can only say that even the slight chance of spending eternity 12 | CCLaP Weekender

with Harper was enough to keep me from opening the window and turning the sidewalk into a Rorschach of my blood and guts.

“You can’t change who you are,” I said.

“Sure, I can. I can be anybody I want to be,” she said.

“That’s just your body. You can’t change who you really are. You’re a monster.”

“You ought to stop using that word. A little nuts? Sure, but a monster?

Highly unlikely.”

“No, you are,” I said, beginning to count the ways on my hand. “You cheated on me, then you made me think that it was somehow my fault.”

“It was.”

“You poisoned me!” I said.

“You lived.”

“You punched my mom!”

“She had it coming!”

“You dug your claws into me, and I couldn’t get rid of you, even when you, when you—.”

“When I what?” she said. She moved closer to me on the couch, fire in her eyes. “Say it.”

“When you killed yourself.”

“I didn’t kill myself. You killed me. I told you I would die if you tried to leave me, and you didn’t believe me.”

“And now, every time I start dating a woman, you come along and ruin it.”

“Fair is fair, Connor. You made it so I couldn’t be with anyone else. I’m just repaying the favor, but I’ve moved passed all that. I accept the hand I’ve been dealt. The sooner you do, the sooner we can start putting your past behind us.”

I thought back to that morning three years ago. Waking up. Finding her in the wet bed. So much red that I still can’t look at an apple or a stop sign without feeling sick to my stomach. She was still alive when I found her, barely. I ran out of the bedroom to find my phone. But I hesitated. God help me, I thought things would be better if she just died. I’m not an expert on hauntings by any means, but I think those five minutes of hesitation are the reason that Harper gets to keep coming back. She was right. It was just as much my fault as it was hers.

The police had plenty of questions, but she had written a note, and what few friends and family she did have were not surprised. Horrified, yes.

Saddened, mostly. But not surprised. Not by a long shot.

So there we were. I was sitting, with two full beers, next to the cosmic personification of my comeuppance.

June 5, 2015 | 13

“What exactly do you want? Marriage?” I asked.

“No, nothing that extreme. I just want to be near you for the rest of your life. We’re going to move in together. Other than that, we can do whatever you want.”

I was tired of running. She wasn’t leaving.

“And you’ll go along with it?” I asked.

“Of course.”

Of course, my ass. She moved in and began a search and destroy mission of everything in my life. But first, she ruined Ava’s life. She changed Ava’s phone number, severed ties with everyone she had known, and had her name legally changed to Harper. It was identity theft so complete that only her social security number remained unchanged. She made me tie up her body, gag her, and blindfold her every once in a while so she could turn into some wealthy person and rob them of thousands of dollars, hide it in a train locker, and come back into Ava’s body to retrieve it. Other than that, she followed me everywhere. I quit my job. Stopped seeing my family. As soon as her new passport arrived, we began traveling.

She didn’t just want me next to her. She wanted to keep me from everyone else. We hated each other, rarely speaking to each other or fellow tourists during our travels. We went through the Louvre without uttering a single word. We hiked up to Machu Picchu, lugging our backpacks and matching cold shoulders. At night, we would sit in hotel rooms and read until we were allowed the privacy of our dreams.

She began to self-medicate. When Ava’s body developed a heroin addiction, she switched to Jennifer. When Jennifer became an alcoholic, she switched to Sonya. In contrast to our original agreement, I had no say in the bodies she chose.

Harper tried cheating on me in Madagascar, but she became so sick that she started having dry heaves when I caught her in the middle of her lovemaking session with our scuba instructor.

We would, and there is no better word for it, copulate. It was mechanical.

A chore.

In short, we were miserable.

The day that we visited the Grand Canyon, I came back to our tent to find her vomiting in a plastic bag, a loaded revolver by her side.

“I was going to kill you,” she confessed. “But as soon as I heard you coming to the tent, my whole body seized up.”

“Lucky me,” I said, admiring the weight of the weapon.

“There’s only one way out of this,” she said.

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“And what’s that, dear?”

“You’re going to have to kill yourself.”

That back and forth was the most we had spoken to each other in months.

“What if we end up chained like this in the afterlife?” I asked.

“There is no afterlife, idiot. As soon as you kill yourself, we’ll both be free.”

I couldn’t believe anything she said. Obviously there was something after death, or else she couldn’t be in that tent with me, sprawled next to a plastic bag full of half-digested granola and apple juice. But maybe she had a point. Maybe the cosmic scales had to be balanced. I had allowed her to die.

If I ended myself, maybe we could go our separate ways. Maybe hell was preferable to spending a life with Harper.

“How about one more trip?” I offered. “Anywhere you want. And after it’s done, I’ll kill myself and we can see what the next life has to offer.”

“Really?” she said. Was she actually crying? And for that matter, whose body was she in? I couldn’t even remember if she had ever told me the name of her current shell. Just some redhead from Ireland. A pale waif of a woman, with freckles that sprouted on her cheekbones and shoulders like sprinkles on a donut.

“I mean it,” I said. “Where would you like to go?”

Obviously there was something after death, or else she couldn’t be in that tent with me, sprawled next to a plastic bag full of half-digested granola and apple juice.

Harper I choose Vietnam. I’d like to say it is for the cultural experience, but really, it’s because back in my living days I used to go to a Vietnamese restaurant and loved the food and the way they served their coffee. I’ve never had coffee so strong or so sweet. Everything else I know about Vietnam has come exclusively from war movies, so I am pretty surprised by how modern things appear when we land in Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnam hits you like a speeding bus, which is not surprising considering how recklessly people drive around here. Most people get around by motorcycles, and the honking is so constant that, at first, you want to walk around with earplugs. After a while, though, you don’t even notice it’s there.

June 5, 2015 | 15

Until it’s gone.

Maybe from knowing the end is in sight, Connor and I have started to get along for the first time since before I’d died. Like a marriage, we’d made it through tough times by becoming experts in toleration and lies. I don’t know about you, but when I have to be around somebody constantly for months at a time, I begin to get offended by everything. The way they sleep. The way they breathe. The way they constantly correct your grammar. But something changed during our transpacific flight. I don’t know. It feels like for the first time we are going somewhere instead of trying to escape something. Neither of us knows what will happen when Connor dies. Will he become a ghost like me? Will we still be stuck with each other somehow? Will one of us get to go to heaven, hell, limbo, or be reincarnated as an aardvark somewhere?

We don’t know, and I don’t care. Sometimes, any change is better than your routines.

I haven’t been entirely honest with Connor about the state of my existence.

I do have to be near him. That much is true. It’s like there is an invisible dome surrounding him, and if I get too far away from him, my stomach begins cramping worse than any PMS I have ever experienced. When I’m a ghost, I don’t feel hot, cold, or hungry. Pain is the only sensation I’m allowed to feel.

Connor is the only thing that can ease that aching.

The part about me not being able to kill him? That’s true too.

But the story about being unable to sleep with other men while I’m in human form? That’s a bit trickier. I faked those dry heaves, and he bought it. That one performance lets me get away with murder. Maybe that’s a poor choice of words. Of course, I have to be near him to keep the cramps at bay, which has led to some pretty close calls. The scuba instructor was just the only time I ever got caught. I’ve tried to be more careful since then, but a girl has needs.

I guess I do feel sort of guilty about the whole thing, but guilt is nothing compared to the pain that I feel when he runs away and I have to track him down. I always find him, sure, but I’m miserable until I do.

And I’m no monster.

In an attempt to offer an olive branch, I let Connor pick my body for our Vietnamese vacation. I tell him it was because he was being kind enough to kill himself, but it is also a way to assuage the guilt of cheating on him many, many times, right underneath his nose. I tell myself I will be faithful during this trip. At some point, I will give him one last pity fuck.

For my body, he chose an Asian woman that looks to be twenty-two but turns out to be twenty-nine. I’m shocked. I thought I knew just about everything about Connor by then, and he’d never even hinted that he might have a touch of the yellow fever. Yet here I am, going through airport security 16 | CCLaP Weekender

as a skinny, little Asian girl with breasts no bigger than bite-sized Snickers.

Not that he made a bad choice. I especially like my new eyes. They are green with flecks of gold in them. Having almost zero body hair is also a nice change of pace, nothing like that Italian woman I’d possessed for a few weeks in Europe. What was her name again? It doesn’t matter.

Even after all these possessions, I still get a little rattled whenever I glance in a mirror. I wonder if I would even recognize my old body if I saw it walking down the street. Connor never kept any pictures of me, the heartless bastard.

We only stay in Ho Chi Minh City long enough to book a bus to the beach.

I love Vietnam! The people here are constantly trying to rip off foreigners, but they mostly leave us alone because they think I’m local. As long as I can keep my mouth shut, we work it to our advantage. My new last name is Nguyen, so I guess I am technically Vietnamese while I’m in this body.

Connor seems to be enjoying my new look. We speak in whispers during the seven-hour bus ride to Mui Ne Beach. At the beginning of the ride, a couple of the older Vietnamese passengers give me dirty looks for being with a foreigner, so I show them the nail polish on my middle finger. We are left alone in the back of the bus for the remainder of the journey up to Mui Ne. We drop off our luggage at our hotel (bought and paid for with money I’d stolen from a CEO before we left). You should see how many kite surfers there are at the beach! It’s funny, you never really imagine beaches being windy places, but the wind here makes the palm trees dance like Deadheads at a music festival. We have to put all of our beach things on our towels just to keep them from blowing away when we go swim in the warm, turquoise water. The beach is full of locals and tourists, everyone laughing, splashing, and sunbathing. Some of the local fishermen go into the water in these strange bowls that are only about four feet across. How they float, I have no idea. We eat delicious grilled seafood and start getting good and buzzed from bia hoi (the local beer) underneath some palm trees. Asian girls must be cheap dates, because I am feeling mush-mouthed and fuzzy by the end of my third drink.

After eight of them, I am having the time of my life, or death, or whatever.

It isn’t until the South African couple sunbathing next to us invites Connor and me to go chicken fighting in the water that I realize something fundamental has changed. Connor and I are not just tolerating each other.

We’re having fun. We’re both stubborn, and being so isolated from others meant we could only take out our aggression on each other. Our competitive natures take over in the water, and I am vicious to that bitch from Cape Town.

She tears my bikini top “by accident,” and Connor loans me his shirt while June 5, 2015 | 17

we go find a replacement. We buy some cheap sunglasses in a gloriously airconditioned shop before heading away from the beach to rent a motorcycle.

We ride out of town to check the nearby sand dunes. I am feeling wobbly from the drinks, so I clench Connor while we whisk along the highway, passing fishing villages and almost getting killed by crazy Vietnamese truck drivers. Honk! Honk! Every minute, somebody is honking their horn at us.

We return to the hotel covered in sand, sunblock, and the scents of the road. Connor hops in the shower, and without even realizing it, I try turning the knob of the bathroom door. It’s locked. I realize what I had been planning to do, and I run out of that hotel room as quickly as my smooth little legs can carry me. I only get three blocks away when the cramps begin. I have to sit on the sandy sidewalk for a minute while the pain pulses through me.

“God damn it,” I mutter to myself. I think about going to the hotel bar to return to the pleasant buzz of earlier, but I really just want to take a shower. I go back up to the room and see Connor reading out on the balcony. The bathroom is still steaming when I walk in, and I wipe the mirror to take a good long look into those green eyes of mine.

I take a cold shower.

I crack the door open and see what I always fear, an empty room.

The cramps return while I dry my hair. I crack the door open and see what I always fear, an empty room. No living soul between the whitewashed walls and the cheap landscape painting hung above the bed. Connor hasn’t left a note, but his suitcase is still here. The effects of the beers have worn off, and my short-lived feeling of lust for Connor is slowly being replaced by a familiar dull anger. I close the shades and manage to fall asleep.

I wake up to Connor shaking my shoulder. I swing the pillow and slam it into his face before burying my face in the covers. He laughs and rips the blankets off.

“What the hell, Connor?” I scream.

Outside, it’s dark, and the only light in our hotel room emits from a single candle planted in a cupcake.

“Happy birthday, Harper,” he says with a smile that might actually be sincere.

“It’s not—.” Wait. Is it? Oh my god, it is. I had completely forgotten. I can’t remember the last time I’ve remembered my birthday. Connor had.

“Blow it out,” he says, holding up a tiny plate with a chocolate cupcake 18 | CCLaP Weekender

covered with crimson frosting. I blow it out and begin to unwrap my little birthday cake.

I take a quick bite and feel frosting stick to the tip of my nose. Connor laughs, and before I can wipe it off, his lips are on mine, warm and soft.

When he retreats his face from mine, my mouth hangs open. He brushes the dark red frosting off my nose with his thumb and licks it off.

“Want to go out and get some dinner?” he asks.

I pounce on him like a lioness. By the state of his back afterwards, I might as well have possessed the body of Nala.

“I’m thinking I’ll do it with pills,” he says between bites of grilled lobster and a spoonful of chicken pho. We have ordered about six different dishes at the beach side restaurant, knowing full well there is no way we can eat it all, but we want to try everything.

The night isn’t cool by any means, but it feels perfect compared to the heat of the day.

“Can we not talk about this at dinner?” I ask.

I hate Vietnam! It’s playing tricks with my mind.

My chopsticks hover over the dishes, but I return them to the table without eating anything. I’ve lost my appetite. I wasn’t thirsty either, but I sling back my rum and Coke and ask the waitress for another. No cherry Coke in Mui Ne, but you can get a rum and Coke just about anywhere.

“Okay. What do you want to talk about?” he asks.

“Do you want to go down to the beach?”

“What about all this food? I’m still hungry.”

“I’m going down to the beach. Come down when you’re done, if you want.” I throw down some cash and walk past the other restaurant goers. The hissing of the waves is enough to drown out the music and the jovial sounds coming from the restaurant, so I don’t hear Connor coming up behind me.

We sit next to each other while sand slides into our clothes. Neither of us says a word. We just watch the South China Sea lap its way up the sand. The only signs of modernity are the lights of some fishing boats off in the distance.

I wonder what they do on those ships at night. Did they bring their families with them? Were they sitting down for their dinner? Playing cards? Were they looking at the coast and wondering what we were doing? Or were they facing the sea, where the only light comes from the sliver of moon rolling over the salty waters?

“I think it ought to be tonight,” Connor says.

I don’t look at him, but I hear him shaking the medicine bottle of pills, a death rattle if there ever was one.

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“Pills might not work,” I manage to say. “Most of the time, people just get sick, and then I’ll have to drag you to the hospital, and who knows if they even have somebody that can speak English there.”

“Maybe I should just walk out into the sea then.”

“Your body would fight it. Besides, drowning can’t be a very fun way to go.”

“Fun? This isn’t about fun, Harper. What? Should I go up to my bed and slit my neck with a knife like some people do?”

I am not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry, so I run out into the sea. I am still wearing all my clothes, and they stick to me like childhood trauma when I dip under the water. All previous sounds stop. I can only hear water. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, having your head underwater sounds exactly the same. I sit on the sea floor until my lungs can’t hold it any longer. I come up and gasp for air. The lazy waves rock around me, splashing at my shoulders. Turning around, I see Connor has moved to the edge of the water. He is sitting down, waiting.

I trudge back to him, soggy and exhausted. Whatever tears I might have shed have blended with the seawater. I squeeze my hair and let it drip in the tide. He sits motionless, looking out at the fishing boats. The little orange bottle of pills rests between his hands. I sit down next to him, having no clue what to say about the riptide that is throwing crazy thoughts around my skull.

I don’t know if it takes ten or thirty minutes before he speaks again, and all he says is, “I’m going to take a nap.” He leans back, rests the back of his head on the sand, and drapes his arms across his chest.

When I think he has fallen asleep, I take the medicine bottle from his hands, meaning to throw it into the water. The minute the bottle leaves my hand, I know something is wrong. There is no rattle. The empty plastic bottle hits the water with a light plop. I snap my neck to look at him. His chest isn’t rising. I put my ear next to his mouth, but there is no breath.

Having no reason to hide it this time, I cry without restraint. I start to lean over to put my head on his chest, the same chest that I had dug my nails into only two hours earlier. The same chest I had hugged when I had been alive and he’d told me that everything was going to be okay. Back when he assured me that no matter how bad things seemed, he was never going to leave. I think about how that chest had remained the same, a lock to my key, when I had been those other women, when I had tricked him into loving me.

I would rest my ear against it and listen to his heart, fearing the moment he would discover it was really me underneath.

On the night before I died, Connor had told me about Le Roman de la Poire, the first known painting showing a lover giving his damsel his heart as 20 | CCLaP Weekender

a symbol of love. With my last living words, I told him I would cut out my heart if it meant I could keep him forever. I only managed to make a bloody mess of my bed in the process. He was asleep next to me that night. Sleeping like he always did, in a depth that could only be overcome by alarms set at the highest volume. I cursed him while I died. I was drowning in my own blood, and he got to keep dreaming. When he finally did wake up, he left me on that bed, alone. I thought he was calling for help, but he simply left me.

Now I’m on the beach, the warm tide has reached my toes, and he’s left me again. I expect the cramps to start, but a different kind of pain emerges instead. This must be what the icicles felt like when I would slam the door of my childhood home to watch them fall. The memory of it makes my teeth chatter, despite being on a tropical beach. And throughout it all, my tears are relentless.

All of these thoughts careen through my mind as I move to put my head on his chest one last time. As soon as my ear grazes his chest I jerk away.

His heart is racing.

He sucks in all the air around us, and when he lets it out, he’s laughing.

What the fuck is going on?

“We need to get you to a hospital,” I yell, while shaking him up to a sitting position.

“What for?” he asks through his manic laughter.

“The pills! You swallowed all those pills!”

“I emptied them out in the sand back there,” he says, pointing back to where we had first sat down on the beach. Before I can yell at him, before I can punch him in the face, he’s kissing away my C

TJ Davis is an international teacher from Minnesota. His published writing includes three collections of short stories, a novella, and a memoir about his three years living in Burma. His short story “Itchy,” finished in the top 16 of the Discovery Channel’s “How Stuff Works Halloween Fiction Contest.” You can find more from him at yourtyler.squarespace.com.

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Paul McCartney is not a celebrity himself, but works on the edges of that industry, unhappily toiling away at a tabloid devoted to famous deaths and the public’s ongoing fascination with them. But one day he discovers a mysterious red button on a back wall of his new house, which when pressed causes the immediate death of a celebrity sometimes half a world away. And what does this have to do with the eyeball in a glass jar that his biggest fan has recently mailed to him?

Find out the darkly hilarious answer in this full-length debut of British absurdist author Stephen Moles. A rousingly bizarro exploration of fame, identity and mortality, this novella will make you laugh and cringe in equal measure, a perfect read for existing fans of Will Self or Chuck Palahniuk. You might not think a book about death would begin with the word “life” written 27 times in a row, but then you have yet to enter the strange but compelling world of Paul is Dead. Best approached with caution and with tongue firmly in cheek!

Download for free at cclapcenter.com/paulisdead

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Elina Ruka

PHOTOGRAPHY FEATURE

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“Domesticities” 2009Location: Carnikava, Latvia Domesticities is a portrait of my family and a means to better understanding such terms as home and belonging, as well as roots and identity. It is at the same time a story of Latvia - its distinction, characteristics, traditions and details that are specific to a country. I visualize Latvia after two decades of independence from Soviet Union through personal perspective; it is possibly romanticized however true, with the influence of the memories, experience and questions.

Domesticities initially began with longing for home while studying in France. Every time I went back home, I was eager to record my family and the surroundings in order not to let the imagination to take over my memory. With time, the interest grew into developing this series into a representation of autobiographical questioning on cultural identity.

Elina Ruka was born in Latvia. She received BA in photography from Ecoles de Condé in Lyon, France. She is currently a candidate of MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago. Elina Ruka has received Janis Grundmanis Postgraduate Fellowship for Study in the U. S. (2015), Fulbright Fellowship (2013) and Follet Merit Award (2013). Ruka’s work has been exhibited in Latvia, Belgium, Denmark, France and the United States. Her photography has been published in Latvian Photography Yearbook (2013) and Generation of Place: Image, Memory and Fiction in the Baltics (2011). Elina Ruka has taught photography at Latvia Culture College. www.elinaruka.com 24 | CCLaP Weekender

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The CCLaP Weekender is published in electronic form only, every Friday for free download at the CCLaP website [cclapcenter.com]. Copyright 2015, Chicago Center for Literature and Photography. All rights revert back to artists upon publication. Editorin-chief: Jason Pettus. Story Editor: Behnam Riahi. Photo Editor: Melissa Jean Birckhead. Layout Editor: Wyatt Robinette. Calendar Editor: Taylor Carlile. To submit your work for possible feature, or to add a calendar item, contact us at cclapcenter@ gmail.com.

Did you like this? Pay us 99 cents and help us keep them coming! bit.ly/cclapweekender 40 | CCLaP Weekender