F i c t i o n - $ 10.00
The Fatherlands is a neo-classical gallery, Michael Trocchia the guide, showing us portraits, landscapes, sculptures, paintings, a collage of a time long past but as real and present as the space at the end of this period. In the background you will hear an overture of whispers, where ancestors have shaped his art, and our vision of it.
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“Someone might say that The Fatherlands is a rebuke, that it is a sort of anarchist screed. The book is certainly a vehement denouncement of the present state of affairs in American life, politics, and letters. But Trocchia is no coward, and he does not tear down without raising up.”
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J e s s e B a l l , au t hor of S i l e n c e O n c e B e g u n a n d T h e C u r f e w “The Fatherlands is beautiful, its narrative threads graceful and lithe.”
JA T y l e r , author of T h e Z oo ,
a
Going
“The Fatherlands is not an easy book to categorize . . . it is a witty, evocative, and perceptive meditation on the ties—sometimes deep, sometimes accidental—that join persons to families, families to territories, territories to texts, and texts to literatures.”
R ob e r t V i s c u s i , a uthor of E l l i s I s l a n d and A s to r i a
JEN KNOX
ISBN-10 0-991542-916 ISBN-13 978-0-991542-91-8 51000
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More Praise for
Don’t Tease the Elephants “There is a quiet desperation to the emotional and physical landscape of these wayward stories in Don’t Tease the Elephants by author Jen Knox. Penned in clear, deft prose the title is a sort of red-alert: Silence can be followed by stampede. Mesmerizing.” Susan Tepper, author of The Merrill Diaries “Every story in Don’t Tease the Elephants packs a wallop. Knox is able to slice open her protagonists and make us care about their fates. On the surface, the plots are simple, but the revelations are profound. Readers will be left wanting more stories.” Mark Lewandowski, author of Halibut Rodeo “Knox creates flawed characters who possess gentle strength and dignity. There’s not a false note in any of these well-wrought tales. Her narrators’ voices tell us just enough to make us shake our heads in empathetic understanding. Rattle, the character in ‘Don’t Tease the Elephants’ and ‘Nothing’, is a character not easily forgotten, and one I hope will make an appearance in many more stories to come. Knox writes with confidence and finesse, and these stories have just the right mix of venom and honey to leave readers nodding with an affirmative smile of self-recognition. Bravo.” JP Reese, author of Final Notes and Dead Letters
“With Don’t Tease the Elephants, Knox is subtle and heartbreaking about class and desire, about children learning the world we wish they’d never know. Her stories come for a visit and stay long after puberty arrives or the toxic bar closes, like echoes of a middle class, life the hard way specter—rolled up in its incandescent grief.” Heather Fowler, author of This Time, While We’re Awake “I love how the five stories in Don’t Tease the Elephants do not shy away from confronting harsh realities. There’s the story of a father who discovers that his teenage daughter had become pregnant and subsequently had an abortion. There’s the story of a family house burning down, the estrangement of family members, and their hope for a new beginning. In every story, Jen Knox deftly weaves in a little bit of darkness along with startling flashes of beauty and insight. Don’t Tease the Elephants is a handsome sampling of wry, poignant stories that illuminate the human condition.” Kristine Ong Muslim, author of We Bury the Landscape and Grim Series
Copyright Š 2014 Jen Knox All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief excerpts. Printed in the United States of America.
Cover & Interior Design Nate Jordon
Cover Art Christopher J. Shanahan
ISBN-10: 0-9915429-1-6 ISBN-13: 978-0-9915429-1-8
Monkey Puzzle Press 424 N. Spring St. Harrison, Arkansas 72601 monkeypuzzlepress.com
For Irene Meder
TABLE OF CONTENTS WHEN PRETTY PEOPLE DISAPPOINT
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NOTHING
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WE WOULD COME BACK AS RATS
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GETTING THERE
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DON’T TEASE THE ELEPHANTS
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Don’t Tease the Elephants
WHEN PRETTY PEOPLE DISAPPOINT My brother told me Dory was cracked, and he wasn’t the only one. All the boys said she was crazy, but I figured they said this so their girlfriends wouldn’t know they’d slept with her or tried to. Sure, she slept with a lot of people. But it didn’t matter because I adored her. I used to stare at her. I wanted to decipher each stroke, figure out how such beauty was executed and maintained in a living human form. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to be her, but I wanted to know what it was like to be in that elastic skin. She was my babysitter then, when Dad went to poker and Mom was out with her book club. Dory had an e-reader and liked to sit in Mom’s rocking chair without looking up, so consumed by whatever she was reading that I’d think she forgot about me. I loved that she let me stare. She seemed to invite it.
I wanted to puke the day Ramon told me to answer the door and there she was, hair down, eyes darkened and widened with liner; her lips were held tight in an anxious smile. It had been a few years since I’d seen her at my front door. I gestured toward the rocking chair, but she took a seat on the couch instead. I knew Ramon would make her wait, so I talked and talked, searching harder for subjects when I saw her gaze wander deeper into our house. I didn’t want her uncomfortable or upset. I wanted to protect her because I knew my brother. I knew he was talking to Tammy, lying to her about where he’d be that night. Blowing hot
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air into his cellphone: “C’mon, baby, don’t be like that. You know I love you.” The way he always did. I told Dory about my new friend Alyssa. My first kiss, really, but I didn’t reveal as much. I just said “new friend,” but I must have said it with that goofy smile I got when I said Alyssa’s name. Dory’s shoulders seized, and in a nerve-ridden chain of events, a glittery lash fell into her eye and she began blinking quickly to remove it. “Pobre!” she said. “Just like my cousin. You need Jesus!” I looked at her sideways, watched her pull at the eyelid with two thick acrylic nails. I looked at her the way Mom would when Dad tried to justify poker on extra nights. “Only a few hours, I swear,” he’d say. Mom would stare, always answering him with the same question: “You swear, eh?” I did the same. “I need Jesus, eh?” Then I thought up a better question. “So, you’re taking Spanish?” “Sí y sí.” She was all pretty angles and endearing awkwardness. We were sitting closer to each other than we ever had. She said, “You will be so much happier when you understand that it’s just a little demon inside of you making you want to act the way you do. I am part of a program that helps kids like you.” “Ramon! You have company!” “Coming!” Ramon yelled. I smiled at Dory, said, “I can help you with Spanish.” “Maybe. I’d like to read you something first.” She pulled her e-reader out of her gold purse and began. “The path to freedom is in the minds of those with hope. To manifest hope, you must accept the divine into your heart.” I sat listening because I didn’t know what else to do. Dory’s skirt was short and tight. As she read, I watched her try to find a comfortable position that didn’t expose too much. It was an impossible task. When my brother finally emerged, he smelled like a department store and smiled like a toothpaste model, the way he did around women he would soon devour. Dory forgot about me in a flash. There was no more discussion, no “I’m worried about the kid.”
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There were only giggles and eye rolls and all the cliché stuff I wished didn’t happen in real life. My brother was about to inherit a kingdom, I thought. He winked at me as though he knew; it was all a game.
Dad began inviting me to poker as soon as I turned fourteen, and I wished I had gone tonight. I wasn’t up to hanging out with a bunch of middle-aged gamblers. But, Dad was a hell of a salesman. He said poker was about seeing things as they are, not as you want them to be. “Even a bad hand can bring in the whole pot if you know how to play it,” he’d said. Dory was still blinking and working at that lash as she dug in her purse and handed me a small container of lip gloss that was still sealed. “This will make you feel like a lady. These were buy two, get one.” With teeth clenched and a forced smile, I thanked her. Maybe Alyssa would like the gloss. Dory’s legs wobbled a little on chunky heels. My brother gave me his sordid thumbs-up before slamming the front door. I didn’t feel like reading or watching TV, so I went into the kitchen and grabbed one of Dad’s spare decks of cards. I sat down and began to shuffle. The cards fell in clumsy heaps at first, but I knew I would keep at it until I was ready to play. As the cards settled into a rhythm, arching and falling, I imagined Dory staring at me longingly. I imagined her wanting to feel what it was like in my skin, wanting to know what it was like to move around in the world without having to bury herself beneath pretty things. The pretty things are heavy, I’d tell her. I mean, if she ever wanted to know I’d tell her. I’d show her what it is to be both solid and free.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS “Don’t Tease the Elephants” was first published by Monkeybicycle. “Getting There” first appeared in [PANK] and was later published in Eunoia Review and Fiction Southeast; it was also nominated for and chosen as a finalist for the 13th Glass Woman Prize. “Nothing” first appeared in Euonia Review. “When Pretty People Disappoint” appeared in JMWW. “We Would Come Back as Rats” was introduced in Skidrow Penthouse.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jen Knox works as a creative writing professor and editor in San Antonio, Texas. Jen’s writing was chosen for Wigleaf ’s Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions in 2012, and she was a recipient of the Global Short Story Award. Some of her work can be found in A cappella Zoo, ARDOR, Bound Off, Burrow Press Review, Gargoyle, Narrative, [PANK], Prick of the Spindle, and Short Story America. For more, visit her website at: www.jenknox.com
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MONKEY PUZZLE PRESS The Fatherlands
by Michael Trocchia
The Fatherlands is a neo-classical gallery, Michael Trocchia the guide, showing us portraits, landscapes, sculptures, paintings, a collage of a time long past but as real and present as the space at the end of this period. Fiction / 52 pages ISBN-13: 978-0-9915429-0-1
Aurora
by Mittie Babette Roger Through balancing sound, imagery, and complex narrative, Aurora is a feast for the senses, and a must-read if you have ever loved, or ever dream to. Fiction / 44 pages ISBN-13: 978-0-9886077-5-0
The Boy in the Well by Nicholas B. Morris
Within these pages you’ll find Gravediggers and Mirrors. Life may not exist without horror, and the short story may not exist without Nicholas B. Morris. Fiction / 48 pages ISBN-13: 978-0-9886077-6-7
F i c t i o n - $ 10.00 “The aberrants in Jen Knox’s stunning new book Don’t Tease the Elephants make us want to shake them, yell, Don’t! Yet, voyeurs, we can’t wait until they do. Delicious language, men named Rattle, moms in rehab, people with breath that smells like orange rinds and balloons. Don’t miss this one!”
Bonnie ZoBell, author of What Happened Here and The Whack-Job Girls “Jen Knox is a master at drawing an exquisitely detailed meditation on the inner map of humanity. Don’t Tease the Elephants is a brilliant collection of moments captured whole and rendered with such clarity that each one blasts into our veins and lives inside us. Unforgettable and mesmerizing!”
Meg Tuite, author of Bound
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Blue
“There’s a sad, endearing, world-weary quality to the characters who inhabit the five stories in Don’t Tease the Elephants. These are the stories of failed dreamers, of survivors and local legends. The ones who travel light with tattered roadmaps in their back pockets. A wise and wry and empathetic writer, Jen Knox makes you care about her people, despite their imperfections or maybe because of them.”
K at h y F i s h , a u t h o r o f T o g e t h e r W e C a n B u ry I t ISBN-10 0-991542-916 ISBN-13 978-0-991542-91-8 51000
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