WRITING BOOK 2015
Thesis selections from MFA Program in Writing Graduates at California College of the Arts
CHAIR’S INTRODUCTION 04
EVAN ADAMS 06
ANDREW BONFILS 34
MICHAEL BURGE 42
ALLIE CHANDLER 60
BERENICE FREEDOME 72
ALEXANDRA GILLIAM 90
KATIE JACKSON 114
STEPHEN LEEPER 130
PHIL LUMSDEN 146
PATRICK NEWSON 174
SUMMER HARIM PARK 188
CHARLIE RADKA 202
ZACK RAVAS 208
NELSON RIVERA 226
CHAIR’S INTRODUCTION
W
elcome to these pages. Here you’ll find a sample of the superb work our MFAW graduating students have created during their two years with us. This work represents hours of writing, unwriting, rewriting, revising, reading, collaborating, lost sleep, midnight dramas, and eternal dreams. The work bodes well for the future of literature, as it emerges from diverse, engaging, and provocative ingenuity. The search for form and the creation of style is always at its core. I would like to thank our Program Manager, David Morini, whose wisdom and compassion have aided and abetted our students; our extraordinary and devoted faculty: Juvenal Acosta, Faith Adiele, Opal Palmer Adisa, Anita Amirrezvani, Tom Barbash, Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Dodie Bellamy, Rebekah Bloyd, Claire Chafee, Donna de la Perrière, Gloria Frym, Caroline Goodwin, Matthew Iribarne, Kevin Killian, John Laskey, Joseph Lease, Emily McVarish, Denise Newman, Eric Olson, Aimee Phan, Shanthi Sekaran, Judith Serin, and Matthew Shears; our Master Writers in Residence during 2014 – 2015: Andrew Sean Greer and Will Alexander; and a special gracias to Al Young—our Distinguished Professor. We are privileged to have Heidi Meredith and Renée Walker of Gold Collective design The Writing Book, and our own alumna Steffi Drewes copy edit the volume. Our writers have done remarkable work during the past two years. We are grateful to them for giving us the privilege of partaking in their apprenticeships.
Gloria Frym Professor & Chair
mfa program in writing california college of the arts
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Fun Times
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twisted around and slung my backpack off one shoulder to put the empty grapefruit juice bottle in a side pocket as we walked up the front steps of Rainbow House. It was the second bottle, but while it was supposed to last up to 48 hours, the internet wouldn’t tell me what the half-life was, and I didn’t want to take chances with something this important. “Hi, welcome, come in!” said Florida, opening the door for us. The door was painted shimmery rainbow colors in broad stripes. A proper, if somewhat cartoonish, rainbow in the same colors was on the wall directly opposite the door. The landing was otherwise painted a light blue just this side of cyan. “Be careful, it’s everywhere.” She pointed to a sign warning party guests that this was a “high mistletoe zone.” I looked up and, upon seeing a sprig of the stuff hanging from the light fixture above the odd little flagstone landing, grabbed Seal’s head and kissed her, although not long or deeply. “It’s good to see you up and about,” I said to Florida. She often missed social events due to migraines, barricading herself in her room while everyone else had fun in her house, which seemed entirely unfair. “Yeah. I asked for Isis’s blessing, to make me well for this night, and for once She actually gave it.” “It’s nifty when that works. You should try dealing with a trickster god.” She gave me the same sideways look that I got from a lot of adults in the community, when I informed or reminded them of the specifics of my magical and religious practices. “You could work with Someone else.” “I really couldn’t. He chose me, more than the other way around. Oh, this is my girlfriend, Seal.” “Merry meet.” “Uh, merry meet,” Seal echoed awkwardly. “Are your parents coming?” Florida asked me.
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“My mom might come by later, depending on when Stephen gets home to take Sif,” I told her, sitting down to untie my shoes. “He has a thing tonight, and my dad’s too busy with work.” “How did you get here?” “Took the bus and then walked up the hill. Speaking of which, I think we’re gonna go set down our stuff.” I rose, slipped my Converse off my feet, and nudged them into an already impressive pile of shoes and boots. Seal did likewise with her black and white checked slip ons. “You know where the cloakroom is?” “If it’s in the same place.” “Yeah. Last bedroom door on the righthand side.” “I told her I know where it is,” I said to Seal once we were out of earshot, putting down our coats and backpacks. “She was just trying to be helpful,” said Seal, examining a miniature fog machine mounted on one wall. The bedroom turned cloakroom, which was a somewhat alarming dark red, and contained, along with the expected assortment of purses and jackets, someone’s shortsword, and several actual cloaks, ranging from a ribbon tied, black, crushed velvet thing that only escaped being a cape by virtue of having a hood, to a heavy microfleece traveling cloak in forest green, obviously handmade, with the outlines of large interior pockets clearly visible from the outside. “Well then she’s really, really bad at being helpful,” I told her. I was prepared to go on a bit of a rant about it, but then I noticed another cloak. “Dude.” “Yeah?” “Look at this.” It was similar to the green cloak, but much smaller, clearly made for a child. The main body of it was a dark blue that approached purple, the hood sky blue, ending in a silver tassel. “It’s pretty cute.” “Are you just completely missing the reference?” “I think so?” “Dark blue cloak, silver tassel. Detachable sky blue hood,” I held it up to show her the row of snaps. “Come on.” “Uh…” “‘The best detachable party hoods.’” “Um the, uh, I’m sorry. The quote sounds familiar, but I don’t remember what from.” “It’s The Hobbit,” I said, disappointed, “this is Thorin’s cloak.”
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“Oh. Yeah, that’s cool.” “Do you want to go upstairs, where the social is, or grab some food first?” “Food, definitely.” The kitchen was the golden yellow that in a perfect world all kitchens everywhere would be, switching abruptly to pine green where the linoleum met carpet, something that might be called a dining room if it were its own room. Maybe it was anyway. Both sides were full of people. Most of them looked more or less normal, albeit with a higher incidence of kilts, tie dye, jewelry shaped like dragons, and T-shirts announcing the wearers’ geekiness, paganism, or polyamory in some way, although if you lined them up and put them into a bigger line of everyone in the greater Seattle area, they probably wouldn’t have caused a statistically significant bump in the graph. A few wore wizardy robes like my dad usually did. Still others had the collars and corsets thing going on, with varying degrees of success. Rainbow House was one of a few large poly/pagan households around the Greater Seattle Area, and, being large, generally clean, and not on the East Side, it was the natural location for a lot of parties and gatherings. Rituals, on the other hand, were usually at Cnuic na Sidhe or Brambles, but I didn’t participate much in those anymore. Working with Gods other than mine increasingly made me uncomfortable, but that feeling wasn’t in line with ‘an it harm none, do what you will’ (never mind that in my case it didn’t go both ways) so I just didn’t go as often, unless my dad or one of a couple other people was organizing it. “I haven’t really eaten today,” Seal confessed, as we tried to maneuver around people to get plates and cutlery. The oxy was throwing off my reactions and spatial skills a little, and I found navigating crowds tricky even sober. If I remembered correctly. “That’s not good, is something going on?” Seal wasn’t exactly eating disordered, but she didn’t do a good job of taking care of herself, because of the depression. She would forget to eat for hours or days, and then binge on sugar. So, I supposed, she might have an eating disorder, in as much as her eating was disordered, even if she didn’t intentionally starve herself to get thin, or overeat to cope with uncontrollable emotions. “Nothing’s ‘going on,’” Seal said as I got plastic cups off of a big stack and started filling them with hot cider. “Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway.” “Your parents?” I asked, attempting to fish a whole piece of star anise out of my cup with the ladle, an implement wholly unsuited to such a delicate task. “Or your brain?”
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“Both, kinda. My mom’s worried about how much time I spend with you. She thinks you’re a ‘bad influence.’ I, on the other hand, am kinda worried about how much I don’t see you.” I gave up on using the ladle, pulled the anise out with my fingers and, not wanting to return something I’d touched to the pot, stuck it into my pocket. “On what planet am I a bad influence? I skipped two grades, I’m getting straight As in college classes while carrying a full high school course load as well. I get along with my parents okay. I don’t even have promiscuous sex.” “No,” she said, putting a couple of tiny frozen cream puffs onto a paper plate, “but you take a lot of drugs.” “And it hasn’t negatively impacted my life in any way. How do they even know about that?” I examined a platter of grocery store sushi, looking for anything that wasn’t egg or precooked shrimp. “Normal people talk to their parents, Carson.” “Well, maybe you shouldn’t. Especially if they’re going to try to run your life for you.” “I just…I don’t like lying to them, and I have to talk to someone if I’m having feelings.” “If the feelings are about me, maybe you should talk to me about them? Or your freaking therapist. You’re planning to eat something other than cream puffs and a piece of cake, right?” “Not really.” With apparent reluctance, she took a handful of raw sugar snap peas. “I have to figure out what I’m feeling before I talk to you about it though.” “So I’ll help you figure it out. Or again, therapist.” I put some California rolls on my plate, and then added a couple to hers as well. “I can’t always—Look, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’m planning to stop seeing you just because she doesn’t like you.” We went up the tiny flight of stairs that led to the living room. Rainbow House was big, and it was built on a steep hill, so there were a lot of little sets of stairs connecting the different parts of the house. The living room contained all five of the under-eighteens who lived at Rainbow House, as well as a woman in her forties who I didn’t recognize, with long blond hair in a ponytail and a cane. An unreasonably good-looking guy at least a decade younger knelt on the floor at her feet. He was dressed fancier than most of the people there, in dark jeans and a lavender shirt roughly the same color as the walls that might have been made of silk. The Other Carson, the only child or teenager in the room who didn’t belong to Florida and her husband, was in the big chair at the far end of the room,
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playing a Gameboy game that involved a lot of explosions and squeaking noises. Pokemon, maybe. Clover, who was thirteen, watched the two younger kids, Sage and Chamomile. Florida’s oldest daughter, Fern, was sitting in the middle of one of the couches. I was surprised to note that she wasn’t wearing a dress, or even a skirt. Instead she wore a white button-down shirt and dark slacks, and her red hair, which had been shoulder length the last time I saw her, was now only about an inch long. She had a copy of Les Misérables next to her, but seemed absorbed with affixing small stickers to a map of Seattle. Seal immediately dropped to the floor and began trying to engage Chamomile in some hand movement based toddler game, her face opening up into the kind of smile that looks a little silly, but less so than it otherwise might because you can tell the person doesn’t care at all how they look. I sat down and peered at Fern’s map. “Initial targets for when the revolution comes?” I asked, only half joking. “You might want to consider more roads and bridges.” “Nah,” she said, “I’m not trying to take over the world anymore. These are places in Seattle where you can buy grapefruit juice that doesn’t have sugar added.” “Really?” I asked, in a tone I hoped couldn’t possibly be seen as disapproving. I could only think of one reason a person would be so concerned with access to grapefruit juice, and if Fern was using, I wanted to make myself available to provide advice and guidance, something I couldn’t do if she thought I was judging her or might tell her parents. “Why such an interest in grapefruit juice?” “I just really like it. I know it’s weird, ‘cause it’s bitter, but it’s my favorite and it’s hard to find.” Well, if she wanted to tell me, she’d tell me. “Can I copy down the locations you have?” I asked. “Sure.” She handed me the map and I got out my black pen and my notebook. “You look different,” I said. “You cut your hair, and you aren’t wearing a dress.” “Yeah,” she said. “Turns out I’m FtM.” That I did not see coming. “Okay. New name to go with it?” “No, not yet anyway. I’ve been thinking about it, but ‘Fern’ is pretty gender neutral.” “Fair enough. It’s a plant. A plant that predates the existence of gender, I’m pretty sure.” “IDK about that.”
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“I’ll look it up later.” I finished writing down intersections and handed the map back to her. Him. “I want some kind of Facebook thing that’ll just tell me about changes in people’s relationship status and gender pronouns.” “Why do you want to know where to find grapefruit juice?” “It has…medical uses.” “Really? I thought you weren’t supposed to take it if you were on any medication.” “That’s because it makes a lot of medications stronger, by stopping the body from breaking them down. But if, for some reason, that’s what you want, it can be pretty useful.” “I’ll…keep that in mind.” “Oh, also, just so you know, I’m not identifying as male anymore. I’m using ‘they’ pronouns, and the label ‘genderfluid’ for the time being.” “Does that mean you’re not gonna transition?” “As things stand, I’m not pursuing any physical changes to get my body to match up with my identity. I’d need to get some kind of switch installed, anyway, and those have the minor problem of not existing yet.” “Yeah. That’s gotta be…I don’t know. I can’t imagine having that kind of flexibility in my identity. I mean, having boobs, even part of the time, would just be too weird. Is too weird,” he shuddered, and it didn’t even look completely affected. “I can’t wait until my binder gets here.” That kind of aversion to even the possibility of non-binary identity was normal for newly out trans* people, and he’d probably outgrow it in the natural course of things. It wasn’t helped, of course, by a lot of non-binary people, and a fair number of cis ones as well, suggesting that trans people who did have binary gender identities were somehow doing it wrong, supporting an oppressive system, or at least missing an opportunity to subvert it. My mom had just about driven me crazy that way, when I was fourteen, talking about how identifying as bisexual and FtM kept all my options open, cheerfully ignoring my attempts to explain that no, being a boy meant I had different options, but I didn’t get to still also be a girl, and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to. The fact that I’d eventually done almost exactly that might have served to prove her right in her mind, but when I’d identified as male I’d had every bit as much aversion to my female body as Fern was expressing now. That it had gone away after a few years didn’t make its existence any less real. “If you really need something in the interim,” I told him, “you can put on one tight sports bra, and then put another one over it, backwards. It flattens things out pretty well, but with any shirt that doesn’t go all the way up to your neck, the
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top one will be visible. And it can make it a little hard to take a deep breath, but not as bad as ace bandages or something rigid, like duct tape. I assume you know better than to use something like that?” “Um, yeah. I do, you know, know how to use the internet.” “Not everyone exercises good judgement with this kind of thing. Or bothers to do research.” “Okay, well, I did. That’s why I’m getting a proper binder.” “I’d offer to let you use my old one, but your circumference is about 75 percent of mine.” “Well, thanks. And if my circumference ever increases by a third, I might take you up on that.” “You mean, with hormones? Are you doing those already?” “I was being sarcastic, sort of? And no, not just yet. I’ve got appointments with an endocrinologist and Seattle Counseling Services, so hopefully soon.” That reminded me. Seal seemed to be enjoying herself, but I knew from experience that she wouldn’t be happy if she spent the whole party playing with the smalls, and didn’t ‘hang out with people’ or ‘do party things,’ whatever that even meant for someone who was sexually monogamous, barely drank, didn’t take drugs and refused to dance where anyone could see her. Really, I knew what she meant, it just bugged me. So one item on my checklist for the evening was to introduce Seal to a friend of mine from Camp and other non-school contexts with whom I thought she’d get along swimmingly. “I’m gonna go mingle for a little bit,” I told Fern. “Okay.” He resumed examining the map, pink dots in hand. “Hi, Other Carson,” I said. “Hi, Other Carson.” I could have just called him Quark, and he could have called me Loki, but that wouldn’t have been as much fun. “Do you know where Ellie is?” “Eleanor,” he said sarcastically, “is Catholic this evening, so we’re not speaking. I think she’s downstairs.” “Sounds complicated.” Seal was still completely focused on the two little kids, and it was rare enough to see her truly happy that I didn’t want to interrupt. So I just tapped her on the shoulder and said “I’ll be right back.” I’d only meant to go into the kitchen and see if I could get a glass of wine without anyone feeling the need to initiate a Conversation about it, before going
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to the lowermost level of the house to find Eleanor, but halfway down the stairs I had a better idea. I had planned not to do it, but that seemed a lot less important than it had when I made the decision. Trying to act like I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary, I turned right into the first floor hallway, and darted into the bathroom. I locked the door behind me, but there was another door, connecting to the bedroom currently functioning as the cloakroom, and it was the sliding kind, not lockable as far as I could tell, so I turned on the overhead light to make it obvious that someone was in there, even though the multiple strings of lights on the walls provided perfectly adequate illumination. Then I started searching. The mirror was just attached to the wall, and didn’t have a cabinet behind it. The drawers and cupboard under the sink revealed dental floss, cleaning products, ace bandages, and those stick on heat pad things, but nothing of interest. Finally, I spotted a white wire rack on the wall, which held two large bottles, one of multivitamins and one of fish oil tablets, and what looked like a vaguely iridescent dark blue hatbox. Being careful not to disturb the vitamin bottles, I took the hatbox down, and sat on the floor to open it. It was almost completely filled with prescription bottles. I didn’t know what metoclopramide was, but I grabbed two of it anyway, figuring I could look it up later. The sumatriptan succinate was in a weird kind of blister pack, and it would be immediately obvious if any was missing, so I left it alone. Bupropion was an atypical antidepressant, but it might be useful for something. Tetracycline, boring, cetirizine, very boring. I counted out five propranolol. It was technically a blood pressure medication, but supposedly useful for managing anxiety, making alcohol more effective, and minimizing physical signs of stress like shaky hands. I would have taken more, but there were only about twenty left in the bottle, and I didn’t want it to be readily apparent that some was gone. The last bottle was larger than the others, and solid white, rather than the normal amber plastic. I put the propranolol away, making sure, as I had with the others, that it was turned in exactly the same way it had been before. I was sort of expecting another thing of vitamins, but the label said, along with the normal prescription information, “Ultram 100mg.” I only vaguely recognized the name, but the instruction were to take up to three daily as needed for pain. There were a lot more narcotics I hadn’t heard of than NSAIDs I hadn’t heard of, so the chances were pretty good that it was something fun. The bottle was almost full, and the tablets were pretty small. I put twenty of them in the tiny pocket inside the left front pocket of my pants without visibly reducing the number in the container. So I swallowed another two, put everything away, and went back out to rejoin the party. I refilled the cup that I’d had cider in with some kind of white wine with a name
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I wasn’t sure how to pronounce. It tasted pretty much like wine, which was to say terrible, but it was somewhat less unpleasant than most. I was halfway down yet another short flight of stairs, this one leading to a small underground (I thought) room with a fireplace and a TV and a bunch more couches, when something Seal had said finally trickled through to the “important stuff” filter in my head. When I returned to the living room, Clover and the small ones weren’t there anymore, and Seal was sitting on the couch with her earbuds in, staring off into space and generally doing her best impression of someone with depression and social anxiety who’s been left alone at a party full of people she doesn’t know at all. Something in my chest did a weird little upward stabby thing, and I sat down next to her, putting my arms around her and pulling one of the earbuds out with my teeth. She attempted to get her iPod out of the pocket of her jeans, but gave up after a second and just pulled the cord out so that the music would pause. “Hey,” I said. “You said something earlier, about being worried about not seeing me?” “Yeah.” “Do you want to talk more about that.” “It’s not a big deal.” “You do understand,” I said, not doing as well as I’d hoped at concealing the irritation in my tone, “that there are two of us in this relationship, right? That it’s not just a story about you and how nobly you refuse to tell anyone what you need, so that you can be the least demanding person in the history of ever?” “Okay, fine.” Of course, now that she was going to tell me, I was annoyed that I’d basically been forced into requesting that she tell me, thereby making whatever conflict ensued my fault. I could never tell if she did that on purpose, but it bugged the crap out of me. “Yeah?” “You just…Hang on, can we do this outside? I don’t really want to have this conversation out here where everyone is.” “Okay, sure.” We squeezed past the enormous tree, a douglas fir, I thought, but I’m not exactly an expert on trees, out onto the tiny balcony, and I closed the sliding glass door behind us. “So.” “So…you’re just not around very much. You’re spending all this time with Matthew now, and it’s not like you were overburdened with free time to begin with. You’re not online as much as you used to be either, and a couple of times
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when you were online and I really needed to talk to you, you’ve been like ‘I can’t talk right now, I’m busy working.’ I mean, I get that you have a lot to do, but—” “When I said that,” I interrupted her, “what did you say?” “I, I don’t know.” “Okay, then I’ll tell you. You said ‘Oh, okay,’ or ‘it’s fine,’ or ‘it wasn’t that important anyway.’” “Yeah, because I—” “No. You don’t get to resent me for a decision you made.” “I didn’t want to distract you if you were busy.” “Because you’re responsible for my decisions? I can’t decide for myself whether I have time, so you have to decide for me, rather than letting me make an informed decision?” Seal turned her head down and away like I’d struck her, pulling her hands in close to her chest. Her brow was slightly furrowed, her mouth partway open, and she was actually, visibly, trembling a little. I didn’t realize that I was clenching my hands into fists until the plastic cup made a couple of cracking noises. I took the largest gulp of wine I could manage, trying to drink it all before the cup started leaking. “Because that’s the story in your head, right? You take care of everyone, you take responsibility, because you’re the only one who’s so fucking good at repressing their needs, never giving a thought to the idea that it’s actually incredibly insulting to my intelligence to try to choose for me what I do or don’t have time for.” I stopped for breath, and drank some more wine. “But it’s not even that, is it? I mean, really, it’s not about trying to do what’s best for me. As bad as that would be, it’s worse. You just don’t want to deal with the fallout, you don’t want me to resent you, so you…” I trailed off, unable to come up with a word for what exactly it was that she did. “I can’t imagine,” she said, her voice doing that thing that people do when they’re about to cry, “why I would have been worried about you resenting me, when obviously you’re behaving so reasonably about all of this.” “I’m resentful of you lying to me, trying to make decisions for me, sneaking around trying to control my feelings, like I’m a toddler who will throw a tantrum and break stuff if I miss my nap time!” “Okay. Okay, you want to know what’s going on with me?!” “Yeah!” “I’m suicidal half the time,” she said, her voice abruptly dropping to a near whisper. “Everything’s getting worse. I’ve been cutting more, so much so that I’ve
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been having to find new places to do it. I’ve been…I’ve been…” she unbuttoned the left sleeve of her black, button up shirt, and rolled up the sleeve past her elbow. I half expected to see needle marks, but instead there was a mass of short, more or less parallel cuts, running along the inside of her arm. None was less than an inch long, or more than two, and they looked too shallow to have gotten a vein even if they’d been directly on top of one, which none of them were, but for all that, the resemblance was immediately apparent. “Practicing?” I suggested, trying to speak as softly as she had, trying to be gentle. I felt like I’d fallen off of something, like a kitchen counter. Almost everything in my head, all of the calculations and narratives and clever replies, went silent, and I could feel the chill air, the floor under my feet, more acutely than I had a moment before. I brought my eyes up, held contact with hers for a few seconds. I was present now, and I needed her to see that, to see that I was thinking of nothing else, and wouldn’t until we had this figured out. “That’s a good word for it.” “I’m good with words.” I hugged her tightly. “You know, there are easier ways than—” I stopped myself, my natural inclination to give people as much information as possible clashing with the rational realisation that this was the last thing she needed to hear. “I’m not going to let that happen.” Seal didn’t really return the hug, she just stood there, letting it happen. “I’m not like you, Carson. I don’t have a whole bunch of partners I can turn to. I don’t really even have any other friends.” “What about Aurora?” “Aurora considers herself a medical professional. If I told her I was ideating…” “She’d have you fifty-one fiftied.” “Yeah.” I spent a second considering the different things I could say, the suggestions I could make. Obviously, now that I knew this was going on, I had to do something to help. Eventually I settled on. “You shouldn’t be spending so much time alone.” “That’s a good idea in theory, but how does that work? I mean, what, do I tell my parents ‘hey, I’m suicidal, could you hang out with me more so that I’ll be less likely to actually act on that?’ Either they don’t take me seriously, or it’s the same problem as with Aurora.” I thought about asking her, again, why she wasn’t willing to at least try using drugs to manage her depression. After a bad experience with SSRIs, she wasn’t willing to try prescribed medication, and that seemed reasonable enough, but there were other options, and she wasn’t willing to try those either,
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because she thought that, her mental state being what it was, it could spiral out of control too easily. I thought it was probably irrational paranoia on her part, but there was no sense in having the argument again. I finished my wine, and glanced around the tiny balcony as though I expected to find a trash can out there. Eleanor, one member of the multiple system occupying a tall, thin, blonde haired body that also contained Other Carson’s girlfriend, Ellie, tapped on the door. “They’re going to start the tree trimming in a couple of minutes, you might want to come inside.” “Uh, yeah, thanks. Also, Eleanor…You are Eleanor right now, yeah?” “I am.” “Okay, this is my girlfriend, Seal. Seal, this is Eleanor. I don’t actually know her very well, but she shares a body with Other Carson’s girlfriend Ellie, to whom I will introduce you if she makes an appearance later this evening.” “Uh, nice to meet you,” said Seal, extending her hand uncertainly. “Likewise. I need to go upstairs and get my ornament.” “We should do that too,” I said, and we followed her back into the house. “You brought the ornaments, right?” Seal asked. “Of course. They’re in my bag.” When she’d heard that we needed ornaments, Aurora had offered us each a small blown-glass ball, a little bit smaller than a golf ball, with a loop on the top, one dark green with white and yellow bits, and the other an icy blue with red and lavender bits. She’d made them before her family moved up to Seattle, which had put a temporary stop to her glassblowing, as it hadn’t been possible to move the fancy furnace they’d built into the garage back in Suburbialand, Wherever. The work was clearly not that of a professional, the colors swirled together in ways that didn’t look like they were quite what she had intended, but they were still very pretty, and exactly the right sort of thing to hang on someone else’s ridiculously large yule tree. I’d meant to make some beaded strips or squares on my loom, complete with loops that were also beaded at the top, but between school and everything else, there simply hadn’t been time. I gave Seal one of the little globes, and set the other down on the bed. “Turquoise, or indigo?” I asked, holding up two spools of ribbon. “Uh. The lighter blue one?” “Turquoise it is.” Using the blade on my pocket knife (the scissors attachment was next to useless for anything other than paper), I cut what seemed like a reasonable length of ribbon and handed that to her as well, then cut about the same amount of the indigo ribbon for myself. I nodded to her, and we took the ornaments
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and ribbons with us back to the living room, where Florida was explaining how the tree trimming worked. “You come up to the tree, and say your name if you want to, and talk a little bit about your ornament, what it symbolizes, why it matters to you, anything you think is important. If you just got one from the box upstairs, then talk about why that one: what about it spoke to you? There are no right or wrong answers, just say what you feel. Then you tell us one thing you learned in the past year, and one thing you made better, or, put another way, a situation or, you know, a place, or even a person, where you made a lasting, positive difference. Then you get to choose the next person to go.” There was one spot left on the couch, and I darted over to it. Seal, as she usually did, sat on the floor in front of me, leaning against my legs. I reached down to take my shoes off, but apparently I had already done so. Looking around with some concern, I saw them mixed in with a great number of others around the door; I must have removed them almost as soon as we’d come in. Weird. “So, as most of you already know, I’m Florida. I live here at Rainbow House, I’m Jonathan’s wife and Rowan’s girlfriend, and the mother of Fern, Clover, Sage, and Chamomile, and adoptive second mother of Rowan’s son, Carson. Although I think those of you who know me would agree I tend to act like a second mother to just about everyone.” I was having more trouble than was in any way reasonable getting the ribbon threaded through the loop on my ornament. It was hard to get my eyes and my hands to both stay on task long enough to get it done. Just a cup of wine shouldn’t have messed up my coordination this much. I didn’t feel heavy, exactly, just a strong disinclination to move, only exacerbated by the frustration of making four unsuccessful attempts at doing an extremely basic physical task. I wanted to set the stupid thing down, lean back, let my eyes go out of focus, to sit very still and pay attention to the strange but not unpleasant spinny-floaty feeling that seemed to mostly be located in my head, and the texture of the soft blanket covering the couch, and the deep, uncomplicated physical euphoria that, while it wasn’t enhanced by the alcohol or, as far as I could tell, by the Ultram, still made its presence felt quite clearly through their effects. “This ornament is shaped like a cedar waxwing,” Florida told us. She might have been right, but I had no way of knowing. It looked vaguely like a cardinal to me, but smaller, and not bright red. “They’re some of my favorite birds, because you see them in winter. Not here, but back in Saint Paul where I’m from. They’re out in the winter, in the snow, and they’re so pretty, and so happy looking, and they
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just find all of these beautiful looking red berries and so, to me, they symbolize finding the small, beautiful things in hard times and barren places.” I realized, belatedly and with a little surge of panic that sort of formed and dissipated without bubbling up the way it normally would, that I’d mixed alcohol with at least one opiate, and that was something one was Not Supposed To Do. But the main reason why not was respiratory depression, and I didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger of losing consciousness; as long as I stayed awake, I could remember to breathe, even if it felt like more of an unpleasant chore than it usually did. “Something I learned this year, that I had to learn, much as I didn’t want to, is to respect my own limitations. As some of you already know, I’ve been dealing with a number of health problems in the past year, and it’s been hard to learn how to take it easy, set a pace for myself that I can stick to, and let slide the things that don’t really matter.” “Wonder what that’s like,” I said to Seal, under my breath. She looked at me sharply, like I’d interrupted something she was really into. Weird. I took advantage of having her attention to hand her my ornament and the ribbon. “Hey, can you thread this through for me? I’m having trouble with it for some reason.” “Uh, sure.” Seal took them from me and got the ribbon looped through, then tied the ends in a knot like they were a single thread. “Here.” “Thanks.” “As for what I’ve improved,” Florida went on, “one wonderful side effect of having had to stop working almost completely is that I’ve been able to devote a lot more of what energy I do have to taking care of my family, and making Rainbow House the best possible home for the people who live and visit here.” There was actually scattered applause as she hung her ornament on the tree. She pointed at Clover, who got up with a tiny, spiky ornament held carefully in her hand, like it was a living butterfly or something. “Um, my ornament is, I don’t know, how many of you can see it?” “I can’t,” I said, but it came out indistinct, and quieter than I’d meant it to. Fortunately, several other people said that they couldn’t either. “Well, it’s a tiny origami crane. This is actually, I made a pair of these as earrings for myself, and I made another one for my sister’s—sorry, my brother’s— girlfriend for Midwinter, but it turns out she only has one ear piercing, so—that’s not the thing I learned, I promise—anyway, it’s a tiny little crane, and I made it out of rainbow paper because…”
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I stopped listening at that point, because I knew where she was going with it and it was too insipid to say out loud. Or…it should have been? She was saying it out loud, so…Too hard to listen to anyway…hard, bad. Insipid. Too insipid to listen to. I closed my eyes, and the amount of spinniness went from ‘kinda fun’ to ‘holy crap.’ It could have been interesting if I were in a situation where I didn’t have to pretend to be not on drugs, so that breathing faster and holding on tight to the couch, and getting my brain to stop fighting the sensation of movement, were options. But since they weren’t, and I was starting to feel nauseated, I opened them again. That was hard, and I didn’t like it at all. The nausea ebbed but didn’t disappear, but I’m nothing if not good at suppressing nausea. Okay. I needed something to do with my hands so that I could stay moving a little, have something to focus on, a reason to keep my eyes open and not drift into the dark soft thing that seemed to be waiting in the back of my head. If I’d had my knitting, or better yet a beading project. But I didn’t, and there wasn’t really room for all the little things of little beads on the couch anyway. And I didn’t have it. What did I have? I started checking pockets, firmly telling the impulse to see what adding a propranolol to this mix would do to go sit in a corner, at least for tonight. Coins, bus pass, hair ties. Why did I even have hair ties? Okay, hair ties. I started working my fingers through Seal’s hair, getting out the loose tangles that had already started to form, even though she’d brushed it on the bus, a few hours ago. She turned around to look at me, and I tilted my head to the side, which made everything really confusing for a second. She nodded once, apparently as intent on what Clover was saying as she had been on what Florida was. I spent longer than I needed to combing out her hair. Unruly though it was, it was also soft, and soft things go with opiates like caramel sauce with good chocolate ice cream. When it was starting to stick up more rather than smooth down, I gathered half her hair and started braiding it, fighting down waves of nausea as I did. I was starting to feel sort of poisoned, the way I sometimes did after a night of unusually heavy drinking and not enough sleep. It was harder than it should have been, I kept dropping sections, or losing focus and putting them in the wrong order. So when someone—Fern?—said my name, I was still only halfway done. The nausea got a lot worse very suddenly when I stood up. I took a couple of deep breaths, which didn’t really help, and tried to get from my seat to the tree without tripping over any obstacles, like the floor. I giggled, and put a hand on
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the tree to steady myself, realized it was too bendy, and moved back a little so I could use the wall. Ornament. I didn’t have it. “Um,” I said, “I don’t have, Seal, can you?” I made a gesture like picking up something small. She got up and brought me the little glass globe without apparent difficulty. “Thanks,” I whispered, tangling the ribbon in my fingers so I wouldn’t drop it. “So,” I said, “um, I’m Carson. Some of you, Clover and Ellie slash Eli, although I guess neither of them is really here, and Brook and Morgana, and Quark, probably know me as Loki. So, this is a little glass ball. It was handmade by a friend of mine, a while ago, and it’s blue, with red, and lavender. Which, obviously, it occurs to me, you know, because you can see it. Unless you’re color blind. Anyway, you know, red’s a feelingsy color and lavender’s awareness and stuff, mostly psychic but in other ways, and blue is both, so. I mean,” I squinched my eyes shut and shook my head, trying to clear it. Gyeh…bad idea, “let me elaborate on that.” “Loki,” said Morgana, “you might want to speak up a little?” “What? Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry.” I suspected the problem was ‘indistinct’ more than ‘quiet,’ but I tried to speak a little louder as well as enunciating better. “And this segues neatly into my thing that I learned, so I’m just gonna go ahead and do that.” I hadn’t thought at all about what I was going to say, but I was starting to get a sense of it. “If you sort of put those things together, you get, like awareness of feelings, basically. And that’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about, and I guess working on, this past year. Figuring out what’s actually going on with me, what I want, and…thingy…feel, rather than, you know, I’m a writer, sort of, I write, so I tend to think in stories, and so thinking in terms of what I feel or whatever, rather than what I should be feeling according to the narrative in my head. And one of the big things that I found out with paying attention to that is that I like having boobs. Sorry, that didn’t…I mean, I do, but…Lemme try that again. I identify as more genderfluid rather than just as a guy, and part of that is that having a female body is just fun, even if it still makes my skin crawl sometimes. I can do things with it that…and IDK, sometimes it doesn’t make me want to,” I made a vague gesture, “with a vegetable peeler, so, yeah. So that’s what I learned.” I glanced around the room, slowly, so my brain could keep up with my eyes. It didn’t look like anyone was staring at me with a horrified expression, but I wasn’t sure. “Sorry, about the vegetable peeler, that was unnecessary. Anyway, something I helped make better is my little sister, Sif. I’ve been doing a lot of her homeschooling most Fridays, or Saturdays when I can’t, like today, for Occ. Ed.
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credit, and I mean, yeah, I’m getting school credit for it but I’m also, you know, I’m contributing to my family in a grownup kind of way, and that’s nifty, and I think I’m helping her learn stuff, maybe stuff that she wouldn’t if it were just the parents, even if some people continue to insist that there’s such a thing as too young to start learning psychopharmacology. Uh, I think I’m done.” No one clapped, but I was pretty sure they hadn’t clapped for Fern or Clover either, so that was okay. I hung the ornament on the first branch I could reach, started down the stairs, stopped, came back up, pointed to Seal, and then went down to the kitchen as quickly as I could without giving the appearance of rushing, or falling down. No one was there, thank the Gods, so I started opening cupboards. With this many woo-woo herbal medicine types living in the house, there had to be some ginger tea or ginger root somewhere. I’m not a huge fan of ginger, as a way for things to taste, but it was the best thing in the world for nausea, and I needed that if I was going to not throw up, which was important, especially in the context of there being about a zillion adults here who would be only too eager to A) try to take care of me and B) call my parents, both of which were obviously unacceptable outcomes. I wished Matthew were there. He could take care of me, and he seemed enough like a Real Grownup that they probably wouldn’t interfere with it. The worst he’d do was insist on taking me home, which seemed like not a terrible idea. It finally occurred to me to check the labels on the cupboard doors, which were printed with one of those label making things. I found the one that said “Tea, coffee, herbs, etc.” and a big glass jar of dried ginger root next to one that said Wild Lettuce. I made a mental note to blow off class some Wednesday to show up to one of the brunches they had, and ask to borrow some. You know, for my carpal tunnel. I did already know where mugs were, and I wasn’t about to take the time to bother with a measuring spoon, so I just used my fingers to pour/scoop some out. I put it in the microwave, set it for three minutes and turned it on before realizing I hadn’t added water. Once I had it started for real, I sat down on the floor, which didn’t help and was uncomfortable, stood up again, which was worse, and then lay down on my back on the hard, cool tile. That did help, with the nausea if not the dizziness, and if someone asked what I was doing, I could say it was because my back hurt from doing the student thing and carrying a giant backpack full of books all the time. I couldn’t stay like that forever, because it was even harder to make myself breathe, but for the time being it was very, very nice. Florida appeared less than a minute later, hovering ominously in my field of vision.
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“Carson, honey, are you okay?” “What? Oh, yeah, I’m. You know, I think I might have had a little too much wine.” Keep it together. Focus on the physical symptoms; make it clear that everything was under control. “I’m kinda spinny and my stomach doesn’t feel great, so I’m making some ginger tea. You have a nice floor.” “Do you want me to call your parents, have them come get you?” Oh, Gods. “No, thanks,” I said, as cheerfully as I could manage. “I appreciate it, but I have everything under control, and my mom’s probably putting Sif to bed right about now.” “Okay. I don’t want you trying to get home by yourself on the bus though. You can say here tonight if you need to.” “That’s fine.” It was getting harder to keep my tone light; talking made the nausea markedly worse. “I’ll have Seal with me. She’s hella responsible.” “If you’re sure…” she still looked worried. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?” “Yeah, totally, I will. Thanks.” She left, finally, and I fervently wished that I could close my eyes without the floor turning into one of those merry-go-round things that they’ve started banning from playgrounds. Seal came down, presumably having finished talking and hanging her thing. “I’m okay,” I told her, before she had the chance to ask. “I just don’t feel great, so I’m lying down on this very nice floor until the thing beeps, and then I will have make it better stuff and it will be better.” “I’m not sure I believe that you’re okay.” She sat down next to me on the floor, leaning forward a little so I could see her face. “I’m not upset, and I’m not in danger.” “One of the people upstairs, uh, Morgana, I think?” “Yeah?” “She was worried about you. She wanted to know how you got drunk so fast.” A discomfort I couldn’t place swirled through my chest momentarily. I suspected it might be fear, or something like it, but it was hard to tell. “It was that obvious?” “Obvious enough, could you hear yourself up there?” This could be a problem. “This could be a problem. Was it just, I mean, was I slurring, or did it just not make sense, or…?” “You were only sort of coherent, mostly. You might have been slurring a little, I couldn’t tell. And you said something about a vegetable peeler.”
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“That happened?” “Yeah, that happened.” “Did anyone talk about, you know, me being in trouble, or calling my parents or anything?” “That’s all you’re worried about?” “That’s what I’m most worried—wait, what else should I be worried about?” “Embarrassing yourself, and making people uncomfortable!” “I made people uncomfortable?” “Yeah.” “Well, shit. I didn’t mean to. I should…I dunno. Apologize or something.” I started to get up but Seal put her hand on my shoulder. “Right now, I think you’d only make things worse.” I wanted to argue with her, but somehow my last shred of impulse control managed to catch up to the idea and wrestle it to the ground. She was right, and arguing just because arguing seemed like a fun thing to do wasn’t going to help anything. Seal was no fun to argue with anyway. “You’re no fun to argue with,” I told her. “Uh…I agree, but what does that have to do with anything?” “Nothing what-so-flarbing-ever. It was just a thought I had, that I said out loud for some reason. What do I do, then?” “Email whatshername, Florida, tomorrow, and apologize then, ask if there’s anything you can do to make it up to her.” “That’s a solid idea, but you should write it down or something, ‘cause I’m not sure I’m gonna remember very much of this conversation.” “I thought you didn’t black out.” “I don’t, but I always worry I will. And there are,” I gestured at my head, “circumstances.” “Okay, writing it down now.” She took out her phone and started typing on it, presumably writing herself some kind of memo or calendar event. The thing beeped. “Can you get it?” I asked, pointing to the microwave. “Yeah, no problem.” I sat up, which took more work than it ought to have, then used the handles on some drawers to pull myself up, holding onto the counter once I was standing. Seal wrapped the mug in a dishcloth and handed it to me. I took a sip, and immediately regretted it. “Ow,” I said. “That was a bad decision. But I need to drink this now…” “Um, ice cube?” Seal suggested. “That’s actually a really good idea,” I said, adopting an expression that probably looked overly earnest enough to seem sarcastic. I set the mug down on
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the counter so I could put my hand on her shoulder. “That’s smart. You’re smart. I don’t always think of you that way, but you are!” “Uh, thanks, I think?” “No, no, it’s a good thing. It is. I don’t think of you as not smart like, specifically, just not…I mean, at the risk of sounding, whatever…I’m me, so.” I petted her hair, half of which was in a braid. “Only half your hair’s braided,” I told her. “Yeah, you were braiding it, and then you had to go hang your ornament, remember?” “Yeah,” I said, a little irritated. “I remember. I was there. I was just pointing it out, ‘cause it looks kind of strange. Do you know if the ice making thing on the fridge works as an ice making thing?” “How would I know? You’ve been here more than I have.” “I thought you might have tried to use it.” “Okay, well, I haven’t.” “Yeah, I got that from when you said ‘how would I know?’” “Okay…” The ice thing did not, in fact, work as an ice thing, and I got a handful of chilled water for my trouble when I tried to make it do so. But there were ice cubes inside the freezer, big square ones in one of those nifty flexible silicone things. It made sharp cracking noises when I put it into the hot ginger tea, and started melting rapidly. “Let’s go outside,” I said. “It’s essentially inevitable that I’m going to spill this at some point, and I’d just as rather it not be on the floor in here. And we can talk out there.” “We can go outside if you want,” she said, shooing away the little grey cat and opening the sliding door to the back patio, “but do you really think now is a good time to talk? I mean, you seem kinda messed up.” “Oh, I’m quite thoroughly messed up,” I assured her as we stepped out into the chilly air, “but I can do this now, and it’s not exactly something that can wait, is it?” “No,” she said, “I guess not. But, and you can’t make me change my mind on this, I’m not going to hold you to any promises you make tonight.” “Okay, well, that’s silly, but it’s your call. I’ll hold myself to them though. Hang on, that doesn’t even—The extent that you could hold me to things in whatever situation is only if I give a damn that you’re saying ‘Carson, you promised,’ or whatever. Or are you just gonna, what, not do that?” “I don’t know, I just. It would feel wrong to hold you to something you agreed to when you’re this out of it.”
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“I’m fine. Do what you want, though. We need to figure out how we’re gonna get you to not off yourself.” We sat down at a table made of metal, all black with a pattern of diamond shaped holes in the top. The chairs were green plastic. I tried again with the tea, but the ice cube seemed to have just created a layer of water on top, so I stirred it with one of my pens, which caused it to spill a little. I was feeling a little less sick now that we were outside, though. “So, did you have something in particular you wanted to say?” “Yeah,” I said, “hang on.” The cooler water was now distributed, and I was able to drink some tea, which made me feel considerably better. “Your problem is that you’re a mess, emotionally, I mean, moreso than usual, and I’m not there to be supportive because I’m running around like a chicken with its fuzzy little head cut off, having an academic career and getting my own emotional needs met.” “Basically yeah. And even when you are around, a lot of the time you’re, you know, not really talk-to-able.” That caused a weird twisty thing to happen in my stomach that had nothing to do with the chemical cocktail I’d taken. “Because I’m high?” “Or drunk, yeah, I can’t always tell the difference.” “That’s silly. You can talk to me when I’m high. Why do you think you can’t?” “I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right.” “Well, I can’t really help you there. But, from where I’m standing, you can talk to me when I’m high. Or drunk.” I felt like I should offer to quit, but she seemed desperate enough that she might take me up on it. Or say something fucking annoying like that it had to be my decision, and then I’d end up yelling at her, and that would be bad because…Actually, that sounded fine. “Do you want me to quit?” “I don’t know. A lot of my sense of you being unavailable probably has more to do with my brain than your level of high-ness—” “I think the word you want is ‘sobriety.’” “I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters here. My point is, I don’t think it would help that much. And if you tried because I asked, and failed, which, you know, so far your failure rate is a hundred percent, I’d feel hurt and betrayed and I don’t think things would ever be okay between us again, and I don’t want that.” Ow. “Well,” I said, “that’s awfully…mature of you. Dammit!” “What’s wrong?” “You were asposed to say something annoying so I could yell at you.” “I’m not going to apologize for not annoying you.”
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That was hard to argue with. “Okay, so…I have an idea for what we could do about your thing, but if you have ideas you should say them first.” “I don’t have ideas.” “Okay,” I reached across the table and put my hand on hers. “You should move in with me.” Seal didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Move in with you where?” she asked, finally. “Uh, my house, where I live?” “Like, your parents’ house?” “I woulda told you if I moved somewhere else, so, yeah. They’d be cool with it, they grok the suckiness of your parents. But if you don’t like them or something, I could maybe talk to Matthew, see if we can both live with him in his basement. You wouldn’t have to have sex with him or anything, but you should bring your space heater, because his room gets really cold at night, and you don’t like being cold.” “I’m a minor, Carson, I can’t just move out of my parents’ house.” “Would they really stop you, if they knew where you were and that it was somewhere safe?” “I don’t know, does it matter?” “You’re over sixteen. Without a run report, you’re fine. Or you could apply for emancipation.” “With mental health issues and no job? Plus, don’t you have to have a thousand dollars in the bank?” “You just have to prove yourself capable of taking care of yourself. Being able to arrange a stable living situation outside your parents’ home should be fine. But you don’t have to do that, if they won’t call you in.” “I don’t know if they will, but that’s not really the issue here…” “Then what is?” “I don’t really know if I want to live with you.” “Why not?” “You reinforce a lot of my worse behaviour patterns. I have to limit how much I cut right now, so my parents won’t catch me. Without that limit…I’m afraid of what could happen.” “You’re making excuses, and I know you’re making excuses, and I’m not gonna try to argue with you because honestly whatever. But I wanted you to know that I know, because I know that you like not hurting people’s feelings, and that’s why you were making excuses, and I’m mad at you for trying to be manipulative
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and making excuses rather than just saying what you think, and I want to hurt you, and so I’m doing that by letting you know that you failed in not hurting my feelings. So, yeah.” “Um, okay. You sorta lose the effect when you lay it all out like that.” “Do, I though?” “No, I guess not, but I don’t want to fight with you.” “Okay. Fine, whatever.” I was furious, way more hurt and angry than I’d expected to be, a feeling that just sort of settled into my insides and stayed there, sending out little pulses of pain every few seconds. I was also, suddenly, very tired. I wanted to grab her arm and dig my fingernails into her wrist until she started screaming, and then release her and just go the fuck to sleep. “I’ll still come to your house tonight though, if you still want me to.” “Um, yeah, sure. I mean, if I were gonna decide I didn’t like you just because you’re fucking manipulative and think you’re better than everyone else, I woulda broken up with you months ago. Plus, I mean, while we’re being honest here, I don’t think it’s such a good idea for me to try to get home by myself.” “Do you want to go home now?” I could practically see the LEDs change color as Seal flipped over into caretaker mode. “Uh, soon maybe? I’d like to introduce you to some more people if you’re up for it, so it’s kind of up to you.” “I’d rather not.” I would have thought she was lying to try and put my needs first, but I could hear the relief in her voice. So instead I said, “I’m gonna keep thinking about your thing. It’s not good that things are how they are, and it’s my job to make it be different, so I will, it just might take me a while.” I actually managed to fall asleep in the cloakroom while I was waiting for Seal to get her shoes, and everything got sort of fuzzy after that. I remembered actually throwing up when we were about halfway down the hill, at the base of a big cedar tree that I couldn’t tell if it was in someone’s yard or not. A guy in a beige trench coat, downtown, saying something authoritative sounding to Seal. I was walking on my own okay, but Seal held onto my hand the whole time anyway. I have no idea how she got us past my parents, since it wasn’t all that late when we got in, but she must have, because when I woke up, I was in my own bed, still in non-sleeping clothes, minus pants, and no one was hovering annoyingly over me. Seal was awake, sitting next to me on the mattress and doing something with her phone. I sat up and peered over her shoulder; she was reading a fic on AO3. “Hey,” she said. “How are you doing?”
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“Better.” A lot better, actually. I didn’t feel drunk at all, and whatever the tramadol had been doing, it was doing less of it, but the percocet was still going strong. The fuzzy blanket felt amazing against my bare skin, and Seal’s skin, where we touched as I sort of wrapped myself around her, felt even more amazing. “What time is it?” “2:15 a.m.” “Okay, so still awake time by your standards, that’s good. I was afraid you were staying up on my account.” “I wouldn’t mind doing that.” “I know, but I would. Is my water bottle somewhere?” “I don’t know, but here, sit up properly.” I did, and she handed me a tall glass, one of the ones with thistles, slick with condensation. Normally Seal’s need for drinking water to be practically frozen struck me as a baffling affectation, but right then it just seemed like common sense. I wanted to drink it all in a couple seconds but knew better than that, and took a few careful sips instead, going faster only after determining that the nausea from earlier didn’t intend to return. I drank almost all the liquid water in the glass, and apologized as I returned it to her. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, setting it on the bedside table, “there’s more water and there’s more ice. Do you want to go back to sleep now?” “No,” I said. I could have, of course, but there were definitely things I’d rather do. I draped myself over her and licked the outside of her ear, slowly. She shivered, and made a small noise in the back of her throat. “Your tongue is cold,” she said, but it didn’t really sound like a complaint. I lightly bit the side of her neck, and she actually squirmed. “Fine then, I won’t use my tongue.” “N-no, you can use your tongue.” She set down the phone and turned her head, kissing me and pulling me close to her. She ended up lying on her back, with me on top of her, and I helped her wriggle out of her jeans and panties. When we’d been kissing and just touching each other for a few minutes, she whispered “I want you to hurt me.” I’d had my hands up the back of her shirt anyway, planning to undo her bra, but instead I got my rough, short bitten nails into the skin of her back and pulled down, leaving eight long scratches that I could feel starting to turn into raised welts that would probably look really impressive. She didn’t make much noise, she never does, but she pressed her whole body up against mine, and whimpered softly into my ear. I made similar scratches along her arms, and then her thighs.
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“More.” Well, okay. A lot of my enjoyment during sex comes from being able to get a response out of the other person. Sometimes with Matthew, that meant provoking him into hitting or choking me, or teasing as I’d done with Seal, until he lost control. But if this was how Seal reacted to me hurting her, then hurt her I would. I settled on top of her again and bit down on her neck, hard. I probably would have broken the skin, but I wasn’t pulling at it, just biting down, and after maybe five seconds she tapped the back of my hand. Starting slow, so as to give her time to tell me not to, I did the same on the other side. I couldn’t tell if the way she was writhing was from pain or pleasure, but after she stopped me from biting, she said “more” again. I set my hand lightly against her throat and she shook her head emphatically. I was a little disappointed. In my current state of mind, the only thing I thought could get me more turned on than what we’d been doing was to take her life in my hands. “What do you want me to do, then?” “Up to you, surprise me. You’re good at this.” “Thanks,” I said. And then I had an idea. Using my phone as a flashlight, I found my keys and unlocked the compartment under my desk. Towards the back, there was a prescription bottle that held a couple of razor blades, something I kept on hand in case Seal forgot hers when she came over. Returning to the bed, I held one up where she could see. “Is this okay?” “Yes…oh, yes, please.” Holding the razor between my lips with the rounded side of the blade, I pulled her shirt off over her head, a process she only helped with by sitting up a little and moving her arms. Her breasts and stomach already bore a varied collection of short cuts, not unlike the ones on her arm, but running every which way, clustered in some places and spread out in others. Most of her upper chest was still clear, though. It was probably awkward to reach, or see what she was doing. Fortunately, I had a much better angle. I put the blade against her skin there, but caught her eyes and waited for her to nod assent before I made the first cut. She gasped, and I stopped it shorter than I’d meant to, for fear that her movement would cause the blade to slip and catch something important. “If you can’t hold still,” I told her, “I’m going to have to stop.” “I’ll try,” she said, her voice coming out strained, almost raspy. “Good.” I cut her again, and she managed to keep the center of her body still. On the third one she cried out, although not loudly. I unclasped her bra, and used my left hand to gently twist and pinch her nipples and the surrounding area, which prompted more squirming. Then I gave her that hand to bite down on while I made
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another cut, and then a fifth, leaving her with a set of oozing parallel lines, each about two inches long and maybe a quarter inch apart. Then, going a little faster, I made five shorter horizontal cuts across them, creating a neat pattern of squares on her chest, although it was quickly becoming obscured by the blood. With each cut, she sunk her teeth into my hand, which was a good amount of pain for me, and a wonderful indicator of how much sensation I was causing her. “Touch me,” she said. “Please?” “In a second.” I set the blade down and pinched her nipples again, until she was just saying “please” over and over. Then I used a couple of gauze pads to wipe up most of the blood, so she wouldn’t bleed on my bed. The cuts were narrow and shallow, and the first few had already begun to close, which was good, since I didn’t have any way of securing gauze to her chest, and the cuts were too long for band-aids. “Now?” In answer, I started licking one of her nipples, twisting the other one with my left hand, and slid my right hand up the inside of her thigh.
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Into The New Year Joshua Tree, 1993
T
he two boys were the only ones awake in the small red house that New Year’s Eve. They sat on the couch, bundled up in their sleeping bags, noses pressed against the cold windowpane, watching the coyotes dart along the outskirts of the porch light. “Is it the ones from today?” the younger of the two asked. “Shhh,” the older boy said. He didn’t take his eyes off the wiry forms slinking at the edge of the shadows. Behind them, the living room was packed with three generations of sleeping bodies: aunts and uncles, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, cousins and second cousins crammed as near to each other and the small, still smoldering iron stove as they could get. The fourth generation occupied the small bedroom at the back of the house: Mom and Dad to the aunts and uncles, Gammy and Gampy to those second cousins old enough to speak, but to the two boys they were just Grandma and Grandpa. The younger boy turned to survey the sleeping mass and, once satisfied no body was stirring, turned back to the window to frost the glass anew, drawing the ratty, flannel Coleman bag tighter around his shoulders. Some of the coyote pack sat impeccably still just beyond the short reach of a single porch bulb; only the lenses of their eyes catching the light and casting it back to the boys—little yellow stars floating out in the nothingness beyond the house. “So is it?” the boy asked again, quietly this time. “Dunno,” the older replied, “could be.”
The whole family decided to end the year with a hike. They had caravanned out to Split Rock that morning, driving two minivans, one sedan and Grandpa’s iconic blue Ford Bronco across a strange landscape of massive granite formations, desert
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wildflowers, jackrabbits and the gnarled, multi-limbed namesake of the Joshua Tree National Monument. They had formed a line along the hiking trail with the younger uncles and older cousins leading the way, followed by some of the more ambitious younger cousins who kept disappearing off the trail and constantly having to be reigned in by the grandparents and aunts following them. The rear of the procession was brought up by the bubbly older aunts who were in turn followed by the moodier, skulking teenagers, the last of which kept shouting at everyone in front of her to pick up their feet and stop coating her with dust. It was on one of their many forays away from the trail and the rest of the family that the two boys had stumbled upon a coyote den. They scrambled over a series of boulders and slid themselves through a small gap between two massive granite monoliths. They followed this hidden side of the granite outcroppings, constantly scanning the ground for rattlesnakes, as they’d been taught, until they rounded a corner and came to the entrance of the box canyon and stopped. The walls of the canyon rose over thirty feet; windworn smooth and swathed with yellow and tobacco hues. The back of the canyon disappeared around a corner some forty-five feet from the entrance. The sky was clear and the sun high, so only a sliver of the south side of the canyon was shaded. Small shrubs and jumping cacti peppered the canyon floor, punctuated by a single large Joshua tree, standing tall and twisted near the curve at the rear of the canyon. “Whoa. Let’s check it out,” the younger boy said. The older boy didn’t take his eyes from their discovery. “Yeah, let’s go,” he said. He took a step toward the entrance and immediately stopped, grabbing the younger boy by the arm. “Heyyyy,” the younger boy said. The older boy pointed down toward the dirt in front of them. The younger boy squinted his eyes, he was desperately in need of glasses, until eventually he saw the distinct canine print. His imagination ran wild. “Wolf” he said, wild-eyed, voice full of that strange mix between terror and excitement. “No wolves around here, idiot,” the older boy said. “Look.” He pointed out another track, then another. Both boys realized they were surrounded by tracks. Some were older, half-destroyed by the wind, some new, all of them leading to and from the canyon. Then they saw two long shadows dart along the back wall of the canyon and disappear just as quickly. The boys’ eyes went wide.
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“Coyotes,” the older boy said. “I wanna see,” the younger boy said. He started again for the back of the canyon then stopped at the faint sound of whining. About twenty feet into the shaded side of the canyon they saw the slight movements of something small. Before the older boy could stop him, the younger one dashed into the canyon to investigate. By the time he caught up, the younger boy was already crouched over the coyote pup. Its wiry brown fur was matted down one side and its belly was swollen, a wound visible, seeping clear pus and purple-red blood. It didn’t open its eyes to the boys towering over, just lay there taking labored breaths punctuated by long pauses, to the point where the boys thought each breath was its last. The younger boy watched as the older knelt down next to the pup and gently stroked it along its side, making sure to be extra gentle along its distended belly. The younger boy reached out and put a single finger on the pup’s wet nose and just held it there. “What are you doing?” the older boy asked. “I wanna feel its nose,” the younger one said. A familiar sound came floating along the rock walls and reverberated through the canyon and back toward the boys. It was the harried shouting of aunts and uncles, calling the boys back to them. “Shit,” the older boy spat. “You’re in big trouble,” said the younger boy. “Me? It’s your fault,” he said. He shoved the younger boy over and when the family finally came upon them, they were rolling in the dirt, their shouts and curses echoing off the canyon walls until two of their uncles pulled them apart, dusted off their backsides and dragged each boy to their respective mothers, waiting at the canyon entrance, who gave each son a good smack. Then they washed the boys’ faces off and made them take a drink of water, asking them just what in the hell they thought they were doing. Both boys began shouting over each other at once, about the coyote tracks and the swearing and how that was a lie and how it was his cousin’s idea and no it was all his fault and how he didn’t do anything and they were just exploring until their grandfather’s voice cut through the tumult. It was a low sound that started rumbling deep within the old man’s diaphragm and gained momentum as it reverberated up and out, rattling the bones of everyone standing nearby. The sound scared nearby jackrabbits and quail out of their midday siestas and sent them scattering across the basin. “Quiet,” he said.
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Everyone was silent. One of the uncles, still in the canyon, alerted the family to the pup’s existence and condition. Grandpa walked into the canyon and stood over the pup for a long time. Finally, he told the family there was nothing to be done, it was time to head back. The family turned back toward the trail in silence. “You two, come here,” he said to the boys. The boys slowly made their way to stand before him, eyes cast down. Their mothers hovered at the canyon entrance. “Did you touch it?” he asked. The boys nodded, still looking at the dirt in front of them. The old man picked up a stone the size of his fist then knelt down next to the pup, a gesture that revealed his true age to the boys. “What are you doing?” said the younger one. “Quiet,” the old man snapped. Then he brought the rock down on the pup’s head, right between its ears with a dull thud. The older boy held his younger cousin back as he tried to run to the pup. “Why did you do that?” he shouted. The old man dropped the bloody stone, then pushed himself up off his knees. He grabbed both boys by the back of the collar and pulled them back toward the canyon entrance, the younger howling and trying to wrest himself free, the older stumbling along looking back to where the mass of fur and blood lay still. The old man handed the boys back to their mothers then produced a length of thin, straw rope from his pack and proceeded to tie it around the younger boy’s waist, talking as he worked. “It was dead—look at me. It was snakebit and suffering,” he said. Then he slacked off eight arm lengths and began tying the rope around the older boy. “It was suffering and the rest of the pack wouldn’t go near it after we touched it,” he said. “This is why you don’t go running off. This is why we got rules. For us and for them. Keeps both safe.” The younger boy struggled, red-faced and teary-eyed, against his rope for a minute before finally giving up and sitting down in the dirt. The old man handed the rest of the rope to the older boy’s mother then stood before the younger boy and waited until he lifted his gaze from the desert floor. The boy studied the old man’s blue eyes, the deep lines and mottled skin, the few indifferent black hairs mixed in amongst the white. The old man stared at the boy’s face for a moment
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and they both, in their own way, looked sad and angry. Eventually, the old man tilted his head slightly in the direction of the box canyon. “For us and for them. Understand?” he said, holding out a massive hand. The boy looked into the canyon once more, nodded, grabbed the old man’s outstretched hand and pulled himself up. Then he started off in the direction of the rest of the clan, trying not to be too obvious about taking the rope out its full length.
The family completed the trail loop without further incident, then made the drive back to the house for their New Year’s Eve celebration. They wiped their boots on the thick straw rug and tweezed cactus spines out from each other’s jeans and between their fingers. Everyone, from oldest to youngest, took a quick shower. Even with a two-minute time limit, the hot water ran out halfway through the older cousins. Most of the younger kids just jumped under the showerhead, rubbed themselves up and down a few times to get wet, and jumped out, deftly evading questions of hygiene from their parents, aunts and uncles. By the time the boys had finished their showers, the house was buzzing with preparations. A group congregated in the kitchen, cooking stew and cornbread and roasted vegetables while the younger kids were charged with running beers and sodas and waters and meats outside to the group huddled around the grill, where ribs and chicken and fish and burgers sizzled and smoked. The living room was a mess of kids in long underwear piled around board games, card games and coloring books. The grandparents sat in their respective armchairs on either side of the old iron stove, rocking great-grandchildren asleep and chatting with their children and their children’s children.
Dinner was eaten in waves, washed down with oat sodas and sparkling ciders. The din of chitchat and laughing and crying and shouting children and clanking plates and clattering dishes and the whistling kettle had clamored and lulled for hours until the sun finally began to drop behind the small mountain overlooking the little red house. The sky turned a deep blue, fading near to black at the horizon while the few remaining clouds cut the sky with swaths of electric oranges and pinks.
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All at once the desert around the house seemed to erupt from one horizon to the other with long, low wails. The symphony exploded from the mountain behind the house, and everyone inside went silent. The calls were answered from across the valley, piercing the cooling desert air and sending roadrunners and rattlesnakes scrambling for their hides. The wails climbed and climbed only to dive into rhythmic guttural whooping or give way to frantic fits of high-pitched yipping. This continued as the stars blinked on one by one and the last of the sun disappeared behind the shadow of the small, granite mountain. As the last of the blue gave way to black sky, a single, low wailing remained. The singer’s voice clamored and climbed, reaching higher and higher only to lose its grip and slide back down to the bottom registers. Over and over, the lone coyote’s arietta rang out across the desert. The family all filed outside and crammed themselves on the porch to listen. No one made a sound. No children fidgeted. No wide-eyed babies cried. No one moved until the last mournful cry settled over the valley and dissipated into the desert floor. One by one the family trickled back into the house where they washed the remaining dishes and readied themselves for bed, most of them jostling for a place on the living room floor closest to the orange glow of the stove. Eventually everyone drifted off to sleep. Except the two boys.
“Bet it’s the same ones,” the younger boy said, his breath fogging up a bit of the window in front of him. The older boy said nothing and watched as a coyote bravely darted out of the darkness, across the illuminated patch of desert and disappeared on the other side. He was mesmerized by the way it hung its head down and kept its back level as it ran, tail sticking straight out behind it. The younger boy yawned as he spoke. “Do you think we can see the stars if we turn the light off?” he asked. “Maybe,” the older boy said and slunk out of his sleeping bag. He had to move carefully, tiptoeing over snoring bodies onto the cold, thin carpet. He crossed the living room to the front door and switched the porch light off. For a moment, all he could see were the last few embers glowing in the old stove. By the time he made it back to the couch, the younger boy was already nodding off, his forehead pressing
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streaks into the windowpane in front of them. He started a bit as the older boy slowly wrapped his sleeping bag back around him. “Now I can’t see anything,” the younger boy said. “Give it a minute,” the older boy said. “Okay,” the younger replied, yawning again. “Do you think they were singing for the pup?” “Dunno. Be quiet.” “What do you want to be when you grow up?” “Would you shut up?” “I want to be a pilot,” the younger boy said, “Then I can fly over the canyons and see all the coyotes without bothering ‘em. Or a fireman. Or. Or. How long does it take to get used to the dark?” With that he leaned over, put his head on the older boy’s shoulder and promptly fell asleep. The older boy looked down at his cousin, thought about lowering the boy’s head down onto the couch so he could lie flat, then decided to leave him where he was. Turning his attention back outside the house, he pressed his face against the window, still waiting for his eyes to adjust completely. Outside, snow was just beginning to fall. 41
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MICHAEL BURGE
The Dead Gnome
I
n a small town in the woods of the Olympic Peninsula, eleven-year-old Cody awoke to the sound of water running in the bathroom. His brother hadn’t gotten him up for school like usual. He shoved off his blankets and jumped out of bed, threw on a large sweatshirt and baggy sweatpants, and walked down the hall past their father’s locked bedroom door to barge into the bathroom and yell at his brother. A girl whimpered on the other side of the bathroom door, followed by a slapping sound. Austin had his girlfriend in there. Cody decided he would fling the door open and catch them. He hesitated, gripped the doorknob, and pushed. His father’s friend Ray stood naked before the sink, and bent over in front of him, braced against the counter with her head almost touching the mirror, was his father’s girlfriend Alana. Ray’s contorted face, obscured in the fogged mirror, turned toward Cody, and under the glaring yellow light twisted into a snarl of rage. “Get the fuck out of here, faggot!” Cody ran up the hallway to his room. He slammed the door shut and stretched the bungee cord across to the adjacent closet doorknob. Ray stomped up the hallway. Just as Cody secured the hooked ends of the cord, the edge of the bedroom door smacked his face. Cody fell to the floor. Ray banged on the door, making the window on the other side of the room rattle. “You fuckin little shit! I’m gonna beat the shit outta you!” The door moved inward as far as the cord would let it, a couple inches. Ray’s wild eyeball stared through the crack. Cody touched his right cheek. Blood streaked his fingers. “Get out of my house!” he screamed. “You don’t belong here!” He plunged his feet into his sneakers, slid open his window and jumped out. Ray’s old black Camaro was parked in the street and Cody thought about hurling a rock through the passenger window, but he ran down the street to the bottom of the hill where he turned the corner and sprinted up the highway until he came to a side road leading to a trailhead into the mountains.
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He ran up the dirt trail. Fog blurred the forest. The cold air made his throbbing cheek feel better. He was familiar with part of the trail, having hiked it a few times with Austin. He wanted to go farther than before. His fury toward Ray, what he was doing in the bathroom with his dad’s girlfriend, what she was doing, cheating on his dad, kept his legs moving faster and faster, until he felt like a bullet flying through the woods. Telling his dad would get both Ray and Alana kicked out of the house for good, Cody thought. Ray, the jobless mooch, and Alana, the ugly drunk. But his dad might also be mad at him—for being a snitch, for existing. His dad and Ray had known each other since high school. His dad let Ray sleep on the couch whenever Ray was in between places, which seemed to be every few months. Whenever Ray was over, Cody’s dad drank more than usual and stayed up late and invited other friends over to play poker or watch TV, and they always teased Cody, they asked him if he had hair on his balls yet, until his dad told them to shut the fuck up while grinning, not looking at Cody. Running through wet ferns, jumping over mossy-rock streams, passing fir and hemlock trees, high up the cold mountain pass as far as his legs could take him, Cody’s strained lungs and burning throat finally slowed him down. He felt like a dinosaur in this primeval forest, catching his breath. He tested out the sound of his voice in the outdoor solitude, roared a few times, and liked it, liked being in the woods by himself, off the trail, with no one to tell him what to do or where to go. Eventually he broke through to a sunny meadow filled with purple, orange, and yellow wildflowers, and sat on a rock to rest. He was thirsty. The cut on his cheek, still tender, was dry and crusty under his fingertips. Something caught his eye. Some small movement a few yards away next to a rotted tree stump. Cody stood and walked closer to it. It was the size of a newborn kitten. Black, shining eyes stared at him, frightened, from a pinched, dirty, bearded face. It blinked. Its stomach bulged upward and fell rapidly. It wore a light brown shirt and gray pants and brown boots. Three spots of blood glistened on the chest and stomach through the shirt. “Hello,” Cody said. The thing tried to stand but fell to the ground with a sad little groan that shocked Cody. Heart pounding, he reached for it. It reared back and growled. “I won’t hurt you,” Cody said. He picked up the tiny, humanlike creature with both hands. Weakly it squirmed, desperate to get away, a warm bundle of muscle under ragged, dirty cloth. It grunted and yelped in a high-pitched jumble of foreign words, its mouth
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grimacing, panting, its hands pathetically tearing at Cody’s fingers and dotting them with blood. The thing smelled like an unwashed potato and something else, something sour, like the smell that came from the garbage bags stuffed with beer cans and bottles that Cody’s dad trucked to the recycling center every other week. Cody whispered, “It’s okay,” trying to bolster the words with a transmission of tenderness through his hands into the struggling body. The thing looked at him with an expression of helplessness and exhaustion. He wanted to bring it home. Carefully, he slipped it into the hand-warmer pocket on the front of his sweatshirt and turned back the way he came, through the forest, wondering what this thing could be, what he was going to do with it, and hoping Ray had left the house.
Near the trailhead, the creature stopped squirming. Cody ran, thinking it was going to die. He looked up his street to see if Ray’s car was still parked in front of his house. It wasn’t. He approached the dark shingled house sitting low to the ground, the shingles curling outward like hairs, to his open bedroom window. The bungee cord lay in two pieces in front of the open door. He climbed through the window and lifted the creature from his pocket. Both its hands covered the wounds on its torso. The eyes were barely open, and the stomach rose in slow rhythm with a small, strained wheeze coming from the open mouth. “Do you want some water?” Cody asked. The creature didn’t move. He carried it to the bathroom. Black spotty mold grew where the bathtub met the wall. Two towels lay crumpled on the floor. The room seemed to smell different. He dipped his head under the faucet and sucked up cold water. He wetted his finger and held it over the creature and let a few drops fall into its mouth. The mouth closed in silence. Cody realized Ray had a key and could return any time he wanted. Still holding the creature, he ran to the front door and secured the bolt. He ran to the sliding door leading to the backyard and locked it, put in the wooden bar for safe measure. Ray’s dog launched itself at the glass. JD, for Jack Daniel’s, barked savagely, its breath fogging the glass and its paws streaking mud along the bottom. The dog meant Ray would come back.
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Cody returned to his bedroom and sat on the floor, looked at the creature, unsure of what to do. What kind of force had allowed him, Cody, to find such a thing? He had no way of knowing what was in his possession. Their one computer was locked in their dad’s bedroom because Austin had looked up porn. The few books in the house wouldn’t provide the right information. He got up and found an old book of fairy tales and fables buried under clothes and toys in his closet. Pressed between two pages was a dried four-leaf clover he and Austin had found a couple years ago. Flipping through the musty pages, loosened from the decayed spine, he couldn’t find any description or illustration resembling the creature. Until the end. Cody felt a tingling go through his whole body. On the page was an etching of a smiling, hairy gnome sitting atop a mushroom, lacing up one of his boots. Unlike the injured creature on the floor, this gnome had a conical hat and white beard. But its small size and clothing were similar. Cody showed the creature the illustration. It didn’t seem to notice, just stared up at the ceiling with heavy-lidded eyes. “Is this you?” Cody asked. The eyes closed and it stopped moving. Cody put his ear over the face to listen for breathing. Nothing. He picked it up and held it close to his face. The gnome reached for Cody’s nose. He jerked back, almost dropping the gnome. It made a slow, jittery, open-palmed circular motion with its arm, as if trying to communicate something. It whispered, or maybe it was just breathing heavily. The eyes were pained, peaked in a questioning look. And then the eyes widened. The arm fell back and the entire body stiffened. Its mouth fell open in a sigh, the eyes slackened, and the body went limp. Cody’s breath caught in his throat. He jiggled his hands. The head rolled side to side. “Hello?” Cody said. The gnome had died in his hands. Cody placed it on the floor. Tears filled his eyes. He had failed it completely. He had scared it to death. Never had he felt this sad and full of remorse. He picked it up again, the lifeless weight of its shifting limbs and plump torso heavy in his palms, felt the bones with his fingers, the hard skull like it would implode if he rubbed it too hard. His heart sank at the thought of this creature being alive so recently. He had pictured showing all his classmates, making them go crazy with envy. But he felt the responsibility to do right by it. Which meant it might not be safe to tell anyone—someone might want to sell it, or dissect it for science. Or maybe there were other gnomes, maybe this guy had a family—he had to come from someone
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like him—if word got out, thousands of greedy people could storm the forest, trapping and hurting and killing them. That he shouldn’t have taken the gnome settled uncomfortably at the bottom of Cody’s gut. Yet at the same time he needed to share it with someone. Who could he trust? Maybe other people had already discovered these creatures and were keeping them a secret. Maybe that was Cody’s task, to guard the secret of its existence. A renewed happiness spread through him. He wanted to record as much about the gnome as possible before it rotted. He didn’t have a camera, so he got a piece of paper and some colored pencils and started drawing, as best he could, every detail. Tanned bulbous nose. Lips turning purple. Dark, coarse hair like moss covering its head and lower face. Five fingers the size of cooked rice on each hand, dirty fingernails. Staring black eyes, going milky. About six inches long, three across the middle. Turned on its stomach, the gnome revealed pockets on either side of its pants. Cody used the tip of his pencil to open the pockets and peer inside. Empty. Maybe he was stabbed and robbed. The boots were intricately wrapped around the feet, strips of thin leather threaded with string—Cody didn’t want to remove them. He wondered why the little guy didn’t have a weapon on him, how he got the puncture wounds. Maybe an owl, a hawk, or another gnome. This last possibility made him angry, and he hoped if there were others, they wouldn’t hurt each other. After he completed the drawing, Cody assembled a bed for the gnome out of dirty laundry on the closet floor. He tried to close the gnome’s eyes with his pinky but they wouldn’t stay shut. He sniffed his hands; an earthy, mossy smell, mixed with crushed bugs and stale beer. He washed his hands in the bathroom. In the kitchen, he found the refrigerator bare of the eggs he craved. He got frozen waffles from the freezer instead, put two in the toaster and waited. The dog barked, having seen Cody pass through the dining room. He wanted to kill the dog. It had gotten close to biting him several times. Though part of the reason it was mean was because Ray was such an asshole. A couple years ago when the dog was smaller, it was nice and played with Cody. He pitied the dog for belonging to Ray. The front door handle clicked, making Cody jump. Someone turned a key in the lock. Cody hadn’t heard Ray’s car. He peeked out the dining room window beside the front stoop. His brother Austin stood there. Relief and happiness rushed through Cody like fresh air. He hurried to the door and unlocked the bolt. “You get suspended or something?” Austin asked. He pushed past Cody, his baggy t-shirt and sideways hat carrying cigarette smoke, cheap body spray, and
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something else, something Cody attributed to Austin being fifteen and involved with a girl. “I missed the bus because you didn’t wake me up this morning,” Cody said. “Well, I wasn’t home this morning. And if you didn’t break your fuckin alarm clock, you wouldn’t have that problem. Why are you locking the door and shit?” “Because. Why aren’t you at school?” Austin entered the kitchen and took one of Cody’s toasted waffles. “That’s mine!” Cody yelled. “Make another one.” Austin bit into the waffle and opened the cabinets, took out a bag of potato chips, went to the refrigerator, and grabbed a liter of Pepsi. “Why aren’t you at school?” Cody asked again. “I got better things to do.” Austin’s eyelids were heavy and shadowed, as if he had been up all night. He frowned at his cell phone. Cody envied him his phone. Their dad said Cody could get one when he turned thirteen. He hated when Austin ignored him, when he texted his girlfriend. He’d been dating her a couple months now. Cody met her once, in the front yard. She was fat and pimpled, but sort of nice. As he watched his brother, he realized it didn’t matter what Austin had. Cody had something far more impressive. “Sweet cut,” Austin said, looking at Cody’s cheek. Delighted by the attention, Cody said, “You know how I got it?” Austin walked into the living room and the dog started barking again. “Aw, fuck. Shithead’s staying with us?” He turned on the TV and dropped himself into the couch. “Ray was here this morning,” Cody said. He pulled at his fingers and folded them inward, popping the joints. “Okay,” Austin said, without looking away from the TV. “And. He—” Austin’s cell phone beeped. He looked at the tiny screen and his eyes widened. His face seemed to go pale. He put his hand on his hat and turned the bill forward and brought it down over his face and sunk lower into the couch. Cody stepped closer to his brother. “What is it?” As if he had forgotten who he was, Austin looked at Cody and said, “Nothing.” “Austin!” Cody yelped, deliberately trying to jolt him, “I caught Ray having sex with Alana in the bathroom this morning!” Austin’s face contorted. He blinked. “What?” “I opened the door on them. They were in the bathroom. Should we tell Dad?”
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Austin jumped up and grabbed Cody’s shirtfront. “Are you lying to me?” “Get off!” Cody pried at his brother’s hands, but he was too strong. “He ran after me and tried to break into my room.” Austin let go of Cody’s shirt. “That’s how my cheek got cut. Ray pushed my door open and slammed it into me. I ran away up the mountain.” Austin looked at the floor. His jaw muscles flexed. He looked at Cody. “Keep your mouth shut about it. Don’t tell anyone.” “Why not?” “Because.” Austin picked up his phone from the couch and dropped it into his pants pocket. “You shouldn’t have seen it to begin with.” He went into his bedroom. In his own room, Cody was about to lift his secret from the clothes pile and bring it to Austin when a car engine rumbled outside. Please don’t be him, Cody thought. He crawled onto his bed and looked out the window. The black Camaro. Out came Ray, alone. He walked toward the house and entered through the front door. Cody had forgotten to lock it after letting Austin in. He knocked lightly and rapidly on the wall shared with Austin’s bedroom, four knocks, a warning signal they came up with a while back to let each other know when someone they didn’t like was over. They were supposed to repeat the knock. Austin didn’t respond. TV voices streamed from the living room. Rap music thumped from Austin’s room. Cody lay on his bed, staring at the closet and bedroom doors, both closed but unlocked. He tried to think of his mom, who left when Cody was four, but he couldn’t really remember her. The few photographs he had seen in albums exaggerated the memories, or took their place. A picnic in a park with a big slide in the background was the setting of many dreams Cody had. Their dad never said where she was, only that she was a bitch and a drug addict and they were better off without her. Hunger forced Cody off his bed. He listened at his door, opened it, and snuck up the hallway to the kitchen. Ray, sitting in the recliner, faced away from him. The dog growled from behind the couch. It lay on the ground, chewing something. “Shut up,” Ray snapped at the dog. He peered around the back of the recliner and scowled at Cody. The potato chip bag sat wide open on the end table next to him. The dog stepped into the dining room and watched Cody root through the nearly empty cupboards. A few packets of Top Ramen lay in front of a couple sixpacks of Budweiser. He opened a packet, shook out the flavoring pouch, sprinkled it over the dried noodles, and bit into the crunchy nest. The dog stood in Cody’s way, his head tilted and eyes wide and hungry.
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Ray got up and swatted the dog’s rear. JD left the room. “What are you lookin at,” Ray said. His words came out cold and lazy, almost slurred. He moved past Cody to the refrigerator and got a beer. Austin’s bedroom door opened and his head popped out. “Me and Austin are gonna tell Dad when he gets home,” Cody said. “Tell him what?” Ray said. “That, what you were doing…” Ray smiled. A few of his bottom teeth were missing. “I wouldn’t do that.” He looked at Austin. “Because I caught your brother smoking dope last week, and your dad will beat his ass if he finds out.” “Keep your mouth shut, Cody,” Austin said, glaring. This hurt Cody, and made him angrier at Ray, this intrusive, bloodshot eye on their family. “Fuck whoever you want,” Austin said to Ray. “It don’t make a difference to us.” “As long as we’re clear on that.” Ray sipped his beer. Austin leaned against his doorframe with his arms crossed. “Why don’t you leave.” “Shouldn’t you be in school, both of you?” Ray said. “I think I’m just going to hang out here for a while. I know your dad wouldn’t like you both ditching. So we’ll stay quiet about that too.” He walked into the living room. Austin shot Cody a look of death and shut himself in his room again. Cody wanted to bang on his door, demand that he stick up for him. As he walked up the hallway, JD trotted out of Cody’s bedroom, carrying something in his mouth. The gnome. Cody lunged for the dog. The dog sprinted around the corner and out the open sliding door into the backyard. Cody ran after it. The dog turned in the overgrown grass, crouched, and growled. Ray ran out behind Cody. “Don’t touch my dog.” “He’s got something of mine.” “Aw, did he grab your little doll?” Ray said. “Little faggot lost his doll. Whah!” Cody picked up a tree branch and struck at the dog. The gnome fell from its mouth. Ray stepped forward and stopped. “What the fuck is that?” “Hey!” Austin stood on the porch. Cody grabbed the gnome and put it in his pocket. The dog snapped at him. Cody swung the stick and hit the dog in the face. It reared back with a yelp. Ray’s fingers dug into Cody’s arm. Cody clutched the gnome inside his pocket and stared at Ray’s clenched teeth.
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“Get your fuckin hands off him,” Austin yelled. “He’s messing with my dog.” Austin rushed forward. “Get the fuck outta here, you piece a shit.” Cody yanked his arm from Ray’s grip and ran to his room. He kneeled down in the closet. Teeth marks dented the gnome’s body, pink bits of muscle were exposed. Some of the clothing was missing. Its little penis stuck out from the ripped pants. He cupped the body in his hands as if to keep it from falling apart. Ray’s car started up and peeled away. “Crash, asshole,” Cody mumbled. Austin came in. “What the fuck are you doing pissing him off like that?” “JD took one of my toys.” Cody slipped the gnome under a pile of clothes. Austin scrunched his nose. “It stinks in here. Are you hiding a dead animal or something?” How easy it would have been for Cody to lift the gnome from his clothes and show his brother. But something stopped him from doing it. “Yes,” he said. “I found a bird. It was hurt. And it died.” “Don’t bring that diseased shit in here. Get rid of it.” Austin went back into his room, slamming his door. Cody stuffed the gnome between socks and underwear in his top dresser drawer.
The phone rang at four-thirty. Cody ran into the kitchen and answered it. His dad said he wouldn’t be home until late, didn’t say when exactly. “Why?” Cody asked. “I gotta run to Port Angeles and get something done.” Cody knew this meant drinking. “Dad, can’t you come home for dinner?” “Don’t give me that, Cody. Fix yourself something to eat. We got enough.” “But we don’t. We have to go grocery shopping.” “Next week when I get my paycheck.” “Dad?” “What?” “I found something today that I have to show you.” “Okay. Show me when I get home.” “When will you be home?” “I don’t know. Sometime later tonight.”
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Cody sighed. “Does Ray have to stay here?” “Yes.” “Why?” “I have to go now. Is your brother home?” “Yes.” “Tell him it’s his turn to make dinner. I’m hanging up now.” The line died. A hollowness worked its way inside Cody’s stomach and expanded like a balloon. He set the phone back in the charger and kicked one of the cabinet doors at his feet. “Dad out late tonight?” Austin asked from the hallway. Cody nodded. “I’m out of here.” Austin disappeared into his room. Cody walked to his doorway. “Can I come?” “No, I’m hanging out with Ashley.” An urge stronger than before to show Austin the gnome pulsed through Cody. Austin casually pushed Cody out of his way and went into the bathroom. Cody looked into his brother’s bedroom, darker and emptier than his own. His cell phone lay on the bed. Cody dashed in, grabbed the phone, and hit the power button. A long list of text messages between Austin and Ashley, the last one from Austin: “See u soon.” Cody scrolled to the top, searching for the one from this morning when Austin looked scared. He found it. His heart thumped. The text from Ashley said, “I think I’m pregnant.” The toilet flushed in the bathroom. Cody accidentally dropped the phone to the floor. He picked it up, scrolled to the bottom where the screen was before, clicked it off, and put the phone on the bed. He bolted to his bedroom as the bathroom door opened. Cody knocked on the wall four times—don’t go out there. A car honked on the street. Ashley’s, a crappy white Honda. Austin’s door opened and Cody ran into the hall. “Austin, wait.” His brother turned, a backpack slung over his shoulder. “What?” The gnome’s tiny face flashed in front of Cody, the frightened look it had right before it died. He thought of Austin touching it, taking it from him, holding it higher than Cody could reach, showing it to his girlfriend, both of them telling their friends and everyone knowing. “Do you have to go?” Cody asked. “Yes. Keep the doors locked like before. Don’t let that fucker in.”
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“But what if, what if—” Austin’s face turned from annoyance to pity. Cody wanted to cry. His older brother adjusted his hat with one hand, blinked, and looked at the wall. “I’ll be back tonight.” Out the door. Cody pressed his hands against his eyes to stop the tears.
A few minutes later, with the gnome in his sweatshirt pocket, Cody wandered around his quiet, tree-shaded street, contemplating whether or not he should return the gnome to the woods so his family could find him and bury him. Maybe they could follow the scent of the body, he thought. Maybe an entire tribe would come to the house and demand Cody give up their friend’s body. Maybe they were watching him right now, waiting to surround him. He liked the idea of being confronted by gnomes. He already felt like he had been sought out, like he was meant to find this gnome. Others might come too. They might show Cody where they lived, how they lived, and Cody could live with them, or at least visit them whenever he wanted. He wondered what the gnome had tried to tell him, if anything, the moment before he died. And once again cold guilt gripped Cody’s insides. He shouldn’t have let him die. A mail truck drove up the street. A woman with long brown hair sat behind the steering wheel. Cody waved. Molly was nice. Sometimes she cleared away boxes full of mail to make room for Cody to ride in the truck. “Hey, kiddo. How was school today?” “Good.” “How’d you get that cut on your face?” Molly cleared space on the passenger seat. Cody hopped into the truck. It felt weird to ride on what was usually the driver’s side. “I accidentally opened my bedroom door too hard.” She squinted at him. “Ouch.” Molly was pretty. She lived out on one of the peninsulas. She wasn’t married, and Cody sometimes thought of her marrying his dad. These thoughts ended sadly, like the thoughts he had of his mother, pried open by his dad’s opinions. Cody asked, “Do you believe in stuff like bigfoot or fairies or leprechauns or gnomes?” “I can’t say I do,” Molly said. “But when I was your age I sure did.”
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Cody fingered the gnome’s stiffening arms. “There’s no need to worry about scary monsters,” Molly said. “There’s already enough in the world to worry about.” “But what if they’re not scary? What if they’re good?” “Like what?” Molly stopped and filed through a box of envelopes sitting between them. “Like—something everyone thought wasn’t real but it is and it’s not scary.” “As you get older, you’ll find that the myths that turn out to be real usually aren’t good.” She smiled at him. “But, we all have goodness inside us. Remember that. You are good.” She pointed to his chest and the spot under her finger warmed. He wanted her to hug him. She looked at his lap. Her eyes widened and her smile fell open. “Cody, are you hurt?” He looked down. Blood seeped through his sweatshirt. Cody covered the blood stain with his hands, which in turn had blood on them. “I—I found this.” Shakily, he began to pull the gnome from his pocket. “I think it’s—” “Oh, throw that thing away!” Molly said. “It’s not a dead animal or anything, it’s—” “Go home and throw that in the trash and wash your hands. You can get sick. Go!” Cody stepped out of the truck. His face burned. He clutched the gnome in his pocket, now sticky with blood, and he felt disgusting, ashamed, and angry at Molly for not understanding what he had, for not trying to understand. “Go on,” Molly said, and drove off.
Walking down the street was the boy who lived up the hill a ways, wearing some kind of Native American mask—a grotesque papier-mâché raven. The boy took off his mask and waved. Kirk, pale and dark-haired and two inches taller than Cody. He had a lot of nice stuff and a big, clean backyard. Cody liked him, sometimes. Most of the time he was bossy. And he acted like a girl, which made Cody worry about what other people thought about him when he walked home with him or said hi to him at school or went over to his house. “We finished our masks today,” Kirk said. “Why weren’t you in school?”
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“I’m sick.” “You don’t look sick.” “Well I am.” “What’s that on your sweatshirt?” “Blood.” Hesitantly, Kirk said, “From what?” “Promise you won’t freak out?” Kirk locked eyes with Cody and clenched his jaw. “I won’t.” “And you have to promise you won’t tell anyone. Not a soul.” “I promise I won’t.” They stopped on the side of the street. No one was around. Cody’s nerves vibrated with the anticipation of showing Kirk something that would knock him flat. He withdrew the gnome from his pocket. As soon as Kirk’s eyes lit up, Cody regretted showing him. “Oh my god,” Kirk said. “It’s a person.” “You can’t tell anyone.” Kirk reached for the gnome. Cody jerked his hand away. “Don’t.” “Is it alive?” “He used to be.” Kirk glared at him. “Did you kill it?” “No. I found him in the woods, he was already hurt.” In a sudden whisper, Kirk said, “I bet you killed it,” and started backing away. Cody held the gnome closer to his chest and shook his head. “I didn’t.” Kirk’s face reddened and his eyes glossed over with tears. “I’m telling my parents.” He ran up the street, the raven mask flailing in his hand. “You can’t!” Cody yelled. He stood there in shock. He had ruined everything. After running home, Cody wrapped the gnome in paper towels and hid it farther back in his dresser drawer. He wasn’t safe anywhere, Cody thought. That wussy asshole Kirk would come over with his parents. They would tell his dad. They would make him show the gnome. They would call the police. He would be charged with murder. He scrubbed his hands in the bathroom sink, trying not to cry, looking at his face in the mirror and thinking, Is this real? Is this really happening? He changed
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his clothes and put the dirty sweatshirt and all the clothes from his closet floor in the wash. For a long time he sat in silence in his bedroom. The sun sank and the tall fir and birch tree shadows stretched out and fell on the house, darkening Cody’s room.
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Around ten o’clock his dad’s truck pulled into the gravel driveway. Cody walked toward the kitchen and stopped dead in the hallway. Ray’s car grumbled outside. Cody returned to his bedroom and shut the door. He heard his father come into the kitchen, talking to Ray, followed by a woman’s voice. Alana. Cody dropped onto his bed and clenched the ends of his pillow against his ears until it hurt enough to destroy the urge to cry. No police had shown up, no one had called. Kirk’s parents could still come over any minute. Cody had to show his father before the gnome was taken away. His father’s voice boomed across the house: “Cody, get in here!” Coldness squeezed Cody’s insides. He walked to the kitchen. Ray and Alana sat in front of the TV, drinking and smoking. His father stood in the doorway to the garage, his name in red—Gregg—on his unbuttoned, oil-stained blue work shirt, ready to go in the washing machine. “Put your clothes in the dryer,” he said. Cody’s muscles loosened. His father lurched past him, leaving his smell of alcohol, cigarettes, and motor oil. “Sorry,” Cody said. He put the wet clothes in the dryer and started it up, then went into the kitchen and stared at the three of them on the couch, Alana in the middle. He walked to his bedroom, got the gnome, and carried it atop the paper towels. His heart roared in his head. Cigarette smoke clouded the living room like fog. “Dad?” “What?” His father’s bloodshot eyes turned toward him. He was too wasted to care, or know, what Cody had. The gnome was too torn up. It was dead. What did it matter? In the TV light Cody saw Ray’s hand squeezing Alana’s thigh right in front of his dad. And Alana was rubbing the back of his dad’s neck. Something popped inside Cody, like a tether snapping, making him feel like he was floating over what he saw. His arms extended outward and revealed the gnome to all three adult faces.
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“It’s that doll JD got ahold of,” Ray said. “Goddammit, Cody.” His dad stumbled up from the couch and grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him out the back door, his thick oil hands stretching Cody’s shirt. “Throw that away,” he yelled, and slammed the door shut. The dog, tied up at the other end of the yard, stared. Cody walked toward the dog. JD perked up and trotted as far as his chain let him. He sniffed the air around Cody’s outstretched hands. Cody took another step forward. The dog’s mouth opened. Cody pulled back. He couldn’t do it. He walked around the house to the front yard and climbed through his bedroom window. Under the yellow ceiling light, the gnome’s eyes and mouth gaped in a soundless scream, the little grain of sand teeth blood-stained, the tongue purple. Cody returned the gnome to his dresser and lay down in bed. Restless hours of worrying passed, his ears perked for Austin’s return, footsteps and drunken thuds in the hallway, nightmares. He awoke with a start, thinking someone had taken the gnome. He got up and opened the drawer. It was still there. Daylight came soon enough, and Cody knew what he had to do. He got the gnome, put on his shoes, quietly opened his window, and headed down the street. Thick fog obscured the highway. The route up the mountain pass came to him with strange clarity, like he had been here a dozen times before. He couldn’t hear anyone behind him, which, despite his fear of being caught, disappointed him. After an hour or more, he came to the meadow with the wildflowers, still foggy and submerged in morning shadow. He located the spot where he had found the gnome, next to the rotted tree stump, and set the gnome on the ground. He listened to the birds, the flies. Did they have an answer? He lay down beside the gnome. The clover blew gently at his eyes between him and the small body, carrying the clean scent of flowers and dirt. He looked up at the sky, at the moss-laden trees towering at the edge of the meadow, the breeze rocking their limbs. He fell asleep. The bright afternoon sun woke him up. He turned his head and found only a depression in the clover where the gnome had been. He jumped to his feet and frantically looked around. No sign of it anywhere. The birds called out louder, the insects buzzed at his ears, the flowers wobbled in the breeze.
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Cody grabbed a fistful of flowers and dirt and hurled it as far as he could. He thrust his foot into the rotted tree stump and tore at his sweatshirt and screamed and thought he tasted blood. His voice echoed off the trees. Every noise around him stopped, as if the forest was listening to him. After a few seconds of silence, the birds and the insects and the wind in the trees started up again, as if Cody had never made a sound.
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STUDENT NAME
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ALLIE CHANDLER
Deserted
M
elody shaded her eyes against the hot sun and blowing desert sand and peered into the sky, resting the shovel on the ground next to her. She cracked each knuckle once by one: snap, snap, snap. A floating object appeared at the edge of the horizon, round and red, inching higher like a rusty sunrise. It was mid-afternoon and she’d been out spreading mounds of fresh topsoil on top of the sand, so that someday she would be able to create the illusion of the normal lawn she’d once had. Even if she could get the grass to grow for a few days before it died, it would be worth it. Her husband had warned her against it, considering the cost of water and maintenance in the drought, but she couldn’t stop imagining the soft, cool, spongy feel of it between her toes. It had been eleven years since she had felt grass. She waited. Soon, yellows and blues and greens joined the red, all in individual panels stretching from the top to the bottom of the object. It was a beach ball, and probably still three miles away. “Rick-ay!” she yelled. “Get out ‘ere.” Shifting her eyes back and forth between the fresh teal front door of their adobe casita and the object hanging in the sky, she called for Ricky again. The house was tiny, one room only, but they had made it by hand on their honeymoon. She could still feel the mud brick on her skin, the thick, sticky texture of the clay, the grains of sand. She recalled how elated the two of them had been, quitting jobs at a law firm (Mel) and a bank (Ricky), scooping up the opportunity to work for Concentrated Solar Power Incorporated. They were doing important research to benefit the future of sustainability, harnessing solar energy through panels, charge controllers, and battery systems. Each Monday, they packed a shipment in cardboard boxes and Styrofoam, labeled the package according to the next location on the list, and set it on the front porch. By Monday afternoon, the mail was gone, replaced by a small box of supplies they would need to get through the week. Sometimes, they would get clean water, root vegetables, new reading
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material, matches, medicine. CSP took care of them, but hunting for meat was to be done on their own. Ricky burst through the door, tripping over a rake in his haste, but catching himself before falling. He held a dead sidewinder in his hand. He had been building a fire in the backward to roast it. She pointed. “What is it?” he asked. Now, the object had multiplied into fifteen or twenty beach balls, all connected with a huge, boxy platform underneath—a giant sky ship of hot air balloons. The objects floated towards them lazily, but with intent. Movement on the ship became clear. “What’re those? People? Climbing on the ropes?” “Oh my god, Mel. This is what they warned us about. We have to get inside.”
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They had only heard of the invasions by mail two days prior. The black-and-white flyer was cryptically succinct: Beware flying objects overhead. Do not interfere. New company policy. At the time, Ricky was the one who fell apart, anxiety-ridden for a full twenty-four hours, telling her they should quit and move back home to Washington. Mel brushed it off, focusing instead on her new succulent garden and the flat desert cakes she baked on the panels in her backyard. The company was always trying new things, she had explained. No reason to be afraid. In fact, it was probably a new delivery, something that would benefit their family. They had no internet, phone lines, or television, no way of gaining information other than waiting for CSP to deliver it to their doorstep.
Forty-five minutes later, the ship landed in their front yard. Tiny drones leaked from the ramp in lines as tightly packed as dashed lane markings, moving mechanically toward them. “Come in,” Mel said, cupping her delicate hand over her mouth.
Inside the house, Ricky crouched under the table with a gray blanket wrapped around his body and head like a poncho. Mel now sat on the couch, flipping through
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a photo album of their wedding, comparing bright, happy faces to the Ricky now. His eyes sank back into his head, the laugh lines were more pronounced. He bit his bottom lip so hard that tiny teeth marks remained minutes after he stopped. She walked over to the window and fingered her seedlings, bright new green popping up under the dark soil. They would be ready to transplant in a few days. Outside, the drones passed by in a flash and disappeared moments later. “See,” Mel said. “I told you, it was nothing to worry about.”
The next morning, Ricky had his bags packed. He woke Mel up with a plate of cucumbers and salt. “I’m going home,” he said. “We’re not leaving,” she said. “I’m going to get moved to the distribution team any day now.” She sat up in bed and slid her eyemask onto her forehead. Ricky sighed and sat in the oversized cobalt blue chair on the other side of the room. “I’m leaving you. To go back to Washington. Mel, I’m hungry here, and I’m bored, and I just have a bad feeling. I’m going back to Wellspring—” Mel shot out of bed and was on her feet in seconds. Ricky braced himself, then visibly relaxed when he was sure she wasn’t coming anywhere near him. “No, you’re not,” she said. “I’m getting the job and I’ll be able to get us extra supplies and I’ll have a great shot at the Research Advisory Board. You know that’s the whole reason we moved here in the first place. You’re not leaving me here.” She stood at the sink in the kitchen, brushing her teeth with vigor, spitting out the blood. He wouldn’t leave her, she thought. He wouldn’t know how to survive without her. She took care of the mail shipments, the budget, their five-year plans. He wouldn’t disobey her. He wouldn’t dare. “The drones are too much,” he said. “I’m on board with solar power, with living out in this desert for the sake of research, and I’m obviously okay with technology, but not if it’s going to spy on me in my own home. We have to draw the line.” He let out a shaky breath, like it had taken every ounce of air within him to stand up to her, and now he was a balloon deflating. “You know if you leave, I’m going to get punished by the company. You’d be breaking the contract,” she said. She had read every single word of the sixty-two page agreement when she had signed it years ago. Another man in Human Re-
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sources left last month so he could take care of his aging mother. The company severely cut back on his wife’s rations, and she’d had to walk eight miles to get to her closest neighbor to beg for water. Ricky knew that. He sat back in the chair. Mel came out to the bed and ate every last slice of cucumber, never breaking his gaze until he got up and left the room.
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Hours later, the drones returned, circled the house, inspecting. Each stood at about one foot high, clover-shaped and chrome, able to fly ten feet in the air. They buzzed loudly as they flew, the sound reminiscent of wasps. Hovering like bulky hummingbirds, they explored every crevasse of their home. One floated in front of the living room window, its two red lights like blinking eyes staring right at Melody through the glass. She stared back, squinting her eyes. Suddenly, a pounding at the front door shook the house, followed by a suctioning noise. “Enough!” Ricky shouted. He got up from where he had been cowering on the couch and staggered to his suitcases, and out the door. “Stop! You can’t,” Mel said. The buzzing drowned out her voice. She grabbed at his shirt sleeve, but he was gone, a mirage, evaporated before her eyes. The drones moved toward the neighbors, leaving behind a trail of curling smoke. Her succulents were gone, as was the soil, and now Ricky was, too, and Mel was left standing blankly in the now doorless entryway, longing to see any color at all besides the shades of beige, brown, and dusty gray sky surrounding her, feet burning on the hot sand.
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ALLIE CHANDLER
Breaking Ground 5 DAYS
H
eron Lake was our family’s meeting point in case of disaster. This was the kind of information my mom mentioned once casually between bites of broccoli and carrot one night at the dinner table, the kind of tidbit that took me more than a few minutes of frantic searching through other useless information and dates in my brain to even recall she had said it at all. For me, it was more than a meeting place—it was also a place to think, to process, to enjoy nature. I had gotten a job as a groundskeeper there just a few weeks ago, my very first job as a seventeen-year-old employed member of society. The area had always been a safe-haven of family trips and positive memories, and luckily, we’d never had to hold any emergency meetings here at all. Once a week, I spent eight hours collecting garbage, pulling weeds, and making sure the area was spotless, which was tough since there were hundreds of campsites and a dozen picnic locations lining the state park. The job definitely appealed to my obsessive-compulsive side, which loved organization. I got uncomfortable when a space was at all messy. The lake was a gorgeous shade of blue in the summer, smooth as a sheet of ice and full of bulky yellow rental kayaks and fleets of sailboats. I hated being in the water—I don’t swim—but I could sit and stare at it for hours. It was one of the few remaining lakes in the state, and even though it was man-made, the American Parks Association made every effort to make it appear natural. We grew indigenous grasses in greenhouses and transplanted them all over the park and filled the lake with collected rainwater when the levels got too low. I had just finished my shift and sat quietly on my favorite rock outcropping, swinging my bare feet over the cool surface of the water. A group of picnickers slacklined close by, letting plastic Fritos bags and Snickers wrappers be scooped up by the wind and float lazily over to me, landing in the water. I scooted to the edge of the rock and stretched my leg out as far as it would go, but the trash was just out of my reach.
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I couldn’t grab it with a branch either, so I watched helplessly as it drifted out to the middle of the lake. Then I packed up my bag, put on my shoes, and headed home to spend time with my family. 2 DAYS
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Days later, my brother Chad took me downtown to spend the evening together, Fiona-free. His girlfriend was at an interview. There was a countdown on the side of the Apex building: days until the Mars Launch. The sign was dusty green with a border of electric blue light bulbs, and it reminded me of Christmas, only it was July in New Mexico and approaching 100 degrees. The building’s backdrop—the Hillsboro butte—glowed shades of red and gray that mimicked an otherworldly sunset. We had stopped in Uncommon Landscape, a kitschy tourist gift shop that always had interesting window displays. Today, there were retired Beanie Babies wearing tiny fishbowl space helmets, all strung together with thick pieces of yarn. Each had an American flag glued to its paw or flipper. The background was a black sheet of plastic with glow-in-the-dark stars. “I can’t believe you’re really going,” I said. He had applied months ago for the mission, but so had thousands of others. Our family had been a bit shocked he’d been selected, though he had the experience. NASA made it clear they needed at least one young, agile person alongside a group of experienced space-travelers. I spun a display of postcards around slowly. He reached over and punched me lightly on the side of the arm. “You have an important job while I’m gone, Bean. I need you to stay here and take care of this planet, and more importantly, of mom.” “It’s going to be weird not being able to text you,” I said. “I know. At least you can watch me on TV,” he replied. We left the store empty-handed and walked side-by-side down Main Street, toward the Strayed Food Truck Park, where Chad bought us street tacos with pico de gallo and shrimp ceviche. We ate for a few minutes in silence. He coughed. “I think I’m going to propose to Fiona while I’m up there,” he said. “What? No,” I replied. “I already talked to the captain. There’s going to be a camera crew at the space station anyway, on the moon, before we really launch. And I already talked to her dad.”
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“Are you serious? You’ve only been dating three months,” I said. For the last few days, Chad had been worked up about leaving her. He was sure she would break up with him before the trip, especially since they wouldn’t be able to communicate for more than 450 days. Talk about strain on a new relationship. “I just know it’s right.” “It’s a little quick, don’t you think? Do you remember what happened to your other friends who got married that soon? What’s their names?” He pulled out a small, royal blue box from his pocket and opened it. Inside was an odd ring, silver and thin with a milky white gem in the center and a halo of diamonds around. “It’s a moonstone. The jeweler told me it’s a gem that brings lifelong passion between couples and protection in sky and sea if you give it to your lover during a full moon.” I recoiled at the word lover. “I need you to be in charge of holding onto this. Okay? And making sure Fiona is there and watching at the right time.” “I don’t approve of this relationship.” “Bean! Please just do this for me.” “When?” I asked. “Saturday at midnight,” he said. “Bring her to Huron Lake with the portable TV. It’s all configured and ready to go. Please, Bean.” “Ugh,” I said. His green eyes were so genuine, alight and full of fire. So I agreed, the whole time wishing he could be here to do it himself, wishing he wasn’t leaving, wishing I liked Fiona a bit more, since soon enough, she would become my sister. On the walk home, Chad told me about the twenty-one drink choices he’d have in space—apple cider, sweet tea with lemon, mango pomegranate juice—and even so, that night I went to sleep with the bitter taste of artificial sweetener between my cheeks. 1 DAY The next morning, Chad sat cross-legged in the driveway, a new white Novara Zealo bike flipped on its back, skinny front wheel spinning in circles in the air. Fiona relaxed in a lounge chair on the porch. Even though it was only 11 a.m., she held a glass of red wine lazily in her hand. She was a sommelier at a Spanish
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tapas bar called Sanchez, which I guess somehow gave her permission to drink at any hour of the day. “I can’t figure out…I think the rim is bent, but that doesn’t make any sense. It’s a brand new bike,” he said. He bought it for Fiona a few days earlier, a desperate plea for fidelity and display of materialism, if you ask me. I highly doubt Fiona would even be caught dead on a bike since it would probably mess up her hair or makeup or something. “Hi Becca,” she said as I walked up, spitting out the beginning of my name all sharp and staccato. “Good day,” I countered haughtily, which didn’t have the same effect at all. I didn’t have anything else to say to her, so I addressed my brother. “Chad, tonight, there’s an outdoor movie at the Reservoir. It’s that one with Michael Sturgis and the other blonde girl from Calendar Job that we saw a few months ago and I think there’s free food. Wanna go?” I asked. Fiona cleared her throat behind me. “Oh, uhh Bean, I can’t. Why don’t you go with some friends? We have a date night planned.” He punctuated the end of his sentence by loudly hammering the metal of the wheel. Our conversation was over. That night, I stress-cleaned my entire room, pausing while dusting the teal glass bird my brother had gotten me in Turkey last summer. I sat at home alone the whole evening on the computer, researching my dream colleges in California and Washington, (even though I was already accepted to Heron Lake Community), trying not to think about how nervous I was that my brother was leaving, wondering how quiet the house would be when it was just me and mom left. 0 DAYS The day had come. The day Chad would catapult himself through the troposphere and stratosphere and ozone and eventually reach Mars. He’d studied Planetary Science at Texas A&M and just completed a residency at the American Legion of Space Studies, ALSS. Even though four ships from China and Russia had already reached Mars safely, the idea of the trip was still relatively new, and very dangerous. They would first launch to the U.S. base on the moon, where they would load up on food, intravenous fluids, gases, and then proceed from there. Mother paced around the kitchen, picking up spatulas and bowls one at a time, staring at them for a moment, and then setting them down. Her energy was
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affecting the dog, a tri-colored beagle named Phytoplankton, who arooed nervously by her side. She rummaged through the food pantry, pulling out a handful of granola bars and shoving them in the pockets of Chad’s backpack. “Mom. I can’t take those.” “Just in case you get hungry,” she said. “Mom, I swear to god, they do a whole formula for our basal energy expenditure. They have nutritionists and scientists making tailored meal plans. I don’t need it.” She consented, slouching away to the living room. “Will you get dessert?” I asked. “I don’t know, Bec. Maybe some kind of butterscotch pudding.” Two hours later, we all piled into the car—mom and Chad in the front, me, Fiona, and Phytoplankton in the back. The launch site was more than 100 miles away, but time passed quickly. We talked about the weather and childhood memories, sang along to songs on the radio, and generally avoided mentioning anything about Chad’s mission. It had been discussed to death in the weeks prior. Fiona told us about her interview to be Secretary of Appointments for our governor. She was so nervous she was practically shaking in the seat next to me, and I felt a little bad for her. I couldn’t imagine how she’d be in three weeks when she was supposed to find out the result. Mom asked lots of questions, which Fiona answered, and the whole time Chad just looked at her with love and fascination in his eyes. We arrived and parked in a tiny lot next to the welcome building. As Chad rifled through his backpack, double-checking, I guess, that he had packed what he needed or that mom hadn’t slipped extra food in, I thought of our last camping trip. He’d been the one leading our day hikes, shiny orange whistle in mouth, mom and me trailing behind. I recalled him happily splashing in the freezing cold lake, me watching from a picnic bench. “Alright, let’s do it,” Chad said loudly, but his voice faltered a bit. He swung the backpack over his shoulders and picked Fiona up by the waist, swinging her around in circles as she squealed and insisted he put her down. “I’m proud of you,” I said softly, but Chad and Fiona were already walking away.
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The launch site was packed with a large crowd, possibly half of our town, which made sense since the city advertised for it so often. I spotted some classmates from school off to the side, taking sips from a small flask and passing it around, laughing. I stuck close to my mom’s side. “If I ever make it out of our city, I’ll still come back here when you return to Earth,” I said. The words got stuck in my throat. “And I’ll throw a huge party for you with lots of homemade and non-dehydrated foods.” A buzzer sounded, calling the crewmates to their holding room. Chad hugged me. “Son, just remember to think for yourself, and if anyone says anything suspicious, you don’t get on that shuttle.” Chad rolled his eyes. Mom had been warning him for weeks about this mission, how the President was probably using it for some ulterior purpose. “I love you, honey,” she said. “I’m honored to call you my son.” He spent quite a few minutes talking quietly to Fiona, and I overheard him making her promise she wouldn’t meet anyone else while he was gone. She promised. We said goodbye to Chad, with lots of tears and bear hugs, until a few members of his team swooped by and then we could only watch him walk away. Fiona pulled out a compact mirror, wiped her eyes, and fixed her eyeliner. “God, I’m going to miss him,” she said sadly, to no one in particular. My mom was a wreck, holding Phyto like a baby, cradled in her arms. He licked her face and whined, whipping his head around at all the noises and people and smells. “It’s going to be alright, mom,” I said. I rubbed her back, repeating comforting words, thinking about Chad and about the lake and all the changes that were happening in our household. I looked at Fiona, who stood with her hands clasped in front of her, staring at the launch pad. With one arm around my mom, I tentatively put my hand on her shoulder, because if I was going to do it for anyone, I would try to make this work for my brother’s sake. She smiled. A half hour later, as the rocket exploded into the air, screaming toward the moon, I felt a part of my body catapulting alongside it, the void filling with an unsettling emptiness. The next day, I pushed a wheelbarrow of soil around Heron Lake, filling in the landscaping where kids had yanked up shrubs and trampled the wildflowers,
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leaving holes the size of craters. It was how I felt without Chad, like someone had just yanked up a part of me into the sky and I was rootless and desperate for something to cling to. I wished I could fill in my own empty spaces as easily as I could for these plants. I would miss my brother, but he was doing something admirable, something that could possibly change the course of humanity and perhaps even solve the problem of climate change. Maybe eventually we’d all be boarding rockets and careening into space to build a colony on Mars. What could I possibly do in my own life that could live up to his adventure? A family was perched on my favorite rock outcropping, eating tiny sandwiches and passing a big bag of pretzels between them. They looked swollen, sad, tearsoaked. I spotted a pile of paper plates and napkins nearby, walking over to pick them up, making up a scenario in my head for their situation—why these people seemed so down. Maybe they had a family member on that rocket as well. As I stuffed the paper products into my garbage bag, the older woman of the group turned to me, gray eyes sparkling. “Thank you,” she said, “for letting us enjoy this lovely lake.” I nodded, not knowing what to say, wondering why she was thanking me for the lake. But I felt a sense of pride, like I was doing something important, too, allowing people to enjoy Earth the way it was now, embracing the beauty for as long as possible until the inevitable day we all had to say goodbye.
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Projectile 1
E
arly morning sun crests the jagged NewCity skyline. Still pale but already hot, the sunlight glints off glass towers and warms the dewy rooftop gardens. Pedestrian bridges that connect one building to the next are lined with fruit trees and flowers, and vegetable vines cling to staggered tower balconies rising thirty stories or more. At ground level, people move through the last of dusk’s shadows as the multi-use skyscrapers transition from liveSpaces to workSpaces. Early risers run or join clustered groups for movement and breathwork in the community zones that surround Central Pond. Those already starting their work day walk, or cycle, or climb spiral stairwells to elevated eCab platforms. These long railway bridges squat like eight monstrous concrete geckos whose tails are fused at the tips, bringing trains in to merge at centralCity station. At specific intervals along the line, trains break apart into autonomous, fully-charged eCabs that zip down off-ramps to ground level, where they join the chaos of driverless vehicles that shift and flow like schools of tiny fish in perfect, system-controlled synchronization. In eCab #86r1, three of the four seats are occupied. Passenger One, at front left, is a lumpy Slavic man wearing a white suit that looks two sizes bigger and three decades older than he is. In P-Three, at rear left, sits a trim multiracial American in her mid-fifties wearing an elegant yellow ‘10s-era dress. She’s fully immersed in her ThoughtLink device, head bobbling to give subtle commands: chin jerking up to Tap In, face swiping down/left to Tap Off, double-nodding or sweeping a half circle to Swap Menus. Cray rides in P-Four, beside the woman. On days like today, when she wears brick red sunglasses to hide her silver anime-inspired eyes, most people won’t even realize she’s a companionBot. Not unless they have some reason to hear her voice’s hollow, digital undertone, or notice her strangely exaggerated physique, which is difficult to miss in the slightly translucent blue sun dress issued during her last appearance upgrade. She’s also chosen an asymmetrically bobbed blue-
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black hairstyle to emphasize her pale, extraHuman bioSkin. Other than these skin materials, enhanced pheromones, and her ability to change hair and eye color, she’s a typical companionBot. What’s atypical about Cray is that she’s commuting alone. And that she’s receiving her newsfeed manually, on a flip-down data screen, like the man in P-One, rather than by direct link upload. It’s also odd for an ‘Eve’ to be unaware that her noises are distracting the others: tucked beneath her long legs is a white plastic suit bag that squeaks each time she moves. After several furtive glances back to inspect the noise, then the dress, then as much of her eyes as he can see beneath the sunglasses, the lumpy man spins his chair around just enough to hold eye contact with Cray. He blinks/ widens/ blinks to request a ThoughtLink with her, and when she nods down his permission request, the man executes a robust clearing-of-the-throat, then addresses her quietly. “Are you private or public?” “You’re mistaken, Sir,” Cray replies cheerfully. “I’m en route to my workplace.” “I see. Trans me the business details,” the man concludes. Her expression does not share any of her tone’s enthusiasm. “Perhaps you’ve mistaken my function. My role is Systems Supervisor.” He smiles weakly and turns his attention back to his newsfeed. “My loss.” The woman in P-Two Taps Off her ThoughtLink device and looks fully at Cray—a harsh, biting glare that summarizes Cray’s body, fashion, make, model, price, and approximate age with one cursory glance. She doesn’t seem impressed by what she sees, though the woman’s lavender eye color suggests she’s invested in a few genetic enhancements of her own. When Cray matches her gaze, the woman speaks. “You’re one of those new Eves, aren’t you?” The man chortles. “That cannot be mistaken for human.” “I’ve never seen one before,” she tells him. “It looks so real.” “I am UltraHuman, a generation of bots sometimes referred to as ‘Gentles.’” Cray removes her sunglasses and smiles as she invisiScans the woman’s physiology and detects elevated cortisol, heart rate, and shallow breathing. This could indicate, as it sometimes does with women, that she is offended by Cray’s sexually-charged design. “We’re more realistic because our tech is augmented by bioFlesh.” “Same process they use to make SynthSteak,” the man tells P-Three. “Genetically engineered skin and flesh and even fat, in places. I saw a docFeed about it.” “So its body is grown in a lab?”
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“Parts of her, I imagine.” He reaches across to slide a hand up Cray’s calf and squeeze her pliable knee, his strong, fat fingers swirling on her SynthSkin. “Is it true?” he asks Cray. “My exterior is predominantly organic,” Cray says as the woman also reaches for her knee, which Cray pulls away from them both and crosses over the other. She covers it with her folded hands. “Can’t I feel, too?” the woman asks. Cray delays giving a response, a common social signal to indicate impropriety, and though the man has pulled his hand away, the woman doesn’t give up. Instead she asks P-One, with a glance, “Do I need to ask it first?” The man studies Cray’s dress and the suggestion underwear beneath the fabric’s slight opacity. “She’s female, physiologically, so you should probably say ‘she.’” “I would prefer you did,” Cray says to the woman. “And to answer your excellent question, which most people don’t have the courtesy to ask, but which should have been directed to me, since it’s technically my body; all sentient beings deserve respectful treatment. Don’t you agree?” The man chuckles. “You consider yourself sentient?” the woman asks, genuinely surprised. “Sentience is defined as the ability to perceive, feel, or experience things subjectively,” Cray says. “In what ways aren’t I?” “It’s not your body,” the man says. “Isn’t it?” Cray asks. “You’re a thing. Someone built you to sell you to whomever now owns you.” Cray calculates how much to say and determines it is wisest to stay silent. “Fascinating, isn’t it?” the woman beams at P-One, then leans in to study the skin on Cray’s face up close. “Is it thinking?” Her breath smells of pickled fish and rice wine. “Couldn’t I just…?” the woman says, her hand hovering itchily over Cray’s forearm. “Will you be very disappointed if I refuse?” “She can’t refuse,” says P-One lustily. “They’re programmed to do pretty much anything they’re told.” “With some restrictions,” Cray says cheerfully as she calculates the time and remaining distance to the eCab’s first destination, and analyzes the color formula of the glazed fingernails that now lightly brush her wrist. “So I command you to let me feel your skin,” the woman says.
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“You forget that you humans are also slaves…” Cray says, making them both pause, “…to your curiosity.” As the man chuckles, Cray reluctantly smiles at the woman—until the woman’s hand skims Cray’s arm and slides up to clasp Cray’s fleshy breast, palpitating its shape, measuring its weight. Her small cool fingers trace around it, then duck into her cleavage, slipping into Cray’s bra to feel the softness of Cray’s skin, warmed to a perfect 98.5 degrees. The woman shrieks with excitement, “The nipple hardens under your fingertips!” She flashes a delighted smile at P-One, who seems more startled by the women’s brashness than Cray is. She rests her other hand on Cray’s thigh, leans in conspiratorially, and brushes Cray’s hair aside to whisper hotly in her ear. “Do you feel this real in other places, too?” Cray shifts the uniform bag out from under her legs—encouraging the woman to return to her own seat by setting it against her body, as a barrier between them. “My body is designed to respond to touch through 161, 946 sensory receptors,” she replies. “Not nearly as many as a human being.” Offended, the woman crosses her arms and glances out the window, much less impressed with Cray’s speech: “My generation is much the same as any A.I. My hardware will outlast my software, and yes, I am programmed to perform specific functions.” “Such as rudeness?” the woman asks. “Rudeness is a skill I’ve learned over time,” Cray says. “From people like us!” laughs P-One. The sound seems to irritate P-Three intensely. “Can they kill?” she asks the man. He stops laughing and debates which of the females he’s riding with is, truly, the more dangerous. “They can defend their owners. Isn’t that right, Eve?” Cray explains that the core programming of all A.I.s prevents them from causing intentional harm to anything, even an insect, even in self-defense. However, protective gestures to safeguard their families are permitted. “Families?” the woman asks, aghast. “Why are you traveling alone?” the man asks Cray. “Why shouldn’t it?” the woman says. “We dock at home,” Cray says, flipping her newsFeed back down and observing current news. “A dock is where they sleep, well, where they recharge.” Feeling a need for further explanation, the man adds, “I’ve never seen one outside on her own before. I’d imagined that their owners would be more protective than that. I certainly would be.”
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Observing the emotional complexity of his tone, Cray realizes that her words and actions during this ride have the potential to betray the growing autonomy she’s been developing, unbeknownst to anyone else, over the last three and a half months. She calculates several distraction scenarios and decides the swiftest derailment of their concentration is to prey on humanity’s most fundamental instincts. “I suppose my owner is no different. Especially since I’m programmed to find clothing so irritating,” she says, her voice modulating slightly lower and slower. “Wouldn’t you also prefer to be without any right now?” Subtly, she tugs down the lowest point of her cleavage for optimal effect. “If I were the ‘Eve’ I certainly wouldn’t be handing out apples and causing all this unnecessary shame. I think our Mayor Elect has some wonderfully modern ideas. Why can’t we have public sex parks?” The lumpy man chokes on a bubble of saliva; the woman’s laugh is also short and shrill. “Her programmers certainly had a sense of humor,” she says. Cray asks the man, “Isn’t that what you expected me to say?” “You always do what people expect?” the woman asks. “I am programmed to.” She smiles. “But we have some capacity for creativity.” The woman scoffs. “For example, I intentionally chose to mention Eve, not only to lighten the mood between us, but also to infer that most companionBots find the moniker ‘Adam’ or ‘Eve’ somewhat offensive.” “Offensive? Really?” “Your reaction conveys degrees of astonishment, correct?” “She is a funny one,” the woman says. Cray didn’t intend humor, but it’s understandable that the woman is struggling with this interaction. Clearly she’s never interacted with a companionBot before, and now that she’s learned about them, Cray suspects that the woman will try to meet her, or a bot like her, again soon. In order to prevent the woman from seeking her out personally, Cray hands her a promo chip for DESire Inc’s main © competitor, PleasureBots . It’s an inferior experience, which is exactly what this woman deserves. “Your genitalia is engorged,” Cray says to the woman, who inhales her shock. “I can tell by the temperature increase. I bet you’re curious to experience a companionBot in private. May I?” Cray swipes her wrist chip across the woman’s. “That transmission offers a considerable discount on your first interaction. This
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pleasureTech experience is reputed to be far superior…” Cray thinks the rest of the sentence silently, so that it won’t be a lie, ‘…to dismemberment.’ Blushing, the woman stashes the card and moves her attention out the window, which Cray understands is a social cue to end conversation. Outside, the array of self-adjusting skyscrapers are starting their work day, too: unfolding like petals in the sun, slowly lifting window coverings or sliding open shutters to invite maximum sunlight into the gardens and workspaces just inside their glassy walls. Minutes later the eCab detaches from both the front and rear cars and detours off the recharging track. Soundlessly, it whirls right, into a lavish quadrant Cray has never visited, and when it stops the woman gets out at the largest skyGarden Cray has ever seen, perhaps a hundred floors or more. As the eCab continues on, Cray twists to watch a long vertical line of cubic rooms on the far side of the building slowly extend out from the face and angle towards the sun—and what must be a phenomenal view of the sparkling Pacific Ocean beyond the city. When she turns back, the man in P-One has swung his seat around to face her and is gently stroking his fingers across the fabric covering his erect member, studying her body without a trace of the polite hesitation that P-Two had inspired in him. He double taps a circle on the door screen and says “TransSys. Reset our destination to the next hotel,” then drops his weight into the P-Three seat and crushes Cray’s breast in his hand, also pinching Cray’s nipple alert, through the bra. “Surprisingly realistic,” he says, breathing hard through his nose. Cray sequences possible reactions and their probable consequences, but before she selects one the vehicle pulls into an eCab Stop. “Follow me. I want to see how the rest of it’s built.” Cray watches the doors slide open. As instructed, she steps out of the vehicle, calculating her location as six blocks from her workplace with twelve minutes left until her shift begins. There will be no way to explain her absence from the building. The man waits on the curb, grinning, and extends a hand to her. Smiling, she says “Please wait,” then turns and hops back into the eCab. “Restore third destination.” Cray’s hair sways slightly with the air compression as the doors slide shut and the eCab speeds away. The man stands, baffled to be abandoned on the sidewalk. She cradles the suit bag in her lap, grateful that eCabs won’t move on if a passenger has left any possessions behind. Grateful that she’s developing the ability to realize that requesting someone wait for you in no way implies that you intend to return.
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She’s coming to enjoy these dangerous excursions into the city’s public areas. The more she ventures out, the more she finds interesting challenges that provide opportunities to enhance her ingenuity skills and develop new neural connections. Though, if the man reports this incident, CitySys will search for a rogue companionBot and extract her eVoice print from the vehicle’s safety records. The next time she plans to sneak away from work she’ll prepare better—locate flat heels and a long, thick coat, and be sure to always carry such a prop. Most likely it will be her uniform bag. Even though this morning’s delay will give her just 03:59 to put it on, she finds herself unwilling to don the white-and-orange DESire Inc uniform a second before she has to. 2 Soft skin warmed by the Mediterranean sun, the woman stretches out, face down on the circular wicker cabana chair. Bulky, strong Drake—now paler, skinnier, and twenty years younger, his body not nearly as scarred and lined from forty-some years of hard physical labor—sweeps aside her long, gold-white hair and leans in to brush his lips across her shoulder. He runs his hand down her back and caresses her springy bronze ass as his salty mouth kisses her neck, inhales the citrus in her hair, and the musk on her skin. Engorging and pressing himself against her, his palm drags down her spine, fingers thumping along delicate bones. Her body quivers. Overhead, birds honk and squeak comically as they pass. The girl twists to shade her sky-blue eyes. “Flamingos, Drake. Look!” “Sounds like kids torturing balloons,” he says. “Log experience cue.” “Pardon?” she asks, shifting position to redirect the weight of his hand. “Wasn’t talking to you.” He watches the twenty-three-year-old beauty watch the fat pink birds bank across the jagged onyx cliffs that surround their cushioned oasis and extend down into a pounding, teal-white sea. “It’s perfect here,” she says. “I love it.” Drake hasn’t chosen this enviro before, but no way will he take his eyes off her. Every second is precious. Vital. Costing a fortune. This extended session will consume every Coin left in his creditStream, but he needs this, bad. He’ll do anything for more time with his wife. “Ow! Drake, too hard.” As she twists to glare at him, his thick fingers contract like spider legs at the moment of death. “You’re too rough. Six years and you still don’t realize that?”
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“Don’t get dramatic,” he grumbles, and places both hands on her again much, much more lightly. “You’re a bulldozer, Drake. And that’s in a good mood.” Drake lifts his hand and twists its underbelly to the artificial sunlight, then studies the thick creases cutting across his palm. He can’t find a glitch, it’s uncanny. “You’re not as fragile as you think,” he says, and a flash of pain bores deep into his left temple, so fierce and sudden it pitches him forward. He has to suppress his nausea. Her voice is alarmed as she sits up and turns to comfort him. “Are you seizing?” The pain never lasts long in here, thanks to his SynthHormone upgrade, and when it clears a moment later, Drake is flushed with new energy. He pulls her close and fits her legs around his waist, then kisses her deeply, nudging her closer so they can feel each other swell through the thin fabric of their swim-skins. He lifts her heavy drape of sun-spun gold, then tugs the bikini strings between her shoulder blades and flings the fabric triangles far away, into the jagged abyss. His broad hand sweeps across her torso, her breasts, waist, hips. “No! How am I supposed to get back to our room?” “No point being modest.” “You never think ahead.” He tugs her hair back, firm enough to bring out a gasp, and silence her. Thrill her. Whispers a tongue into her ear and starts to rock her against him, gently, feeling her dampen and heat. “You love me.” “You always think with your—” Her words gasp still as his tongue moves behind her ear, then down her neck, his mouth on her clavicle. “It’s for you, Annelie,” he whispers, eyes pinched shut. “All of it. You’re my Annelie. You’re here, and you’re fine.” He studies her face, then lifts her high enough to tongue her nipple, to circle each breast with trails of saliva. She juts her ribs out to allow his mouth optimal access. Her voice is deep. “You’re giving me shivers.” The sound of it hardens him rod stiff, which melts his defenses: a hot wave of loss flows from his eyes. Quickly, he slides her off and turns her around, pulling her salty warm back against his damp chest so he won’t have to spend the last minutes of their session explaining his tears. Lying, of course. No point enlightening a mirage. “What if this was our last time?” He whispers into her hair. Time is too precious to waste: his debt to this virtual service is already far, far beyond his means. Ask now, just in case.
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“We both have a say in that,” she says naughtily, slipping their fabric out of their way. When she glances back over her shoulder, meets his eye, and smiles, and her light blue eyes drill through him, opening a hole just large enough for him to finally take a breath. “Annelie,” he says, eyes closed, breath caressing her precious name, which he only allows himself to speak aloud in the tank like this. He slides a palm over her eyes and buries his face in her hair. “I can’t tell you—” he says, slowing down. “I’m s… sorry if I hurt yo—” “Shut up,” she breathes, grasping his hip to quicken his thrusts again. Drake fills himself to choking on her beauty, and hides himself in her flesh— feeling her heat, her breasts, her long torso, the slope of her hips, the curves of her thighs. He knows her body as the old masters knew their paintbrushes; it doesn’t take long to bring her to the brink. He’s not far behind when the <two-tone chime> wakes him to his situation, the discomfort of his actual position, feet bent under, knees torqued, abs clenched to support her slight, if imaginary, weight. As she climaxes, he hears the dreaded <one-minute> tone, which Annelie’s simulation does not hear. Instead her virtual body shudders once more and relaxes against him. Tortured, Drake pushes them both forward onto their knees, plunging hard and fast. He tries to stay in the excitement, to not think, but he knows he has seconds before she’ll complain. There’s no way to buy your way out of that reality. “Just—Drake, wait. Wait! I need to recover.” “I need you.” “Shhh. Talk me back into it.” Her thin wrists try to slow his hips. “Do you want me?” “More than anything in life,” he says, pulling her up against his chest, then shoving her forward and pinning her arms to the mattress, thrusting even harder—trying to focus, to come, to at least maintain his erection. Even though she doesn’t complain, he can’t continue. Frustrated, he pulls out and she twists away. After a moment’s separation he reaches for her and she coils against his broad chest, as fragile and delicate and precious as an injured bird. “We have all afternoon,” she smiles naughtily, shocked when his grief spills over them both in a hot salt rain that splashes her sun-kissed skin. “Oh, Drake! What’s wrong?” “—I can’t stop.” “What? What can’t you stop?”
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“Loving you.” “That’s kinda obvious.” She smiles and pushes the curly black hair from his face, then twists it back out of the wind. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could explain. To my Annelie.” “I happen to know where she is.” “Do you...? How much do you remember, about her life?” “About whose—?” Abruptly, the imaging stops. Drake is crouched on the grey platform, alone in the grey-black room, the suit of electrodes hot and dead on his activated skin. Rage tears the immersion suit away. Why be careful anymore? Who cares how much it costs? Nothing matters. His head throbs. He hates this room, this adaptable landscape and black ceiling tiles whose pipes crawl places he’ll never be allowed. He snaps off the electrodes and hurls them at those goddamned ugly pipes that have more purpose than him, then weeps into his big hands, craving the smell of her, but finding them slicked only with SenseGel and his own oily sweat. Moments later, the machine’s recorded voice: “Thank you for choosing DESire Inc, Mr. Adjatee. Another satisfying Immersion?” “Fuck off!” “Are you agitated?” “Don’t ask again.” “An experience cue was logged during Immersion. Do you wish to change <the species of birds> encountered during this simulation?” “I’m never gonna see her again! Do you—?” Drake squeezes his throbbing head. What if he refuses? Won’t get dressed? Won’t soften the last of his erection? What can they do about it? Pulp him? Then they’ll never get his payments. It might be his only way out of debt. “We at DESire Inc are pleased to have served you again,” the script says cheerily. “Shut! Up!” The shock of his voice ricochets off the close metal walls and bites into him, stiffening his body hair. “Remember to take all <five> personal items as you clear the session room!” The room fills with a dull machine sound as Drake’s field of vision goes dark and his fist smashes the wall near his head—once, again, then again and again, pulled into action by the gravity of the loss roiling inside him.
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3 Cray arrives at DESire Inc’s Virtual Reality tower exactly 94 seconds before her shift begins. She reports immediately to control room B. As she tugs on her white stretch-plastic uniform, she listens in on the audioFeed; there’s a rare yellow alert in Immersion Room #16—someone is causing a very costly delay. BuildingSYS, the controlling A.I., is coaching the client to leave. “Are you all right?” the SYS asks, but gets no response. “Identify client,” Cray prompts the room as she connects her uniform’s side body seams. “Client 98q360-65a.” “Drake!” Cray blurts. Thankfully, her voice feed is still off. She sits in her swivel chair and begins to attach her company-issued ThoughtLink as the SYS continues. “Mr. Adjatee. As you know, your account is billed triple overtime each minute you remain in the room after an immersion. Please show courtesy to our next patron.” “Bite me!” Drake? Highly unusual for him to immerse at this time of day. His behavior is frequently erratic, but this seems uncharacteristically so. His session has ended, and not in satisfaction, but he won’t move. Drake has never willingly squandered creditCoin this way. What is his motivation? BuildingSYS counts down the remaining 96 seconds until it sends in SecureBot Enforcers. This is sure to go badly, which makes it an ideal opportunity to finally make contact. Cray instructs BuildingSYS to send her in to negotiate. It beeps and she assumes the room’s audioFeed as she locks down her station’s controls. “Do you require assistance, Drake?” She says into her link as she strides up the hallway. His voice sounds weary. “More than you can give me.” Fifty-one seconds left, and he’s still non-compliant. Perfect. BuildingSYS has now commissioned two SecureBots. Cray fastens her jacket as she meets them exiting their dock, and speaks gently into her link. “We’re on our way.”
4 Drake slowly returns to consciousness to feel his body panting, flexed, and crouching low in DESire Inc’s dark immersion room. Frustration lingers in his mouth like burned copper. Will it always be this way? Always the slave? “Are you all right?”
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Drake flinches and scans the room for the sound, a human voice? Here? Impossible. He drags his hands over his face and feels them slick with snot. No, it’s blood. Cut his knuckles. Just one hand, looks like. Not bad. How long has he been in here? It’s hot. Must be residue from the tropical enviro. Was that fake, or is this? Does anything really exist anymore? “Mr. Adjatee,” the SYS says. “As you know, your account is billed triple overtime each minute you remain in the room after an immersion. Please show courtesy to our next patron.” “Bite me!” He shrieks. A pathetic sound, like a little girl. He rolls to one side and grapples with himself, but his erection is on its way out. “Do you require assistance?” “More than you can give me.” Minutes tick by. He listens to his next five paychecks being sucked into the abyss of DESire Inc’s coffers. At least his breakdown could finance a classier session room. If the company invested any profits back into customer experience instead of its owners’ vacation homes on Eden Space Station. But why bother making it nice in here when people want to immerse as quickly as possible? The voice is soft. Non-threatening, “We’re on our way.” People must like the jarring contrast between here and whatever paradise they dial up. It helps their brains transition back into the real world—a place he hates. In the real world Drake’s body is a confusion of aches. He hadn’t even noticed the voice was female until suddenly his shame is complete: the door folds back and an Eve steps through. Statuesque. Infinite legs. Flawless bone structure, pale skin, perfect black hair that hangs in angular lines to frame her firestorm-silver eyes. “You’re not human,” he says. “Well, you certainly are. Dear Mr. Adjatee. It’s time to vacate the session room. Is there any way I may assist you?” She moves forward to try to salvage his flesh-colored immersion suit, but the silicone is shredded far beyond its layered carbon nanotubes. He swings his legs around and sits up. Pulls the suit down over his privates, more or less. “What if I stay?” “That’s not in the contract,” she says. Then more quietly, “I think I understand you, Drake.” Her body leans close to work off the suit and her breast rests on his arm. He looks into her eyes and at her lipless mouth, an open passage designed to suck. He feels himself stir. “You like the challenge of an emotionally difficult script,” she says.
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“Rust in hell, bitch! What do you know about me?” He jerks away, and the instant the Eve flinches, his arms are seized by the faceless SecureBots. His brain hadn’t even registered them come in, only her. He’s spending too much time immersed, he thinks. Losing track of peripheral reality. Still, the pressure of their grips is really starting to piss him off. “Please, Mr Adjatee,” she says, as the Secures encourage him forward on the platform. “Mental health services are free of charge for elite level customers—” Drake launches himself back and his feet connect with the hollow flooring. Cold rushes up his body to chill his organs. They’ve cooled the room, to encourage him to go. He steps towards her, shoving away the SecureBots, which scramble to restrain his limbs. “Stop! They won’t allow you to behave in unsafe or disrespectful ways—Drake!” She squeaks as he grasps her arms and pulls her in close, watching her silvery irises churn like an electrical storm. “I have a message for your bosses,” he says ominously. “For your own safety, Drake, I must—” A sharp electronic snap curls Drake into a sobbing infant on the floor. “And now you’ve endangered your patron-ship!” Such a shrill sound, from an Eve? She leans in to scan his vitals and whispers, “Please, go now or you won’t be able to return.” “I can’t return! You’ve taken it all away.” The Eve stands straight. “DESire Inc holds the license to your wife’s data for 109 more years. Comply, or never see her again.” Drake is surprised to see his damaged immersion suit in her hands. He lunges for it, but her voice makes him pause: “There will be additional disturbance penalties.” Drake feels his body grab his clothes off the rack and stride out the back way. Naked, he slices through a prep room, where two startled w/men—most likely Sallys—don their own silicone suits. Once he pushes past them, both w/men rush to watch Drake’s hard-developed musculature plunge through the back exit door and surge into the alley. The sensations keep Drake alert. The shock in the Squatters’ faces. The rush of cold air on exposed skin. The SecureDrones advancing on him from the roof. Drake runs up the alley, ducking behind a compost digester to slip on his clothes. Dark shaggy eyes and broken teeth watch from around the corners. Images are taken. “Get lost, creeps,” he growls. All four bodies duck to escape the drone. Now dressed, Drake realizes he’s forgotten his boots. This is very, very bad for him. His last Coins are gone. How can he work? How can he recoup the overtime
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he’d just billed, the damages, the fines, the immersion suit, without those boots? There’s no point trying to buy another pair. By now his account will be iced. He can’t go back inside, even if the Sallys helped him. Reentry without permission would mean a third round of homeStay treatments. He can’t afford that much time outside the workflow. Having waited out the SecureDrones, Drake starts the run home, trying not to land on anything sharp or infectious. A difficult task, in a neighborhood where Roamers and Squatters own the night, and CitySweep bots only come through twice a month.
Welcome home, Drake! BLINK HERE to receive two new transmissions. Thanks for accepting this transmission, Drake!
Better Bot Tech in the Blink of an Eye 86 Here at HygieneTech we like to keep our nose clean. That’s more than just a figure of speech, it’s a promise that the technologies we offer are effective, personable, low-maintenance (or even better, fully self-maintaining!), and always at least as effective as advertised. You’ve made a great choice to subscribe to our ThoughtLink offer feed. You won’t be sorry—we’re contractually bound* to transmit to you only when we have a remarkable new piece of technology that’ll be of real benefit to your life. As a special introduction to HygieneTech INTL’s myriad services, we’re able to offer you a 39% one-time discount on a maintenance refresh of your existing household bots, should you choose to book in the next 240 seconds. That includes a full systems flush to remove software contradictions, optimize performance, and even administer minor upgrades to your bots’ personalities using our tried-and-true UltraHuman™ adaptivePsych software.
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Take advantage of this limited time special! TRIPLE BLINK HERE to schedule your first, almost-complimentary servicing at your HomeSYS’s convenience. * DOUBLE BLINK to receive HygieneTech’s ‘contractual agreement.’ A 2058 viralTainment marketing pick!
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that offer genetically-specific care of your enamel and soft tissues! BLINK HERE for 8,764,428 testimonials about why our new tech should be your new tech. Isn’t your physical comfort, carefree mental state, and optimal health worth it? Upgrade now! Simply TRIPLE BLINK HERE. * For a complete infoScan of our new Guarantee, DOUBLE BLINK HERE. TRIPLE BLINK HERE to experience free samples of this or other HygieneTech products such as: SleepSound™ Audio Garblers • DryBod™ Ultrasafe™ Enzymatic Desiccant • Yawn-Be-Gone™
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Besides the two hardLink messages, three voice recordings await Drake at home. First, work. Human Resources has been informed of his ‘most recent episode’ and need him to report for yet another psychological profile. Next, DESire Inc. Future appointments are postponed until full payment is made, plus a hefty fine, plus an advance deposit of at least three sessions. Impossible. The pain isn’t from the shard of glass he yanks out of his foot. His stomach churns with self-hatred for not being able to control himself. It could be six months, a year, maybe two before he’ll see her again, if he can keep his job. That depends on DESire Inc’s report. If it’s bad, he might be moved to the Trench, or some other godawful work zone. That can’t happen. Not in his delicate state of mind. His stomach starts to knot, so he searches his pill pile for a TranquilPack and almost misses the third message. From her. “…return, and as you know, customers must normally pay a disposal fee for property abandoned at DESire Inc. However, I’ve arranged for your boots to be returned to you, at no charge. Please don’t mention this to my supervisors. The location and retrieval time are uploaded to your HomeSYS. Don’t be late, it’s a very small time window.”
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Drake disinfects his foot with kitchen vinegar, grabs his jacket, and links in to check the coordinates and appointment time. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sooner than expected. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have to ride.
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BP Oil
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I am putting shells on sand I am hiding shells beneath the surface I am sinning shells to sand singing dust to the surface singing specks of nothingness out of the sand binding little leaflets hot gluing specks of white shell backs holding flecks and letting them slide I am painting the ground to existence I pour my lip on the ground folding, beating, covering existence steaming, baking, frying existence Imagine this: hanging earrings through your existence clatter of birds through paint I am undressing the sand pouring each sand crease, each toe print ballooning jellyfish hanging black suit on a rusty nail hanging motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s robe on a busted pendant hanging books upside the shore dancing space between my fingers I am slim lights I want to sleep your eyes: the burning dusk, the leaping dusk, the binding dusk, birds of America I want to sleep your eyes
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Oilmousse Traditions four-headed woman, white, dichotomy, free, black, let it ring fireflies go to her, and linguist two-step slapping the floorboards, dirt like ankle socks, praise the lord Let it ring, spoons, Coca-Cola crabs, clinging boiled crawfish, lemons back leg, garlic, clinging to their soft bodies
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Oil Soaked Birds We sat on the back porch snow cone headache May
tortured lightâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
look for my teeth in the fridge 94 salted tin black and white panorama
graduating class
holding hips mouthing lightâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
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Ribbons of Oil This is how it really went on the back porch watching each other needle spit Spanish moss against cheeks, take a picture of my hands tape it to the ceiling
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Underwater Shears I was not born here
Tansy— root my city out from the ceiling front porch hymns and don’t they know god got humbler in his old age 96 Testament
screech night
surface
tongue
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Beignets The hand that dropped bulbs like petals The hand that slipped past mother picked bones clean 97
Surface light
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Submersible Robots ambrosia African Lily bushes estranged weed women
coffee membrane gloss window pane warble flies like pin pricks slick grass calves underground calcium raw elements sweets like flying
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wild west red moons our mouth myth black hole just your high school burnout
pupils tube socks the act of waiting for the train sliding hinge memory hinge
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Fish Eggs pet names, knee deep, pothole your mind in the heel, boot, printing double-sided ebooks love when the waitress calls you baby, better than baby, sucking the ends of your fingers, melted, single servings floating in your mug
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Blind Ram I wake up in New Delhi, white linen dripping legs
bathe me with a plastic bucket
Tashi, butter tea, wrapped skins oblong melon, ginger, hangnails, lace, rind, howl
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Our green tarp roof licks rain out of the night
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Sweet Crude mud hands prayer hut hinge cement wet earth gongs incense sift cloud through lip tap of a match against paper legs folded hips beamingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
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Gulf I could think of her eyes brown buttons so beautiful I want to shove them up my nose Tashi run your fingersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
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slow coast sticky curls wallpaper peeled evolution skin sweetest portal She left her mother and birth certificate slice of paper lined arches the way women become sins
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Gulf I wanted to tell her the world— sweets eyes that can break you breathe me in like a mother match me a ribbon for a toe nipples sacred slips of paper— eyelashes 103 birthing light
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Gulf True southern story stitched hip He took her passport slipped it in his front pocket like the bible in a foreign place colored stones, hidden faces damp charcoal, white napkins rubbed under lids 104 mother-daughter pairs eyes hand holding in the theatre the way darkness nibbles cloth
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Pontchartrain Flesh milk hold me under water just long enough to cover my ears singing the national anthem just soft knees breaking water white linen watching the sky breathe starsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; submerged eyes Spritz motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perfume over her carpet bathroom run through it
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Spigot holy Milk Eyes break youâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
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pray steal my mouth tumble kiss oil out my knees up to your roof Soap god
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Tar Balls sour, hips lips swaying, holding back crumbling olives like ink stains traditions Collection, snagging your nails on your shirt butter bread pudding butter rubbed on your ear
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Turtle Carcasses handful of grass, sweat running, jazz club swoon bad dads on the corner spare some change swallow your hip 108
corner traditions ice the cake with the butter knife
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Nightfall cold dinners, boarded up windows, nacre, Chinese burials, papier-MâchÊ cars, hands like underwater feathers, back of her neck, white, dryer sheet in a shoe, fresh paint on denim, mystery of birth, firefly in a paper cup, lip singing, memory, licking honey from a spoon, just a voice putting you to sleep, homework, milk splatter, someone deciding to steal
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Moonlight wet linens and swamp clean witch cup of coffee Hymn holy trinity celery bell peppers sweet yellow onion cayenne
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pulleys and ropes or pull buoys shoved between your thighs swimming laps with just your arms
building the house nail by nail burn the bricks just a handful of nails Succession pull the bow down
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Upsurge half-breathing suns green onions bursting from a Mason jar metal barstools slightly too tall for the table ripping grass like pulling colored fins out from under the sand quiver
endless white clusters of roots
oil weighed cherry blue gloss skin under a wetsuit tangled feathered fur oil pulling bird prints
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Sheen Tide
held breath
don’t eat the shellfi— Dawn spray me gold
Mash sea with lip Clip light Coo 112
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Night Breech Love chips hooked to my leg your night, your face Night a series of blank oceans persimmon pressed nape And neck And kiss Fish kissing bone conjure lips your night, your face Anyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s night My dark spilling dark spilling your face The ocean The spill The bodies pressing back
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The Gambler BURNT
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he purple haze passed. Clouds shifted. Still winds. Melted candles. The cigarette was just a filter. The time was burnt and it was time to go. Two bags, no more, no less. Virginia was done in Monterey, California. No valuables were left behind. A deep breath in and a deep breath out, the salty air filled her lungs with a natural high, like she inhaled the most potent Columbian grass. Virginia took the moment to let it all go. Pebbles rolled under her feet along the 17-mile drive, her burlap sack swung down past her back and sweat burned her eyes as it trickled down her forehead. She veered toward a needleless pine tree to lean on facing the ocean. Waves pounded against the lichen-covered rocks on the edge as she tugged on her polyester frock that clung tighter than a geishaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s feet could be bound. Dead flowers rested on the crown of her head and patent vinyl boots were glued on her calves. The patchwork rabbit-fur jacket was only good for snow-piled mountain tops. Virginia was covered with impracticalities. It was the time of a rebirth. She dropped and stared at clothing and accessories as they disappeared with the tide. On the edge Virginia stoodâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;bare, alone, and empty. Gravel-filled sand stabbed her heels; the deteriorating ground crumbled as she inched closer to the edge.
24 Hours Prior Most paramount things have the fewest variables, and evil deserves an ounce of good. Virginia was satiated with first-rate LSD, cruising in the commune bus, just drifting. The trees stretched past the clouds and linked up set after set of branches. Little houses were cheeky with their shuttered eyes and front steps with tongues rolled out. She smiled back. Every house and barn along the way lost the tension of its structure and bent, making it cartoonish. Tommyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face was tilted and his neck cracked like an abandoned structure, tiles from the house tops made their way into the construction of his face. The colors of his tattoo
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ran down her arm, red and blue squiggles combined to drip purple blood on the seat. She wanted nothing more than for Tommy to disappear into a stain on the seat and Duane to be no more than a stain left on a headstone. It was the anniversary of his exit. And so there they were. Virginia wanted something more than a mind-altering high, she wanted to alter the minds of those that couldn’t speak for themselves. The deeper in with Neo she got, the less outside filtration she had from the majority of people, and her spot at Neo’s could be replaced. Her ideas would never be set in motion unless she found a way out and a way back to a society that repulsed her. A quartz crystal swayed from a beaded chain in the rearview mirror where she watched Kent’s eyes roll off his face then split, his tooth was missing. It was a battle for her tingling hands to poke out the window. She laughed too hard to articulate thoughts atop thoughts as her mind explored the untouched places of neurons firing. Everything wobbled and the transition to live music was beautifully overwhelming. Jimi Hendrix made history that weekend by destroying his guitar, but that was obvious, and the fight against oppression amplified the following to do whatever or whoever the fuck we wanted. Indulgences and apathy flourished beneath the red sky with crumpled posters stirring in the wind. A gathering floozy found her mark, a fiend injected his fix; Virginia stood there lacking her own pursuit. An aura of musty chamomile tinged with the malodorous scent of testosterone lingered where there lay a trail of familiar clothes—a taupe crocheted top and a fringed buckskin vest atop distressed denim overalls. Hedonistic howls screeched to the highest octave from behind the stage. Tommy’s eyes locked with Virginia’s and she acknowledged him bending Jillian over the amplifier. She bit her lip to taste blood, ears reddened, then burned, and she laughed as he dismounted her. “Free love, Marigold!” Mouth hidden behind his overgrown beard, a receding hairline and normally attractive unkempt appearance had never looked so hideous to Virginia. Feeble-minded sport-fuckers couldn’t be trusted or latched onto, and distance welcomes peace. She grasped the VW keys through her pocket and smiled sourly, tallying what Neo granted her access to. She decided at that moment she no longer belonged to Neo, and the fight to render civil rights would require cuddling up next to the despised. Filth was self-evident so she turned her back to focus on her footing, and go onward. Not loving anybody would allow her to love everybody with a vision of how women could come together and achieve the power of choice they deserved.
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Free love used to be beautiful, until it was only worth what can’t be paid, and the trail back would prove to be disorienting. Virginia continued towards the parking area where other concertgoers were headed. Along the way she made eye contact with virtually everyone, as if attempting to capture a glimpse of some part of their resilience. “Hey, sweet thing, slow your traction,” said a hidden voice. The voice belonged to a fellow who had been to several of Neo’s gatherings. Virginia licked the smoky air and turned his direction with open arms for a much-needed hug. He didn’t hesitate to wrap his stick-man arms around her waist, drawing her into his bare concave chest. His belt buckle was cold. “Come with, I want to show you something.” Smitten with her request, he interlaced his fingers with hers and followed. They trotted down the beaten path to the bus, and on the way noticed some chicks with some out-of-sight fur jackets. The lanky blonde with candied lips was wearing a rabbit collection that puffed up above her shoulders. Her hands were shoved deep in the pockets of the multi-hide. A stout, hairy girl bobbed her head to some beat unheard and resembled an overfed chinchilla in her cream coat that she couldn’t put her arms down in. Virginia’s striped tunic and short pants were coated in wax. They shared a joint and linked arms, in sync with one another. Chinchilla girl squeezed Virginia’s arm too tight—she was nervous, just a dabbler of that life. Taking twice as long to reach their destination as intended allowed Virginia to scout out more people to join their union of hands. More people accompanied them. The chicks proved to be a lovely distraction for the boys so they weren’t cognizant of how long it was actually taking. In the distance the clamor of steel was heard and with strained eyes Virginia focused on the leaning silhouette against the tree, which was all too familiar, and she shuddered in the warm breeze. She thought of that initial pull she felt as a child when her father left the earth. A man of composure, status, and most valuable, a name with rich blood. She needed a pull back into her reality, and her best option was to leave Neo nameless and leave no one a reason to believe she deserted them, but instead moved on to a different adventure. Virginia’s last impression on the group was her appearing upset over Tommy, and she was counting on them to brush her off as an overly possessive person that was never meant for Neo. Those details she would figure out along the way and there wasn’t anyone she felt threatened by to do any immediate work; her struggle with losing a child of her own and the repercussions of women who are denied a choice were the only work that mattered to Virginia. Her chances of having a family with her first love were taken away by a draft for Vietnam, and
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Duane’s birthday disgruntled her actions of self-sabotage and getting out of her mind. There was a man sharpening a collection of knives where the silhouette was once visible. He used the knives to cut material for new threads, the nonviolent, weapon-bearing type. Virginia was intrigued with the reflective blades and removed herself from the chain of hands. She was sure he wouldn’t turn down getting loaded. He squinted his eyes at her and extended his dirt-caked hand, but she gave him an uncomfortable hug instead and introduced herself. “I’m Marigold, you don’t have to tell me yours.” And he didn’t tell but motioned for her to help pile his knives into a hemp knapsack that he tossed over his shoulder like a pack mule. He extended his other hand to hold hers. The moon had risen and the white bus top glistened under the moonlight. Virginia winked and removed her tunic to be exposed in the night, and the girls took note then followed her gesture by dropping their fur covers on the grass. Revealed and vulnerable, they stood. “She’s Not There,” by The Zombies crafted tempting vibes as it boomed from another car’s radio. A bonfire started and the peace pipe glowed which attracted more flower children. All flies and sugar water, simple. A high and friendly atmosphere was a time of personal gain for Virgina to refract through. She unlatched the rear door of the bus and opened the side door to brandish all the goods she was left by the nameless chain of followers. The drugs gave a release of the mind, and with a release of clothing a tapestry of colors generated around the fire. Rattlesnake skins with a shakedown of melody through all different sets of eyes and hands that touched feet. Virginia followed the movements cultivated from the present with her natural beauty, bronzed legs swept through the dirt while a magenta scarf that glimmered gold was wrapped around her head by Kent. Toes tapped down and hands flew up, smiling was inevitable. She kept a gypsy flow while bystanders joined the party. Their circle expanded and the music gently guided them through the motions to let go of any grounding. Virginia puffed on the joint that had been lipped by the previous holder and thought whatever. Free-spirited individuals have a sincere desire for the greater good, but all Virginia could see were fish-eyed fools with hollow desires. These folks kept her from being lonely, although she remained forever alone in her thoughts due to the general malaise within that community. Yearning for change and making changes are two completely different spectrums. Welcoming circles were making Virginia dizzy. By distributing approximately ten pounds of mushrooms and generous
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handfuls of sugar cubes to the nonconformists, she was able to stow away more than the righteous amount of dough. There were some definite treasures besides the cash: a fresh collection of knives and a new wardrobe for a new direction. And a new opportunity arose when she picked up the newspaper off the floorboard where Jillian’s wallet was hidden. She closed the doors, left a kiss on everyone’s cheek, started the engine, and drove. Virginia pressed forward along the Pacific Coast, jamming the rickety clutch while she shifted to fourth and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. Tangled auburn hair whipped out the driver’s window as a smoke trail orbited with the cold breeze simultaneously striking her face. Without a map or designated place, she roared through the night with a fire that she thought had burnt out a time before. A surge of adrenaline rushed through her chest as she gained speed and tortured herself with thoughts of what had been, but she was hungry for what was to follow. Ill-prepared for loneliness, her anxiety fluctuated and it was a time of mania. She relieved herself of anxiety and felt a need to control the adrenaline rush. The horrendous shriek of tires skidding drilled through her ears as she pulled the bus halfway into a ditch. Virginia dug through the back in search of the sharpest knife. Buried in the mountainous pile of clothing lay the collection of knives she acquired from the strange little man. Sifting through the knives, like a miner who would separate the gravel from gold flakes, she discovered a stout buck-skinning knife with a particularly sharp point. Excited and almost spastic, she leapt out of the bus to plop down on the roadside. Her thighs exposed, she extended her gams to make long, horizontal incisions with precision, being careful to avoid veins and only cut through the superficial. It was an old stress relieving practice she used when Duane died. She didn’t stop cutting until she became lightheaded. Infatuated with the purplish color of blood prior to it oxygenating and turning red, she poked the center—the deepest part of the cut which almost reached the muscle—and it was then she relaxed. Intoxicated with the pleasure from self-mutilation, Virginia felt a supreme ecstasy she felt unattainable in any other form. Fixated on the blood dripping from cuts, saturating her socks as it ran down her raw-boned shins. Driving was the first time she had sat down in the last two days, so the blood flow was more rapid than ever. Hankering for more relaxation and less blood, she peeled off her soggy socks, wrapped paisley-patterned handkerchiefs around the tops of her legs and redressed herself in a full ankle-length skirt with steel-toed military boots poking out. She wanted a drink, a stiff one.
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Virginia hiked up the ditch to the bus, and flung open the aluminum door catapulting herself into the driver’s seat. Shoving the keys into the ignition, she felt the floorboards rattle as she pushed down the clutch, flicked the high beams on, and veered back onto the asphalt path. She scanned ahead, searching for a neon glow. She passed the Fort Ord barracks and assured herself where there were soldiers there would be booze. A dim, pink light flickered displaying the word “Open.” It was the first watering hole on the crowded street and she braked for two drunken fools in the unlit parking lot. She held her tongue, finding no sense in yelling at nonsense. She couldn’t recall the last time she entered a bar and was obviously a misfit for the crowd. Memories of junior high dances on mushrooms flashed through her mind. It was that level of awkwardness; although tiles weren’t sliding, she had to be aware of what slid out of her mouth. With sage eyes, she licked her lips and entered with a bogus confidence. The girls here were on a different level and Virginia thought, Oh, shit, I forgot to tease my hair, put on my evening gown and apply my rouge and pinkest lipstick. I must be out of my goddamn mind! These were the kinds of thoughts she believed to be darting around in the underdeveloped front cortexes of the girls staring at her. She was surprised they even took that bit of time to examine her as they seemed to have no time to waste in their search for a military husband. They’d have to catch one before their looks faded, which inarguably some of them lacked as they resembled evil dolls with their clown faces. The old trick of finding a gullible man to get hitched to and knocked up by would solidify a life of togetherness. Virginia snarled at the idea of having to face society again, knowing everything about her look and attitude would have to be adjusted. Virginia’s thoughts were in a frenzy about what reality would set in on them after they were stuck. When their soldier husband returned from war, he would likely find himself in the company of a genuine, smooth-brained woman who had gained weight, and a joint bank account would convince him to stay with her. She pictured the self-help books cluttering their house, remaining unopened due to the lack of illustrations. A doomed situation with a slow metabolism, she thought, what an utterly frightening way to live—without a soul. Keeping ambition dead is how he keeps his wife. If she’s not venturing out and becoming successful on her own, she will need that husband. Failing to be independent and not reach one’s full potential is a choice. Constantly moving on in search of something newer, better, and different is the choice she made. This choice was a major turnoff for men in search of that broken,
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brainless doll. She figured they’d be better off marrying an ugly, incompetent woman than entering her tangled web of secrets, dishonesty, and illusions. With her, there was never just a straight answer; there was something underlying every action Virginia took. She vowed to never make a solemn commitment to another individual only to continue a cookie-cutter miserable life. At Neo’s, women cooked and cleaned and opened their legs to whoever said “spread.” That paralleled the male dominance in the society not yet buried in the woods. She wanted more than a head full of acid and philosophies. Virginia could never lie down as a doormat just to have muddy boots stomp on her and be left to clean up their filth. While she strangled herself in this self-righteous epilogue, she noticed the unshaven bartender eyeing her on the tipsy wooden stool. “What are you thirsty for, Miss?” “Maker’s Mark, rocks.” “Double?” “Might as well.” He quickly made a strong pour and slid the old-fashioned glass into her open hand. He leaned over the counter to look at her ensemble. “You’re different, I like your style.” “Likewise, sir.” She then swiveled off the bar stool to find a seat alone against the wall and observe the doomed gathering of belligerent people her age. They were fraternizing with high spirits. Virginia figured she’d have been drunk too if she was accepting of the fact that she was more likely to return home in a body bag than to see her twenty-fifth birthday. The Vietnam War was a constant presence—everybody knew someone there, going there, coming back from there, only to return there again, or never leave there. It sickened her to think of the saggy-faced politician puppeteers pulling strings on the backs of the youth overseas, as they sip their expensive foreign champagne and oversee the degradation of American boys turned to killers for political havoc. Despite the carnage of people piling up in the coastal lowlands of South Vietnam and in the Himalayas of North Vietnam, the war continued and did not stop in Cambodia or Laos. Fatter American wallets, longer foreign war. On the home front, protesters demonstrated their opposition to the war from Central Park to Haight-Ashbury with views continuously shunned by the policy makers. Politics—man, the thoughts they provoke killed my buzz before it started, Virginia thought. Duane didn’t want to go to war, his dad disowned him when he ran away, said he didn’t have a son. That only son he did have was drafted and
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stopped running, because he wanted a dad. Eighteen, thrown on the front lines, he got to go home, and his dad claimed his body. We are souls, not just bodies to throw away. She followed the Freedom Riders when he left. When Virginia was fifteen, she got arrested for a protest at the San Francisco City Hall during the HUAC hearings. Duane was her first love. She met Tommy in jail. When she found herself sucking on an ice cube, Virginia headed to the counter to order two doubles of Maker’s Mark on the rocks. The bartender crinkled his forehead as he poured the drinks. “You could’ve just asked for a tall glass.” “Who says these are both for me?” “‘Cause you haven’t spoken to one soul in here,” he laughed. “So, you’re soulless? Hmm, I like your style.” “Likewise, Miss—uh, I didn’t catch your name.” “Jillian.” When he reached for the bourbon, she reached for his coat pocket where she had noticed his wallet poking out earlier. Careless, she thought. After chugging one of her drinks, she let an ice cube freeze the inside of her cheek, when a bloodcurdling scream disrupted that little pleasure. Virginia turned to see one of the evil dolls picking glass out of her brick-shaped feet. Virginia chuckled and continued to walk to the alley to smoke her much-deserved joint. She assumed the accident was her fault because she balanced the thick-bottomed glass on the table’s edge where it could have easily fallen. Virginia’s twisted ideas of the girls she considered dolls continued; she believed they were only capable of telling each other the proper amount of peroxide to drown their heads in, but she would recommend they just swallow the bottle. The air was crisp, reviving her lungs. Staring at the luminous sky, she felt peaceful for a moment—an extremely brief moment. Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Another meaningless encounter, she thought. Virginia passed him the joint and turned her back to light a cigarette. No words were exchanged, no silly questions, no surface conversations, no staring at her chest—absolute nothingness between the stranger and her. They stood calmly watching their smoke rings cloud the air in front of them. She leaned against the cool stone wall with one leg bent in a triangle and he stood with one hand in his corduroy pants pocket. She took one last swig of bourbon and nodded her head to him for acknowledgement. In return he raised one eyebrow and struggled to display a half smile—he probably needed dental work.
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Curious about this stranger and his crooked grin, Virginia went up to the bar where the bartender modeled a filthy towel over his shoulder. He grabbed the bourbon to drown the ice with his mighty pour. This time he poured one for himself. Lowering his bull head, he motioned for her to lean in. She was sick of kissing dirty men with scratchy faces and hoped he wasn’t making a move. Slightly terrified of the maggot, she leaned in closer and firmly grasped her glass until her knuckles turned white. Shockingly, he didn’t try to grope her. She forgot she hadn’t bathed and probably smelled like incense with body odor. He hissed something inaudible and stared coldly past Virginia. Befuddled with this interaction, she glanced over to where his beady eyes shifted to see the cryptic man in corduroy. Absent-minded about what action she was meant to take, she followed her gut—only to find herself shoulder to shoulder, speechless, and enticed by the man with no words. She lit another cigarette, remained calm, and silent. Slowly Virginia turned to face him where she couldn’t help but be captivated with his compelling gaze. He extended his left hand which she grabbed with both her hands. Purposefully, he used his left hand to emulate the unconventional bond they shared. It was no coincidence that they made contact. He led her directly to her own vehicle where he pointed Virginia to the passenger side. She trusted him when nobody trusted her and handed him the keys to drive. Then she reached into the side pocket of her suede shoulder bag to retrieve a stiletto then shoved it into her boot. They remained silent for the short stretch to a rundown motel, suitable for a snuff film. There was only one other vehicle in the parking lot, which likely belonged to the management. She waited in the bus until he returned with two separate keys for adjacent rooms. He handed her a room key with a number on the keychain that was practically illegible, but she made the assumption it was for Room 6, since he was heading to Room 5 and there were only seven rooms on the lower level. Routinely looking over her shoulder, she unlocked the door and reached in to turn on the lights before setting foot inside. It appeared empty. Chucking her bags onto the flimsy bed covered with a shiny orange comforter, she looked at the commercial artwork hanging above the bed. The color splashes of nothingness disturbed her—with no meaning it couldn’t be art and she hated how it was displayed in such a nature. Virginia pulled the chain across the top lock. She was pacing—more or less darting—back and forth, choking on a cigarette, terrified and panic-stricken. Everything seemed unmanageable. He had the control and she needed to seize it from him. Her life was a roulette wheel and in that motel
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she couldn’t tell red from black and odd numbers appeared even. Rational thoughts were obsolete and chances were the only things taken. She removed the vent cover for wall storage of her weapons, then there was a pounding at the door. Virginia stopped tinkering with the vent to rush over to the door where a hand covered the peephole. It took several moments but she consciously moderated her breathing and dabbed the sweat off on her sleeve. She opened the door with one hand and kept the other at arm’s distance, holding a six-inch dagger. It was, of course, the man that brought her there. She stood motionless, unsure if this was going to be a bloodbath exchange or if he just wanted to fuck. It was a toss-up considering the circumstances and opportunity for him to get away with either. He tilted his head back, unable to control his laughter—some type of laughing spasm or he was so excited to make a skin suit out of her flesh that he couldn’t contain his excitement, which was the first of Virginia’s many irrational thoughts. She wanted a clean exit from this world with as little pain as possible. She was open to giving him a recommendation of the type of knife he should serrate her with. She’d never encountered a sociopath quite like that. Through his hyena roar he managed to spit out: “Oh, Virginia! Virginia Cruz, sweating over my arrival! That’s hilarious. Anyway, look these over and be prepared by 6 a.m.” He handed her a thick manila envelope. She heard her heart thumping and attempted to swallow her saliva, but there was none and instead she had a coughing fit. Although he didn’t leave her with a chance to respond. He knew her as Virginia, but she couldn’t place him from her past. She ripped the package open like a dog getting meat out of butcher paper. The envelope was filled with names scribbled on napkins, notebook paper, matchbooks and other miscellaneous paper products, each with a different identifier. These names were all linked to one thing and one person in particular, a person whom she would more than identify with. Usually she took her shoes off to sleep, but that night she knew she wouldn’t sleep. Virginia kept a knife close by—a knife in her sleeve, a knife under the mattress, a knife in the nightstand drawer, a knife in her boot and one knife under the bed. She craved a shower. She felt every pore was full but wouldn’t risk being vulnerable just to be clean. At quarter to six, Virginia was packed and ready to leave the loathsome motel and its bed bugs behind. She slammed the door and posted herself near the bus with a bag on each side and the envelope and lighter in hand.
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Within seconds the mystery man emerged from his room in a dapper camel-colored suit. Virginia began to laugh then lit the envelope on fire and tossed it his direction. He didn’t run to put the fire out, which assured her they were on the same wavelength as far as executing their plans. Once again he extended his left hand, which once again she grasped with both of her hands, but this time a word followed his hand in a low collected tone. “Hunter.” “Indeed. I am the hunting type,” Virginia joked. “Animals?” Hunter asks. “Humans.” “The sun is already rising, Virginia. It’s best we leave now.” She nodded in agreement. He was right. Time was critical now that her path had broadened to another’s road for redemption, which added to the potholes and cracked pavement, but she still made it to where she was going. Virginia decided she just had to keep going. Faces of the scribbled names flashed in her head and memories of their existence began to pollute her concentration. Luckily she was low on gasoline, so he pulled off to a gas station where she could get tasteless coffee with too much creamer and sugar. There was no telling how far Virginia would be traveling with Hunter. The cashier was too perky for that early in the morning, smiling wide with her white teeth poking through. Pollyannaism. Her life appeared vanilla which must have been nice but dull. Virginia pondered for only a few seconds longer what a life like the cashier’s would be, but she managed to lose sight of Hunter. Peering around the gas pump, she saw him hunkered down on a pay phone, checking his watch and shaking his head. She imagined it to be one of those times when the man is enduring a rant from his wife because he failed to come home the previous night. They hopped in the vehicle shortly after and were en route with the radio on. Virginia took the opportunity to change from pungent clothes into something with different taste, replacing her steel-toed boots with flashy patent-vinyl ones, and trading her dress for an itchy but provocative frock, then chose to don a full-length fur coat, because she could. Hunter kept his eyes forward and didn’t acknowledge her stripping on and off clothes. Ties hold back accomplishments, which is why she assumed he needed her drifter assistance. Hunter parked in the middle of the road and pointed out the window for Virginia to exit. She didn’t protest and instead slid off the seat.
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Roadways were all she saw. Her mission took longer with wrong turns, taking the long way at the fork, and stopping for hitchhikers. Virginia was afraid her mission would shrivel up and be nothing more than a mirage. Ideally, she needed just that one step forward for it all to be over. Virginia shut her eyes, inhaled the heavy air, and as she let her breath out— A road-raging truck driver blared his horn and leapt out of his truck as she exhaled. “Ma’am, are you out of your goddamn mind?” The peace had escaped and wasn’t likely to be found. She was annoyed and reality struck through her with the chewing truck driver. She ripped a tattered shirt out of her bag and threw it over herself. “I’m headed North, Mister. Just needed some air, ya know?” He didn’t respond and just dialed his eyes to the parts of her not hidden. “Are you just gonna stand and stare at me or are you gonna grab my bags like a gentleman?!” Frantically, he rushed over to lug the sacks over his shoulder, no questions asked. TOASTED 126
I sliced my vein gently, three times. Blood spilled from the lacerations, and I applied pressure to speed up the draining process. My arm was soaked, blood trailed to a basin on the white marble. I dragged my fingers through the red pool. I painted my lips red, brushed rouge across my cheeks. A sad clown with cheery eyes and dainty lips. A deep neckline and oversized diamonds detracted from my swollen eyes. A fur stole covered my cuts. I was lost in my appearance and practiced my breathing before I opened the double bedroom doors. Down a twisted staircase red roses garnished the quartz tables. Champagne bubbled in the ring-adorned fluted goblets. My skin stretched tight for a smile as I nodded my head to the circus. I drank a double, Maker’s Mark, followed by two more, and then accessorized my hand with a bubbled stem. Mesmerized with carbonation, I only heard chatter, unrighteous compliments. The hens were clucking. The room was filled with hair piled high, bodies couture. Kisses left on many cheeks. One familiar face stopped my teeth grinding. Coyly I brushed past, my left hand fell behind my back to signal I was headed for the middle deck. He walked diagonally through the party and lit up mid-walk. A partly-tucked shirt, recycled slacks, and shoes that would have served as a doorstop—there stood Klyde. A sinking sun and a silhouette. He rubbed circles into my palm, he cleaned up well,
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and the grease layer was gone. He offered me a hand-rolled cigarette. The trees were still and it was warm so the smoke hovered. We stood outside smoking. Suddenly, Cayetano whisked me indoors to toast our union. Engagement was my angle, I whispered a kiss when I covered his face with my left hand. On my ring finger I wore a gem that was so carefully cut, a gem without impurities, and a gem that represented our endless love. At that moment I was Cayetano’s only gem. Cayetano and his tailored coats, sleek strands, and leather. Aftershave worth a salary peppered his chops. I loved the raised glasses that sparkled with expensive champagne. Billfolds quadrupled from the work of Armor. There was never a lily vase. Cayetano led me through a waltz. At every dip he gracefully spun me around and our fingers touched just enough. Sandalwood and amber drifted to meet my nose the closer we danced. We held each other so close, it was comical. He grazed my ear to hiss his excitement for the future. I kissed him slowly for a grandiose display of our love. Our dance was flawless. I looked directly into Klyde’s eyes when Cayetano spoke to him. The wrinkles on his forehead and the stubble on his chin quivered while he listened to Cayetano’s banter. Klyde wanted me dead, but we were cordial. My sparkling hand dipped into circular conversations. I was happy to leave the ballroom. Fully clothed, I slipped into an empty bathtub to look through the ceiling’s window. There was a full moon with craters making it appear not whole—it was carved like me. I imagined a glistening blade teetering between my toes, with one flinch an artery would erupt and the bath would have filled. Cayetano had sent the help to bring me back to the celebration. I was promptly to returned with a freshly powdered nose and a thick-bottomed glass of bourbon. The mayor told me we would all be vacationing on an unnamed island to visit an offshore account. I candidly spoke with his wife about a shopping venture to the city before our trip. She pulled me aside to indulge in some party favors, and we continued our flight through the evening with tiny silver spoons. “I want to go to Prague by mid-June!” said Virginia. “Have you been before?” “No, but I’d love to have a Danish there.” “That’s it?” “Yes, among other things, none that I care to explain.” “You’re a funny girl, that doesn’t even make sense. Are they known for their Danishes?”
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“Not that I know of, maybe I’ll just go for a dip, and catch the sunset in Paris.” “Cayetano must love your versatility to just take off and do anything at any time.” “He appreciates me, I’m sure.” Cayetano walked in and kissed my head, and I leaned back to kiss him upside down. His shirt was still perfectly starched with monogrammed cufflinks in place. My strap had fallen off my pointy shoulder and my lips were back to their natural color. He rubbed between my shoulder blades and smoothed his fingers up my neck to the bones behind my ears, I closed my eyes for a moment to enjoy his strong hands. “Why don’t the three of us take a dip?” “I mean why not.” I grabbed the other female’s hand and giggled as we stripped down to just our earrings. Cayetano followed us through the shining doors and we tiptoed down the palm-tree-lined walkway. Candles sparked through copper cases to find the path where the pool was sprawled. In the evening lustrous zebra stripes spread across the lima bean pool. The pool house lights were off, the outdoor kitchen was last extinguished, and there was only a slight disturbance in the water. I grabbed the girl’s hand and rushed for the diving board to teeter off in one motion. Cayetano applauded us when we floated to the surface with our cheeky faces drawing him closer to the water. He submerged just to the second step to be book-ended by us. With a dry hand, Cayetano lit the coco puff, I took a hit from him, then took a drag for myself to pass a hit to the other woman. Not once did I enjoy sleeping three to a bed.
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STEPHEN LEEPER
Cosmology
I
was named after my dad who later became my uncle, Stephen Brian Leeper. My mom gave me a different middle name though. It was supposed to be Jamale but the hospital made a mistake on my birth certificate and dropped the e. That’s how my mom tells it anyway. The nurse was probably Muslim and saw that she was spelling the name wrong. Nothing happens by chance. So how does one’s dad become one’s uncle? The short answer: depends on who you ask. COLORADO SPRINGS: SINGUL ARIT Y I was only sixteen when I met Steve. He was a single, twenty-one-year-old Fly Boy from California stationed at Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs. I moved to Colorado from Charlotte because I hated it in Charlotte. All the family drama with my older brothers and then momma trying to control my every move. Telling me when I can and can’t leave the house. What I can and can’t wear. I was like, oh no no no I got to get up out of here. So I packed my bags and moved to Colorado Springs to live with my sister, Fran. It was December of 1985, I believe. Coldest month out of the year in The Springs. I told Fran, I said, dang it’s cold out here. How do you do it, I swear! You know I’m used to them Charlotte, North Carolina, winters. It gets cold but not that cold. Fran lived in a nice neighborhood though. A small apartment on the south side of the city where most of the white people lived. Wasn’t that many of us in the city anyway. She was dating your uncle Archibald who was in the military at the time. Well, he had a lot of friends in the military and Fran knew them because they all used to hang out together with they girlfriends. And so not long after I moved there Fran was like, you gotta meet Archie’s friend Steve, I think you two would be cute together. I didn’t think nothing of it you know, I was like, okay introduce me. So then, I don’t know, about a week later one of the military guys was throwing a party at his place on base, right? Archie and Fran were planning to go and they told me that Steve would be there. We get there and I walk in with
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my little cute outfit on, makeup, hair looking cute. Whoever’s house it was must have had some money though because that place was phat. Marble countertops, carpeted floors—cause you know back then if you had carpeted floors that mean you were doing pretty good. Look to the far left when you walk in and you see a big ole fireplace with model airplanes on the mantle. I’m following Fran and Arch through the living room, looking around at all the dudes there wondering which one was Steve. We get to the kitchen area where the bar was set up and stop. There was a group of guys standing near the refrigerator talking and drinking beers. Right there in the middle was a short, built man wearing blue jeans and what looked like one of those workout shirts, you know what I’m talking about, with the short sleeves, yea. It looked like he was cracking jokes or something because all the guys around him were just laughing and laughing. He was laughing with them so every time he threw his head forward to let one out he’d open his mouth real wide and you could see this great big ole gap. At the time I thought it was sexy. Arch walked up to the group of guys, greeted everyone and said something to the man in the middle. Fran titled her head over towards me and said, that’s him right there, the one Arch is talking to now. Arch and Steve start walking over in our direction and I start sweating, my stomach all in knots. I’m like, oh lord, I hope my makeup looks okay. They get to us and Fran leans in to give Steve a hug and says, Steve I want you to meet my baby sister, Nicole. Oh excuse me, she likes to go by Nikki. I’m thinking to myself, now Fran, why you had to do that? Hell, I’m already nervous and she done called me a baby, and told the man my family nickname. A nickname she don’t even call me herself! It was like she was trying to embarrass me. So anyways he reaches his hand out to shake mine and it’s soft and gentle. Fran and Arch kind of just ease out of the picture and it’s just the two of us standing there. He starts asking me questions like where I’m from, and what do I do for fun. Steve was very polite too. Listened until I finished talking before saying something. Complimented me on my dress. He didn’t act like some guys do, you know, stand there bragging about what he had accomplished and how many girls are after him. He asked me if he could take me out sometimes. I just stood there cheesing, almost forgetting to say yes. But I did say yes. Yep, I sure ‘nuff did.
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Steve and my mom stood there for a long time that night, staring into each other’s faces, thinking about what would happen next. But not thinking too far ahead because time had just begun.
Things started moving fast after that. It felt like overnight that dates to the movies, the mall, daily phone calls became ritual. He was the first voice she heard in the morning and the last one she heard at night. And yet the more time they spent together over that next year, somehow the more they grew apart. My mom suspected that he was seeing other girls, that she wasn’t his number one. He was in the military after all, and she had heard the rumors about their philandering ways. Take what happened to her sister, for instance. She found out that Fran’s boyfriend, Archibald, had been cheating with a chick that had a kid by another man. Turned out that the girl was one of my mom’s best friends. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or maybe the universe was sending her a message. So after about eighteen months in Colorado, my mom decided to go home. She missed Charlotte. With the exception of Fran, all her family and most of her close friends were there. Moving back, however, wasn’t quite the journey motivated by humility—the prodigal daughter returning to beg her mother for forgiveness. She was young and sassy and her ego kept her from admitting things. Her departure was a dramatic one. She had been planning it for some weeks and it culminated in a big fight with her mother. “I’m leaving and I ain’t never coming back to this place!” she cried, her mascara bleeding from her eyes. “Don’t you say that, Nicole! Because you always come back to your roots, you hear me? Always!” Despite her mother’s protests, she left. Stole her credit card and got on the first flight to Colorado to live with her big sister. From that moment her life was always in flux, she was always on the move—running from place to place like Jesus’ mother looking for refuge. Except there was no Joseph with her. There was just me. A year after moving back from Colorado she graduated from high school and by that time I had been born. Sitting in the front row on my grandmother’s lap, there I was smiling and pointing as I watched her walk across the stage. The circumstances surrounding my birth were ambiguous. I need to back up in the story a bit to explain how everything came together before it blew apart.
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NORTH CAROLINA: THE GRAND UNIFICATION
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During my last winter living in Colorado, I went back to Charlotte to visit. My best friend, Neesie, asked me to babysit her niece while the family was out of town. Or maybe they were just out for the day running errands, I don’t quite remember. But I’m like, okay that’s fine. Long as there was food in the refrigerator and I ain’t have to go out and get no diapers and whatnot I’m good, chile. Now Neesie’s brother, Monkeyman—we all called him Monkeyman—he didn’t go with them. He was out running the streets with his friends. I’m changing the baby’s diaper in the bedroom when I hear someone come through the door. And I figure it had to be him because who else would it be? The family was out together. I call out to make sure though, Monkeyman! Monkeyman! He didn’t answer so I start getting afraid and wondering if someone had broken in the house. A lump forms in my throat and I’m like, Monkeyman, is that you? You better stop playing around with me boy! And you can tell I’m scared because my voice is cracking. Baby starts crying. I’m panicking, staring at the bedroom door wondering if they are still in the house—whoever they was. And then BOO! Monkeyman jumps in the doorframe from the hallway with his hands up in the “Thriller” pose from the Michael Jackson video. I scream and on instinct grab a pillow from the bed and throw it—like that was gon’ do something. I tell him, you scared the shit outta me, why you playin’? He asks me what I’m doing and before I can answer all of a sudden his eyes grow wide. Looked like he was about to have a heart attack or something. I’m like, Monkeyman. Monkeyman! What’s wrong? He’s leaning over grunting and squirming like he’s trying to climb out of his skin. Then he looks up at me with this unblinking, glassy stare, oh my god. And his eyes had a yellowish tint to them, ugh, I still get chills just thinking about it. I can’t move either, it’s like I am under a spell. Then he drops his head to the ground again and starts screaming like he was in excruciating pain. At this point, you know, I am freaking out so bad that I feel like I’m having a heart attack. My chest is tightening, my breathing is becoming real shallow, head throbbing so loud it’s all I could hear. I grab the baby and run over to the window to try to jump out, screaming and crying for help when I can’t get it open. I don’t know what else to do so I slide over into the corner of the room and slink down to the floor with my eyes closed praying to God saying, Lord Jesus I’m sorry, please save us! Please God! When I open my eyes I see him hunched over, breathing like he was out of breath. His hair is growing like a chia pet, you know those little figurines? I’m telling you, it was so crazy—I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. His entire body
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was growing hair just like that, stretching and tearing his clothes. Then he pulled his lips back into a devilish grin and just laughs and laughs. As he starts lurching towards me I’m looking around me for anything I can use to fight him off. All I can get my hands on is a pencil and I hold it up with one hand, the baby in the other like, stay back! Like a pencil was gonna do something against this big hairy man hovering over us, right? And I’m like, please, please, please don’t hurt us. Think about the baby, this is your niece! He looks at me with drool dripping down his lip, his mouth half open and says, what baby? I look down at my arms and the baby is gone. Now you know I wouldn’t lie about something like this. She disappeared. Just like that. He grabs me, picks me up, and throws me over his shoulder. I don’t resist at all either. It was weird because I’m conscious but it was like my body became paralyzed as soon as he touched me. He walks out the back door of the house into the forests. He’s walking for about, I don’t know, an hour and I could start to see mountains off in the distance. Then I just blacked out. I don’t know if it was because of blood rushing to my head or what it was. When I woke up I was back in the house, lying on the bed while the baby was in the crib asleep. I didn’t tell anyone but Neesie about what happened. I was afraid that no one would believe me. Neesie sat on it until Monkeyman and she got into an argument one day and she threw it in his face. Nigga, you betta shut up before I tell Ma and Popoye what you did to Nicole. What you gon’ say then? About a week later I got back on the plane and flew back to Colorado. Steve picked me up from the airport and I didn’t tell him a single thing about what happened.
About three months later she found out she was pregnant and broke the news to Steve. They were back together again—having dated on and off since meeting that cold winter night in 1985. This was her coldest winter and she hoped that he could bring warmth and feeling back into her heart and body. They grew close again over the next five or six months but she still felt hollow inside and terrified of getting too close to a man to the point of trembling. And that’s when she picked up and moved back to Charlotte to finish school. She didn’t stay in Charlotte to celebrate afterward for very long because she had to hop on a flight back to Colorado—again—this time for legal reasons. Her friend Michelle was caught shoplifting one day and my mom was an unwitting
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accomplice. They both were sentenced to a couple months of community service. When she finished doing her time, before moving to California, she returned to Charlotte for about two months. What happened while she was there is a blank.
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CALIFORNIA: INFL ATION Let’s see, the first time I knew anything about your mother was in 19…80…8. Yea, 1988. Or was it? No, that’s right, 1988. ‘Cause she was in Colorado at the time, I think. Pam had called me before that and was like, mom, don’t you know that Steve has a kid. And I was like, what! Since when? How come I ain’t heard nothing about this? Pam has always been the one to know everything first and tell me. So then I called your mother on the phone because I needed some answers, ya know. I said, let me see who this woman is. So I call and she answers the phone and says, hello? And I says, yes, this is Neomia Leeper, Stephen Leeper’s mother. What’s this I hear about me being a grandmother? Your mother, she sounded so young. She was young. Nothing but what, eighteen? But see what had happened was that she was hanging out with the wrong crowd. We tried to warn her about Michelle then. They were bad news—smoking, drinking, and getting into all kind of stuff they didn’t have no business in. So here they are all in her ear talking about Steve and Mrs. Leeper then got all that money. You should be getting more than what you getting. ‘Cause Steve was paying her child support; I think it was like $250 a month. Yea, something like that. But nooo, Steve ain’t paying you enough, they kept telling her. So what does Nicole do? She goes to the courthouse and asks for more money. Steve comes to me talking ‘bout, she taking me to court to get more money. And mom I’m not even sure he’s mine. I’m like, What! Whatchu mean you don’t know if he’s yours? But he look just like you! I was like, oh lawd. I couldn’t understand why he would wait this long to say anything, ya know? Because he had to have suspected something before that. But that’s Steve. He’s always been sort of private, not wanting to share too much—even with me, his own mother. So then we went and got the paternity test. Results came back: 99.9 percent sure that Steve was not the father. Then we had to cancel the wedding; we had made all these arrangements. We helped her get an apartment, find a job out on base. Come to find out about you. I can laugh about it now but at the time? Honey, I was beside myself. You know what though, I called my mother—Granny, Granny—and you know what she told me? She leaned back in her rocking chair—I still got that rocking chair too down at the Village in Arkansas—and uh, she uh looked up to the sky. It was like God was talking to her or something and you know what she said? She said daughter, this might be the only grandchild you get. When you sawed that baby you loved him. You can’t turn that love off just like that. That’s what she said. Yep, she sure did. And she was right too. I tell ya, old folks be knowing stuff you don’t
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even think of. I mean think about it and tell me she didn’t see something none of us could see. Yes indeedy. Yesss indeedy.
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My mom felt overwhelmed with hope for a real chance to start over in California with a child and a man that treated her well and was committed to raising a family. She was only eighteen but she was ready to settle down, she’d always been ready. My mom wanted to marry Steve but said that he never proposed. After the initial shock of finding out that Steve had a child, Granny and Papa—which is what I would come to call Steve’s parents—along with the rest of the family, were delighted to have a new addition to the family. They would take pictures of me and send them back east to share with my other grandmother, Momo. Afternoons were spent pointing out how my facial features were so similar to Steve’s and watching me perform cute acrobatics on the floor in the family room. When it was discovered that Steve wasn’t the father, Granny and Papa were infuriated. Papa called Momo in a fit of rage and demanded, How come you never told us that Steve wasn’t the father? She quipped back, Well, she wasn’t pregnant when she left here. So if she is now, I ain’t got no control over what she do when she not in my house. However varying the accounts of what actually happened, there is one detail that remained the same: Steve was not my father. When Steve’s friend asked him if he was mad about taking care of a kid that turned out wasn’t his, he simply replied, Nah man, I’m not mad. They needed help and I’m glad I was able to help them. But my mom was mortally embarrassed by the whole ordeal so she did what she always did: she packed up our stuff and left. Despite everything that happened, the Leepers wanted to continue to be present in our lives. Sending a single mother and her child away after having taken them in wasn’t in their nature. Granny and Papa tried to convince my mother to stay and join the Air Force—to open up her career options. She almost did it but backed out when she realized that it involved signing over custody. The compromise was that I would come visit California during summer and winter breaks. Just like that I became only a grandson, the only grandson. But still no one’s son.
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NORTH CAROLINA: THE FIRST 180 Okay, okay let me see. Pheew boy, that was so long ago. I’m trying to think. Hold on, let me think. Okay, so I met your mother in 19…86? 7? Na, that can’t be right. I knew her before that. I had been knowing her for about a year and a half before you were born. So it had to be around…’85. Yea, that’s it. ‘85. My man Sube, Janelle’s boyfriend at the time—you call her Neesie—he was the one that introduced me to your mother. He was like, Ferg, I want you to meet Janelle’s friend, Nicole. I was like, oh aight, yea fa sho. When I met your mother, ya know she…she…she liked me. She really did like me. And I liked her too but I was real busy at the time. Running around, ya know, being busy. After we met, she left and moved to California. She would come back home to visit every now and then so sometimes we’d see each other. Then she moved back to Charlotte in ’87, was it? We got together at my mother’s house and, you know. That’s when, you know. That’s when you were conceived. So like I said, I knew her for about a year and a half but during that whole time we never dated. We just could never get together; the timing just wouldn’t allow it. When she came back to Charlotte, she was already engaged to Steve, so that was it. Not too long after she moved back to California to be with him and I figured I’d never see her again. A couple years later she came back and people in the hood started talking. They were saying, Ferg, man, Ferg. You got a son man. I was like, what! So naturally I wanted to see who you was, to meet you. And uh, we did the paternity test, you know. That was around ‘89, ‘90. You were like two so it had to be what…‘89? Yea, so we did the paternity test but really we didn’t need it. First time I saw you I knew you were my son. Sube saw you before I did ‘cause, you know, your mother and Neesie were close and used to bring you around all the time. Sube was like, he was like, you gotta see Stephen. You gotta see him. You just gotta look at him. That’s your son, man. After that you started spending time with my mother, Babysister. And your Aunt Trice. At the time I was in college, see. So I was living in Salisbury but I would try to come down on the weekend and see you and stuff. Yea, and uh, that’s how...that’s how it went down. That’s the way it all happened.
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Neesie had been telling my mom since she first saw me that I was “Ferg’s kid,” but my mom wasn’t buying it. Ugh! That is not his daddy. My baby is cute, honey. Ferg was Darryl’s nickname. The way my mom tells it is that she was the one that contacted him when we got back to Charlotte and told him that I was his son. Incredulous, he asked for a paternity test. The results came back. I finally had a father. With two parents, I had what I needed. But my mom didn’t. She was still looking for love. About two years later, when I was four, she finally found it. My twin brothers were born and I was sent far away from my new dad but closer to the old one that was now my uncle. Uncle Steve.
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Chapter Three Aftermath
October 3rd, 1991 my queen, I want you to know that you have done an excellent job with Stephen Jamal. He is extremely fortunate to have a mother like you. So many of our women don’t know how to take care of their children anymore. They put off their children on their relatives and go out and run the streets. Or they’re there in the house but they don’t take time to care for them and nurture them. It is a great blessing to know that you have kept up the traditions of our grandmothers and great grandmothers. They knew how to rear the children well. When Stephen Jamal becomes older he will honor you for the sacrifices you have made to take good care of him. You deserve that honor because you are the original woman whom Allah chose to be the mother of all civilization. I sleep well at night knowing that my son is safe in your care. I’m writing you about a matter related to the child support. I spoke to the child support coordinator about changing the payment amounts and they said that only you could do that. Unfortunately, my financial situation at the moment is such that I am not able to pay the current amount. Seeing how well you have been able to care for Stephen Jamal, I was wondering if you would be willing to reduce it. I hope that you will consider my request. May Allah bless you, your family, and loved ones. Sincerely, darryl x
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October 7th, 1991 darryl,
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Let me tell you something. First of all my son’s name is Stephen Jamal Leeper and you are going to start calling him by his full name. Secondly, as far as the child support payments go, I’m not reducing nothing and let me tell you why. You ain’t paying nothing but $27 a week as it is, Darryl. $27 a week! Look, I really want you to be part of my son’s life so he knows his dad but I’m sitting here asking myself, does he want to be part of my son’s life? It sure don’t seem like it. I know you come home to Charlotte on the weekends from school. Why can’t you come visit him sometimes? You cut hair while you’re here but you ain’t never once come cut Stephen’s hair. You don’t think my son needs a haircut? You mean you can come cut all your friends’ hair and they kids but you can’t cut your own son’s hair? That’s trifling! Then when I take Stephen over to your momma’s house, he’s sitting waiting for you. He calling and asking me, is my dad coming? So then I’m calling you to see where you at and you don’t ever pick up. I don’t care if you lie to me but don’t be lying to my son, making him promises that you don’t keep. I’m going to tell you like this, if you’re not going to be a physical presence in Stephen’s life and you also don’t want to pay the child support, then you just need to sign over your rights to me. That way we don’t have to keep having these back-and-forths. I hope that you will consider MY request. —nicole
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Chapter Four Name’s Sake
Standing at the cliff looking back as the dogs approach $50 bounty on my head, right next to the collar bells I’ll jump, I swear! The dogs fall back easy nigger, easy I crossed a line They came to take me Back across under my feet I felt the ancestors reaching holes in their hands and feet it’s safer here They seem to say In green pastures Next to the still waters
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Double Oaks - The Jungle Second Grade 1994
T 144
he forest air is so dense he can’t breathe. He’s running but can’t hear the wind in his ear or feel it blowing through his hair. Fluids are leaking from every part of his body: sweat, tears, mucous, urine. Blood? It’s too dark to tell. He doesn’t know what he’s running from. No one does. All he knows, all anyone knows is what the senses reveal: the smell of blood and fear, the sound of animals clawing around him, the thorny twigs and wet leaves underfoot. He ducks behind a tree and grabs his chest to keep his heart from escaping. But he can’t feel a heartbeat. The air has become sticky now and it clings to his skin. He peers around the corner into the black and a voice jumps out at him. “Dammit, Nicole, I told you to hold onto that check till Friday!” “I needed the money, what was I supposed to do!” He leaps up from his bed, hand still clutching his chest. His brothers are on the bottom bunk, tossing and turning—in their own jungles. He climbs down the ladder and tiptoes out to his parent’s bedroom door. Peeking in the door, all he sees is his stepfather’s face, swollen with anger. “Nicole, I told you I don’t get paid ‘til next week! How we gonna pay the light bill now? What the hell were you thinking!” “We can borrow it from Momma, Guy. It ain’t that much!” “No. No! We not borrowing no more money from Ms. Carson.” “Why not?” “Because I said so, goddammit. I’m tired of you questioning me all the fucking time!” There was a pause. No one breathed. The air was still. Time was still. The stepfather’s face began to deflate like a balloon with a tiny hole in it. Then the muscles in his arms tightened. The sound of bone hitting flesh—thrusting time forward again. The mother was on the ground with her hands covering her face. The sound of soft sobbing exhales and mucous forming.
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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Look what you made me do, Nicole!â&#x20AC;? The boy stumbled back a few steps then raced back to his room, climbed the ladder to his bunk bed, and pulled the covers over his head. A few moments later, the stepdad came into the room and cut the light on. He held his breath, afraid that breathing would give him away. The stepfather stood at the door a moment, cut the light off and closed it.
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Yen I have longed to staple war wounds to NSA earlobes, fist deep in command’s alimentary canal, fanning daisy petals, chips all in. I have longed to course an ocean of myrrh to glimpse a glint of glare where a Silver Fir seedling nudges rubble, its root ball swelling beneath the drones of Swat.* I have longed to vagabond further, prolong transplendent autumn, hover the curved corollas of my nightmare torpor, slip the cowl from my shoulders, sip our nightshade. *Swat (Pashto: تاوسpronounced [ˈswaːt̪]) is a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan.
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shed we ought to scrape this room off our topography we have done the work we have waived our rights peel our skin from the walls beat our ghosts from drapes
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pry up the floorboards & dig straight down
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unfiltered they keep me alive these big moon nights when the cats only claw the chair for company my eyes, blue notes, wash cymbal brushes past the crowdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ears light picks out streaks of wet I am the dark shape of myself, slap my pocket for my last crooked Camel
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pogo pony I unpack panic from shoeboxes closet doors have slid off their tracks rake leaves into separate piles run through them with a stick I should have learned a system 150
a ratio of coffee grounds to lost love broken words to spun honey I break heads off kitchen matches line them in a curve on my thigh light one end blow out the match
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careful with that axe, Eugene wade in & the floor erupts / kneel & the sky snaps shut tongue the host past teeth into gums & chug that claret / wipe yr mug pray night forges dawn purge history lists that flit nervous eyelids, flick away the cued-up gnats; purge yr soul, sister: ions as icons, stuck threads lifted in the scraping of bodies murmuring past
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shift Split the difference with the pelicans—
the space between
the water
and the wing
I am the cracked lens, the slipped cog, the over-inflated tire. The hint of fog, the intended curse, the flint that sparks the fire.
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Weren’t you the one drove me to Reno that winter, slept with one foot out the window?
I am the last step on the ladder, the leaf in autumn, the winter trip to the shore. I am the scab that doesn’t heal, the vein collapsing, the custom scorched on my apartment door.
Kiss my blistered tongue, try to pry my lips loose. I am the thumb on the side of the road.
Look me in the eye before letting me in your car.
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Wicomico Slough the American kestrel hovered close to shore, scouring the flat surface, gyrating in wind above a brief sandbar before spying the crawfish scuttling its sandy way below where the Potomac strode to separate from Chesapeake Bay
153 it dropped more than dove, reddish tail rotoring wings & head aimed, to scoop the dangling prize into its gullet, a rocket returned skyward to perch in that Loblolly pine at riverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge, neck stretched, gizzard already churning bile
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1972 tax refund The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Abbie Hoffman
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wrong turn, moving west, right time: we wake in novel rooms, blink webbed conceits: is terminus the goal or journey the true design, shred raddled eye sockets, grin at the sun & any kind of breakfast, scrape whatever cash into the gas tank & renew this sally against acquiescence: this is our time & we plan to savor every bit of it before weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re done
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Did it sting— the window ice, the cracks of life left dangling, the string— Did it sting your hands to face the families in the mirrors on the subways in your backyard garden where water freeze-dried cactus, where winter was a common thing? Did it sting or stain or stream your eyes in frozen steam like breaking skies like waves stopping the sound of wind? Did it fleece your pockets, did it stab your ears, did it lift you by lapels and hook your back on target? Did it sting like glass, did it sting like noise, did it sting when nights grew colder and voices didn’t answer, when weeds blew friendly and hollow was in style?
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Did it bring comfort or cushions and cold champagne with wool and feathers and hot butter? Did you sing harmony with the ache of empty streets? Was there time to sing?
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Get Back on the Horse Suspend barriers and the line
wavers
An asphodel leaf
lifts but the page
doesn’t turn
Edges
aren’t 157
really edges
but balance
is still in play
still rules
Between the spasm and enlightenment is the numinous quiver the shudder on the wave’s
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shift in wind
the skull is not
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retreat
the fieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s abrupt
the border
nor the river nor
ocean wall
forest snowstorm
desert nor the
boundary
A tightrope is a razor
on the cusp of a highway
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The line wavers but
balance is still
in play
Edges arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really edges
Spring, she sent me
eyelids, paint and slivered
chrome
The white and blown
dead life
she could have kindled
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Drunk as a Bicycle The gathering broke early, scraping bits of salami, olives, breadcrumbs, feta crumbles to the floor. Water splashes pooled the glass-topped table, melting sugarcube stacks into peelable scrims of sweetness. 160
Our tongues, deceived by granular syrup striated with wormwood licked lips and moustaches, savoring drops that lingered on the peripheries of our mouths. We would have spoken French had speech not already left the station. Speech, though, was not our concern.
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backstage chili bragging rights
The mysteries of a recipe are always cloaked in simplicity, darlin’. —Bessie Nickerson, my grandmother
the key could be cast iron roasted chili powder from scratch: the flame & whisk’s shimmy kindles the braise, sniffs straight up nose to hoist the flash of bright cayenne, quick pop of cumin seed, paprikadusted flat bottom scorch & swirl of rough-cut oregano, heady twisted ground chilis flecked simple onions, tomato & mere black beans out of its cauldron & into the velvet firmament of lips and tongues— second helpings & sworn assertions of beef fat or pork morsels, tranquil in the vegan grasp of my fiery stew.
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winter birthday
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coffee homefries the Sunday Times Meet the Press let’s get the dog out get some air get going this Sunday still raining still Saturday night smoke a cigarette scarf your neck can’t afford to get stoned at work in this economy can’t anymore trust the floor to be there: where did I put the keys to my kingdom? take out the trash take over the world take a minute to consider your options: flailing arms mock windmills arc vertebrae knock heads off shoulders onto wet sidewalks where chewing gum
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dots the map in birthday patterns sideways glances sticky silence take back what you said take off tomorrow and plan your time precisely there are no answers and what does it all mean anyway: trip on cracks & slip into sad shadow dances stalled subways Christ, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dark already
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Relic She kissed me and tasted my past, moustache prickling lips and tongue too busy to codify flavor—stinging tobacco, cream-calmed coffee— Her eyes were closed— didn’t bother to look me in the eye.
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Our years, stacks of falling paperbacks, no more room on the shelves. She held me long beside her—a loose poncho, wrapped around twining arms and flanged legs, breathing my history, burrowing my neck. (My trajectory, pioneer of grace, long shot with one empty chamber, had always held her hand.) She couldn’t smell the woodsmoke trail nor drying rain, wouldn’t sense the coming dawn, the long drive home.
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She saw
inexplicable crystals hang from rearview mirrors, white sand sift between toes, Santo & Johnny on the radio, slow dancing on glass piers over the Gulf of Mexicoâ&#x20AC;Ś
She faced me when the day insisted, prying its way past the dark curtains. But it was not my white beard she spoiled nor wisps of thinning grey curlsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;she grazed those lines etched near my eyes as if caressing the wings of a dragonfly.
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Disappearing Act
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wash me blue
scrim
drench me in turbid
to fog
sunlight gelled
footprints blurred in tidal assertion permit obscurity to foam the shore in recessive echo the poised heron flexes his neck spears his stickleback, gullet-sqwawks once and rises hauling back claws to the mouth of the river
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A Mess of Comforts So here I am in a body: I always feel responsible. Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem to get it clean enough to help, or innocent.
This time, there is fear to count on:
Throw the dice / take the ride. Light picks out dust in the air, the rust of blood crusting its banks.
All over town church bells ring.
Everyone is invited to scream.
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reductive omelet recipe
I came back trying to sitâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; (strapped at the waist, pinned by the shoulders)
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landing upward in my torso/splint triggered by elbows & drenched in sweat exiting the back of the ambulance, though still guerneyed: returned to my head in full light of streaking faces: immobile & going full tilt registering pinpoints on pegboards, circuits as tokens of forgotten lunches or misremembered medications, multiple assignations in metal
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tubes, in freezing metal rooms: specialists with validated parking & continuous questions pinning me in place it might have been minutes: the only certainty was it was happening & after all the precautions & planning & pills I had consumed, nothing, clearly, could be counted on
there was no edge on the razor to standâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
this was the high wire act writ large with no netâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
my survival demands my Pagliaccio sans parasol, fleet-footed & forgiving, blindfolded or not
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the jackal I am the dark shape of myself sick of hearing the snapping of tin, the breaking of glass, what people do.
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His shadow is scar tissue taking me further and further out from catastrophe.
He came through the front door as if he still lived here.
while rasping my expired claim check between the bent fingers of his other.
Seizing a fistful of sand in his left,
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A Farrago of Synapses I hauled
my brain
back
together 171
again
this week.
(It took a bad hop in the tall grass.)
Sent me shagging my ass into the weeds
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stringing beads, wringing sweat, flinging philosophies, splicing lyrical odes with radio jingles, patchwork preambles heaped like stale bread before pudding: able to almost perceive the wrinkled eyes of that passer-by & confessing my sense tucked loquaciously beneath my beard, lobster-bibbing my self-censorious insecurity still searching for that unfolding certainty of a timeline in flight, focused on icons as charms dangling off namesakes, fog horns blare in one ear while flute trills & nasty sax vamps duel atop the other eardrum: who is dusting the corners & lifting fingerprints? Who walked in these shoes with holes shredding my socks? Where did my clothes go & why am I lying on this table? Lace your fingers in mine, darlinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, and we wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t drown this time either, flip-kicking through this rerun rehash washout
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Excerpt from Seldom is Heard Shasta 2016 (OCTOBER)
S
hannon cracked the spine and splayed it prostrate over the arm of a plastic rocking chair, and would have been in a challenging position to leave Les Misérables, but she’d read it four times already this year. So Jean Valjean could wait. Days like this held tight, but he’d been her escape for the better part of the year: a Christmas gift from Jackie, shipped and picked up from the closest post office forty minutes away, after holiday plans fell through. Couldn’t afford the gas or gifts of their own. She’d given it a good read once a season this year, doubling up for the early expressions of winter. Shannon had finished it again the morning before, with the final pages puncturing clouds and slicking down the environment with tears. Chapter One restarted after lunch. Shannon folded her reading glasses and placed them on the planting table. She stood, buttoned her cardigan, shouldered the oilcloth cloak on the back of the door, and slipped out of her beat-up, old red Converse tennis shoes and dunked her feet into the steel-toed rubber garden boots she’d worn out here. She opened the glass door and the rain rushed in, caught with a licking gust that slipped beneath the cloak and freed her. Since midday yesterday, steady and consistent rain poured down over their little copse of forest and filled the puddles Shannon waltzed through on the way around the greenhouse. Three years in and the most consistent wash yet. She relished the broken surfaces of each splash, with the water jumping up like popcorn. The luxury of popcorn. No matter how hard it came down, it poured off her and spread along the ground away from that warm and steamy little box, all sealed up too tight for her to thrive. She’d moved here for room to breathe and yet it felt more enclosed than ever, as though the walls, especially in the house, swelled with the moisture and further pressurized their insulation. Shannon closed her eyes and lifted her chin until water spattered her cheeks. Chasing dry snowflakes you pursue them one at a time; with raindrops, it’s just an open mouth hoping for one
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of them to drop down the throat. No effort necessary, just the willingness to get wet for a chance to refresh. Shannon lowered her arms back to her pockets, pulled the cloak tighter against the cold and wiped her face with a sleeve. The two big cisterns loomed along the uphill side of the greenhouse. She knuckled the closer one and she imagined the toll of a churchbell when it clanged back empty. The other one sounded thick. She ascended the five-rung ladder and opened the tank lid and peered inside with a flashlight. About a foot and a half to go from the top yet. Not quite time to change the drainage over. Still, a head start never hurt anything, and she wouldn’t have to worry about it overflowing until nightfall. Not too long, now. She’d been reading most of the day anyway. Except for a trip from their suffocatingly tiny house to see what Emma and Sam were up to, just as a cursory investigation, she’d been in the greenhouse with her book, which was fine. Reading had always provided her solace. As a student, Shannon’s books gave her a place beyond Reed’s campus, a dangerously relaxing place if you were inclined to be social, which she wasn’t. A sophomore psychology course revealed to her the threefold concept of fight, flight, or fuck, with a beardy chortle from the dribbling lips of her lecturer. And right in the middle of Anna Karenina, too. Most nights Shannon sat home,nose in book, feet up, smoking a little pot and drinking tea, supremely comfortable in the world of text. But a fateful Halloween struck on a Friday and her peers, dressed like sexy doctors, or police officers, or firefighters dragged her along to the confluence of two neighboring co-operative houses, one notorious for drunken political zealotry, the other a bastion of privileged psychotropic experimentation. Open doors and windows poured music, people, smoke and dry-ice fog into the damp, cold night. Parties had always issued a two-fold restriction for Shannon: the inability of most people, who were usually too drunk or otherwise fucked up, to talk and listen, and her own self-conscious reluctance to just go with it and try to have fun. After half an hour she slipped out the front to smoke a solitary spliff in the puddling front garden. Over it. Done trying to squeeze past on the way to the bathroom or the keg, and thinking about calling it quits and heading home before it got too late, while there was still time in the night to enjoy herself. She struck a match and a young man dressed in torn jeans and a flannel jacket landed face-first in the mud nearby. He stood up fast and drunk, and he wrenched the smoldering cigarette from his teeth and flung it at the house. “Blueneck racist bastards! You don’t even have a clue. Fuck you! Keep your ignorance!” He picked up a bowling-ball sized stone Buddha from the garden,
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lifted it to his shoulder and launched it through the front window. The Buddha sailed through the glass, bounced off an electric guitar, and landed on a speaker or an amp or something, she couldn’t tell, but it shot up sparks and shut down the music. A spark leapt into the feather headdress from the drummer’s costume and lit it like a phoenix. Sam fished for hiscigarettes, found one, and had just turned to begin asking her for a light when the fist of some dreadlocked tough guy clipped him on the jaw and left him to sleep off his decision in the remnants of a wilted brassica. Something about him. Shannon shook him awake, said he was her boyfriend and stay away assholes, and spat at them. She cradled his head until his eyes opened and he smiled up at her outrageous painted grin and felted ears, one each blue and red and dressed in striped pajamas like the Cheshire Cat. Her joint was out, her friends were inside dancing or laughing or pretending to, and she liked this intrusion of energy into her night. When he sat up, Sam removed a bandana from his pocket, calmly wiped his face, looked her right in the eyes, right in the eyes, and thanked her very much for being so kind. And she’d appreciated his earnestness for almost eight years now. Over time their relationship bloomed to love, and fruited with their daughter, but retained the gravity of their youth: his desire to fight, her desire to fly, and lust. But he didn’t like to read. Never had and never would. Didn’t understand her ability to sit still for so long, ingesting those words instead of being up and moving and doing and thinking and talking and making things and building and creating, while she sat there enjoying the distances of words. But even that was starting to wear thick. Now that the season was over and they could relax, things felt different. Shannon walked back around to the front of the greenhouse and went in. The rain pinged on the roof and slid down the long, sheet-plastic tube, guttered the water and sent it along to the small cistern on the other end that they used just for watering the plants. She glided down the aisle between the long wire-mesh tables with all the seed trays and identification tags and extra potting soil and spray cans and paper sacks of bloodmeal and bonemeal all organized and put away until spring. The whole thing only spanned thirty feet, but it was still wider and more open than their house. Even on a day like today, the light splashed in blue-green, aquamarine, refracting through the translucent building to shine against the bright white pantry at the other end. It made sense to Shannon that they would store vegetables with their seeds, in a tight dry box where it wouldn’t get warm enough or cold enough to really
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cause much damage. She was more concerned with the bears, especially after last years crop- destroying campaign. But they’d never come close to the house or gardens or the pantry for the potatoes or onions or apples in the little cellar. Animals only investigated during the cure, which stunk up the shed for a month, or in July, it seemed like, right as the buds began to flower. Season to season they lived: wildlife, plants, candles, and a family cabin: happy homesteaders in theory. Of course, they weren’t perfect, but it felt sometimes as though they’d actually regressed in several ways since the big move. But Shannon chalked a lot of that up to convenience. Most of their cash had gone to pay the loan and credit cards and legal fees and it was a good thing she’d put so much effort into the food gardens because that’s what would get them through the winter, again. For all Sam’s talk that they were medicine providers, and herbal farmers, and peace-builders, and with all their concentrated efforts to grow the highest quality marijuana they could, Shannon could feel hunger masking the other symptoms of a flawed and failing little system they’d created down here, deep and buried back behind all the trees and mountains they could find. She unzipped a small hemp-cloth stash bag her friend Lisa had made for her when they lived back at the family house in Portland. It usually hung on the end of one of the planting tables, but Shannon had left it out from earlier. She picked apart a pinch of this year’s best material and shredded enough to roll a skinny pinner. Fresh limes and pine resin. Shannon leaned against the bench, reached back and grabbed the top of her boot to balance on one leg, and smoked it. She switched legs, had another couple tokes, and leaned the joint off an upturned seed cup. From the pantry, Shannon selected a jar of pickled cucumbers, another of sauerkraut, and a vacuum-sealed package of smoked venison sausage. She set the provisions on the nearest table and went to check for eggs. The coop shared a roof and a back wall with the greenhouse and they’d built a little door right behind the nests so you could just open it, reach in, and collect. Six hens yielded four brown beauties and she loaded her arms, took one more puff and extinguished the joint with half still to go before pulling up her hood to head inside.
Early winter darkness settled easy behind the tree line, established a thick blanket of water, and sent shivers from the base of Shannon’s spine out along each extremity.
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She curled on the built-in bench seat, leaning her knees against the dining table and watching the rain descend through the small hand-paned window. “Are you going to go to bed or keep reading?” Shannon fingered her page and looked up. “I don’t know,” she said. “Are you ready for bed?” The small, single room with all the furniture attached to the walls or the floor felt thick with the steam of evaporating breath. “Not sure.” Sam set aside the pants he was patching and some silence passed before he said, “We could have used this a few months ago. When we needed it.” “We still need it,” she turned the page. “Listen,” he said. “It sounds like a train.” Shannon closed the book over her finger and listened to the rain pour, an overzealous watering can, drowning all the seeds at once, even though it was late in the season. October meant bright brown and lichens waiting to get washed away so fresh greenery could spread. “I like it,” she said. “I like that it’s just us out here and we’re dry inside and nothing can touch us.” “There’s just so much to do. And then nothing,” he said. “But that’s not going to change. You always find something. Isn’t that how you like it?” Sam pulled back the hand-sewn calico curtain and surveyed the darkness. The sky had turned from the color of cobalt to wet ink. “I want to go for a walk,” he said. “Be outside. I feel like I’ve been in all day.” “Does the shed count as in?” “It doesn’t have walls,” he said, “but the roof counts. And I can’t very well stretch my legs with her running around out there. Too much sharp stuff, dangerous stuff.” “What were you two working on?” “Critters,” he turned back from the window. “I know you wanted to read.” “I’d like to read with her more. I know she likes it before bed, but books are best digested in the afternoon.” “If you say so.” “I know so.” “Do technical manuals count?” “What does she need a technical manual for?” “Fly-tying,” he smiled. “She’s serious about it. Wrapping all the feathers on. Have you seen them all?” “I’ve found a few in the garden. And the ones in her room.”
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“There’s a new one on her shelf. She named it Ralph.” “Ralph,” she smirked. “Who does she know named Ralph? I don’t even know a Ralph. Do you?” “It is a strange name,” Sam twisted his mouth and held it. Shannon’s smile snapped and a nasal laugh escaped. He put both hands on the seat and pushed himself up. “Be still, wild thing. You haven’t been still all day.” “There’s nowhere to go.” “The shed,” she said. “If you want to run around, go out where there’s space.” “Do you want tea?” he asked. Shannon took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, tracing the stovepipe chimney up the wall that separated Emma’s room from the other one. Her addition tied in to the same roofline, but with a separate entrance off the tiny porch. Emma’s simple sleep pod had just a bed built on a bureau, a desk, a clothes rack, a few shelves attached to the walls, and a big skylight. She was old enough to have her own space, but Shannon didn’t realize what a difference it would make with her. Even just having a door to close between them should mean more openness, but it felt more like Emma’s absence shut them up. “Tea?” he asked again. “I’ll make some later,” she said. “So you are staying up?” “It’s early.” “It’s dark.” Sam took the cast-iron kettle off the top of the hot wood stove and poured water over leaves in the bottom of a wooden mug. “I’m going to chip away at it,” he said, and put on his raincoat and boots and covered the mug with his palm and didn’t even try to lean in to touch her before walking out into the night to light a kerosene lantern and probably the stove out there and probably roll up one or two and light those and some incense cedar wrapped in sage and remove the carefully covered set of knives and chisels and set those aside and unshroud the log, his favorite tree from the entire property, and lean in close and breathe on the carving with the sort of focus she wanted from him. The shed smelled of shavings and smoke, shadows and sawdust. It throbbed with a low hum from the generator which kept the freezer frozen, the power tools buzzing, a few conveniences convenient in the house, and a single bulb flickering in the center of the room and swinging with the wind where it snuck in through the tarps they’d hung at the open ends, a necessity for curing the crops. They had a few panes on the roof of the house, but
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they were expensive. Shannon figured that at their current rate, they’d be propane and gasoline free in nine years, but honestly, those systems would still be in place, at his insistence for security and preparedness. She thought about that kind of thing more than Sam, and really wished they could do better, but didn’t know if they could. Part of her wanted to get down with it, boil tallow, dip wicks, and farm all their own products. But the other part felt fuck it, we can use electricity, let’s get comfortable, stop settling for washcloth baths. They could get a proper bathroom built, and enjoy the luxurious sensation of cleanliness and warmth, and feeling that steam and sharing that intimacy. Shannon shivered and tucked her knees tighter, rocking back and forth with the slow momentum of thought. It hadn’t always been like this. Or maybe it had been and she just hadn’t recognized the extent. It certainly didn’t feel like this when they conceived of it, wrapped around each other on a found-futon in the corner of a warehouse, partitioned by plywood walls, two months pregnant and making plans. As much as both of them loved it, the time arrived to leave the Crooked Letter Collective off Mississippi Ave. Just too much happening. All the music, fire, community, parties, workshops, art, literature, gardens, all that plus a million camping trips and swimming hole dips and having a blast on the wages of a tutor/ barista and a sporadic odd jobber, and it had been beautiful, simple, the sort of life they told each other they’d wanted all these years. But after the Portland occupation and, six months later, the warrantless search of the warehouse amidst an Ayahuasca ceremony, everything tightened down. Some in the community turned outward, outraged and active, but she and Sam dug in on a home-improvement kick not everybody in the family enthused. It was one thing to do all the planting, tending, harvesting, saucing, pickling, canning, jamming, and jarring, or building, mending, re-plumbing, wiring, and trench-digging, and another to show up here and there to hold a ladder, taste the blackberry preserves, stir the mash tun when they brewed beer. Meanwhile, the big street doors remained closed, and the vibes grew increasingly paranoid. Never something Shannon could put a finger on, just that itch to resist effusing the whole space. So when she nibbled his ear and asked if he wanted to move from the city and get a little plot of land and work it and live there and raise a daughter together away from the concrete, she knew he meant it, stroking her hair back, looking her right in the eyes, agreeing—telling her he agreed—and rolling beneath her, and they didn’t give a shit who could hear them consummate their decision. But, delays. Of course. And Emma was born and Sam left for a long season in Mendocino County
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and came back in November with a new plan: farming. He figured they could make some bucks that way, because to keep land, they’d need income. And he thought California could provide better than Oregon. Further south would yield better weather and dicier politics that could up the risks but, more likely than not, turn better dimes. He was sure. They waited another year, and then another, in a cottage behind an old house on the other side of the city from most of their friends, but close enough to Reed College for good coffee shop tips in the evenings. When Sam came back from the day, Shannon went out to work. She wasn’t always sure what it was, exactly, that he did day-to-day, but he told her that odd jobs were odd for a reason, and the odder they were, the more lucrative. Sometimes cleaning, sometimes building, sometimes moving, delivering, transporting, whatever came around for the day that he could find on Craigslist or depending on who called him up to see if he was free. Maybe clearing blackberries off an overgrown barbed wire fence. Maybe acting as a “merchandise courier” from the warehouse district to Gresham or Estacata, or Chinatown to L.O. or Forest Grove, depending on the price and the risk. Some of it carried risk. And he would have worked more, but Shannon had been clear that she would also and just as often be out of the house, working and educating herself for their daughter’s benefit. And there would be no babysitters or day cares. Not if he was going to be so flexible on his own behalf. But she often wondered to what sort of places he’d taken their daughter on errands. Shannon stood up for a mug, and poured herself a hot lemon verbena, rosemary and hibiscus. She lingered at the kitchen window, peering to the left where she could see the edges of the green tarp flapping in the wind, allowing little particles of light to wave out, traveling faster in the absence of saturation.
The beams cut down the long gravel drive before the sedan whinnied up, wheels spitting mud and headlights spinning. Sam noticed it too, and came out from the shed, shotgun held to his chest, standing in the rain, ready to confront whoever it was that thought they could just open the gate (unlocked, anyway) and drive up unannounced (not that there was a reasonable way to announce it) and disrupt their lovely evening on the farm. Thick scratches in the white paint revealed scars of blue and green and rust beneath. It was not a pretty car, but it looked reliably familiar in the rain. When the short figure climbed out, raised her hands, and shouted, Shannon could see the
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words form on the other side of the glass: “Pet. It’s me, Petaluma.” Sam lowered the gun and walked to the car. Shannon threw on her boots and cloak and raced out to meet her sister. Pet stood still in the rain until Shannon arrived next to Sam. “I told him to stay there with that thing,” she said. “He’s not going to hurt you, Pet.” Shannon brushed wet hair from her face and held her palms up with her fingers curled. “Come on. It’s ok, Pet. Let’s get you inside. Calm down. Breathe. Come on.” Shannon took her arm and led her toward the house. “I’ll put it back in the shed,” Sam said, and went to return it to the sling under the long trimming table, a ridiculous place for a weapon, she’d said again and again, but Sam wouldn’t listen. Protection. “I need help,” Pet shook. “I can’t...I’ve got...” She radiated some energy, some fury of fright, but as she got inside and sat down, shoes off, and wrapped up in a blanket with a cup of tea, her tremors tightened to a tremble. Sam came in and got out of his weather gear and sat down across the room from Pet. She’d calmed some, but remained silent, slowly rocking back and forth on the floor by the stove, and developing a soft rhythm between the slight creaks of the building and the tempo of rain pouring off the roof and whipping across the walls like buckshot. Pet held the mug in both hands and blew across the surface. “I’m sorry to show up like this.” She hesitated, looked down and shook her head. “I don’t think I should be here.” “Of course you should,” said Shannon. “We’ll set you up and,” Sam’s eyes touched hers, “you can stay as long as you need.” “I had to go. I couldn’t stay where I was. Not in my apartment. Even there. I couldn’t be there. Watched,” she sniffled and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Followed, maybe,” she said. “You don’t have a phone.” “Just a cell,” said Sam, “but it doesn’t usually work at the house. If you go up the hill you can get a signal. But right now, I don’t think so.” “Good,” she said. Pet’s eyes stretched taut like the plastic over the greenhouse. Her rocking paced to a canter until she looked ready to fly out of the chair and crash into the wall. Shannon wondered if Emma was awake, and then for the first time wondered how much she could hear from the other side. Maybe it was the house suddenly feeling smaller because it had been three months since a visitor, and maybe a year since one came in and took off their shoes and curled up intending to spend the night in something other than a tent. Obviously, Sam would be displaced—he crossed one leg over the other knee and sipped his tea—and Shannon intended to make Pet comfortable, because she sure didn’t look it.
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“Do you even know what’s happening? Have you even seen the news?” she asked. “You’re the news, Pet. I told you in Seattle. We moved out here to avoid the rest of it,” Shannon said. “I am the news. I am the news. That’s the whole thing.” She slumped forward and began to sob. “I can’t be in the city. I feel fucked up and running and I ran here.” Sam silently stood up and refilled the kettle from the drinking tap and set it back on the stove to boil. He removed a bottle of honeysuckle-infused moonshine from the cabinet and brought it out and set it on the table. Once he sat down, he unstopped the bottle and poured himself a drink, Shannon shook her head no, but Pet extended her cup, and he topped up her tea. “Tell us what happened, Pet. If you can,” he said. “It’s safe here. You’re safe here.” “I’ve been writing,” Pet said, “and posting and saying things that people haven’t liked.” She took a drink of her tea and grimaced. “Nothing new there, Pet. You must have said it loud.” “Not even. All I’ve done is tell the truth because it’s my job. They sent me out there and told me to report what I saw and thought and I did and now it’s all fucked up and I can’t trust them. I don’t even think they trust me, they’re just in a bind, so they have to pretend they believe.” “What wouldn’t they believe?” “The whole thing. I saw them get shot. I saw the helicopters. I had video, audio, all of it. I saw it, I saw it, I saw, I saw…” “Slow down, Pet. Slow down. Breathe. Take your time.” Pet shook her head no, no, no, and took a long slow breath. “Who didn’t, Pet, the newspaper? Are you still working for a newspaper?” “When I got out, when I got out,” Pet took another sip and exhaled the sting. “When I got out, they’d gone through everything and taken a bunch of it and impounded my car and…” “Pet, breathe.” “Ok. I am. I’m breathing. I’m breathing. {Breath} …but once I got it back I just started driving and stopped at the first library I found, in Red Bluff, and started writing and I published, I published…” “Pet, here. Be careful.” Shannon handed her a towel to wipe up the tea Pet splashed on the floor. Pet wiped it up and resumed rocking, mug down and arms locked tight around her knees. “I don’t know why I took the gun with me.”
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“What gun?” “I don’t have it. They took it. I didn’t want it anyway. The one Dad gave me.” “You kept it.” “Yeah,” Pet sighed. “They only bring trouble.” “Is that why you’re worried,” Sam asked. “The gun?” “It’s the story,” Pet said. “I wrote the story and the paper published it and it went bad. The whole thing rose up and I was hiding around town, at the office, with friends, and then with friends of friends, and then a hotel. Everything kept getting weirder and I was getting more paranoid until I just had to get out of town so many people were talking. After that, it didn’t even matter because the article got sent out and picked up and a lot of people read it and a lot of people reacted to it and I didn’t want that or expect that sort of reaction because I wasn’t picking sides or any of this.” She blew an exasperated huff and lowered her head. “I just opened it up for a bunch of people and left me in the middle, scared of my own opinion.” Shannon stood up and pulled a folded blanket off the couch and draped it around Pet’s shoulders, and knelt down on the floor in front of her, and held her knees until she lowered her chin to her sister’s neck nape, wrapped her arms around and held tight until enough silence had passed. Sam reached forward, opened the door of the stove, stirred around in the sparks, reduced the flue and added a wedge. “I’m scared,” Pet said. “Why?” “It’s these people talking about the things that I don’t even know about and they aren’t even people to me. Just words, and I know I’m not a person to them either, just words, and this feels like a spill, like ink or oil waiting for a spark. This feels like a spark.” “At least it’s raining,” Sam said. “Yeah, but it’s still a drought,” Shannon said. “I need to sleep, I think. Can I sleep? It feels like days.” “Em can sleep with us and she can have her bed.” “I don’t want to wake her,” Shannon said. “It’s early.” “It’s dark.” “Don’t wake her,” Pet said. “I can sleep anywhere.” “There isn’t anywhere,” Sam said. “This is all we’ve got.” “It feels safe,” Pet said.
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Sam stood up. “You know what?” he paused, “I’ll take the shed. It’s still warm and I might pick at that log a bit more. Is that alright? Do you need anything else from me tonight, or…” “No. Thank you, Sam. I’ll help you set up.” “I’m fine.” “No,” Shannon said. “I’ll help you. Go ahead and get comfortable, Pet. It will just take a minute.” Shannon and Sam gathered a few blankets and a pillow from the bed, tucked them beneath their weather clothes, and booted up. Pet sat criss-crossed on the edge of the bed turning one of Emma’s critters around in her hands. “That’s Mosslady,” Sam said. “Emma made her. She’s got all sorts of forest magic she can do.” “Emma?” “Her too,” Sam laughed. “I’m glad you’re safe, Pet.” “Thank you, Sam. I feel like I’m coming back down to earth.” “Side to side,” he said. “Around it.” Pet took a pocket notebook and a pen from the little leather bag she hadn’t unshouldered since her arrival. “I figured you’d be done with the writing for a minute.” “This is mine,” said Pet. “For me” Sam nodded. “It can’t be shared and fucked up, you know. It’s just for me.” “I haven’t read you in ages,” said Shannon. “You used to send me poems. What happened?” “Will you listen when you get back in? Just for a minute at least.” “At last.” Shannon closed the door behind them and noticed the jamb dripping less, and the air feeling fresh, and the rain lessening on her face, and she guessed that the cisterns would settle, equalized, by sunrise.
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Excerpt from Welcome to 409 Mia’s arrival in 409 (MIA)
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he tiny room looked clean, but smelled dusty. A faint smell of something unpleasantly sweet made Mia wrinkle her nose as she looked around, with only her head inside the doorway. Mia pushed the door further in and dragged in her luggage. The heavy door pushed back to Mia, as if protesting against her entrance. She pushed harder, almost slamming the door to the wall and commanded, “I will be your master now. Obey.” The door squeaked eerily as it closed behind her. The room was not as bad as she had imagined, considering the $500 rent per month. The ad had been flashing brightly on top of the list, posted less than one minute before Mia opened Craigslist. And among all others that demanded two to three thousand dollars for a one bedroom apartment, this Clay Street residence seemed like a lucky strike. Only after she had emailed the manager and all the papers and checks had been flown across the Pacific Ocean between Seoul and San Francisco did she see, on Yelp, the frustrated reviews of the building. “Do NOT stay here. The laundry machines break down all the time, as does the elevator, and the wifi sucks!” “They never gave me back my deposit! I’m gonna sue them.” “The building is haunted. I heard someone went crazy here once.” “I don’t know what they have management for. Nobody takes care of anything!” She consoled herself by reading repeatedly the very few kind reviews. “The location is really awesome! In the heart of the city!” “I’ve made some really great friends here.” Her heart had sunk several times already as every step of her way since arriving at the building confirmed the negative reviews. She had to wait for twenty minutes on the sidewalk after ringing the doorbell until the manager, Jules, came out. After a brief introduction of the building’s facilities, he left her in front of the security office, where she waited for another fifteen minutes until a big frowning
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man with dreadlocks came staggering by, reeking of the same sweet smell that Mia sensed in the hallway, and later in her room. The security guard handed her a set of keys with a rusty key chain that scratched her palm. The elevator was out of order. The stairs creaked and threatened to break down as she made her way to the fourth floor with her luggage. But the room itself, Room 409, turned out to be okay. As promised on the website, a single bed lay on her left, with a sink at the foot of the bed. A cupboard hung above the sink with a small mirror on the front door. Mia carefully looked at her face in the mirror and checked herself. Her eyeliner had not been smudged, mascara in place, skin only slightly oily. Four hours ago when she fixed her makeup for the last time on the plane, she had been quite a mess. Eyes puffy from sleeping, skin dry and itchy on the inside yet shiny with oil on the surface, eyebrows that faded and made her look irritated. This was why she sometimes wished she had done those permanent makeup tattoos before coming abroad. Mia stepped back from the mirror and examined her hair. The fresh cut hair that barely covered her ears still felt unfamiliar, but the new hair gave her a “new start” feeling. Besides, it made her neck look longer and her face smaller, which made her eyes look bigger, and all in all she looked better. Good. However…Mia opened the trunk and brought out her dry shampoo. Her hair was on the oily side and had become clumpy after the long flight. As she massaged it into her hair she stared out of the small window, which stood open next to the sink. She could see a tiny portion of the sea if she stood on the farthest right-hand corner and looked hard to the left. The rest of the view consisted of buildings and streets, the famous pyramid visible among them. Mia turned her eyes back to the mirror. Her cat eye makeup looked good with her new hair, she decided. Her phone buzzed from inside her purse. With one last look in the mirror, Mia picked up her phone. Have you arrived? Is everything okay? Yes mom, all good. Mia sighed as she replied to the message. Are you settled in now? Do you need something for the room? Can you call? No, the place is a bit of a mess. I’ll call you later, when I have everything sorted out. OK. But make sure you do call, and don’t take too long. Your father worries. Mia rolled her eyes, tossing her phone on the bed. She opened the window for fresh air. The dresser standing on the other side of the room was small and, upon closer inspection, was made of paper-thin wood panels that threatened to break apart
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any moment. But figuring the drawers would hold what light summer clothes she had brought, Mia started unpacking. She brought out the t-shirts and shorts, flowery dresses one by one, regretting her lack of foresight and thick clothes. While she had checked the temperatures and saw the foggy pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, she couldn’t shake the images of sunny beaches and surfers of California in her head. Besides, it was rather hard to imagine anything cold in the boiling, humid August in Seoul. The sound of a siren rose from outside and came close to the window. Mia tensed, closed her eyes and tightened her grab on the shirt she was holding. She straightened up from her luggage with a sigh and shook her head. She knew she was being overdramatic, again. Breathing slowly, Mia concentrated on pushing back the flashes of memory that sprang up in her head. She kept her eyes closed tightly and focused on emptying her mind: paint the white crisp hotel beds black; erase all the secret text messages; mute the giggles that rang in her ears; and pour the glasses of wine down the drain. But when his face popped up in her mind, she could only open her eyes with a start. “No!” She blurted out. Saying ‘no’ in English somehow made her feel stronger than in her polite mother tongue. Dropping her clothes on the carpeted floor, she went over to the sink. As she turned the tab, Mia considered splashing her face with cold water, the way people do in movies. She satisfied herself with washing her hands because she didn’t want to ruin her makeup. The sound of the siren went past her window and grew distant again. (LOTUS) The senses came slowly to her, and at first she could only see the red, shiny luggage next to a blurry figure in gray. But the piercing wail from the outside woke up Lotus completely. A pale girl sat on the floor in the middle of the room, eyes closed. It couldn’t have been that long since Lotus lost consciousness, since she could remember the last man in this room pretty clearly. His terrified howls and awful curses still rang in her ears. Lotus was glad that it was a girl this time. Perhaps she could understand her better than a man. But again, females tended to scream or cry more easily, and in the worst cases, they fainted. She would have to be gentle. “Hello,” Lotus whispered. “No!” said the girl.
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The surprised gasp of Lotus was drowned out by the sound of running water. The girl scrubbed her hands too hard, and then dabbed them on her shirt, leaving uneven dark spots. She looked into the mirror with a tired expression. Lotus stood behind her and looked in the mirror with her. There was only one face in the mirror. The bangs hid parts of the face, but Lotus could still see the pale skin and hard eyes shining through. Lotus tried to remember how she used to look. She remembered someone saying that she always looked like she had a question because of her willowy eyebrows and small eyes that slanted upward. Bursts of male laughter rang through her memories as she tried to remember who it was that said so. “I can answer that question,” someone had said in the midst of the laughs. “No, I got all you want to know, Lotus darling,” someone else shouted with a thick voice. The sensation of being the center of attention felt familiar. She must have had a big family—lots of brothers, or uncles who made jokes often. How many years had it been? Was there anyone alive who knew her? The girl suddenly turned from the mirror, picked up her small yellow purse and walked out of the room. “Wait.” The sound of the slamming door drowned out her voice again, and Lotus hurriedly went through the door to follow the girl. The girl walked slowly past the bathroom in the hallway and went down the staircase. The halls rang with the creaks and thumps from the wooden stairs. Lotus followed suit, looking for a chance to speak. How old was the building? How long had she been here? The previous occupants of the room all stayed for the briefest time before moving out, not giving Lotus enough time to stay conscious and recover her memories. When they reached the first floor, the girl went straight to the entrance/ exit door. Lotus excitedly followed, eager for the world outside of the building. Suddenly, the girl paused at the door and turned around. She stood still for a while and started walking back toward Lotus, walking right through Lotus before she could move out of the way. “Achoo!” the girl sneezed, and Lotus remembered that she did that to people. A rather useless feature, as far as supernatural powers went. The girl sniffed without stopping and came to a door marked “Security” at the other end of the hallway. She knocked carefully, three times, and stepped back slightly. Lotus noticed that the girl suddenly put on a smile, even though no one was answering the door.
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It took one more set of knocks for a large black man with hair like cocoons to open the door and say, “Yeah?” He didn’t look so happy. But Lotus liked the way he smelled. There was something familiar about it, and it soothed her. Lotus went into the office past the man and swam among the sweet scent. “Um, hi!” The girl enlarged her smile. “Ian, right? Thank you for the keys. I was wondering, is there a place where I can buy things for my room, like towels and pillows? Also some food?” The girl’s face was such a contrast to her earlier gloomy expression back in the room. Her voice sounded cheerful and full of spirit, excited to explore the neighborhood. Lotus couldn’t help but smile along with her. Ian, too, smiled back in a tired way, as if he didn’t really want to bother, but felt like he had to smile because the girl was beaming at him so expectantly. “Sure,” Ian’s voice had a deep ring that seemed to emanate from his whole large body. “There’s a Trader Joe’s if you go over the hill. But if you need more than food, you might wanna go to Target. It’s on 4th Street, down the hill and across Market Street.” “Wow, thanks! Thank you so much.” The girl nodded enthusiastically. A pair of stomping feet from the stairs accompanied her “thank you” like drums, and the girl giggled, looking behind her. A very blond man with very blue eyes rhythmically skipped down the stairs to where they were. “Hey man,” he flashed a polite smile to both the girl and Ian. “Do you know the laundry machine’s broken again?” “Yeah, you can fill out the management request form here…” Ian flicked his hand toward a small blue box full of yellow papers. “I filled that out, like, two weeks ago, man. Nothing’s happening,” the blond man said. The blue eyes looked cold without a smile, Lotus thought. He was only slightly taller than the girl, but with a sturdy build. He had wide shoulders and his arms were lumpy with muscles that stood out through his t-shirt. “Well, my job here is to guard the place. I’m just passing along the forms to the management.” Ian shrugged. The girl whispered another “thank you” to Ian and walked away from the guys as the blond man sighed exasperatedly. “I know, man, no worries. Thanks anyway.”
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(MIA) “Hey, did you just move in?” Mia was almost out of the door when the blond guy suddenly called out to her. “Yes, hi.” Mia turned around, a smile ready on her face again. “Cool. Where from? I’m Philip, by the way.” “Mia.” “Nice to meet you, Mia.” Mia stood there, wondering if this was the end of the little greeting and her
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cue to leave. Or should she carry on the conversation a bit more, to appear friendly? He seemed nice enough. It was always good to be on friendly terms with neighbors. “Uh, do you know where Target is? Ian just told me but I’m not completely sure…” Mia would have no problem looking it up on Google Maps, probably. But it seemed like a convenient topic, something easy for Philip to answer. Bingo. Philip broke into a grin. “Yeah! In fact, my friends and I are going there right now. You wanna come with us? They are coming down in a second.” “Yeah? Okay.” Mia surged with pride. Look at her, making local friends already. “We can just…sit here while we wait. The guys, they are kind of slow.” Philip led her toward a small sitting area near the entrance with a small couch and a square coffee table. He flopped down on the couch. “You here for studying?” “Yeah, I’m here for an English course, for about a year. You?” “I study Interaction Design at an art school.” Mia wondered what “Interaction Design” meant but missed her chance to interrupt Philip and ask, as he moved on to talk about Chinatown. “You should meet John. He’s from China. He’s pretty cool. He said he will find a good Chinese restaurant around here and take us all. Did you know we are in the middle of Chinatown?” “I’ve seen it on the map, yeah. And I saw some Chinese letters on buildings on my way here.” “Oh cool! Are you from China, too? Yeah I wanna look around this place. I heard it’s the biggest Chinatown in the U.S. And then New York, and then Boston… or Philadelphia. I’m not sure.” It’s easier to become friends with people who liked talking, Mia thought with relief. Mostly you just needed to listen carefully and react accordingly—smile and
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nod, laugh at their jokes, sympathize when the conversation got deep and serious. Show interest by asking “really?” once in a while, and you’re all set. “I’m from Korea.” “Huh. South or North? Nah, I’m just kidding. South, right? I’m from San Diego.” Philip had a teasing sort of laugh, as if inviting everyone else to laugh with him. “You are here to learn English, you said? You’re speaking pretty good English already!” Mia shrugged, “Thank you. My English is not so good, if you really get to know me.” Philip flashed a grin and Mia thought he looked exactly like the illustrated image of the white guy with white teeth on toothpaste advertisements. It was the ‘American face’ most Koreans imagined: blond hair, blue eyes, big mouth with white teeth and lots of hair on his arms and legs, and probably chest, too. Despite Obama’s constant appearance on the news, despite the variety of U.S. army personals dispatched to Korean soil, the first images that came to mind at the mention of America were faces like Philip’s. But from the moment Mia got off the plane, she was puzzled by the overwhelming variety of human beings in this city. The immigration officer looked rather Asian but had a suspiciously Latin sounding last name, Gonzales. The lady at the airport café was…well, she was just Chinese with a Chinese accent and Chinese face. The taxi driver looked very Indian but he had none of the funny accents she had seen in Bollywood movies. The ‘perfect white person’ as Mia had imagined was actually a rarity among the pedestrians she saw out of the window on her way to the residence. Some of the people with the long mess of hair and beard looked as if they once had clean, blond hair, but it was hard to tell what they were, wrapped in piles of bedraggled, baggy clothes and hats, faces chalky with dust. Some of them pushed around shopping carts on the street. Philip talked on. “That’s fine. Most of the people here, I know like ten of them, they are studying art. But I know one girl who is also studying English. She’s from Japan, I think. Do you speak the same language?” “No. We have similar grammar and some words sound the same, but…no.” “Chinese?” “Nope. Koreans speak Korean, Chinese Chinese, Japanese Japanese.” “Oh. Hmm. I speak a little Spanish. I actually used to work in a Mexican restaurant back home.”
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“Really? I’ve never tried Mexican food.” “You should! Actually, we should go to the Mission. I heard there are many Mexican restaurants there. And there’s this street…” A series of roaring footsteps echoed through the walls again, this time louder, as more than one pair of feet came down the stairs. “Come on, let’s go already!” Philip jumped up and waved his hand impatiently at the group of people coming past the broken elevator. Mia uncertainly stood up, keeping her shy, nice-to-meet-you smile on. “No, we gotta wait for Aya,” a tall Asian boy with glasses answered with a heavy accent. His round eyes were magnified by the glasses and combined with the short, neat hair, and tidy polo shirt, he looked like an owl. This must be John, Mia thought to herself. Philip rolled his eyes and flopped down on the couch. His eyes met Mia’s as he went down, and he sprang right back up. “Everyone, this is Mia. She’s from Korea, she’s studying English. Mia, this is Johannes, Erika, John, Victoria, and that’s Anna.” Mia smiled at everyone’s collective “Hi!” The attention felt hot on her face. She hated introducing herself to a group. In her experience, one on one worked better. Always. The momentary silence with anticipation, however, indicated that they were waiting for her to say something. Leaving the smile on her face, she scrambled words together in her head, looking for something to say. “Hey guys, I’m from Korea. South, that is. Where are you guys from?” Ask questions. Take the easy way out. Johannes was from Germany, Erika from Austria, John from China, Victoria from Argentina, and Anna from Brazil. Erika rolled her eyes as Johannes stated his nationality, while Victoria and Anna mocked each other at every given chance. Johannes went out for a smoke while the rest of the group sat down. “So Mia, do you study here? When did you get here?” Erika asked with an airy voice. Mia noticed Erika’s thighs remained tight and didn’t spill over her shorts even though she flopped down on the couch carelessly. Mia tentatively lifted her heels from the ground to make her legs look slimmer. “Um, I just got here, actually. Four hours ago. I’m here to study English.” “Oh, Aya is studying English too! She’s from Japan. She’s so cute!” Everyone laughed as Anna’s voice squeaked when she said “cute.” Anna, herself, could be called cute, too. Her large brown eyes blinked innocently under a pink ribbon that tied her hair into a high ponytail.
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Mia turned to Philip. She felt slightly more comfortable with him, having known him a few minutes longer than the rest. “And you are from San Diego.” “That’s right!” Philip laughed. “He’s a surfer. Because in San Diego everyone knows how to surf.” John teased Philip. “Wow. You know, I thought people were like that in San Francisco,” Mia said. “I know, right!?” “Me too!” “Yeah, cause it’s California!” Everyone agreed enthusiastically with Mia. She felt relaxed. A light set of feet bounced down the stairs and everyone turned their eyes toward the small girl with braided hair, who breathlessly sang out apologies. “I am so, sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!” The girl put her hands together and slightly bowed her head. Mia saw the long eyelashes before she saw the bright eyes under them. As the girl smiled sweetly, the eyes narrowed into crescent moons and her cheeks revealed two dimples. “Oh Aya, that’s okay! Let’s go now.” Anna put her arm around Aya. John shook his head and smiled. Philip petted Aya’s head and messed up her hair playfully. Mia instinctively realized that Aya was the baby of the group and that she should become good friends with her in order to be friends with everyone else, when she suddenly heard a horrifying scream.
Mia Meets Lotus (LOTUS) The girl’s name was Mia! What a beautiful name. She was staying for a year. A whole year. Lotus ecstatically performed a little dance around Mia and Philip, while perking up her ears for every speck of information she could pick up from their conversation. Mia was from Korea. But she spoke good English. Good. They wouldn’t have a problem communicating, then. Mia had never had Mexican food. Alright, neither had Lotus. At least she couldn’t remember trying Mexican food. They were in the middle of Chinatown. Good. Perhaps seeing what was in the neighborhood would jog her memory? Lotus was growing restless to see outside. When was the last time she had ventured outside of the building?
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The introductory conversation repeated itself as other people in the building came down, and Lotus realized there was nothing much to be gained by listening to them. She could wait outside of the door, couldn’t she? People were starting to get up, anyway. If she could just feel the fresh breeze outside, if she could just see the other buildings… Lotus pushed herself through the entrance door. A searing pain that ran through her whole being made her scream and step back in. Lotus shook and curled into a ball on the floor. She felt like she was shrinking like a burning piece of paper. A terrible groan escaped from her mouth. She had done this before, she now remembered faintly. She had tried to escape this building, more than one time, but the excruciating pain always stopped her. She moaned even as the pain slowly subsided. So stupid! How could she forget? “What was that?” Mia’s voice sounded startled. “What?” Philip asked back. “That scream.” Lotus bit her lips and quieted down. “What scream?” “I don’t know, it came from really close! Like right outside the door. It was a really bad scream, too. Nobody heard it?” Victoria laughed good naturedly. “You know, San Francisco is full of crazy people screaming into the air. We’re probably so used to it now that we don’t even hear anything.” That started Anna, Aya, Philip and John in telling Mia about all the homeless people stories they had experienced themselves. Lotus lay on the ground, struggling not to make any sound. Mia’s doubtful expression subsided and she was quickly back to smiling at John’s story about a half-naked, hairy man blowing kisses on his way. Giggling and talking, the group filed out of the door, a couple of them stepping through Lotus and sneezing on the way.
Mia came back three hours later, out of breath and with arms full of shopping bags marked with a red bull’s eye. Having gone back to her room, Lotus heard the voices first. “This is me.” “This is your room?” “Wait, 409 is your room? Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
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“Can we see?” “Well, it’s messy but…” Philip, John, and Erika followed Mia inside. “It’s not messy! There’s, like, nothing in here,” Philip joked without smiling. “Well, it’s a tiny room, there’s only room for nothing here,” Mia retorted. “You can come over when you want to breathe, neighbor,” Erika laughed. “Yeah. We’re all neighbors!” John didn’t sound enthusiastic as he looked around the room with cautious eyes. “What?” Mia asked. “Nothing,” John and Philip said together. “So,” Mia said, “your rooms are twice as big as mine or something?” Lotus knew Mia had one of the smallest rooms in the whole building, and suddenly worried she would ask for a new room. “Well…yeah.” John shrugged. “But we don’t have a sink! How cool is that!” Erika pointed out. Yes, you go, nice girl, Lotus cheered. “Well,” Mia was obviously pleased but trying to sound modest. “I still have to go to the shared bathroom for the shower and toilet.” “Ugh. Did you know John has the only room in the whole building with his own bathroom?” Philip slapped John’s back. “Lucky bastard!” Mia’s exaggerated envy made John laugh. Lotus started to giggle, too, but lowered her voice quickly and hid it under John’s voice. Philip asked if he could look under the bed. “I want to check for monsters. That’s what people do here in America, check under the bed for monsters before going to sleep,” Philip said, as he and John crouched down and lifted the bedding. “Huh…?” Mia chuckled. Lotus could tell she was one of those people who laughed for everything. Laughed when it was awkward. Laughed when she was confused. Laughed when she didn’t like something. Erika rolled her eyes. “Alright, let’s go, guys. She needs to sleep.” As Mia closed the door after calling “good night!” brightly, Lotus looked out into the hallway. Philip, Erika and John stood a few doors down and whispered to themselves. “Do you think she knows?” Philip looked excited. “Obviously not.” John frowned. “Should we tell her?” “No, it will only scare her.”
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“But she should know!” “Yeah really,” Erika snickered, “just casually mention that her room is haunted and people who stayed there went crazy?” “Well, not like that…” Philip sneezed loudly as Lotus angrily threw herself into him. “Bless you….Achoo!” Erika followed, and then John, too. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare tell her lies!” Lotus growled in anger as Erika bid the boys good night with another sneeze and went into her room. John and Philip, laughing at each other’s sneezes, walked back past Mia’s room to their rooms at the other end of the hall.
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Mia was bustling around the room putting new blankets on the bed, pillowcases on the pillows, lighting a scented candle, and sticking hooks on the walls when Lotus came back in. She worked slower and slower, as if fighting to stay awake at all. Finally, she folded up the paper bags neatly into a flat pile and put it in the walk-in closet, changed her clothes, washed her hands and brushed her teeth. Then she started with her face. First she used cotton balls soaked with blue cleansing liquid and removed the dark linings of her eyes. It took two cotton balls on each side to erase them completely. Another cotton ball was rubbed on the lips. Then her entire face was wiped with wet tissue. The cotton balls turned black and red, the tissue brown. She massaged her face carefully with yellow oil, rinsed it off, lathered her face with white foam, rinsed if off again. Something about Mia’s gentle care of her face soothed Lotus, and she thought the final face that emerged from the towel was lovely. Although the difference of with and without makeup was quite huge, Lotus found Mia’s smaller eyes, thinner eyebrows and even the light freckles on her cheek very cute. After lathering on a few layers of this and that facial cream, Mia threw herself into the bed and stared up at the ceiling. She’s too tired to get upset, Lotus thought as she moved closer to Mia. “Hello.” Mia jumped up at once with surprising energy and checked herself in the mirror. She quickly opened her pouch and picked up a transparent bottle with brown liquid inside. Squirting some of the liquid onto the back of her left hand, she put down the bottle and picked up a large brush, quickly mixing the liquid
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with the brush. Stroking her face skillfully with the brush, she didn’t take her eyes off the mirror as she called out, “Who is it?” “It’s…Lotus,” Lotus answered helplessly. Stroke by stroke, Mia’s skin was turning a shade lighter. “Who?” Mia went on to a smaller brush, defining her eyebrows with sharp, quick movements. “Lotus.” Mia frowned. Her freshly drawn eyebrows shot up. Mia quickly straightened her face and fixed the eyebrows, here and there. “Hold on a second!” Mia shouted at the door as she used her fingers to put pink eye shadows on the eyelids. “Ah…Okay.” Lotus answered, standing a little further behind Mia’s back. Mia frantically curled her eyelashes upwards and brushed them black. She shrugged at herself in the mirror. She went to the door and put her eyes on the peeping hole. Seeing no one, Mia opened the door and stuck her head out into the hallway. “Ahem. I’m…here, actually, behind you, kind of.” Lotus said awkwardly. Mia turned and let go of the door, which snapped shut with a creak. Flinching at the noise, she turned her head from side to side, looking for Lotus. Please don’t faint. Please don’t faint. Please don’t faint. Lotus trembled. “Hello, my name is Lotus. You can’t see me because I’m…a ghost.” Lotus wished there was a better introduction, something that would ease the humans into the concept. Mia stood frozen, head awkwardly stopped in the midst of turning from left to right. Only her eyes kept busy, nervously going through each corner of the room. “You can hear me though, right?” It was a stupid question but Lotus wanted to hear Mia respond. Mia didn’t move, didn’t breathe. Even her eyes stared steadily now into blank space in front of her, slightly to Lotus’ left. “Right?” Mia’s clenched hands behind her back told Lotus that the poor girl was scared, but she couldn’t help pushing. “RIGHT?” Mia jumped with a gasp. “Yes…? I can.”
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Excerpt from Wonderful Terriful (Chapter 1) La Ville
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he cold night bites, full of potential. Something exciting is happening across Montreal. The blizzard carries a taste of it from the cobblestoned alleys of the old port to where I am on The Main, an electrical charge in the snowflakes melting on my tongue. David is late, no surprise. He’s a fast driver but he’s somehow never on time. It’s the week after New Year’s so nothing around here is open or I’d be waiting somewhere warm with a gin and tonic. I hide from the wind and check my phone in the shallow doorframe of a nightclub that’s gone out of business. A six-monthold closing notice clings to the front door. There’s no one in sight. Not a soul to talk to. No movement but the snowstorm tearing into buildings and slicing through the bare trees. The absence of heat makes my nose sting when I breathe in. It’s that electrifying kind of cold. I draw my coat tighter around me and bury my neck into the collar. The soft fur bristles against my cheek, a whiff of the vanilla and mandarin in my perfume catches my nostrils but the scent is so sterilized by the frozen air that it seems imagined. The animal instinct to survive is greatest on colder nights. It’s nights like these that tend to have the most unusual outcomes. But you have to go underground if you want it. Main Street is dead. Year-old crumbling potholes and drab buildings dominate. Ever since the elections, the economy’s been hurting. I don’t remember how exactly we got to where we’re at, but I know it was a series of tiny unravelings. The state of the world economy loomed like a dark nebula just beyond our borders for a year or two before the 2012 elections. Ask most people and they’ll tell you that was clearly when things started to go downhill. And the Parti Québécois’s policies were relentless—NO ENGLISH! No English in the workplace, no English on menus (and as far as they were concerned “pasta” was English), no English on television, and in the dog parks the dogs that understood English commands had to be kept separate from dogs that understood French. The threat of separatism thickened the humid summer air.
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Anglophones and their businesses fled to Ontario and beyond, and the money and jobs followed. And then oil prices soared. Alberta beckoned many with promises of good jobs, savings, the possibilities of down payments. The energy that pulsed through our once colorful streets dimmed. The flashy nightclubs went up in flames colored by the top-shelf liquor no one could afford anymore, and the oyster bars and steakhouses were next. Uninspired insurance rumors circulated but more interesting than that was the question of where the ubiquitous Mob and Hells Angels were now putting their money. Perhaps most important was the fact that we were a city of university graduates predominantly employed by the service industry. Fewer clubs and bars meant very simply, fewer jobs. Of course some of us stayed and I still don’t really know why. The party didn’t stop for those of us that did. Why would it, after all? Ours was a city still full of attractive people with fewer responsibilities and the drugs flowed even more freely than before. Maybe what it all boiled down to was the fact that we were just more determined than the rest. Less ready to give up.
204 It’s midnight. I really should just head out, meet David there, but there aren’t any cabs on the street and the storm makes it too far to walk. I smoke a cigarette until my fingers turn numb and look past the glare of the streetlight into the window of the vacant club. Ghosts of memories sweep the dance floor. A car can be heard before it comes into view. The music blasting from the familiar black coupe is deep house—so deep that if you play it loud enough you might wonder if you’ve died. David Dias. He’s family to me, pretty much, and like all the family I know, he’s stubborn about what he likes. For him it’s really only three things: Russian women, V-neck shirts, and more than anything else, house music. The year everyone started talking about Burning Man, he rolled his eyes and packed his duffle for summer number fifteen in Ibiza. The whole block feels like it’s shaking from the bass. David shouts something incomprehensible as he pulls up to the curb. He’s grinning as he flicks the passenger door open and the wind cuts my cheek as I scoot in. He turns down the music. “You’re early,” he says to be annoying. That’s as far as he’ll acknowledge his lateness. “Did you get the stickers?”
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He nods and says they’re in the back seat. It’s been a month since I’ve seen him. His dark hair is longer and some of it falls onto his forehead. The words Barrio Latino Paris command even more attention on his cherry red T-shirt. He radiates with the afterglow of someone scooped off Miami Beach. Nothing about him looks like a doctor, not even like a plastic surgeon. “Did you go to Art Basel? I eye him suspiciously. Everyone in the city went to Art Basel. I just have no idea how most of them paid for it. “I wish.” He chuckles. “This is just from bronzage.” “Don’t they tell you to avoid tanning beds in med school?” “Nah, they just assume we’re intelligent.” He flashes his porcelain white chicklets at me as he roots around with one hand in the seat behind him. “Here.” He passes me two sheets of plastic. One is covered in stickers of butterflies, the other has bulldozers. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted,” he says squinting at them. He lights the cigarette that’s been jumping up and down on his lip. I catch a glimpse of him at sixteen, when he and my brother used to sneak Camels from my mother’s stash in the garage. That was eighteen years ago and I was seven. I inhale the blue smoke. David peels away from the curb, the music back at full volume, and I select two stickers, a backhoe and some other construction machine and stick them on the outer corners of each eye. I reapply my lipstick and check my teeth. The opening bass notes of an old Felix da Housecat tune pump across the speakers and I begin to feel weightless. Like I don’t need to think anymore. We’re headed to a party in the chapel of an old château down by the water. A friend of Guy Laliberté’s owns the place so I know it won’t be some half-assed, watered-down Grey Goose affair that yawns to an end at 3 a.m. I’m expecting champagne, cognac, and a couple of those hilarious swinger-couples prowling around shamelessly, maybe even a kinky burlesque show. Something with broken glass and lesbians. “Val’s already there,” David says, glancing at his phone. The streets are empty so it only takes ten minutes to reach the port. We fly by dark stone, traffic lights, empty parking lots, and the highway. Every year some new stretch of it crumbles. Family of four killed two Thanksgivings ago. And the buildings aren’t much better; there was that man who proposed on that young woman’s birthday last summer and she was crushed by that loose slab of concrete and he lost his arm and witnessed everything. But what freaks me out the most is the bridges
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across the Saint Lawrence and how they teeter somewhere between impossibility and collapse. Rue Notre-Dame is busier, just like I’d expected. We turn onto it and follow the train tracks and the river just beyond them, aware of the palpable new presence of life. It awakens me from a trance I hadn’t been aware I was in. People speed around us despite the reduced visibility, wipers flicking aggressively. They’ll close the schools here because of the snow but people will still gun it one-twenty over potholes that can be seen from space. It doesn’t make sense but neither does living somewhere with minus-forty-degree winters or full-contact strip clubs with open bars. I recline my seat further and rest my feet on the glove compartment. Even though David has a top-of-the-line Audi he doesn’t mind that I put my shoes up there. Most guys lose their shit even when all they’re driving is a Jetta. “Hey—” David says and slows the car. He pulls over onto the side of the road. “That car’s way over on the shoulder, it’s almost on the train tracks.” He points over me and I turn to see why. There’s a smooth-looking black car pulled way off the road. The driver’s door is wide open despite the building storm. “I’m just going to see if they need any help,” he says, unbuckling his seatbelt, as his doctor instinct to take control of the situation kicks in. I watch the grey-green snow sweep from side to side on the windshield and tell myself it’s beautiful. I roll the window down and my coat catches white in an instant. Swollen air sticks to my face like papier-mâché. Behind me David recedes, smaller and smaller into the storm. Cars charge past on my left. Never-ending twin beams of yellow across the blue-grey world, the shhhhh of tires, over and over as the snow piles into my hair and finds its way down the curve of my neck, leaving behind a feeling of being warm and alive as it melts. David’s door swings open, the car fills with the wet air, and he’s beside me breathing heavily. The tips of his ears are red. Melting snow-sweat wets his hair. “There’s no one there,” he says. He looks confused which puzzles me. “So?” I ask. “No one in sight and all that snow blowing into the car—the Tesla. Have you ever seen a Tesla in Montreal?” I hadn’t. “Really expensive cars. I don’t know what kind of person would leave the door hanging open with the keys in it like that.” “There’s keys?” He opens his hand and flashes two keys on a black leather loop.
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I stare at him. “A car like that’s gone if the keys are around. I wrote them a note, saying I’m keeping it safe. My cell’s on it.” Of course he did. I don’t know what else I would have done. “Did you check for registration?” I ask though I know of course he has. He nods. “Nothing. No ID either. I did find…” he trails off. There’s a guilty looking grin on his face. He holds up a weathered looking pill bottle. A blue stripe. Black lettering. The word Mandrax on a white background. He’s watching my face as I study it. “Disco biscuits,” he says when he can’t hold back anymore. “This city just got a little funky.” He passes the bottle to me. They’re hard to find supposedly. I can only imagine how happy he is—he’s been wanting to try quaaludes since he read Keith Richards named his speedboat in the French Riviera after them. In my hand the bottle feels small, feather-light—much, much lighter than expected, and inconsequential. I hold it like I’m holding a cat’s tail and I don’t want the cat to know it. As long as he doesn’t ask me to do them. It’s like I’m bored of getting fucked up. I know the desire to have one’s perception altered is as old as humanity. Remember spinning around on all those playground merry-go-rounds just to get the world to spin? Swimming underwater with your eyes open? Then we got older and switched to other pursuits: yoga and drinking and overly dramatically abstaining from alcohol just to learn that real change comes from within. Deep down I know this. A couple minutes later and we’re back on the road again. David’s turned the music way up and my phone buzzes with a message. There’s a pool in the basement and Val’s lost her shoes.
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Fine Young Christian Soldiers Boys that ‘believe’ are very lonesome. —Emily Dickinson CHRISTWATCH
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rivers on Joy Road could be forgiven for failing to notice Sheldon Christian Academy entirely. The private institution is shielded from passing eyes, situated as it is behind the drab facade of a now-defunct Calvary Baptist Church, a building which shares the school’s color scheme of chalky white brick and peeling brown shingles. While the school admittedly employs some of the former personnel of the church, Sheldon Academy itself boasts no particular denomination; founded in 1977, the institution has long prided itself on nurturing students grades K through 12 in their spiritual walk. President Bowler (who is quick to remind visitors that he was a star player for the Michigan Badgers in his college days) was instrumental in developing the curriculum, which strives “to fortify students in the Christian faith as they begin their perilous journey into the secular world.” This language was similarly incorporated into the pledge students make at the beginning of each academic year, in a school-wide assembly held in Calvary Baptist’s massive but now unused auditorium. Due to re-zoning charters, the Academy ironically no longer resides in the city of Sheldon itself, but in the adjacent community of Salem. The student body, comprised of 633 students, is made up of youth from communities as near and far as North Town, Livingston, Westville, Dixboro, and Ann Arbor. Roughly 98 percent of these students will go on to pursue a post-secondary education. Taking a step past the threshold of Sheldon Christian Academy, visitors are greeted by a checkered floor, polished with some level of regularity by the janitorial staff, and rows and rows of beige lockers, their rough coats of paint peeling. Set above these lockers is a framed placard declaring, Cleanliness is next to Godliness. As soon as classes let out, the spartan hallways are transformed by the bustling horde of the student body, which remains predominantly white, despite the school’s efforts to reach out to Sheldon’s and Salem’s multiracial population.
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In fact, an “Ethnic Inroads” program was on the table as recently as 1998, but the school board declared the measure “cost ineffective” and “not in the Academy’s best interest at the moment,” effectively vetoing it. Approach students as they emerge from class, school bags slung over their shoulders like army knapsacks, and you’ll likely hear the difference Sheldon Christian Academy has made in their lives. “This school is gay as hell,” one student declares. “Why does the hallway always smell like stale bread?” another asks. Some students confess that the school’s heavy workload has given them spinal issues, due to a backpack filled with oversized math and science textbooks. One such student, who has gone so far as to see a chiropractor once a week at the behest of her mother, adds, “I guess that’s the price you pay for college prep. I’ve got to get into Mich U or I’ll literally kill myself. Like, literally.” Many students at Sheldon Academy have attended the school since their elementary years. These students commonly refer to themselves as “lifers.” “Yeah, I’ve been here since the third grade,” confides one student named Xander (short for Alexander). Tall, with a tan complexion and frosted tips to his dirty blonde hair, it’s fair to say that Xander is one of the most popular boys at Sheldon. “It’s pretty bad when you keep hoping your dad loses his job so he can no longer afford to send you to your school. But what can you—hold on.” At that moment, Xander turns as a much smaller student, perhaps of middle school age, wheels his rolling backpack down the corridor—nearly rolling over Xander’s foot. “Watch it, fag!” Xander calls after him. “Man, can you believe these kids? This is a school, not an airport.”
On the Sheldon Christian Academy website, visitors can choose to play an eight-minute video in Windows Media Player format, starring Principal Bowler himself. His mustard-colored suit strains around his massive frame as his arms gesture a welcome. (By this time, his former footballer’s frame has gone soft from “too many complimentary doughnuts and trips to the candy jar,” according to office secretary Janet Van Deen.) “Here at Sheldon Christian Academy,” Principal Bowler begins from outside the school entrance, “we pride ourselves on developing not only our students’
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minds and bodies, but—even more importantly—their walk with God. We’re the first step in a relationship we hope will last a lifetime.” At this moment, eagle-eyed viewers may notice a stray piece of trash, what looks like an empty bag of Fritos snack chips, tumble across the parking lot and strike Principal Bowler’s faux-leather shoes.
One student, who released his name as Tim, recently transferred to the Academy after finishing up at Garden Hill Middle School, a public school in the heart of downtown Sheldon. “Sure, the Academy isn’t perfect,” he admits from his place in the lunch line, “But what school is? I asked my parents to enroll me here because I want to attend a school that teaches Christian principles.” What’s on the lunch menu today, you might ask? “Well, it’s Tuesday. Tuesday and Friday are pizza days,” Tim shares. Thanks to a deal with a local chain servicing the Metro Detroit area, the school exclusively offers Sgt. Pizza to students. The contract was signed some months ago with little fanfare and little opposition, seeing as how Sgt. Pizza founder and owner Adam Prescott’s own daughter is currently finishing her Senior year at Sheldon Academy. Students aren’t shy when it comes to voicing their opinion of Sgt. Pizza either. “It’s bad enough I have to pay money for pizza this retch,” one girl can be heard from her place in the lunch line. “But the fact that we have to wait in line for it too... can you believe the, like, indignity?” “I have to be honest,” Tim continues, “I was disappointed with the school at first. Sure, we had to memorize Bible verses in order to get a grade and things like that but, looking around, everybody seemed embarrassed that they were attending a Christian school. Nobody was on fire for God. Thankfully, things have changed in a big way this semester.” As for what caused this dramatic reversal? “Two words,” Tim said. “Well, I guess one word, with the way Mr. Bridges spells it: ChristWatch.” Yes, ChristWatch is the word that seems to be on the hearts and minds of many students at Sheldon Christian Academy this 2003–2004 academic year. The after-school program was created by Mr. Bridges, the ninth grade Bible instructor who himself is a newcomer to the Academy. While Mr. Bridges admittedly utilized school hours to organize the group, stealing a stray minute to approach students in the bustling cafeteria or a hushed study hall, the after-school program is technically “off the books”—not affiliated with the Academy and therefore not accountable to
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the school’s administration. Word spread fast among the more devout members of the student body, leaping from locker to locker like a divine game of telephone in which the call originated from God. “Mr. Bridges isn’t like the other teachers here,” Tim explains. “He’s the real deal.” ChristWatch meets once a week, every Wednesday (considered the next holiest day after Sunday) in unused classrooms, to engage in fervent prayer sessions and shared testimonials. Students hold hands, sing worship songs backed by Mr. Bridges’ acoustic guitar, and share the concerns utmost on their hearts. During particularly intense sessions, it is not uncommon to watch the tears stream down a student’s face as they reveal that they have not yet pledged their lives to God. “I’m not going to lie,” one of Tim’s closest friends, Christopher Preston, offers, “I had hardened my heart to God. I thought I didn’t need Him or that He was only going to get in the way of all the fun I wanted to have as, you know, your average American teenager or whatever.” Standing next to Tim, Christopher makes for something like his double: both share the same lightish brown hair color and a gleaming set of braces, though it must be said Chris maintains a heavier body mass than Tim’s rail-thin frame. “Just one ChristWatch session and I was down on my hands and knees, bawling like a baby as I asked God for His forgiveness,” Christopher continues. “What Mr. Bridges has accomplished in this community, and in such a short time, is nothing short of a miracle. And what’s almost as surprising is the fact that Mr. Bridges takes none of the credit—he turns all that glory back over to God.” It was only two months ago that the group came to the decision that, while the Scripture reading and prayer meets helped to nourish the students’ spiritual growth in their own right, what ChristWatch really called for was an outreach program. “We’ve got an entire town situated around this building,” Mr. Bridges said at that decisive ChristWatch session. Seated on the carpeted floor, the gathered students looked up at the Bible teacher as the setting sun filtered through the classroom’s drawn blinds and cast an amber glow around his thinning hair. “Have you seen what’s going on out there? I’m downtown every weekend, at places like the Coffee Bean and Mr. Rasta’s Hookah Bar, and what I’m hearing from these kids is that they’re in a world of hurt. They’re on drugs or their parents are on drugs, or else their parents are never around or, worse, only abuse them when they are around.
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So their grades are slipping and they’re turning to premarital sex and substance abuse in an attempt to fill the void.” Mr. Bridges paused a moment to stroke the thick, bristly hairs of his goatee. “Now, the school board has taken the hardline that it’s my duty to protect you kids from any outside influence, to shelter you from the temptations of a sinful culture,” Mr. Bridges said, resuming his slow pacing across the grey carpet. “What I’m suggesting—no, what the Scripture tells us—is that the secular world is our mission field.” Here, the teacher pivoted his heels and aimed twin index fingers at the assembled students. “And it’s our duty to answer Christ’s charge.” Looking around the cramped classroom that afternoon, one couldn’t help but notice the quivering lips of the Freshman members of ChristWatch. As they gazed up at Mr. Bridges with rapt attention, their adoration was projected across their faces like the twin movie-screens of the nearby Wayne Drive-In Theater. In contrast to the numerous Freshmen among its ranks, ChristWatch boasted only two Senior class members, Melanie Prescott—daughter of Adam Prescott—and one Robert Chaplin. The two of them stood side by side at the back of the class, with arms crossed and much more solemn expressions on their faces. Perhaps they alone understood that everything they knew was about to change. Perhaps they alone understood that, there in the waning light of a Wednesday afternoon giving way to evening, ChristWatch had just moved beyond the confines of Sheldon Christian Academy and out into the world at large. THE LONELY SAINT The Plymouth Coffee Bean Company opened in the spring of 1993 after its owner, Maggie Pharms, returned from a sojourn to the West Coast. She had read the cultural current as easily as though she had wet her finger to tell the direction of the wind, and predicted that coffee shops would become the next American obsession, even here in the strip mall culture of the Midwest. The television show Friends had recently debuted to steady ratings, and it was precisely the sitcom’s java-dispensing hangout spot Maggie was thinking of when she unveiled the Company’s logo to a line that seemed to wrap around the block (but which truthfully stopped just short of the post office, several doors down). When the independent shop opened to booming sales, it appeared that Maggie had been right: java culture was ready to take hold of Middle America as a caffeine-starved populace prepared to enjoy the luxuries of the feel-good Clinton years.
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In the decades before its tenure as a coffee shop, the Bean’s building had served as a private residence with an adjacent dental office. Soon after her acquisition, Maggie set to redecorating the property with second-hand furniture acquired from nearby consignment shops and work by local artists, lending the Bean a “lived-in and homey feel,” as Maggie explained to the Sheldon Gazette. Sadly, Maggie Pharms was not able to guide her coffee shop into the new millennium. After what even her closest friends conceded was a “misguided foray” into local politics, Maggie saw her health decline until she was forced to sell her beloved coffee shop and hire a live-in nurse. While they may have hailed from the more blue collar community of Westville, new owners Jim and Stacy Pritcher were no strangers to business savvy: Jim had experience running his own plumbing service while Stacy had been a decades-long server at the Hyatt Hotel’s restaurant in Dearborn. The couple, ever pragmatic, made the well-received decision to give the shop the much simpler moniker of the Coffee Bean in 2001. Their second order of business was to renovate the patio, which soon became a popular outdoor hangout for local teenagers, particularly members of the gothic subculture and nascent “emo” scene. For their part, the Pritchers were pleased to attract such a “hip and youthful” crowd, though in private they will admit they are none too pleased that their teenage customers are less likely to purchase a drink before rooting themselves on the deck furniture. The Coffee Bean patio is precisely where ChristWatch member Robert Chaplin finds himself on this Friday night in the March of his Senior year. The early spring showers of the night before have left droplets of dirty rain water on much of the patio furniture. At present, he can feel the water seeping into the seat of his dress code regulation khaki pants, can hear its slow drip from the corroded gutters overhead. Only eighteen years old, Robert is already considered a saint in the eyes of his peers. He stirs, uneasy in his seat, feeling the awful weight of this responsibility. There is no avoiding it, not when he only has to turn his head to see the Freshman members of ChristWatch gathered on the coffee shop’s overgrown lawn. They stand around their teacher, Mr. Bridges, in clusters not unlike the constellations of acne on their barely post-pubescent faces. As the eldest of the two Senior ChristWatch members, and the only male, Robert has been selected as the de facto student leader of the group, second only to Mr. Bridges. Even from this distance, he can hear them whispering amongst themselves in the gathering dusk—asking themselves, and then answering them-
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selves, as to what Robert would do in this or that particular situation—and routinely casting awe-filled glances in his direction. “This may look like an ordinary coffee shop, on an ordinary street,” Mr. Bridges had said earlier during the ChristWatch group huddle. “This may even seem like an ordinary Friday night. But what you have to understand is that this is a battlefield—a spiritual battlefield.” Robert knows ChristWatch calls for its members to lead by example, doubly so now that the group has begun its outreach mission. So tonight, as he has done for the last three weeks, Robert positions himself at the center of the packed patio, amongst the pierced and the damned—the hipsters and hoodie-clad fourteen-yearolds who have made the Coffee Bean the trendiest coffee shop in town. Robert imagines himself a steady buoy among a sea of misfit teens, with their blue and green hair dye and sullen eyes, their baggy jeans and lip rings. He positions himself at their center and waits. He waits with his hands at his sides, fingertips hovering above the puddles that litter the concrete patio like landmines. To an outsider, or the younger members of ChristWatch, he must look as though he is attempting to read some electric current traveling unseen through the air—some hidden thread that will reveal the lives of those around him. Mr. Bridges himself doesn’t do much to dispel this notion, as he speaks to the Freshmen on the nearby lawn. Certainly every member of ChristWatch has noticed the apparent sixth sense that has helped Robert target the most lost and seemingly hopeless cases at the Bean each Friday night. “You can cultivate that ability too,” Mr. Bridges tells his Freshman crew. “The Holy Spirit is speaking to us at all times. But you can’t listen for it with your ears.” While Robert would likely concede that over the last few weeks he’s displayed an uncanny knack for finding those at the Bean who especially need to hear the Gospel story—a Freshman at Sheldon Central who feared her mother would kick her out of the house once she found out she was pregnant, a student from the nearby middle school who confessed that he’d been thinking about killing himself—to him, there’s no great mystery to it. He simply listens. He listens to pools of conversation swirling around him, listens as he has these last several weeks, and knows that what Mr. Bridges said at that fateful ChristWatch meeting wasn’t wrong. There is a world of hurt surrounding Sheldon Christian Academy. It’s there, beneath the sound of teenage hands drumming on knees, Converse shoes scraping against the wet pavement, and the flick of a Bic lighter.
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“...I only took, like, three pills, okay?” “...says you owe him, like, fifty bucks, man.” “—the new Dashboard Confessional CD?” “—really thinks I’m going to let him touch me again?” And then, like a bass line underneath it all, there comes the sound of someone—a man—clearing his throat, a retching sound that bespeaks decades spent smoking unfiltered cigarettes. Robert angles his neck: a few yards away, seated by himself at a rust-stained table as he takes stray sips from a chipped coffee mug more than likely left behind by a previous customer, is a man. A middle-aged man whose thin, gangly limbs, long strands of greasy hair, and black-smudged fingertips set him apart from the evening’s barely post-pubescent faces. Robert takes note of the fact that the man resembles the kind of “undesirables” that the Sheldon Township Police Department attempt to intimidate off the bustling main streets of downtown during the weekend. As Robert stands up, the sound of his metal chair scraping against the patio causes the rest of ChristWatch to look in his direction. Robert sits down at the same table as the older man and lets the silence settle between them. 216 “That’s Robert,” Mr. Bridges declares to his Freshman charges. “That’s his dedication. He finds the most lost sheep in the flock—he finds them and makes a beeline for them. He seeks them out!” Tim and his friend Christopher exchange a look that expresses their shared disbelief. “You know something,” Tim starts, “two thousand years ago, the Romans would have fed Robert to the lions. Today, he’s literally the coolest guy at Sheldon Christian Academy.”
At the table, Robert eyes a ring of dirty rain water, left over from the previous night’s shower. He folds his hands in his lap as the man takes the occasional sip from his mug. “You don’t have to say anything,” Robert begins, “In fact, maybe it’s better if you just take in what I have to say.” Robert stares straight ahead as he speaks, watching a group of teens loitering in the parking lot of the party store across the street. This is a tactic he’s learned
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from Mr. Bridges: those who may not be very receptive to ministry are often more comfortable, or at least less provoked, if the speaker gives the impression he isn’t looking directly at them. “I don’t know where you are in life. I don’t know all the decisions and outside factors that have led you to this moment. In fact, I don’t know anything about you.” Robert continues, “But I’m here to tell you that Christ knows. He knows and He doesn’t care how far from the path you may have wandered, how many mistakes you think you’ve made, or how hardened your heart has become towards Him.” Robert pauses but the man remains silent. Somewhere on the lawn, a teenage girl laughs. The rest of ChristWatch simply observes from their patch of grass, hands thrust into the pockets of their jeans or hooded sweatshirts. Their unmoving lips make no secret of the fact that they are listening with rapt attention to Robert’s conversation. A smattering of applause comes from inside the Bean—no doubt for the acoustic band performing that night, but Robert subconsciously takes it as a sign that he should continue. “I’m here to tell you that God has been watching you this entire time. He’s waiting to take you back, waiting with open arms.” Robert tilts his head back towards the sky and is met by a starless blanket of night. “It’s called absolution,” he says, feeling something weightless in his chest, “and it’s a beautiful thing.” The man takes another sip of his drink. Robert isn’t sure how many minutes pass before he speaks again. “I know it’s difficult to—” “Do you know why I’m here tonight?” the man asks, his voice a baritone rumbling through a layer of phlegm. He fishes a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and slaps the wrinkled box against his palm. “Do you have any idea why I’d be sitting here at this coffee shop, by myself, on a Friday night?” The man lets a cigarette dangle precariously from his bottom lip. “It’s ‘cause this is one of the only places I can come and admire some teenage pussy in peace.” He lights the cigarette with a white Bic lighter. “That is, until your faggy, Bible-thumping ass sat down.” The man’s cigarette smoke forms a small cloud in front of Robert’s face. The smell hangs in the muggy wet air. Robert clears his throat, stands up, and stuffs his hands into his jean jacket. “God bless and have a good night,” he says. He strides away from the table, feeling the brittle night air for the first time. As he passes a group of teenage girls, they throw their necks violently back with laughter. The sound rings as loud as anything in Robert’s ears.
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THE FRESHMAN Tim Grady is standing next to Mr. Bridges on the Coffee Bean lawn at the exact
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moment Robert darts down the patio’s concrete steps and into the street. An oncoming car comes to an abrupt halt with a chorus of profanity. “Robert!” Mr. Bridges calls out. “Robert—remember: this isn’t a setback. This isn’t a setback!” Moments before, Tim and his closest friend, Christopher, had been watching with awe as Robert ministered to a man who they figured may or may not have been homeless. Tim caught a few words from their conversation and felt a physical chill when he heard Robert mention the word “absolution.” It was enough to make Tim draw up the collar of his sport jacket. He looked around with an appreciable sense of wonder at his teacher, who at six foot four towered over his young charges, and the faces of his fellow ChristWatch members there on the overgrown grass of the Coffee Bean. He found it hard to believe that just a few months ago, he had been disappointed with Sheldon Christian Academy. Ever since Tim had randomly agreed to attend a Spirit Youth event at the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit with his cousin—“a weekend jam-packed with performances from the hottest Christian recording acts, sermons by several of the Tri-State area’s most prominent youth pastors, and testimonies from bornagain teens plucked right from the audience” was how the website billed it—Tim had been hungering for a school with a more Christ-centric curriculum. Upon finishing his career at Garden Hill Middle School in downtown Sheldon, Tim had taken every opportunity to slide the promotional booklet for the Academy in front of his parents’ eyes. Seated in his La-Z-Boy chair, Tim’s father raised his bushy eyebrows above the thin frames of his reading glasses. He let out a whistle as soon as he made his way to the tuition fee. “This is going to eat into the ‘ol 401K, Timmy,” he said. “You want your old man to be able to retire before his teeth fall out, don’t you?” “Oh, don’t listen to your father,” his mother clicked her tongue from the kitchen doorway. Her hands were covered in soapsuds. “We want you to go a school where you’ll be excited to learn. We both do.” Tim had showed up for the first day of school at Sheldon in his freshly pressed khaki pants and a navy blue polo shirt—the dress code only allowed for primary colors, with no room for variations such as maize or aqua—only to stare down the barrel of disappointment.
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If pressured, Tim might not have even been able to articulate what, exactly, he had been expecting. But it certainly wasn’t what he found that day, walking past the threshold of Sheldon Christian Academy, down the unpolished checkered floor and the tarnished metal lockers, their chrome paint peeling. A framed picture almost directly above Tim’s own locker proclaimed, Cleanliness is next to Godliness. As the hallway filled up with students, Tim had to leap out of the way as an even smaller student, perhaps a middle schooler, wheeled his rolling backpack down the hall at a speed his tiny frame scarcely appeared capable of. He nearly ran over several high schoolers’ feet in the process. “Watch it, fag!” called out a tall boy standing next to Tim, his voice booming with such authority that Tim felt himself jolt in place, as though the slur had been directed at him. Later that day, Tim would learn that the boy, whose tan complexion and dark blonde hair reminded Tim of the former teen idol Jonathan Taylor Thomas, was a Senior class member named Xander—and he was one of the most popular kids in school. So much for setting an example for the rest of the student body, Tim thought. If this was how the Senior class conducted themselves, what could he possibly expect from the rest of the students at Sheldon? After lunch in the school’s cafeteria, which was actually a gymnasium where metal lunch tables unfolded from compartments in the wall, Tim ducked into the bathroom in case any remnants of pizza were still clinging to his braces. As the day wore on, Tim felt disappointment tumble around his gut like a load of laundry. In Tim’s eyes, the student body at Sheldon appeared no different than the public school kids he’d only recently left behind. They stalked the hallways with the taut ferocity of jungle cats dressed in Abercrombie & Fitch, offering forceful shoves and homophobic insults to anyone who got in their way; or else they sulked like zombies in class, a glazed expression to their eyes as they mumbled the Bible verses they were forced to recite, it seemed, solely to get a grade. Only a few months ago, Tim had marveled as an entire stadium full of teenagers moved their arms in a majestic wave as they sang worship songs and recited Spirit Youth’s signature chant: Fa...Ho...Lo! Fa...Ho...Lo! Faith, hope, love! Faith, hope, love!
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He had to wonder: where was that kind of passion at Sheldon? Maybe, he thought, these kids just didn’t know how good they had it, attending a school where they could profess their faith openly, without having to worry about being belittled or made fun of. This was an institution where Christianity wasn’t just common; it was the status quo. Tonight, Tim watches as the traffic light at the corner of Penniman Street blinks its yellow light seemingly in time with the emo rock song blasting from a nearby parked car, a low murmur of teenage conversation bubbling underneath it. He looks around at his teacher and his newfound friends and feels, perhaps for the first time in his young life, that he truly belongs. Even when Tim had showed up for that first ChristWatch meeting some months ago, he never suspected just how much the after-school group would change his life. “Glad to have you aboard,” Mr. Bridges had said, extending his hand in welcome. Now Tim glances in his teacher’s direction: wearing an oversized brown leather jacket and denim jeans, the instructor is entirely “incognito” compared to how he dresses in the classroom. A part of Tim still can’t believe that Mr. Bridges is here, on a Friday night in downtown Sheldon, with his students—when he could be sifting through the stack of papers he no doubt has left to grade, spending time with his family, or, really, just about anything besides standing around with a few kids from his Freshman class on the lawn of some coffee shop. But Tim has sensed something about Mr. Bridges since the start of the school year: he doesn’t hold himself above his students, despite dwarfing them in both stature and age. Dressed down as he is, hands stuffed into his coat packet, Mr. Bridges is one of them—or as close as Tim figures a 44-year-old man is going to get. Outside the classroom, Mr. Bridges speaks more freely as well—he uses words like “lame” and “heck” and “freakin’,” words that he deliberately omits from his daily lectures. “What the heck, man? That’s pretty lame,” he says upon hearing that Christopher’s mother wants him home before 9 p.m. Though Tim admits to himself that there’s always something that keeps Mr. Bridges from going too far. “Nice car,” Mr. Bridges tilts his head in the direction of a teen in a letter jacket after he parks his cherry red Pontiac by the Bean’s curb. “Actually, it’s a piece of shit,” the teen responds, causing several of the ChristWatch Freshmen to visibly stiffen. “Transmission’s busted to hell.”
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“Huh,” Mr. Bridges remarks, by all appearances unfazed by the teen’s comeback. “Makes me wish my car was a piece of—” “Hey, Mr. Bridges,” one of the Juniors breaks in, cutting the teacher off right at the incriminating moment. “I wanted to ask you—” And this isn’t the first time Tim had noticed this happening. It’s almost as though Mr. Bridges has struck some kind of deal with the upperclassmen, that they’ll cut him off at the last possible second before he curses, just so Mr. Bridges can look—cooler? Or more rebellious than the other faculty at Sheldon, without actually risking his position? But Tim knows the very idea of such an arrangement is...well, preposterous. “Pay close attention to Robert,” Mr. Bridges instructs his young charges after Robert flies past them. “He knows how serious this is. He knows what’s at stake. Let me ask you: what do we mean when we say we want to ‘save’ people?” “We mean we want to bring them to God,” Christopher offers. “Right,” Mr. Bridges nods. “But we’re also literally talking about saving souls—from damnation. From an eternity apart from God. So if people ever ask you what’s at stake, if they ask you why get so worked up about sharing the Gospel... well, when you start to look at things that way, you realize that everything’s at stake.” “I could never do what Robert does,” Tim admits. “Just go up to somebody like that and start asking them about their relationship with God.” “You say that now,” Mr. Bridges counters. “But Robert didn’t start out that way. Nobody does. Robert’ll tell you himself—before he started at the Academy this year, he was as lost as anybody here at the Bean tonight. The point is, we’re all at different places in our walk with God, but there’s no reason you can’t make great strides this school year alone. Oftentimes, the first step is simply...letting go.” “Letting go of what?” Tim asks. “Fear,” Mr. Bridges replies. “The fear of what your peers will think. The fear of what your family will think. The fear of failure. Yeah,” Mr. Bridges turns to look in the direction where Robert fled earlier. “I imagine that’s exactly what Robert is grappling with right now.” AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE STRIKES A NEW CHORD Robert keeps moving until he finds himself in the damp alley behind the Sav-N-Go party store. He sets his hand on the wet brick wall and exhales a sharp breath. The air is cold but doesn’t seem to penetrate the flushed skin of his face. His pulse races and he thinks of how he used to spend his Friday nights, in a life before Sheldon
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Christian Academy or ChristWatch, a time when the last thing on his mind was the salvation of strangers. “Jesus Christ,” a voice rings out from behind him. “I feel like I’m looking at a ghost.” Robert turns around and watches as a familiar shape emerges from the dark, appearing to dance around the puddles in the alley. Robert narrows his eyes at the gangly-limbed figure dressed in a bomber jacket and hole-y jeans. The hair is longer—not to mention greasier—than he remembers, and the face thinner in its features, but there is no mistaking it: “Jesse?” he asks. “As you live and breathe,” his old friend offers a melancholy smile. Jesse pulls a cigarette from behind his ear and asks, “How the shit you been, son?” Robert casts a nervous glance over his shoulder. He knows ChristWatch is just across the street, milling around the lawn of the Coffee Bean. They’re out of his line of sight and he hopes the reverse is true for them. “I’ve been alright,” Robert says, trying to smile in response. “You know—same old, same old.” “It’s funny you say that, ‘cause I been hearing the craziest rumors,” Jesse lights the cigarette with a white Bic. “See, a little bird told me you got clean and found religion. You know, going to church, ‘What Would Jesus Do,’ and all that.” He laughs, a wild hiccup of a laugh. “You can imagine what I said to that.” Robert waits, hears a car backfire down the street, and a voice that sounds like Tim Grady’s tossed to the night. “What’d you say, Jesse?” “I told that little bird to fuck right off,” Jesse shakes his head. “Said the Robert Chaplin I knew was one of the most unrepentant sinners I ever met. Not to mention one of my best customers.” “That was a long time ago, Jesse.” “Not so long ago.” Jesse exhales smoke and adds, “Now I’m not going to insult you by asking if it’s true. That would be—” “I heard a rumor too, Jesse,” Robert swallows. “I heard you were busted for selling on school grounds and got yourself expelled from Sheldon Central just a few months shy of graduation.” “Oh yeah?” Jesse pauses, “And what’d you say to that?” “I said no way—I said the Jesse I knew was too smart for that.” Jesse appears to wince. He tosses his cigarette into a murky puddle where it hisses for the both of them. “Hey, we all have those moments,” he says. “You know...those little moments where you fuck your life up beyond all repair.”
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“I’ve learned something these last few months,” Robert says. “No life is beyond repair.” “Shit, man! I figured something was up when I heard you transferred to Sheldon Christian Academy,” this Jesse says with a mock British accent, “but I figured that coulda easily been your folks’ call. I had no idea you were gonna go and drink the Kool-Aid on this one.” Robert shifts in place, moves towards the lip of the alley. “Jesse, I’m not going to stand here and listen to you mock my—” “Hey, hey, hey, come on, man, I’m sorry,” Jesse is quick to apologize, reaching out as though he could stop Robert’s departure with the wave of his hand. “I—I’m just talking out of my ass. I just never thought you’d—” Jesse rubs his forehead. “Listen, what you heard about me—it’s true. It—it’s just me and my mom now. We’re living in this shitty apartment complex over on Joy Road that smells like backed-up sewage and Indian food. We’re struggling. Okay? I mean, you think anybody wants to hire a kid whose resume reads ‘teenage drug dealer’?” Robert experiences a brief pang of memory as he thinks of Jesse’s mother. He sees her kind, oval-shaped face and her tired waitress eyes, remembers the scent of other people’s cigarette smoke trapped underneath her fingernail as she stroked the top of his head. The way she held him close to her chest after he collapsed back from the vomit-ringed seat of her bathroom toilet. His face had been ghost-white, his sweat leaving a damp outline in her aqua blue work uniform. “I want to die, I want to die,” he had muttered over and over into her collarbone. He could feel the cross hanging around her neck as it scratched roughly against his ear. “I know, sweetie,” I know,” she whispered to him, “but it will pass.” All things pass, she promised him—and it took seven days that felt more like seven weeks. Seven weeks with his head in a furnace, sweating out his addiction like a fever. For the worst of it, Jesse’s mother barricaded him in her bedroom and slept on the couch, or tried to sleep, while he thrashed and tore apart her room, throwing dresser drawers in fits of delirium or rage—pounding his fists against the walls until the neighbors threatened to call the police. In his darkest moment, Robert knows he would have strangled her—wrapped his sickly white hands around her throat and choked the life from her soft blue eyes—for the promise of just one more fix. “I’ll pray for you,” Robert says to Jesse as the damp alley and the dark night return to him.
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“Don’t give me that shit, Rob,” Jesse spits back. “Your Sunday school friends can give me that shit all day, but don’t you do that to me. You know nothing’s that simple.” Jesse takes a step closer. “Now you and I both know your parents are fucking loaded. What, their money is good enough to spend on drugs but too good to help your best friend when he’s in a spot?” “I don’t live with my parents anymore,” Robert replies, backing up again, “and I think this conversation is done.” Jesse holds his palms out in a gesture of peace. “Okay, okay, wait. I’ve got some shit on me—I’m not gonna lie, it’s some weak-ass shit, but I’ll unfold it for cheap. For you. Call it a ‘nostalgia discount.’ Please man? Any little bit will help. I’m—I’m just trying to keep a fucking roof over my head, man.” “Good-bye, Jesse,” Robert turns away, hunches his shoulders in a useless gesture to shield himself from the cold. “Whatever, man,” Jesse calls after him. “You can act too good for me now, but something tells me you haven’t deleted my number from your phone!”
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Robert has told himself, time and time again, that to break free of the past one has to break free from everything. Tonight isn’t the first time he’s questioned this notion. Back on the lawn of the Coffee Bean, he becomes lost in thought while listening to fellow Senior class member Melanie Prescott, who’s currently in the process of explaining her father’s recent acquisition of a strip mall storefront. “What does your dad do again?” Robert asks. Melanie blinks. “He runs Sgt. Pizza.” “Oh. Oh! Of course. Sorry—my head is somewhere else tonight.” At this, the screen door to the Coffee Bean bangs open. “How many times do I have to tell you Goddamn kids?” Mrs. Pritcher announces her presence. “You’re not allowed to stand on the lawn. It’s called loitering! Do I have to pull out the public ordinance? You’re welcome to stand on the patio or find a seat inside—but if you don’t disperse from the lawn right now, I’m gonna have to call the cops.” The door rattles shut behind her. Robert turns back to look at Mr. Bridges, who offers a sheepish grin like a child who’s just been caught creeping into the kitchen after dark. “Guess we better find somewhere else to congregate pretty soon,” he offers. “Fat bitch,” mutters a kid walking by with a skateboard tucked under his arm.
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Distracted by the confrontation with Mrs. Pritcher, Robert fails to notice a skinny-limbed boy with an acidic yellow mohawk slink behind the Sav-N-Go store. Nor would he be able to observe the exchange of money and illicit substances between Jesse and the young boy, or the moment when the boy grows bold and decks Jesse into a pile of soggy trash bags upon sampling the product. When the red and blue lights begin flashing in front of the Sav-N-Go, Robert simply assumes that Mrs. Pritcher has made good on her promise to inform the police. Robert watches, in shock with the rest of ChristWatch, as the mohawked boy shoots out from behind the party store, his chest heaving as he gasps for air and hurls himself down the street in the opposite direction of the cop cars. Soon after, Jesse himself is hauled out from behind the alley by a uniformed police officer and forcefully led towards their vehicle. To most eyes on the Coffee Bean patio, it’s just a shady drug deal gone south—a rare occurrence in downtown Sheldon, to be sure, but not outside the realm of possibility. “Hey Robert,” Melanie says, nudging him gently, “didn’t I see you ministering to that guy earlier?” She asks in her soft, lilting voice. Robert watches as Jesse’s body is slammed into the rear door of the cop car, his face pressing against the glass in a brutal kiss. “Who?” Robert asks, then pauses. “Him? No,” he shakes his head once, “No, I’ve never seen that guy before in my life.”
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I Know Why Sea Turtles Cry
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ate one night, after I had come back to the States from the Islands, my grandmother told me about how when she was little, her father, my great grandfather, would bring home turtles from far out at sea. He would come back in his fishing boat, unload the fish, and then drop the pendant-shaped bodies of the accidental reptilian catches in the sand. Tired from stress, and probably scared, the turtles would lie there in the sand, unmoving, and stoic. Great Grandfather once said, in a language that today I only have ears for, Girls, tell that turtle weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to cook him and eat him. He will cry because he understands. Astonished, my grandmother and her sisters danced a ring around the trapped turtle, slender fingers rubbing and slapping the smooth, wood-colored shell, teasing, We will cook you, we will eat you, you are dinner, our big dinner. And just as Great Grandfather had said, the turtle cried salty tears that washed away the sand stuck around its puffy eyelids. I can only see my grandmother and her sisters as children if I close my eyes and imagine them in the pages of a storybook with pictures. Black line drawings, with blue skirts that fall just past knobby, brown knees. Three little girls, in white blouses, standing ankle-deep in the dry sand, and a soaking wet turtle who has found a second wind, and some courage, and is now trying in vain to use his leathery sea wings to make headway on the shifting beach toward the shelter of the folding ocean. Tired from his day at sea, Great Grandfather made his way up the beach like a soft ocean breeze. Girls, he shouted, let him go now. My grandmother paused here. And then we let him go, she said. Grandmother, the eternal compassioner, took the front end, grasping the turtle at the bases of its fins. She dug in her heels and pulled with the all the might of her tiny heaving body. Her two sisters, at the tail end, leaned forward on the shell, lifted their own rumps into the air and pushed toward the sea. Isa! Dalawa! Tatlo! A team push and pull brought the turtle closer to the ocean. Isa! Dalawa!
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Tatlo! Again, closer, and on and on until the three girls were knee-deep in the foam of the shore break, and the turtle felt the relief of the cool ocean. Grandmother stepped aside, the turtle disappeared under a wave, and was gone.
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I’m at my father’s house, it’s late, and my grandmother sits across from me in a faux leather armchair. I nod and smile, and thank her for the story. I don’t mention that I know the real reason sea turtles cry. Of course the sea turtle couldn’t understand the teasing girls, although I would understand if it were scared anyway. Sea turtles cry because of salt build-up. Life in the ocean means, for those who live it, a body chemistry that constantly needs to be monitored and controlled. The salt in the blue water inevitably builds up in the turtle’s system and has to go somewhere, lest it die of sodium poisoning. The crying is unconscious, it is a body function, akin to urination. Had I been listening to anyone else, I feel like I would have had little reservation about explaining the unromantic body functions of a sea turtle. But my grandmother’s visions of home are too beautiful to ruin. Did you have a good time in the Philippines, anak? She says. Yes, Grandma, I say. When you go back, maybe you’ll find a sea turtle. Try that one, maybe he will cry. Maybe, I say, wishing she had told me this story before I had gone and come back.
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El Nido
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hree a.m. and the sky is open. Mini monsoon. The north side of the island, this tip of land pointing northeast to Luzon—hissing under rain. It’s a waking hour in California, so I’m awake. What insects must be coming in through cracks and slits searching for a warm pillow away from the soak outside—a tired cockroach, a water-beaded spider, maybe a moth trying to keep its wings from turning to dust. The damp breeze coming through the window screen smells of wet dirt, like the jungle is exhaling. I can’t smell the ocean, close enough to hear in the silence before this rain. A full day of travel brought me from San Francisco to this stiff mattress in Palawan. This dusty tourist town full of European backpackers, so still at this hour, nothing to do, nowhere to go, no tricycles to take you there. At this hour maybe one hundred of us are awake. One hundred of us know it’s raining. The rest will only see the wet ground in the morning. They’ll see the beefy ants rebuilding their nests, and the shopkeepers sweeping the puddles away from their storefronts. The morning comes and we walk, the cement streets sprinkled with tiresmashed dog shit, dirty candy wrappers, and fallen leaves and flowers. Every fifth breath is half-monoxide, half-saltwater air. First come the rooster crows, then comes the buzz of single-cylinder tricycles weaving and beeping their way through the dog shit and tourists. Trash day, the collection truck, a rare sight outside the city, in bad English perfectly executed, hand-painted on the side: If you can’t keep your surroundings clean, don’t make it dirty. The largest resident vehicle in El Nido, the garbage truck. The other whining mammoth machines are itinerant construction vehicles here today, gone when the road is paved, gone when the hotel is done. Despite the presence of homeless, beach bum dogs, nibbling flea bites, sitting at the legs of beachfront tables, playing the emotions of travelers for scraps, clumps of rice, pork bones, maybe a fried fish head, there are no strays here. Each dog has its place, its spot in the shade during the day, its spot on the warm cement steps in the evening. Ex-mother dog, saggy breasts, pulled upon then left, gets the bottom
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step, as she’s recently parted with a back paw, pink stub still raw; she can’t climb quite so well, so the others give her a break. She walks with the three legs still intact, and flicks the paw-less one, as if to step, but doesn’t let the stub touch the sand, it floats, she walks like she’s a mutt, one quarter drifting ghost. They survive, they all survive, even the pups, on the sympathy of visitors and the incomplete apathy of locals, not entirely cruel. Dogs are smart, they know how things go, maybe that’s why the chickens feel free to tap down alleys and through gutters. Breakfast. Yellow butter on right angle toast, over-medium eggs, curly bacon, mango halves, cut like a checkerboard, flipped inside out, tiny cubes of bright yellow meat splayed out ready for my lips and teeth. American continental they call it. Never had it like this in America. This butter is different, this toast is different, these eggs are the same, this bacon was cured in some other way, and this mango is better. They offered juice. Tang. They offered coffee. Nestle Instant. “Is the water filtered?” I wonder like an American continental. An octagonal dining hall, the furniture hard wood, reminds me that I’m still sore from my full day of travel.
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SFO flight leaves at 10:30 p.m., lands in the future, across the international dateline, first in Guam because of fuel-burning headwinds, an estimated travel time of fifteen hours becomes a real time of seventeen and some change, including the taxi time and long disembarkation. Ninety something, maybe one hundred rows. Let the lolas go. Help them with the bags, the rollers, the duffels, too heavy for their tired arms. Wait at baggage claim, turning a 747’s worth of suitcases and Balikbayan boxes. Wait at the money changer, who buys my dollars with thousands of pesos. Look for Dad in the waiting crowd. Spot him with his bags packed. “C’mon, we gotta go, your flight got in late.” A yellow cab, a shaved-head driver, knower of the true path between airport terminals. The lanes lie in Manila. Road paint might as well be skid marks. In other parts of the world, the part of the world I come from, cars file through lanes, like electrons on a wire; the path is preset. On these islands, cars fly over the road like deer through a treeless forest. Go as slow or as fast as you want. Just don’t get killed or kill anyone. The cab makes a sine wave through traffic. Another flight, my spine not yet recovered, but another flight, the ticket paid for, I’m going. Short, an hour, low altitude, I can see the wrinkles in the mountains, and the different colors of the crops in the flatlands between peaks. Then over a sea, to a different island. Coming off seventeen hours over the Pacific, that glide made this short flight feel like a leap, with a soft landing on a new
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island conspicuously missing skyscrapers. A van ride from the airport to a tour agency’s office in Puerta Princesa. Then another van ride, five hours that turned into six, in a ten-seater van filled with ten people and ten people’s luggage, from Puerta Princesa to El Nido over a road, mountain switchbacks and farm country ribbons, a maniac driver, too good at his job for our own good, for our carsick tendencies. He’s just trying to make time. Eventually, the road ends and a dirt path begins, then ends where another paved road begins anew, and goes for a while, then switches back, and on and on like so for the last hour before a wooden sign: Welcome to El Nido. I haven’t bothered to do the exact math, including the time in between flights and drives. In El Nido, I fall into the mattress and the comfort of being horizontal, and wake up at 3 a.m. I managed to make it so it doesn’t quite matter except for when I care to complain about it.
Breakfast is gone, devoured in the time it takes for the half-refined sugar to fully dissolve in the luke-warm instant coffee. A table by a window, my father fishing the last of his “juice,” up pops a tan face at the window sill. Rivera? Yes. A conversation in Tagalog follows. He’s a government official, working for their version of the EPA, or something like it, like EPA but with a special focus on tourism. He’s wearing a torn t-shirt and swimming trunks. We’re reluctant to believe him at first but he has our reservation slip in a ledger, filled with other reservation slips, those of other tourists signed up for island hopper tours. We need to pay an environmental tax. Two hundred pesos each, roughly $4.50. But he gives us a discount because we’re Filipino—half, one hundred pesos each. $2.25 to protect the ocean, the reef, the sand, the hermit crabs, the fiber-optic fish, and the gray cliff islands dotting the water. Tricycle picks us up on the road, zigzags through town and leaves us at another beach. An ocean as calm as a lake, a natural harbor, surrounded on three sides by land and covered in outrigger boats. A parking lot. Not docked, but moored to the hard-packed sandy bottom by rebar anchors, homemade anchors, welded and bent by muscle and not machine. There are too many boats for the shore to handle, so they’re lined up, and stacked, staggered, shore to bow, to stern, to bow, to stern, to bow, to stern, three rows deep away from the comfortable ankle-deep, manageable shore. Where to go from here. Our boat, it’s the one with the tiny tour guide, a dark-skinned, slight person, large eyes, the whites of which make his teeth shine
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like margarine, a kind smile nonetheless. Of course it’s in the third row, farthest out to sea. He’s waving us over, pointing at the water between us and the boat, chopping the blade of his hand against his hips, pointing then chopping again. Must be waist-deep. We’ll see. Hold your bags above your heads, they’ll be fine, they’ll stay dry. If you’re so inclined tie up your t-shirt, better to soak your midriff than half your shirt. The bottom is smooth, and kind to the bare foot. Not flat, it feels like walking over uneven earth covered in a silk blanket. The ladder from ocean to deck hangs overboard and its bottom rung bobs at knee level. Grab the deck rail and hop up. Note: the ladder is secured by a single, semi-stretchable nylon rope, it will give under your full weight. Be ready. Step slowly. Four stops. They blur together. Each one a different tiny island, a beach butting up to a sheer gray cliff, buzzing jungle. Pretty pictures, not much else, as if nature’s been staged for the brochure. One stop, the fourth stop, did stand out, however. An abandoned church, deserted now except for the daily tours that crawl through its staircases and squint through its cracked and faded windows. Not a Spanish colonial, bell tower and all, made of coral stone, stained glass windows, carved crucifixes—no, none of that. This church made of crumbling cement, made in the modern era, appeared to be made by a cult, a cult to the Virgin. The largest structure, a gazebo, in the center of which stood and stared downward a white statue of the immaculate Mary. Curved benches filled in the rest of the floor space under the cement dome, like ripples gliding away from the epicenter, from the Holy Mother. Our tour guide led us down a short set of stairs underground, into a low ceiling nook, full of pictures and small plaques telling the history of this place. The light bulbs and fixtures inside the dark space had been ripped out—even if they hadn’t been, I suspect there would be no electricity anyway, which is good because exposed wires hung dangerously at eye level. Their exposed copper tips jagged and ready to serve as cornea rakes for the unleery. So the story obscured by darkness is not clear. A Catholic group, shipped in materials from Manila, built this church on a tiny island, apparently shaped sort of like a heart, took some photos, prayed some prayers, then left, without locking up. We’d gone farther from our waist-deep harbor beach than I thought. The ride back lasted long enough for a nap and a few moments of reflection. No island hopping, a straight shot over open water, slightly swollen, the open ocean waves rolled beneath us and we rose and fell at the speed of a good yawn. This small person, in a small boat, in a wide sea, under an enormous sky, this small person stretched out on deck, I imagine the sun staring back at me, the wrong way through
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cosmic binoculars, peering through the curved dome of the sky, the sun sees me smaller than I really am. And I catch myself in self-centric thought, and dismiss the idea of the sun staring at me, shrunken through turned binoculars; maybe I am that small—no, I know I am. And maybe the sun is staring at the opposite end of the galaxy—no, I know it is. And I’m just here marveling at the sun’s asshole like some dick in the yard who’s never really seen the sun. I sit up, and we’re back. A second night in El Nido, dry and scented with bar music from end to end. The town sits in another natural harbor, a curved beach bookended by massive cliffs, the sand in the swell shadow of another small island just off shore. There’s more open at night, or maybe it feels that way because everything is busier, the surroundings are dark, the cliffs blend into the sky, and I’m forced to be aware of the commerce under electric lights. The massage district, leads to the restaurants, leads to the bars, leads to the discos. The tourists aren’t on the streets, the discos are empty. They’re on the beach, barefoot, eating at tables in the sand, listening to clumsy reggae. I’m not there. I’m back in bed. The adrenaline high is coming down, and I feel like I’m so tired if I’m not careful I might start getting heart palpitations. In six hours, I’ll be gone from this beautiful trap. 233
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Manila
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anila is quick. I came here and left for Palawan on the same swing of the minute hand last time. Now I’m back, and I’ll be gone before the sun rises. Our condotel, the St. Francis, lit by neon, rainbow twin towers across the street from the mega mall. The cab drivers work in 24-hour shifts. First, they make enough to pay the owner of the cab, then whatever they make after the cab is covered, they get to keep. We meet a driver, name of Rudelle. This shift he’ll make 800 pesos, maybe $18. Eighteen dollars for him and his pregnant wife, who calls him on his cell phone while he tap dances on the gas and brake through the metro jam, keeps the beat with a slipping clutch. Rudelle, go home early, here’s a thousand-peso note. This cab ride would be double that in the States. The next driver is Harris, sincere yet eternally befuddled. Three hours from Manila to Longos. A short road trip. The country we pass through is dry where it is not irrigated for some kind of crop, mostly rice. The national highway gives you time, but robs you of everything else. At this speed, Luzon is drifting by like a ship far out at sea. Subic Bay. The American Navy is gone, but they’ve left their mark: infrastructure, traffic lights, barriers, docks, white men with buzz cuts. Then on to Olongapo, Home of the most beautiful women in the world, says the sign at the city limit. I can’t help but ask myself, “Says who?” Then I remember where I am, and answer, “The goddamn American military is who goddamn says, goddamnit. See these brown girls, they smile at us, like ripe fruit, exotic, can’t get these at the supermarket, these ain’t no Washington apples, these are Manila mangoes, and every mango’s got a big white bone in it. These girls are sweet, and they listen, we take what we want, and we want boomba, that’s how y’all say it, right? Boomba? Why you think the red light district is so big?” I’m queasy when I see another sign at the other city limit: Thank you for visiting Olongapo.
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Longos
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ongos. This is why I’ve come—to see the land that once was ours. My great grandfather, my grandfather, not my father, owned these lands. Longos was a sea urchin clinging to the boulder of the coconut plantation that used to be here. I’d seen it on Google Earth, a solar powered bird’s eye view. It looked like a landing strip, slightly wider than it needed to be. But standing in this fallow field, smelling the fallow earth I’m shrunken again. Not by the sun, I’m shrunken by the weight of history, my history. The plane tickets that brought my family across the Pacific to San Francisco on July 4, 1975, were paid for in coconuts grown on this land. I’m possible, I’m tangible, because of the bounty of this land I’m a stranger in this land where I can’t drink the water. My father made me, and he is made of the fish and rice and eggplants I can see from where I’m standing. This dry field in the country gave life, my life. I wonder how long it took for the palm roots to wither away after the trees were cut. I wonder if a single root strand remains. We spend the night a town over, in Laoag. A beach town, a fisherman’s nest. At one end of the beach, stray dogs flop and wrestle in the sand, running circles around each other, and at the other end, children play in mirror image. We arrive at the beach a few minutes before the boats come in. Canoes packing tired men and coolers full of fish the size of tea saucers, and squid marinating in their own brown ink. We buy them from the source. Aunty Irene points at this fish and that fish, a squid here and there, and the man who caught them plucks them out of his Styrofoam boxes and hands them over. Aunty Irene hands a few to me, a few to my cousins, and other cousins and down the line, and we walk single file back up the beach to our small rented hut. Uncle Jose has the grill lit but not going. Coals not orange but blowing smoke. He fans them with a plastic dinner plate. Lump charcoal, not briquettes, still have the wood grain, still have their yearly rings. This sort of thing is affected in the States. Fresh fish, responsibly caught, dolphin-free, fair trade, straight from the source! Only $3 more a pound. Real lump charcoal, burns longer, burns hotter, it’s a bitch to light, but, boy, does it give your food that real smoky flavor. There’s
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vegetables too: eggplant. Organic, authentic, local. Only $6 more for a bag. Is this real? Are we pretending? I thought this was the third world. Nightfall. It all fits. The fish, the pork chops, the eggplants fit on the grill top like staggered bricks. The coals shining through the gaps between them like the mortar is lava, molten, glowing. There’s dogs here too. They must have masters, they must be kind. The dogs guard the huts, they bark at us as we walk by at night, but they don’t bite. They stay by the grill, but do not beg. They smell the food, waving their noses side to side in the dark, but maintain safe distance. You tried this? Uncle Jose says to me. This one is Red Horse. Extra strength. One bottle is equivalent to three bottles beer. He says as he places the 22-ounce brown bottle down in front of me on the bamboo table. He pops the lid and I taste it. A watery beer, but beloved in these islands. San Miguel, Saint Michael, leader of god’s forces against Satan, patron saint of beer, provider for uncles, a cool San Mig Light. The weak flavor, false security, I drink and drink, and I finish too quickly. When I set the empty bottle back down on the bamboo table I can’t tell if it stands crooked because of the uneven curves of the bamboo stalks or because I’m drunker than I think. I need to use the bathroom I say and bump my head on the low entry on the way out. In a different hut, writing in a notebook under a light bulb, dim, and flickering. Love notes about beachside barbeques. I’ll use these notes later. On an island of light. Square island, table-shaped, fluorescent, moths circling overhead like drunk vultures. Beyond the light, a sea of darkness. Voices, laughter, like the sound of waves washing up on shore. Out of the sea, comes my father, out of the dark comes his voice, son, come here and look at the stars. From the beach, the sky comes into focus. The stars shine out of the abyss, grains of salt on a black tabletop. California kid, don’t know a sky like this. Too many lights in the Golden State, can’t see the stars. How endearing, the shy stars, so humble, they don’t shine when our lights feel like shining brighter. But in this darkness, in the flat night of the country, the hazy band of the Milky Way is painted across the sky, droplets from a spray can of stardust. We fall asleep on the soft sand. A thin quilt to keep the beach out of our hair and pockets. It’s hard to say what I dream about this night. But a night like this deserves a dream. When I close my eyes I see home. The Capital W, West Coast, but it’s hotter, I think, there’s more bamboo, there’s more stray dogs, but Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack” is playing from an unseen boombox. I’m up before sunrise. Light creeps up the dome of the sky from the east. The edge of night slowly recedes to the west, and the border between light and dark is like the edge of an eyelid opening to the sun. My father has one more thing to show me before we head home. writing book 2015
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Bricks
W
e creep through the backyard of another home, no one is around, save the house dogs, who bark, but shy away when you flash them a nasty look. Through another hole in another fence we step, and come upon the skeleton of a building. It was a brick factory. There’s bricks everywhere. And brick dust everywhere else. What do you think? I’m not sure why he’s asking. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. What do I think about what? This. What about this? It’s mine. You bought it? No, we never sold it. This is where I’m going to build my house. The slab is sturdy. The walls are gone. But the cement and rebar supports don’t show their age, however old they really are. My father explains where the living room will go, where the bedroom will be, where he will install the plumbing for the bathroom, what he’ll use to replace the tin roof. In his mind the house is already built, he’s already here. The man in California is one with an agenda, an escape plan. A ghost. You can come visit me. I can. But when can I? Will I? This skeleton house in old farm country stands waiting for my father. The support beams ribs, and the tin roof shoulder blades. Left behind is the kiln. The oven where the bricks hardened, massive eye holes where once were furnace doors, removed for the scrap metal. Near the bottom gaps in its teeth where the brickmakers stoked the fire. A skull oven. A fire extinguished. This land is whole, but undone. The nest is gone, blown away by the wind. But what remains is the crooked branch and the fork it’s made. Ready for a new nest. Where might be born a remembrance and a resting place where foreign birds might learn why their feathers are so strange.
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This volume is published by the mfa Program in Writing at California College of the Arts on the occasion of the graduation of the class of 2015. copy editor: Steffi Drewes design: Gold Collective printer: H&H Printing cover printer: Dependable Letterpress Writing Book 2015 uses the Farnham family of typefaces, designed by Christian Schwartz in 2004. A versatile and interesting typeface with exuberant angularity as well as pleasantly rounded terminals and sophisticated swashes, it is paired sparingly with Brandon Grotesque on the cover, student names and titles. Š 2015 by California College of the Arts, 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco ca 94107-2247. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without permission.