CCLaP Weekender
From the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography
November 13, 2015
New Fiction by Mark Wagstaff Photography by Josh White Chicago Literary Events Calendar November 13, 2015 | 1
THIS WEEK’S CHICAG
For all events, visit [cclapce
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14
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, NOVEMBER 15 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. 7pm Asylum Le Fleur de Lis / 301 E. 43rd / $10 lefleurdelischicago.com
A weekly poetry showcase with live accompaniment by the band Verzatile. 7pm Waterline Writers Water Street Studios / 160 South Water / Free waterlinewriters.org
Curated reading series. 2 | CCLaP Weekender
GO LITERARY EVENTS
enter.com/chicagocalendar]
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16 8:30pm Kafein Espresso Bar Kafein Espresso Bar / 1621 Chicago Ave., Evanston kafeincoffee.com
Open mic with hosts Chris and Kirill.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17 7:30pm Homolatte Tweet Let's Eat / 5020 N. Sheridan homolatte.com
This month's show features Nic Kay and Desiree Galeski. Hosted by Scott Free. Enter through Big Chicks at the same address.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18 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.
To submit your own literary event, or to correct the information on anything you see here, please drop us a line cclapcenter@gmail.com November 13, 2015 | 3
ORIGINAL FICTION
“Scream” by Nicki Varkevisser [flickr.com/clickflashphotos/]. Used under the terms of her Creative Commons license.
MY DOWN 4 | CCLaP Weekender
w Her windows were obscenely clean. Distressed lilies on the table, their fallen petals turned to withered hands. So clear, I could reach through the glass. I knew her the day I moved in, by her note behind the door. ‘Boys’ in big, carefree writing, ‘Boys’—because a gay pair lived upstairs before me—’If mail comes addressed to Martine Wilson, please bring it to my door.’ Her door, facing the street. My door—the door to the upstairs apartments—at the side of the building. From when I saw those bubbled circles that dotted the letter ‘i,’ the swoosh flung under the message, the friendly xoxo, I knew Martine was my downstairs.
NSTAIRS
BY MARK WAGSTAFF November 13, 2015 | 5
Quickly, I understood what she liked. Sleeping late on a weekend, her slatted blinds closed beyond noon. Red wine—she was diligent, left her bottles out to recycle. She liked sad music and fast music—I charted her moods by sound. Those first times we met out front, she said she enjoyed having someone quiet above her. Which I liked, because she wasn’t quiet—her music erupted all hours, she showered often, for an hour at a time. When she went out, her front door took a slam that shook my windows. She laughed and coughed loud enough to hear upstairs. Where I sat quiet. Not much of her online: couple of pictures, a membership on some gaming site—expired, a few comments on blogs that, when I swiped through, vaporized. She liked company though. Every weekend, a rowdy gang of confident-sounding women chattered and drank in her apartment, before hitting town. I’d get their sudden rockets of sound through the floor, their laughter and heels fading back in the night. Then at two, three AM, a cab would tip her out, giggling and coughing, with best friend, Lara. Music loud for an hour, the toilet flush, then silence. When she slept a day behind the blinds, warmth seeped through the jags and shifts of the building. Comfortable, musty sourness that spoke of where her flesh touched, where folds and laps hid feral information. When she was out, her lights on automatic, I’d stand and admire her flowers, her pictures, the busily-strewn physical music and games. Her bedroom was at the back, out of sight. I couldn’t rely on chance. I worked at the store and she had her job at the clinic, mixing oils and heating stones. I went out when she was still sleeping, got home long before she came back from whatever bar. She worked loose hours. The store never liked me taking a day because I’d stuck it a lousy long time and knew the job sideways. When I finally scored a morning off, I threw some things in a trash sack, stood ready till she clattered out. Made it a simple coincidence. A wire already snugged inside one ear, daylight loved her unbrushed hair shining in subtle twists. Her round, generous face filled with expression. Her crumpled blouse and waitress slims wouldn’t work on anyone else. Broad shoulders, broad hips, rich as an apple. A few blemishes livened her skin. She stared, not quite understanding. “How you doing, Tom?” I gripped the awkwardly-light trash bag, aware that I looked caught in some foolish instance. “Great, Martine. Really fine. Got a day off.” The information meant nothing. She stretched out the second wire of her music. “I must get on.” “How’s work? You doing health still?” My words banged against dead air. “Therapy.” She took a half-step. “I have appointments.” A dance beat 6 | CCLaP Weekender
swung around her. She checked her phone, sliding into motion, muscles rolling and kicking across the street. In a one-story add-on at the back of our building, an old man lived, too old to matter. Between the street door to the upstairs apartments and the cement scar where his place joined on, a frosted window framed head-high in the wall. There was no window in the lobby, so it had to be Martine’s. Not much to see—cloudy glass and she’d cluttered the inside ledge with those little boxes women keep for buttons and diamonds. Had to be her bedroom. I pressed close to get a look-in. Martine liked lilies: dense, bulbous blooms. The shadows they threw, the dark of the room, the flat, gray day gave up no more than distorted fog behind the glass. A door opened behind me. The old man—Matthew Green, not that I knew then—ambled out. The trash sack in his mitt suggested he might be pulling me over as I did with Martine. His white-bearded, slackened face placed him as one of those people—maybe sharp once—who coast away into old age. Who recall distant achievements with equanimity. I slung out a hand. “Tom Stuart. Moved in upstairs.” He felt my fingers as though this was some new etiquette. “You took the top place?” “The middle. Top’s still empty.” He glanced up. “They were flighty fellows.” “They’re gone.” I stood back, to help him move away from me. But he persisted. “So you moved in? I thought those fellows had gone. Pretty quiet at the back here.” “I’ll keep an eye on things.” I stubbed the ground like kicking up clues. “People might scout down here, you know? Poke around.” “I’ll troubleshoot.” I gouged dirt with my heel. “Get foxes round here?” “Foxes?” “You hear screaming?” “I don’t hear screaming.” “Two, three o’clock. Woke me up.” He looked helpless. “There’s foxes in these neighborhoods. Plenty cover, all these gardens.” “May need to take steps.” I edged to the wall so he’d get the message and leave. He did that thing old men do: that raised half-finger salute. Beetled off to the bins, finger trailing the air like waggling some old time jive. I slipped back inside, shut the door, the tick of electricity in the walls. That day, I gathered information about the run of the street. Deliveries, neighbors, what looked to be regular business. Two-thirty, the mailman November 13, 2015 | 7
showed in balloon shorts that displayed the severe development of his calves. Starting opposite, he worked his way down and back, busy enough in an age that doesn’t do paper. I waited out front, gave a friendly shrug. “Anything for Stuart?” He thumbed a bundle of letters. “You know people moved out? Weeks back.” He snapped off a half-dozen dull-looking oblongs. “They were kids. They skipped. I’m here now.” A couple envelopes looked like memberships for the young blades, gone from upstairs. Some junk for my predecessor. A bank statement and utility bill for Matthew Green. A catalog baked in shrink-wrap: what’s new in holistic, for Martine Wilson. I took it all up to the top of the stairs. The small window up there gave no bad view, and the landlord told me the top floor place was plush. I considered how to dissuade anyone from moving in. A frigid strip of evening sky latched between buildings. The move was ugly—I made it, understanding its ugliness, understanding it wouldn’t go unremembered. Shoes carelessly unlaced, I knocked on Martine’s door. Her blinds still open, side lamps gilding her book spines. Her music filling out like steady breath. She’d changed from monochrome day clothes to jeans that traveled all around her. Her sloppy vee-neck gave up four inches of hastily-settled cleavage. Surprised, perhaps embarrassed, she drew back. “Again?” Maybe meant it as a joke, but her voice didn’t make the rise. “I know. We don’t see each other, then twice in a day. This came.” Her catalog, though she seemed unwilling to take it—we shared a second’s tension, holding it between us. She glanced at the letter box. “New mailman, maybe. A replacement.” That struggle for traction put me in mind of moving across rough ground. “Hear anything last night?” Aware of my gaze, she pulled the catalog to her chest, comically stagey. “Think it’s foxes.” I glanced up the alley toward the rear apartment. Then back at her eyes. “Best not let them take hold. Do all kinds of damage.” By then, she was three paces back from the step—a margin to move on. Her fingers clutched the door with the resolve of someone about to slam shut a domestic scene. “Foxes?” “Vermin.” The gate rattled, I turned—Lara stared like she’d stalled some dull misdemeanor. Martine smiled, arms dropping wide. “Hey,” she said too brightly. The taller, darker woman hesitated, gauging the greeting. “Hi.” I moved parallel with Martine, stealing her posture. “Tom. I live upstairs.” 8 | CCLaP Weekender
Martine had busy, whole-body engagement in whatever she did. When I watched her walk in the street, her hips would barrel, hands searching her pockets, eyes checking every place to miss nothing. Her loose-packaged assemblage plumply attractive. In contrast, Lara’s chilly face—more suggested than present—stayed tight against involvement. She could laugh—I heard them kick up a storm late nights. But Lara clearly split public and private. She looked wary, no doubt trying to decode what she’d interrupted. Almost jolted herself forward into the light. “You set?” “Not had a shower yet.” Defeated in trying to hold two conversations, Martine focused on her friend. “They’ll be there.” Lara moved to the step, decisively blocking me out. “Have a good one.” I let the words hang. Waited fifteen minutes on the dark stairs till water started. Water, then music—no doubt Lara’s choice. Martine had one of those super-charge showers that set the pipes roaring. Gave an hour, sometimes, to washing herself, the noise so embedded that I noticed when it stopped. I leaned into the wall, but the clatter of water hitting ceramic overwhelmed any clap of wet flesh. Went outside at ten, the building—the whole street—abnormal peaceful. Around one, I heard Lara come home with Martine. Music and laughter burst and echoed. I kept my bed purposely cold, thin sheets a little dampfeeling. Maybe moonlight drew claws on the curtains. Maybe that shriek was a skirmish of teeth and fur. The landlord called to say people would start looking around upstairs. Some agent had the key. He wanted I tidy the hallway, make sure anyone I encountered got a positive impression. I could handle everything locally. He trusted my judgment. Matthew Green was pretty well-set, his bank statement that I kept most likely not his only account. Anyone with that much to hand must have more, wrapped-up long-term. I pondered his health. He didn’t seem to pay insurance. My job hardly needed thought. All I did was shuffle hardware. A component jockey, I look down on soft-modders hacking out apps that do squat without chips and cards. Users who worship the cloud—they don’t know the cloud. The cloud is a million mean servers. Kids on the sales floor know the bank can be robbed, but it takes precision hardware to break validations stacked in a firewall. Hardware’s compact these days, and I owned stock control. So I built me a server to take care of business. The friendly butcher in the arcade couldn’t keep a dog because of his son’s allergies, which he blamed on fine particulates in the air. He liked dogs—only too happy to sell scraps for dogs, job lot, at the end of the day. So chatty November 13, 2015 | 9
about pollution and dogs and the challenges facing small traders, I only just got the bloodied parcel stashed before the estate agent showed. There was no comfortable way to meet. If I stood on the stairs, hand outstretched, I’d be an obstacle. If I sprinted to the top floor, I’d look invasive. The compromise— not a good compromise—was kick my apartment door half-open behind me, to be encountered, like a flasher, in the shadows. With everything I’d presumed about the estate agent confirmed on sight, I focused on the people behind him. A family—mixed-sex couple trailing two little girls, taking the stairs that knees-first way of children. It wouldn’t do. Not at all. I like children, I like their candor. But it wouldn’t do. The six of us traipsed in a slow blockade upstairs, the agent spouting rubbish about location and value, the couple sharing tension and not saying much. Their girls, or the girls they acquired, bobbed their little blonde heads, playing staircase games. While the agent searched his over-packed chain for the key, I slung some automatic remarks on the pleasantness of the neighborhood, the quiet-yetfriendly quality of its people, proximity to artisanal stores, and the sovereign whack of the air. I made clear I’d be no disturbance. The couple seemed in diffident relations to each other. The man—balding, a little compressed— tried forays at conversation, which the woman—eyes nearly closed—batted down. The girls jogged round, knocking my legs, their vibrancy unattributable to such adults. The top floor apartment none of my business, I stuck by the door, duly impressed with airy, split-level vacancy. The building may have been old and collapsing, but upstairs—smoothed and whitened—in so-so light, could pass as home. The kids, predictably, chased up the spiral stairs, crashing into the faux-ironwork. Just as predictable, their vigor called an irritable cuss from the woman whose heavy, baulked movements reminded me of a diver. The man liked the place. Guess he’d like anything. None of my business, I agreed to all the agent’s talk about light and space, admiring these marvelous original features: that fireplace, the chimney. The woman stared at the wall. I told her that the landlord did a great job. The agent went up top to show the man height. The girls had discovered the bathroom. Inertia left the woman with me. I took a step to that original fire and chimney. Just explaining, just running my hand on plaster, just showing the diligence in its work. You could barely see where the landlord smoothed it out. Sanding for days, I told her, layering-on new render. Hardly visible at all. “Was there something?” Her heavy lids raised on dark, shrewd eyes. I realized here was someone devoted to malice. “New water mains got put in, year or so back. Guys had the whole street 10 | CCLaP Weekender
up. Lot of disturbance. Lot of things disturbed.” With audible mechanism, her body clicked to face me. “Martine, girl downstairs, now she was all right. She already blocked her fireplace. Feels the drafts. I was all right. Chimney’s walled-over in my place. So everything stirred by the digging went on up.” “Something run up?” “Come spewing out here. This fireplace. Laid into the wood, the fittings. Scared, you see? Scared and hungry. There was a guy here then.” I steadied my hand on the cold, smooth wall. “It’s come up good.” While the girls played hopscotch and grown-ups bickered, I told the agent I was happy to show people around. He agreed he had bigger deals to dig into. Low commission job, rentals. Vanity, I despise it—but it got that key in my pocket. While my hardware took cracks at Matthew’s bank, I hung till night’s disquieting stillness lay all around. His backyard gate looked solid, but its fittings were slack. He had a security light though: hard to dodge and stayed on an infuriating three-and-a-half minutes. With that, I was out there nearly an hour, the package cold and oozing in my hands. His yard smelled of cinder earth, damp leaves, the shadows that rolled from neighbor trees. A few breaths and twitches—cats, maybe. All good. I’m a cat person. I went careful—his windows were dark: easier to keep watch from blackout. At the back wall among plant pots, I set out the butcher scraps, sticky with fatty blood. Blood brings the night to life. Insects alerted—trees poured down a rustle of cautious wings. Fences, streets away, yawed and creaked. Tally-ho. But later on, when downstairs doors slammed, I heard not the rolling shrieks and belches of Martine and Lara, but the wormy sweetness of tooready laughter. They brought men. Poised on the stairs against the wall, pounding down rage to clutch at the problem, I heard two men: double-date. Two men hopeful of something, cocky and respectful, as smart, belligerent women probed their potential. They’d pair off, some well-mannered coupling would take place. Some man would touch Martine. Some man that didn’t know me.
But later on, when downstairs doors slammed, I heard not the rolling shrieks and belches of Martine and Lara, but the wormy sweetness of too-ready laughter.
November 13, 2015 | 11
I ran up to the roof. Lot of lights around, sense of movement. All kinds of wake-up-fire, assault, a shocking insertion—suggested and dismissed. Men who get lucky don’t quit. So I had to let it become part of what I needed. I focused on exteriors, on all the essentials below me. Four stories up, I felt the instant she slipped under. Patterns of payments from Matthew’s account showed unambitious caution that fitted his splintering years. He invested in dreary bonds that paid nothing over base, kept three cash accounts—that old superstition that banks don’t fail together. He no doubt thought himself pretty well-set. At the store, I was back room service—never had to tolerate customers much. Just sales floor kids who knew all the specs and nothing of locomotion. They’d come dangling some sorry device, saying this or that don’t function— they’d try to explain, cheap-jack and dumb. I ran my own projects in back, did business someplace between Bangkok and the moon. It’s not hard to shift things around, with the weight subtracted. Next up, the agent sent a dull second-lifer, viewing the flat on a tip that the top story offered inordinate light. She had to paint, she told me. A passion she had to follow. She’d quit the fine and reverend path of accountancy to smudge canvas and go bust. I left her looking glum at the chilly mezzanine. She asked how many square-feet it was. I said, what you mean, square-feet? When she stumbled off to her pale-rose car, a pleasingly-wan Matthew Green called me to his back gate. He had a yard ripe with carcass, a scent of gamey authority tainting the wreckage. He asked what did I think. What I think is you scratch someone enough, you found they’re allergic to something. “What you think we should do?” “There’s answers to foxes. They’re protected.” “Protected?” “Animal rights. You can help them move on. There are sprays.” “What happened here?” His old hands limped through the chaos. “Trash bags. They do that. Rip ‘em open. Scatter all kinds of crap. That meat looks rancid.” He put a hand to his face, then quickly peeled away from his own touch. “Sprays?” “Tiger piss. Things they don’t understand. They sense some unknown predator and back off. In theory. You can rig lights, high-frequency sound, water jets—they don’t like a soaking. Of course, they are problem-solvers.” “Sounds technical.” A euphemism I know well. “There’s other ways. But they are protected.” The solution cost money and entailed risk. I found the website, told him what dose to buy. If we got caught—though we wouldn’t get caught— it would go better that poison was ordered by a respectable, older gent, 12 | CCLaP Weekender
concerned for his property, perhaps unaware of restrictions. The juice would arrive unlabelled, like everything useful. I got late for work, hanging on for Martine. Never regular hours, she seemed to have shifted from mornings. Not around evenings either. A few types came to look at upstairs, but always found something off-putting. All kinds of filth got mangled in Matthew’s garden and the rising smell hardly helped rental prospects. Noise at night, too: that screaming—neighbors began to take notice. I considered it all, waiting for Martine, waiting for that man’s voice. He’d transitioned from bring-back to nice little twosome. She was flirting, of course, luring me to bust a move. The top floor window caught ten yards of street to the corner. I stayed alert, keeping time by the stars. Eleven-thirty, they swung back—some absurd, two-headed creature, limbs tangled up in itself, barely fit to walk straight. She burrowed into him, he gripped and propelled her. I didn’t go out till the door slammed, till music soaked the walls. Then I fixed-up a smile and knocked up a storm. She opened the door, flushed and concerned. “Hi, Martine.” Smelled alcohol. Nicotine too. Her hair damp, the blush going down to her chest. She clutched the door—it breathed in and out with her grip. “Matthew.” I pointed around the corner. “Trouble with foxes.” She shook her head, grimaced. She should have been smiling. “Hear anything?” “I have music.” A cork popped. She looked over her shoulder, mouthed something. I knew he was watching behind the lilies. Martine faced me, while he played hero of the back section. “Just so you know,” I said, reassuring, “I’ll get it fixed.” In the alley, night air an intricate mix of wine bottles in the recycle tub, roses, gas, and cold blood. A yelp, a squall—light from her bedroom window flickered with shadows. Across the street, curtains warmed to late evening candles. An acceptance of the upgrade took hold on everyone, a belief that tomorrow sat built and user-ready. I felt my breath in and out, the air in and out. The bricks of the alley wall glittered like silk. The landlord called, concerned upstairs wasn’t taking. I told him to blame the market. Not convinced, he seemed to think he should take things in hand. I assured him: wait the weekend. I had hopes for the weekend. Agitated old men are always a sight: I got charmed by Mr G’s pinkish animation. Clearly, he’d led a lucrative—or freakishly frugal—life. In my experience, work that pays involves risk—but with him, everything was perturbing. He gave the street door a bailiff’s knock, stuck the package close November 13, 2015 | 13
in my face. “This it?” He pitched at conspiratorial—or maybe ran out of lung. I asked him to step in, which he didn’t like, eying the cupboard doors with bleary distrust. Like a night with a dirty girl, there was something infectious about him. “There are controls, you understand? Paperwork. It’s not ant powder.” He moved back against the door. “I never had trouble. Now there’s dirt. There’s vomit.” “They rip trash bags, eat crap, hurl it up.” “The gate’s scratched.” “They climb. Got toes like ice picks. They have springs in their haunches. I’ll scout it out.” “What you mean?” I reminded him, patiently, that neighborhood cats roam at night hours. I didn’t want some angel-haired little girl crying for Mr. Fluff. “I’ll scout their movements. Pin ‘em out.” “In my garden?” Something slammed behind my eyes. “You want this done or not?” Bugs come off the shelf or build your own. A mic, a transmitter, some simple circuits—rip it all from cellphones. The casing can be anything, any object that blends. Bugs are simple—planting them’s the hazard. You get one shot at location: a sick wireless device, a magnet can jam you out. Martine subscribed to that catalog therapy hooey: their site had all kinds of delectable trash, like the dream-catcher I ordered. Don’t know what it did, but it looked messy and complex. One o’clock, Saturday morning, old Matt’s garden smelled vile enough, but rain just topped it off. That agricultural tang of shit bubbling down, lapping through everything. Foxes don’t care for the wet but are all-around resilient. Alert to me, they stayed watchful. The yard shaded by trees, no light and porous fences—anything sly would like it. I chased out a couple of cats, their eyes cradled emeralds in the night. A cab rolled down the street—costly ride, those wet, early hours. They slammed the doors, too drunk-happy for rain. The cab growled off into some other story. I rose from the ground, hanging low and heavy. Rainwater pools with no way down scattered beneath me. Her bedroom lights lay in the alley. A little music rocked the air. Close on the wall, rain off the roof blended me to every hard surface. Music, laughter—so happy, such early hours. I held my hands in the watery light, my fingers scratched raw on her bricks. Saturday morning rattled away, gawping out the window. The mailman’s knock took me flying downstairs, picturing some weekend slacker, over-keen 14 | CCLaP Weekender
to dump mail anyplace. Flinging back the door, I must have looked psyched to the slight, young woman, waterproof jacket zipped to her chin, baggy hood choking up soaked fronds of black hair. The large box looked comic in her arms. “Tom Stuart?” She forced up her shoulders with a weightlifter’s shiver. “He’s away. I’ll keep it for him.” I enjoyed her effort a couple more seconds, then plucked the box from her, making like it weighed nothing. “Any tip what this is?” Deceptive herself, she stepped back not to stagger. “Says dream-catcher on the tag. I got one. Helps me focus.” Cute, her outsize waterproof a splash of spilled gloss paint against the gray air. “I don’t got time for junk.” I kick-boxed the door. Took an hour contriving some plausible letter from the therapy merchants, what with ripping down the right logos and font, and aping the lingo. Dear Ms. Wilson? Dear Martine? Dear Martine Wilson—the bozo default of mail merge. A steady customer, valued customer—you’re entitled to a reward. You worked for it. Please accept this precious gift with loving wishes—to catch and hold your dreams. With love, yours very truly, Loretta Frankel, Customer Reward Partner. That effusive mood caught me as I unpieced the contraption, studied its holds and wires, its bird’s nest complexity. Then repacked it, with a little extra weight in its coils. Printed out a nicely-smeared new label. I’m a craftsman. Still raining when I carried the box around front of the building. Lingered a moment, to stain the thready cardboard. Most people will open a wet box straight away, to discard it. As I paused in the alley, Lara barged the front gate, her knuckled momentum amplified by the damp swoosh of her coat. She arrived at Martine’s step, chewing like to spit blood. Each knock of the door brought a tighter rotation of her chin. Lara was tall, built sharp and unhappy. Peering around the box, I caught her cracked anger. “We going out today? We arranged to go out.” Some yawny mumble from the doorway. “You didn’t message. I check messages. I come because we arranged.” The mumble got whiny. “Fine. Forget it. See you around.” As Lara turned, her coat clipped the edge of the box. Her yellow eyes gleamed with steady, serious hate. I cut in, the door barely open, Martine swagged in a mauve dressing gown, bed hair and eyes like oysters on a wet pavement. Somewhere, a man sang along to old rock. He sang flat. Nothing in Martine’s expression changed as I blocked her view of the car we both heard leave. I offered the box. “This arrived. Silly bitch got the wrong door.” A little smidge of last night’s lipstick framed her words. “What is this?” November 13, 2015 | 15
“It’s for your dreams.” Checked my bug at fifteen, at thirty—pulled only static. Some extra factor trumped my wet box theory. Finally heard tape tear, an industrial clamor of wood and wire. Gagged breath. A man’s moist attempt at soothing. Among wild half-tones, I got her voice. “You don’t, you can’t ever.” Baiting Matthew’s garden got delayed a couple more nights. He wasn’t happy: torn diapers and chicken carcass aren’t what a man wants every morning. But I had hours of static and ambient noise to unpack. Her man—Neil, implausibly—hung around pretty much the whole time. Early evening, his voice breezed through the mic; mornings, too, he was there. Neil was a lot to put up with: the jokes, the plans, the non-conversations—he seemed unable to talk with her the way I knew she liked, her tolerance of him inexplicable and grating. Guess the dream-catcher got dumped some place, but I picked up enough to perturb me. Huddled sounds, whispers—silence and worse in the night. One evening, before he stopped round, she made a call. “Hi.” All breathy-bright. “Just thinking, y’know? Thought I’d—.” She got no further. A long, fretty pause ended in, “I’m sorry you feel that. I never asked—. Hello?” For then, I muted the mic, to spare us both. On my way to see Matthew, I followed a noise out front and met Neil up close, doing something inept to Martine’s porch light. She could fix lights. She didn’t need to be patronized. Took an awful lot to give him a sunny welcome. “Hi. I’m Tom. You must be—?” He was stabbing the wrong gauge of screwdriver at the fitting, prizing the crusted cover to get at the bulb. Every time his tool chipped the casing, the stepladder jolted. Dogging my patch and he couldn’t even spring a screw. “Need help with that?” He risked a look down, his knuckles chalk on the ladder’s top handle. “Needs a new light.” That hip drawl, lazy breath—nauseating. “Like a searchlight? A Klieg light?” “Motion active. Fox issues.” I glanced at the gray, airless street. “Foxes?” “Old man here’s overrun.” He went back to scraping the hinges.
Baiting Matthew’s garden got delayed a couple more nights. He wasn’t happy: torn diapers and chicken carcass aren’t what a man wants every morning.
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I watched the tight, dense moves of a man unused to physical things, whose keynote is the swipe, the retinal order. Left him at it. Come the day, I’d fix it up. Matthew told me he couldn’t sleep nights—the chewing, the tearing, their panting shrieks. Like they were in his house. “I have money. I can move.” I held out the pellets. “I’ll do it tonight.” Better weather coming, could taste it—mildness easing the sting from the air. Always say to myself, next summer, I’ll catch a tan. Laid most of the poison in cover where brushy tails might hide, among flower troughs where inquisitive snouts might linger. The shit that Matthew no longer scraped up was starting to reach the neighbors—there’d be domestic disgust, a knock at the door. It was all pushing one way. The upstairs apartment trapped light from all sides, shafts of streetlamps, glimmers of bedrooms pooling on its dark floor. I got a duplicate key, regretting how one day the lease would get filled. My footsteps echoed up spiral stairs, through chilly, bare-bones space. The rocks I pitched down the chimney cracked chunks of brick as they fell, the primary-color noise of a children’s game. Pity those little girls didn’t move in: they’d have loved a rooftop playground. To be straight, I didn’t like waking Martine that way, but later, she’d understand. Dragged from bed, slurred crosstalk on the mic: “The noise,” she said. He told her, “It’s stopped.” She kept on: “Where is it? What is it?” I hadn’t meant to panic her, but at least she knew now her man lacked the machinery. Bugged on that, I jogged downstairs, slapping the walls, cussing out loud. Opened the street door and slammed it twice, to put energy back in the air. Rattled the gate and ran down the street, yelling with hate and pursuit. A dog started up, then on came the lights. I kicked a car and its thief alarm tore the night to pieces. Action in my blood, I rocketed back to the house, to the scrambled excuse for an individual on the doorstep. He looked soft right through. His floppy hair and ironic sideburns, untoned shape, juvenile colors; those hands—the hands of an avatar, not a technician. Martine in the front room window, bedmussed and fretful. She could see the two of us. She could make a woman’s choice. He flapped his mouth to ask something irrelevant—I levered him off the doorstep. “On the roof. Little bastards.” He shook his head, maybe shivered. “Up there. Throwing rocks. Come on.” He staggered, too groggy to ask why I had a key for Matthew’s gate. I knew Matthew was around—those slips and jags of nervy light in the curtains. He November 13, 2015 | 17
could hear us in his yard, but he had nothing left. I’ll be dead before I’m that old. The smell of shit troubled this Neil. Perhaps—to his wussy genetics—the plastic sacks of rotting meat that dripped from trees, that cracked and oozed, may have looked unsettling. A scream took up, then another, echoes blending over houses ripped from sleep. A dog-fox, staking claim. I spun the boy, so weightless he seemed glad to be given direction. “Up there.” Tilted his jaw for him. “On the roof. Think Martine wants that?” The noise he made: Martine takes care of herself, and dude, who’s on the roof? That decay of virility, sweating right there in my hands. “I’m going up.” Jammed a foot on Matthew’s hose reel, the other on his ledge. Clotted threads of curtains bubbled with light. “Hey, man.” I only climbed maybe ten feet, yet raggy-haired Neil looked far back in the dirt. “What?” “What’s this crap? There rats out here?” Such a sweet boy. Hung off Matthew’s gutter, I fished the pack from my pocket. “Here.” I tossed it down. “Chew gum.” Matthew’s roof wasn’t easy. Tiles cranked loose—heard them fall and shatter. First time, Neil’s, “Hey,” drifted up bleakly. Second time, nothing. Matthew’s place was a one-story add-on: it’d take Spider-Man to get from there to the roof of the four-story block. Even lean, local homies weren’t that acrobatic. I wedged myself to the house wall, splaying my feet not to kick the roof to pieces. That scream—loudest that night. A sharp wail dying into yelping sobs. A vixen calling in vain. I knew I’d be late for work. From choice, I wouldn’t have got involved, but couldn’t see Martine suffer. I held her hand, laid an arm across the warm snuggle of her shoulders. When police and paramedics came, I made sure a tidy female officer led her inside while they scooped Neil into the wagon. With pleasing bluntness, a detective asked why did the yard stink of shit? I said an old guy lived there, reclusive. Matthew’s sudden appearance, waving a stick, his face a thin canvas for redand-blue lights confirmed what we were all thinking. They took Martine to hospital. I didn’t intrude. Neil hadn’t much in his veins. Red wine, little cannabis—nothing to make a man risky. So it must have been the poison he ingested, a controlled substance used professionally to manage heavy infestations. The ball of gum in his throat may have shown traces of it. But the paramedics yanked that away to clear his windpipe. I told Matthew his yard seemed a dangerous place. He’d aged. The shop didn’t like that I called sick, but I was in a cordoned zone, discussing sudden death. Martine too in shock to talk, Matthew getting treatment, so I walked the detectives through the night before: my concern 18 | CCLaP Weekender
at hearing ruffians on the roof, my intervention as a good neighbor. I agreed they couldn’t climb from Matthew’s place, but I didn’t know that in the heat of pursuit. I left Neil on watch at ground level. All I knew. In the unforgiveness of daylight, the state of Matthew’s yard got the detectives wary of diseases. I told them he was somewhat obsessive. Place ought to be sanitized. Later, I heard Matthew call feebly at my street door. But he made his choice, no one forced him. I left the mic open all night, to catch the emptiness of Martine’s apartment. Ticking sounds, creaks in the walls, the icebox hum, the heating firing on timer. Sharp, knotty bangs as wood stretched and shrank. I lay on the floor, embracing her absence. They let her out next day. Cab brought her home. She looked raw, her hair in unwashed strings. Slow, loud music played. I shut the mic. I’m not a monster. Caught the hum of an electric car down the street. Waited in the alley, feeling for wounds my fingers scratched in her bricks. “Can I come in?” Lara’s voice, not tuned for concern, sounded strained. “Why?” “I want to help, babe.” The door closed. She walked slowly away and sat in her car a long time. I’m not hasty—I waited till Martine’s place hit the market. The oily young man who did photographs for the agency told her that cash clients killed each other for properties like hers. He asked was the place out back empty, it looked neglected. Her apartment got sold to a young couple who hated and would rip out everything. I recall the maxed woman ask over and over if Martine had qualifications for all these therapies, and say how you should reject religion and go straight to spirituality. Amen to that. The real estate office clamored with that forced frenzy these commissionmonkeys hustle up. The phones, the interruptions—sentence fragments. I told the young man I was good to go, cash buyer. “Friend of mine, Martine Wilson, you know her? Sold through you just recent. She was very complimentary.” The young man smirked. He couldn’t care. “Now, where she say she was going?” I tossed a few random suburbs. He corrected me: Martine bought into a new development, polar opposite side of town. Guess the feng shui felt good there. I nodded, appreciative. “Heard it’s pretty sweet. Sort of location I’m considering.” He was already trawling particulars. Not the character of my old place, not the same amenity. A modern, colorless, unremarked block, built high-enough spec to catch value. Filling up good, the agent said, as we walked down from my new apartment, passed November 13, 2015 | 19
Martine’s new apartment below. Done deal—I cleared Matthew’s accounts, zipped all that potential into real estate. Built a neat little dam to frustrate the sleuths at his bank. Destroyed my kit—wasteful business, security. With nothing to pack, I moved in a day. The new apartment felt tight—I missed having access-all areas, spiral stairs, the cinder roof, views of dark windows and shadows. But right to make a clean break. Couple days, Martine moved in—saw her unload the hired van, her books, her crystals, her dreamcatcher piled on the curb. Felt relieved when her front door slammed, when I heard the shower start running. Later on, I’d drop in, say hi. Of course, I would. She was my downstairs. C
Mark Wagstaff was born by the sea and lives in London. Since the late 1990s he has had stories published in journals and anthologies in the US and UK. Most recently Mark’s work has appeared in Prick of the Spindle Tethered by Letters and Cobalt Review. His story ‘Some Secret Space’ won the 2013 William Van Wert Fiction Contest. Mark has also published four novels, a novella and a short story collection. His second short story collection, Burn Lines, is available now. Mark’s new novel Lovers will be published by CCLaP in spring 2016.
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CCLaP Publishing
It’s 2039, and a political faction called the Lifestyle Party has risen to power under the Presidency of Deepak Chopra. The new government bans scientific innovation and introduces a set of policies focused entirely on maximizing personal happiness. So why is Grady Tenderbath so unhappy? Believing that he’s fallen short of his professional potential, he buys a personal robot muse to nurture his talent and ego, while his wife Karen, a genetic scientist, becomes more entrenched in her lab. But just when Grady seems on track to solve his career crisis, he discovers a new problem: he’s swooning for the empathetic yet artificial Ashley. Not only that, he’s distracted by haunting visions of Karen transforming into...something else. Half speculative fiction and half marriage thriller, Rise of Hypnodrome explores how future generations might draw from the realm of epigenetic engineering to eventually control their own biology. Whether human or robot, the characters in this cutting-edge science-fiction novella have one thing in common: an irrepressible desire to evolve.
Download for free at cclapcenter.com/hypnodrome
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I’m a teacher, originally from Newfoundland, Canada and now living in South Korea. I left Canada after law school was over and I had decided that wasn’t the path I wanted to live. I started taking photos when I came to Korea along with a blog to keep my family and friends updated on my life here. It eventually became a much bigger part of my life.
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flickr.com/jtinseoul twitter.com/jtinseoul instagram: @jt_inseoul jtinseoul.wordpress.com
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CCLaP Publishing
Orest Godwin is ruining his long legacy three fingers of rye at a time. His lectures have become bizarre. He’s smoking indoors. And he’s begun to carry a knife. When Orest nearly burns down the campus destroying memoirs in his attic, the College has no choice but to dismiss him. After 50 years, a prestigious career is ended in a humiliating act of senility. Or so The Provost thinks. Orest decides he is no longer satisfied to be a known historian; he wants to be historic. So he cashes his pension, draws a new will, and vanishes. With the help of a failing Spanish student whom he has promised a fictional scholarship, he embarks on an adventure from northern California to the lawless badlands of Mexico to join a true rebellion. Armed with Wyatt Earp replica pistols and a case of rye, Orest and Augie trespass through a thousand miles of brothels, cantinas, jungles, diners, and motels, threatening those they meet along the way. If Orest can just elude the pimps he’s crossed, the ranchers he’s sworn vengeance upon, and kidnapping charges, he might just join his peasant uprising. At least while he can still remember where he is going. And if no one gives him a drop of mescal.
Download for free at cclapcenter.com/orestandaugust
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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: Jennifer Yu. 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.
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