Stumble - Issue 1 by Nancy Smith

Stumble fiction & photography

WHAT IS THIS?

about STAFF Editor & Publisher Nancy Smith

Editors Andrew Monko Anthony Russo

Designers Sachiko Kuwabata Nancy Smith

Copy Editors Andrea Gough Katie Kinney

Stumble is an independent art and literary magazine devoted entirely to short fiction and photography. There’s no particular reason, other than we just love good stories and photography. We publish several times a year (we’re shooting for quarterly), and accept submissions year-round. Please see our website for complete submission guidelines: www.stumblemag.com. Can’t find Stumble in your favorite bookstore? You can always find us at magcloud.com.

No portion of Stumble may be reprinted or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. Individual copyright of the creative work within belongs to each author/photographer upon publication.

All questions/comments may be directed to info@stumblemag.com

WHAT PAGE?

contents page11

Letter from the Editor: Welcome to the first issue

page13

Contributors: A little bit about the people who made this

page22

Murfreesboro: By Nate Liederbach

page40

Mannequins: By Steven Ramirez

HELLO

welcome There have been many naysayers in this endeavor. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, over the past few months, “The publishing industry is dying” or “no one is going to buy a literary magazine right now!” Seems as if this economy has caused all of our inner-cynics to surface. I don’t entirely disagree with much of this sentiment, but this isn’t about selling magazines. This definitely isn’t about making money. It’s not really even a practical matter at all. For me, it’s about creating something for the sake of creating something. It’s art for the sake of art. When I came up with the idea to start a magazine, I simply wanted to bring together two things that I love—fiction and photography—and make something beautiful and compelling. It’s as simple as that.

In the face of all this cynicism I’d like to thank everyone who did support this project—those people who didn’t roll their eyes when I said I was going to start a literary magazine. And, not only didn’t roll their eyes, but embraced the project wholeheartedly and unabashedly. I’d also like to thank everyone who contributed their work. Digging through the pile of submissions was inspiring and it gives me a lot of hope for the future of literary fiction. I don’t know where Stumble will be in a year, or in five years, but it’s a good bet that we’ll be bringing you the best short stories and photography that we can dig up for a long time to come. Welcome to our first issue.

Nancy Smith Editor & Publisher

WHO ARE WE?

contributors Adam Hobbins recently abandoned the sidelines of photography by purchasing his first SLR, which he has been using almost non-stop ever since. He earned a B.A. in English from Seattle University, which he promptly put to work in the software industry. He spends his time brewing/drinking beer, cooking, wandering aimlessly around cities and photographing all of the above. Adam hails from San Antonio, Texas, and has also lived in Germany and Seattle. He lives in Austin with loyal cat Nigel.

Nate Liederbach is the author of the short story collection, Doing a Bit of Bleeding (Ghost Road Press). Among other literary journals, his work has appeared in Mississippi Review, Permafrost,

Gettysburg Review and Blue Earth Review. His prose can also be found in the anthologies, The Way We Knew It and Please Stay On

the Trail. He lives with his wife (and indispensable editor), the poet Michelle Crowson, in Olympia, WA.

Steven Ramirez is from El Paso, Texas. He has two wonderful parents—Art and Irma—and two brothers who he’ll go ahead and call wonderful as well. Steven attended the University of Southern California, where he studied fiction under the guidance of authors T.C. Boyle and Aimee Bender. He has his Masters in Education and is currently completing his MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop. He is working on his first collection of stories. Steven resides in the Midwest with a brilliant lawyer named Michelle.

Murfreesboro By Nate Liederbach

When people ask, I say it’s not exactly a ghost story. I have ghost stories, but this, well, it’s so much more. I was nineteen and delivering pizza in Murfreesboro, a sad, squat city on the southern outskirts of Nashville. “Outskirts” sounds playful—

marginalized. From daybreak on, the sun was just a hot smear and when it set, set like a dirge, there was even less relief. Every night, a rotten fog swept in over the fast food joints and acres of RV lots. And that was all of it. That was Murfreesboro. I’d moved from the mountains of western Colorado, real Colorado, for a number of vapid reasons. For one, my older sister said we’d be living in the heart of Music City. She said my nights would be filled with patio bars, blues guitar and desperate cowgirls. But even as I pulled in, I knew all of that was wrong. Nashville was too expensive. Nashville’s suburbs were too expensive. Instead, Jessica had found us a concrete apartment thirty minutes off course. “Stop bitching,” she said. “When you want to party, find some ho in Nashville and crash at her pad.” Domino’s Pizza was two blocks from our apartment. I averaged forty bucks a shift. This particular night, I’d been in Tennessee four months. Fall classes had started at the local university, started without me, and the

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rolling meadows and woolen clouds—but not this place. It was somber and

campus was typically buzzing, but this night was unusually slow. I didn’t mind. I only needed cash for my gas tank. Most nights I spent in Nashville, and once in the city, I didn’t pay a dime. I was seeing a Club Eden stripper, an ex-army lieutenant, stage name Kali. She had five years on me and terrified me, but fit my imagined persona. I’d slink into the throbbing club and wait for her to finish her shift. Strutting past, she’d run a hand through my hair, but I’d stare down at my five-dollar Sprite. I couldn’t look at her in there. Under those swimming lights her ass cheeks were bruised and pocked. She kept her crotch completely shaved, but never well, the flesh grayish-purple, deaden. When I’d eat her it hurt my lips, left me nauseous—that’s graphic, probably too much information, but it’s the bigger concept I’m trying to convey. It was all a bigger concept, and at nineteen I was deaf, dumb and blind. Kali and me, we had our hair dyed jet-black, wore vinyl jackets, and blew all her tips on hotel suites, coke and expensive whiskey. Sitting on sprawling white beds, the curtains wide to the Nashville skyline, we ate Wendy’s and never used condoms. She

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told me two abortions and a raping uncle had left her barren, told me her strict code of monogamy was what allowed her to be a Catholic and a stripper. I knew she was lying, but that was part of the relationship. So I went to her. Went every chance I got.

Behind Domino’s was a bench where I hung out when shifts were slow. I’d read Tom Robbins, Bukowski, Camus. I liked what they said, but I didn’t believe a word. Three more brave idiots trading their eternities to flip off their Creator. Who didn’t want to? I did, of course I did, but at least I had the brains to know that the minute Death showed I’d scream for Jesus to forgive me. Outside, reading, I’d underline passages and shake my head. I made certain to laugh loudly enough for my coworkers to hear. Those morons had acorn minds, no great destiny, but I told myself that I preferred them to a university full of sponge-brained sheep. The first week I’d arrived in Murfreesboro, I’d told my sister I was registering for classes, but instead found myself strutting around the student center in an anxious daze. Compared to my

freshman year at my hometown’s tiny college, the MTSU campus was monstrous. I felt anonymous and plain. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to study, I did, but abroad. I’d say it all the time—abroad—but I didn’t have a clue what it entailed. Again, it was the concept, people back home picturing me sketching nudes in Florence, reading Joyce in some smoky Dublin pub. The truth was I could only sketch nudes off photographs, and I only knew James Joyce by name. Another reason I was in Tennessee was anywhere else I would’ve had to go it alone, but here Jess had already smoothed the path. My friends back home had no clue where I’d gone. East, I’d said. But when I went to register at the university, I found I could only stand outside the student center trying to appear original and defiant. I had home-pierced ears and oversized motorcycle boots, but there were plenty of guys swarming around looking much more stylishly enigmatic. Wilted, I took out my pipe, loaded some pot, and posed. Hoards of registered students filtered past, sniffing the air. They’d frown or flash me a hang-loose sign. I didn’t know these people, but their affirmation of my existence was enough. Instead of classes, I was obviously meant for archetypal

rested an elbow on my thigh, and stared deeply into the distance. At some point, a beautiful girl, pens and paintbrushes twisted in her hair, stood next to me. She said nothing, so I gave her a half-smile and she returned it. “You know,” she said, and gently, like comforting a skinned-up child, “we all smell it, but that’s not very intelligent, now is it?” I stared her down, wracking my brain for some witty come-back, but then she was leaving. How great would that be, I thought, if Security showed up right now? A couple of fat, Confederate hicks trying to tackle me? I’d been a track star since junior high, hurdles, middle-distance. I could run a quarter-mile in fifty seconds. I’d zip past that bitch so fast the pens would fly from her hair.

A big order came in at dusk. No one wanted to run four pies eleven miles out to the edge of the delivery area, so I said fine, I’d do it, but then I’m calling it quits. The pizzas in my backseat, my music up, my window down, I

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statements of artistic rebellion. I propped a boot on a short, concrete wall,

aimed my old Toyota wagon for BFE. Murfreesboro, the town, okay maybe it wasn’t so bad, maybe it wasn’t so boondocks, but it was sure guilty by association. Past the city everything went to shit. The woods took over, mobile homes sagged, sidewalks dove. All the asphalt turned to weed-tufted paths lined with rusty barbwire and dead-ended in rubbish-strewn hollows. This world wasn’t naturally wild, understand, but feral. It had a worn, abused aura. For centuries people had struggled to live here in some bitter cycle of ignorant use, destroying their livelihoods, and so the nature on these properties, when it revived, sprouted thorny and jaded. My hometown, Gunnison, it was the sticks, but it was wild and pristine, its outskirts National Forest and BLM land, wholesome mountains, clear trout streams. The land I passed beyond Murfreesboro, I know now that it has its own weary beauty, but at that age I couldn’t see it, couldn’t see past my idea of the inhabitants as genetic defeatists, the sons and daughters of brooding racists, incestuous, stupid. The pine forest and dark basins where abandoned pickups rotted in ponds, I knew they were checkered with lost Civil War battlefields, but

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I didn’t know how to feel anything about it. An older guy I worked with spent his weekends bushwhacking thickets, armed with a machete and a burlap sack, unearthing cannonballs and uniform fabric. He got so excited he was almost crying one night. He said he found a femur with an imbedded bit of iron grapeshot. I was outside with my book and he wouldn’t leave me alone. None of that war crap interested me. Or, no, that’s not entirely true. The dude’s emotion did. His passion. It was like Dad’s, a gushing wonder, and at that point in life I was terrified to wonder. I associated it with naivety, with a lack of confidence and resolve. And then there was the competition. I could only see the world as measured against me, my existence dependent on my individuality. I had to prove myself as not my dad, but yet greater than him. He’d always wanted to be a philosopher, an adventurer, but he’d given up, given in, went to pharmacy school, everyday counting pills with gritted teeth. Still, though, sometimes I’d imagine, while out on a delivery in those sad woods beyond Murfreesboro—and I was imagining it this particular night—Dad coming to visit. I could picture us perfectly, not talking, but working side-by-side, machetes and spades, sweating, grinning, digging up cannons and bloody bayonets.

Fifteen minutes driving and my crude highway shot out from a low, tangled marshland, shot out from the shadows, and, suddenly to my left stretched an odd expanse of bluegrass sod. It was as sculpted as a golf course and caught me in the chest. Without thinking, I eased off the gas to soak it in, my arm out the window, a cool scent of dew and alfalfa. Obviously it was the future site for a cluster of cookie-cutter homes. The developer had already paved a road, a wide, black stream looping out into all that lush. But that was it, no other progress. No lot flags or electric meters, just one single house at the far end, a tall, pink number with a green roof and white trim. At the road’s entrance stood one of those landscaped hillocks with a fancy sign. I don’t recall the place’s name, but it was the subdivision on my ticket. Around the sign were floodlights and manicured hedges and jagged, half-buried boulders. I drove in as the day dwindled just beyond the pink house, a soft-orange sun melting into a row of black oaks. The developer had laid sidewalks on both sides, white concrete and bright curbs. I cut the volume on my stereo and coasted, under my old tires the fresh, black asphalt babbled.

as the curb. I tossed my car into neutral and wrenched the emergency brake. The pizzas were divided into two bags, these big insulated sleeves with plastic pouches on the front for the ticket order. Like always, I checked the bill again before heading up. I rang the doorbell and waited a good two minutes, but nothing happened. The porch had been recently coated, I could smell the pitch and varnish, could feel it tacky on my soles. Again, I rang the bell. This was long before cell phones were common, ’93, so I couldn’t do anything but sigh and lug the pizzas back to my car. I honked my horn a few times. I wasn’t even annoyed, just playful. Maybe it was the sod, the unusually cool evening, but I felt sedated even though I hadn’t smoked anything yet that night. Not a big deal. Besides, I was paid an hourly wage and reimbursed for mileage. I had no plans for after my shift, either. If earlier I had been thinking about seeing Kali, driving into Nashville, at this point I’d decided against it. No, I’d just go home, maybe drink a few beers, cook a burger, challenge my eleven-year-old neighbor

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The driveway to the pink house was the same bright white concrete

to Scrabble. Everything aside, I had no good reason to stay in Tennessee and it was getting more apparent everyday, but even though in my heart I wanted to return to Gunnison so badly, my pride wouldn’t hear it. So, I guess I was waiting, like if I held out long enough, if I laid low and didn’t make too much noise, all the big, hollow words I’d left back in Colorado would slowly grow into themselves.

Backing out of the drive, I shoved my car into first and was pulling away when I caught movement in my periphery. From the open front door, a man waved at me with both arms. He looked middle-aged, well-put together, with glasses and combed hair and a nice button-up shirt. Giving the guy a salute, I reversed back past his drive and pulled on in again. I hopped out, grabbed the pies and headed to the front door, but he’d closed it. And not a crack, he’d

closed it, locked it. I rang the bell and waited twenty seconds before pounding.

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I even shouted a bit and put my ear to the door, but then stormed back to my car and chucked the pizza bags in the backseat. Once again, I backed out, but stopped at the end of the drive. Squinting up through the watery blue glass along the top of my windshield, up above the pink garage, standing there, staring down at me, framed in a shadow-dimmed picture window, was the man I’d seen. But he wasn’t alone. Beside him stood a woman in a long dress and, next to her, two boys and a girl. They weren’t laughing, weren’t doing anything, so I raised my hands like, “Hey, what the hell?” Did they think I’d leave the pizzas on the porch? I checked the ticket again. There was no name and it wasn’t a pre-pay, so I climbed out and pointed to the front door, but the only one to make a move was the tallest kid. He nudged his brother, and the brother nudged him back, and the mom looked over at them and said something, and the boys stopped horsing around. I blew them a kiss and jumped in my car. Dropping the gas pedal, I revved the engine and popped my clutch. My front-wheels peeled out, jerking me backwards, leaving black marks on their fresh concrete. I smoked my pipe on the way back and muttered to myself—real funny,

real fucking funny. Pulling to the side of the road, I ate one of their pizza slices. Then I started to feel sick. So I prayed. I was still praying then, a little, talking to Jesus aloud. There was no one else I could talk to about God, about spiritual matters, about guilt. I knew everything my parents thought, all the scriptures they’d use. Jess, she could care less one way or the other. When I’d say guilt, she’d tell me to get over it. That pretty much ends a conversation. If I talked to Kali about God, about guilt, she’d tell me I was thinking too much. If we were high, she’d lose her temper, swing pool-cues at my head. More than once she had her enormous bouncer friends confiscate my fake ID, punch me in the gut, and drag me from the club, but she always came rushing out, mascara dripping, hands and pockets full of cash, full of coke, handing my ID back and begging forgiveness. She’d lick my neck right there on a busy sidewalk, grinding on me in front of scowling, conservative tourists. I needed it all. She’d whisper how sexy I was, how she loved my body, my skinny legs. David Bowie legs, that’s what she called them. Or Sir Lawrence Olivier legs. And only with her, did I not wear my long-johns. Christ, the long-johns! The things you forget. Just the thought,

high school, under my jeans, trying to make my legs look stronger, my ass more muscular. Even in that summer, in the Southern heat, I wore them. I could get away with it in the bitter, Gunnison winter, but in the new humidity my thighs boiled with ingrown hairs—everybody sing now: Oh, the things we do for love! Anyway, the prayer worked. Jesus, please make my stomach feel

better. I drove on, the ache vanishing and got my thoughts back to that fuckedup family in the pink house. I decided they couldn’t screw with me unless I let them. Nobody could. I ended up back at headquarters, and I told the other drivers my story. We were clustered in the back stockroom where you fold the pizza boxes, four or five of us reeking of grease and leaning on the cool, steel prep tables. This was where we always vented, eating botched orders, sometimes passing a pint of Wild Turkey. I thought they’d laugh, or at least shake their heads and call it a lame stunt, but instead they stared at me, all of them, no different than the damn family in the window. “Come on,” I said, “was that not the most fucked prank ever? A whole

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now, fifteen years later, makes my ears burn. This was a gimmick I’d used since

family messing with me? And not a bunch of white trash, either—why?” The Civil War guy, with his round glasses and big beard, set down his slice of pizza. He shook his head, slowly. “That’s terrifying. Your whole story. It gives me shivers.” I laughed. “Come on! Come on now!” but suddenly the guy was right. My stomach went hard and my fingers felt loose and cold. Handing over the order slip for the four pies, I asked my manager if I could go. She frowned and rubbed at her lips. She’d gotten a call, she said, about twenty minutes back, concerning this delivery. “The man told me that you never showed, but—whoa, now, Nate, hold on. No need to get all bent out of shape. I checked out the ticket, and, then, see I found I’ve got a note on my desk saying this has happened before, saying not to deliver out to that subdivision. So, it’s not on your shoulders. It’s all my fault.”

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At home I had that acid ache in my legs, that feeling like I had to keep moving my arms, keep popping my knuckles. I packed my pipe, but didn’t smoke it. I was scared, scared that I’d go suddenly crazy, that I’d climb up on the apartment roof and throw myself off. I needed to tell Jess my story, but she wasn’t home. She had a life in Murfreesboro, friends that were kind to me, always welcoming, but that I couldn’t seem to click with. I went into her room and sat on her bed. I knew what she’d say. She and Dad, they were the logical ones, knew how to measure the world with reason. Instead I called Mom and the first thing she said was that she’d been praying for me, that the Lord had me on her mind. “He’s got his angels all around you, Nathan, but they need you to believe, not me.” Like always, more scripture. And like always, I got mad. I said something that I knew would make her hang up. Probably Jesus’ name in vain. She hung up. I almost called Kali, but didn’t because at that moment it made sense. I was just one of many to her. All those bouncers, those guys at the club, I could see her peeling their condoms off, I could hear her saying, “You don’t need this,” and tossing them onto a giant pile of Wendy’s debris.

I dialed my girlfriend back home. Actually, that summer Natalie was at her parent’s house in Dallas. Her brother answered and told me what he always told me, that Natalie was out on a date with a rich football player, and that I didn’t deserve her. “When I’m old enough,” he said, “I’m gonna kick in your faggot face.” He was twelve. I told him I couldn’t wait. I told him I definitely deserved it. After that, I tried a few more people, old high school girlfriends, but couldn’t get through to anyone. I had a few beers. Finally, my one local friend called. He was just leaving work. He came by with more beer and we sat on my front stoop in the dank night. I calmed. I forgot about the family, the delivery. Spotted slugs emerged from the grass, oozed across the dirty walkway, and disappeared. This buddy of mine, he was a pale guy with short legs and a large belly. He asked me how work was going and it all came rushing back. I wanted to tell him about the pink house, but I couldn’t figure out how to start the story, make it sound as crazy as it really was. And the longer I waited, the more I thought about what happened and how to tell it, the more scared I got. Then I was up on my feet, my keys squeezed in my fist. “I need to drive around, come

“It’s past midnight, man, and we drank too much.” “It’s not a long drive and I’ll go slow.” “Go slow to where?” I sat back down then because if I’d kept at it I knew I’d have to admit that I was too afraid to drive out there, even with him. We drank some more, drank fast, and then when I wanted to play Scrabble it was too late to wake up the neighbor kid. Peter. That was the neighbor kid, but for the life of me, I don’t remember this guy’s name. He was two years older than me and his face looked like Morrissey’s. That was his whole thing. People were always telling him the resemblance was eerie. I remember it made the guy feel good about himself. He said I looked like Adam Ant, but it didn’t have the same ring. For some reason, I think my friend sold cars at a Ford lot, but I can’t be certain. I do remember he rented a room in his parents’ house. His walls, his doors, even his ceiling, were slathered with WANTED posters, overlapping mug shots of vacant-eyed criminals because his dad worked for the post office. What else?

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on, let’s get in my car.”

I remember his girlfriend was still in high school and he wanted so bad to get married, was always bringing it up. Anyway, I never talked to him again, not after I moved home, but that night, after my creepy delivery, we stayed up until it was nearly light. We sat on my stoop and made plans for him to visit Colorado. Or why didn’t he just move out there with me? He and his girl? I told him of the vistas, the deep canyons, how there were only five stoplights in Gunnison and how the nights up there, up in the mountains, got so cold your eyelids froze open. My buddy kept trying to change the subject, his voice distressed, like the picture I’d painted terrified him. I told him it was an air-tight plan. My Toyota, sure, she had over two-hundred thousand miles, but she was a wagon, spacious, and we could weave all over the country. We’d start with New Orleans and then over to Big Bend, and then hike down into Carlsbad Caverns. My Toyota, she’d been in our family for years and who knows how many trips. Dad and Mom in

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the front, and me and my sisters sprawled out in the back. Dad would make this huge bed for us. He’d lay down the backseat and smother it with foam mattresses and layer upon layer of blankets. At home, up until even twelve and thirteen, I was always having nightmares and wetting my bed, waking up not knowing where or who I was, but in the back of the car, my sisters packed around me, I’d press my ear to the carpeted wheel-well and slip in and out of the most perfect sleep—the humming asphalt, the steady click of pavement. When I awoke, at whatever National Park or historical site Dad wanted to explore, I always felt ready.

At some point early that morning, Jess came home. In the blue glow, she stepped out of her car and walked cautiously toward us. She’d been partying in Nashville and her clothes were slack, her hair tangled and high. It wouldn’t break her heart when I left—she’d act like it, but it wouldn’t. She said

nothing to us, didn’t even make eye contact. She cut a wide loop into the grass, out around our beer bottles, and went inside. My armpits were damp, my forehead hot. I heard the air conditioner rattle to life and I told my buddy I’d see him later. Inside, my sister was out cold, curled on our torn sofa. The radio was on. I shook her and told her to get in bed. She said no. The song playing, I’d heard it plenty but never listened to it. Right then, though, that’s all there was, the Counting Crows singing, “Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her

hand, said she’d like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis.” Kali’s real name was Maria, and at this point in my life, I didn’t believe in coincidence. I believed in God and I hated Him, but I believed in Him. Pulling the comforter off Jessica’s bed, I covered her, then sat beside her and let myself cry as the song played out. It was a message from God, all of it, the whole night. “Maria says she’s

dying, through the door I hear her crying.” The room closed in. I’d drifted too

saying I had AIDS. There would be no France, no Italy. At home, in my small town, riddled with lesions, I’d wither away. I’d cry out to Jesus and he’d take me back, but a blood test was a waste. There’s a point when you turn your back on God for just so long, when you actually start to feel that guilt is natural. I stared at my sister’s hair and decided that when she woke up we’d drive over there, out to the pink house. We’d bring knives and flashlights, and kick in their front door if we had to. Because it didn’t matter if they were ghosts or just assholes, all that mattered was we were coming for them.

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far. I knew what the song was saying. Drugs, fucking, lying, sinning—it was

Mannequins By Steven Ramirez

I was awaiting my turn, flipping through a decade-old sports magazine. One of the athletes, I knew, was dead now—something about a boating accident, an explosion maybe, definitely foul play—that’s when I decided to

dye my hair a bright color. It wasn’t completely surprising, my decision. I’d been

Christmas break and I had sixteen whole days of no dress code; no Stand up

straight, gentlemen; no Hey, you there, your hair’s touching your collar, someone give me some scissors ; time is short, gentlemen. I’d come to Hilltop directly from school. It was on the way. I figured, why not? There was an old man sitting in front of me, facing me, and he looked like my grandfather. I put him in his late seventies. I could tell he was on the shorter side, his solid frame pushed against the black robe slung across his chest and thighs, filling it out pretty well. His knuckles were stained gray with dirt and grease and whatever else. The bottoms of his jeans were rolled and he wore black socks. I guessed no one had seen this man’s ankles in years. Robert stood behind him, making a real show out of snipping away at the old man’s lumpy head. His elbows were cocked high. Every now and then he’d twirl the scissors around his fingers—a real gunslinger that Robert, but

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thinking about it for some time. School had let out early that afternoon for

I knew he was just killing time, searching for more hair to cut so the old man could get his money’s worth. Next to Robert’s station was an empty chair and next to that was his brother Jose, but everyone called him Pablo. Pablo was also busy snipping away at an old man’s head. His movements were slower. He examined his work carefully through a pair of tinted glasses that sat at the tip of his nose. His shoulders slumped forward a bit. He didn’t twirl his scissors. I returned to the magazine. It had happened in Greece, I recalled, but there had been no explosion, something quieter and it had been days, weeks even, before anyone found the boat, bobbing around there like a stupid toy in old bathwater. I shifted in my seat, crossed and then re-crossed my legs but I couldn’t get comfortable. The vinyl was cracked and I was sinking and slipping at the same time. “Where’s your pop?” Robert said.

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I looked up at him. I considered the question. “Oh you know,” I said. “He’s around.” “Said he was coming in today.” “Yeah, well I wouldn’t know about that.” A broom fell to the ground. Pablo picked it up and leaned it against the wall. He then turned to adjust a knob on the small radio behind him. He spent some time there. I couldn’t hear a thing either way. “How’s school?” Robert said. “It’s alright,” I said. “It’s fine.” “Look at you,” he said. “What are you, sixteen, seventeen now?” I told him. Robert smirked a little. He adjusted the old man’s head with his thumb and index finger. “Oh boy,” he said. “I was a real terror back then. Parties, girls, don’t get me started.” He wiped at his brow with the side of his hand. “Jesus, I wouldn’t feel right even repeating the things I did.” He turned to Pablo. “Old man didn’t know what the hell to do with me, isn’t that right? Pablo,” he said. “Isn’t that right?”

Pablo shook his head. “Too much.” “Oh boy,” Robert said. “My God.” He took a black comb and began slicking back the few strands of hair atop the old man’s head. Then he parted it. Then he slicked it back again. He made a few more snips and spun the old man in his seat so that they both faced the mirror. “A million bucks,” he said. The old man stood and removed his robe. He reached for his wallet and handed Robert a five-dollar bill. Then he found his baseball cap against the seat next to me and put it on his head. It looked brand new. It just about glowed. “ABDick” it said in different colors and the old man whistled and Pablo lifted his head and then the old man stepped out into the sun. The bells above the door hardly made a sound. “Another satisfied customer,” Robert said and he winked at me. “Saddle up, partner.” He patted at the back of the seat and then turned to throw several long and short combs into a clear cylinder of Barbicide I climbed aboard and he threw a robe across my chest.

“I want to dye it,” I said calmly, as if I’d said it a hundred times before. “I was thinking yellow. This time,” I added. Then I shrugged a little. “Listen to this guy!” Robert said. He took his spray bottle to a faucet and filled it with water. “Mr. Hollywood wants to go yellow! Mr. Movies is walking the red carpet! Watch out!” He moved to the empty station between him and Pablo and squatted in front of a cabinet. I watched him take out a handful of supplies, a roll of tin foil. He blew on it. Just then Pablo finished with his own customer. He lowered the seat and the old man stood up and looked in the mirror. He smoothed back his hair some, then he reached for Pablo’s arm and shook it a little and they both looked at the ground. The old man left and I didn’t even see him pay but maybe he had a tab or something. Hilltop sometimes worked like that. The first time my father brought me and my brother he’d forgotten his wallet. This was a long time ago. It was no problem, I remember, he could pay later because they weren’t going

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“So,” Robert said. “What are we doing today?”

anywhere and neither was anyone else. That’s what the old man who owned the place had told my father. He’d been right about one thing. Robert sprayed water at my head. A few snips here and there and chunks of shiny black started falling onto my lap. “We gotta clean it up first,” he said. “Okay,” I said. “Sounds good.” He leaned real close to the side of my head and began trimming around my ear. “So your pop know about this? Because it sounds like you’re asking for trouble.” He laughed. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “Nothing wrong with a little trouble. But your pop—he’s gonna kill you. He’s really gonna let you have it.” I looked at him in the mirror. “Hey,” he said,” don’t listen to me. I just work here.” He threw his hands in the air. “I do what I’m told. No trouble here. Isn’t that right, Pablo? Don’t I do what I’m told?” Pablo was moving the broom around the same spot. “That’s right,” he said. “No trouble.” He leaned it against the wall and turned once more to adjust

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the knob on the radio. There was a thin line of sweat at the very top of Pablo’s collar. His brown khakis looked as if they’d just been ironed. “So is your pop coming in today or what?” Robert said. “Did I get that wrong? I haven’t seen him in weeks. He must have his hair down to his damn waist by now.” We laughed at that, at the image of my father like that. “You said yellow right?” “That’s what I’m thinking,” I said. Robert sighed. “Those were some days.” In the mirror, I watched him drag a hand across his puff of hair. I knew he was going gray prematurely. He couldn’t have been a day over thirty-five. He said, “Used to have so much hair hanging off my shoulders I could’ve sold it to those Hollywood wig places. For a nice price too. You know I trained there, don’t you? Did I ever tell you that?” I shrugged. “Hey, Pablo,” he called. “Didn’t I train in Haw-lee-wood? Go ahead. Tell him.”

Pablo stuck his head out from a smaller room where they kept a TV and a soda machine and maybe a fridge too. “Oh yeah,” Pablo said. “You got that right.” “Get this,” Robert said. “For our final test, would you believe they made us cut hair blindfolded? No bullshit. They were mannequins of course, our clients, with all kinds of funny hair, but still,” he said, “imagine that—blind as a bat with a pair of scissors. Some people made a real mess out of it. Might as well have taken the damn head clean off. I don’t know why. Nerves I guess. But they were mannequins,” he said. “All plastic and horse hair! I don’t know. Maybe it was the blindfold. Couldn’t handle it I guess. But I was on that day. I was it. I said to them, ‘Forget these things, bring on the stars!’” He turned me in my seat so that I was no longer facing the mirror. “Farrah Fawcet,” he said. “Boy, I woulda done a number on her.” A flash of tin foil and Robert was tearing off pieces from the roll now. He began fitting them into my hair. The door opened and another old man stepped in. Pablo came out, chewing on something and wiping at his fingers with a paper towel. The air

mumbled something to each other in Spanish. Pablo directed him to the chair. Before climbing on, the old man looked at the empty seat between us for a moment. Pablo turned to the radio again. “So where’s your pop?” Robert said again. “Tell him to get in here. I’ll do a number on him. Listen up,” he said. “I’ll turn back his clock.” He laughed. He stopped with the tin foil and squeezed something from a bottle into my hair. It was cold at first, then it stung, then it went away. “Yeah well,” I said. “I wouldn’t know much about that.” “Yeah, I hear you,” Robert said. “I was a real terror back then. I could tell you some stories. Listen to this one.” Robert began telling a story about prom night or homecoming. Something about a girl named Vanessa and sneaking out of the house or maybe sneaking in. I don’t know. I was half listening. I’d heard the story somewhere before. Robert then began pulling at the ends of my hair with a comb. I could

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smelled of barbecue. The old man crossed in front of me and the two of them

feel that it was sticking up, probably because of whatever he’d squeezed into it. I must have been a sight alright—going yellow in a place like that. It was probably better I couldn’t see myself. Some more snipping here and there. Then the blow dryer. A damn fool. “But this girl,” Robert was saying, “she had that look in her eye. You know the one? Oh Christ almighty,” he said. “Not the kind you wanna bring home. No sir, not on your life.” Robert turned me in my seat a bit and I watched Pablo take a razor to the old man’s sides. Then he clicked it off and took some baby powder and shook it across the back of his neck. He cleaned it off with a small brush and then patted the old man’s shoulders. The old man stood up and folded his robe. He handed it to Pablo and paid him. Pablo took the bill to the smaller room and the old man left. Pablo came back out a minute later, counting some singles. “Where’s Tigre?” he said.

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“Who?” Robert said. “He forgot his damn change.” “Better for us.” “He left?” Pablo said. “It’s a tip, bro,” Robert said. “Throw it in the jar.” “Tigre don’t tip,” he said and his voice sounded different, rougher. Pablo went to the door and looked both ways through the glass. Then he counted the singles again and returned to the smaller room. “In L.A.,” Robert said, “you wouldn’t believe the tips. You could pay rent with those tips.” Pablo came out holding a bowl of something and he sat against one of the vinyl chairs. He brought his knees close together. He used a fork to scoop into his mouth what I saw now was barbacoa. I couldn’t take my eyes away from his legs, the way he brought them together like that, his ironed pants, his feet pointing inward. “You know what I’m thinking?” Robert said. “I’m thinking it might be time to give it another go. What do you think about that?”

“Hollywood?” I said. “Hell yeah, Hollywood. Not shit around here. Nothing to get into around here. I’ve always thought so.” Just then the bells sounded and a fat man wearing a brown suit and tie stepped in. His face was red from the sun outside. He shifted his briefcase in his hands and then took out a handkerchief from an inside pocket. He patted at his forehead. His hair was so blonde you could barely see it. He smiled at all of us. “This heat, gentlemen,” he said. “It’s too much.” He kept his eyes on me for a moment longer. Robert was busy fitting some plastic over my head now. Maybe the color was turning already. I looked at my lap. A goddamn fool. “Bobby,” the fat man said. “Heya, Bill,” Robert said. Pablo placed the bowl on the seat. When he finished chewing, he said, “What did I tell you, huh? Get the hell out of here. Go on and get the hell out.” I’d never heard Pablo shout. “Didn’t I say that? Didn’t you hear me the last time?” The fat man looked uneasily toward Robert. “Bobby,” he said. Robert took his hands away from my head. “C’mon, Pablo,” he said softly. “Lay off him, willya? Let’s give it a rest today.” Pablo kept his eyes on the fat man. He didn’t move. His fists were clenched and I could see that his lips were trembling. I looked at his pants, riding there just above his narrow waist, creased, from another time. This whole place. If I had a car I might not even be here. I know I wouldn’t. “Hear me out, Jose,” the fat man said. “Just give me a minute. Let me talk. Is it a crime to talk in here?” “I’ll tear your house down,” Pablo said. “How about that? I’ll do it with my own two hands and you’ll watch me do it.” “Hey, c’mon now,” said the fat man. “Now just hold on, Jose. That’s no way to be.” Pablo didn’t say anything. Even Robert had gone silent. He removed

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the plastic from my hair and began pulling out the tin foil. “Alright,” said the fat man when no one said anything. “Have it your way then. If that’s what you want.” He shifted his briefcase again and straightened his tie. He looked around. “It stinks in here. You know that?” Pablo stared at him. “See you around, Bobby,” the fat man said. “Sure, Bill,” Robert said. “Stay cool,” he said. “City’ll burn you up.” The fat man turned around and left and through the glass I watched him pat at his forehead with his handkerchief again. He looked down the street and then turned to go the other way. Pablo disappeared into the smaller room and closed the door behind him. “What was all that about?” I said. “What was Pablo saying?” Robert laughed. “Who knows what that guy is ever saying,” he said. He shook his head. “That guy,” he said. He took the blow dryer to my hair once

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more and my scalp was tingling. He did that for a while and then he let it sit and after ten minutes or so he spun me around to face the mirror. I didn’t recognize myself for a second but then I did. There I was. “So, Mr. Hollywood,” Robert said. “Waddya think? Is your pop gonna kill you or what?”

My father was in the backyard, sitting in a lawn chair and shaking a glass around. I pulled up a seat next to him. The sun was on its way down, throwing an orange light on everything, and he stared at the yard. I took a moment to stare along with him. It needed a good mowing I figured and maybe I could do that for him. Sixteen whole days. In his lap my father held a small wooden box with all kinds of things no one wanted to look at anymore. I hadn’t noticed it at first. I’d already told him he needed to get rid of it—or not get rid of it but put it away or something. He pressed his thumb into the box. He shook the ice around. He stared at the yard. “Robert was asking for you,” I said. “Said you had an appointment today.” My father looked at me then, seemed to examine my hair in all its fiery

and comic glory. I imagined Robert would get a kick out of this, this moment right here and I waited for it. But my father turned and went back to his drink, shook the ice around some more. His thumb pressed harder into the box. I almost reached for his wrist so that he could bash the thing against my head, really let me have it. I wanted to hear the wood split against my skull and let that be that. “This yard’s just too goddamn big,” he said. “No one needs a yard this big.” “Probably just the grass,” I said. “Maybe I’ll cut it tomorrow. How about that?” “Worth a try,” he said. We stared at the yard some more. I ran a hand through my hair and it felt thicker than before but that was probably just because of the stuff Robert had squeezed into it. When I brought my hand down my fingertips were a little orange. “Alright,” I said and I stood up and went inside and then I looked at

I crossed a few streets and started up the narrow sidewalk that ran alongside some brick houses, all with identical porches. I passed an empty lot where an abandoned house had once been. My brother and I used to call the house haunted and I dared him to go into it once. Of course he took the dare because he was always stupid like that, the asshole, never thinking about a damn thing, and when he came out he shrugged and said we’d been wrong. It was just another regular ol’ shit dump with nothing inside. Not long after that we watched the police drag a homeless man down the front steps, kicking and screaming. “Look,” my brother said. “There’s your ghost.” They eventually knocked the place down and now there was a sign in the lot showing a picture of whatever was coming next. I passed a few more houses. A car slowed down next to me and a kid

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the TV for a minute and then I left the house again.

I knew from school—a kid who didn’t live too far away—stuck his head out the passenger side. “Woah, check it out!” he said. “What happened to you? You stick your head in a bucket of paint?” “Yeah, hey,” I said. “What’s going on?” “A Mexican Dennis the Menace!” he said. “So what are you up to?” I said. “You mean besides not a goddamn thing?” He leaned out a bit to look up the street. He spit. I still couldn’t see who was driving the car. “You cool?” He then said, “You want a ride somewhere?” I told him I was going the opposite direction and he looked at me for a moment and then shrugged. “Well go easy on Mr. What’s-His-Nuts, Dennis.” Then he was off, honking the horn, the car swerving a little. Two weeks of nothing. When I arrived, I poked my head in and saw that Pablo was back in that

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vinyl seat, his knees together, eating from that bowl. When he saw me he stood up. He wiped at his fingers with the paper towel. Then he took the broom and began moving it around. “Robert here?” I said. “Gone for the day,” he said. “Can I do something?” I dragged my hand across the top of my head. “I think I messed up,” I said. Pablo stopped sweeping. He smirked. “Old man give you hell?” “Yeah,” I said. “He’s not having it.” Pablo looked at me. He leaned the broom against the wall. “Well,” I said. “Maybe I’ll give it a day, you know?” Pablo took up the broom again. “Robert’ll be in tomorrow morning,” he said. “Are you sure he hasn’t already left town?” I said. Pablo stopped sweeping and looked up at me. Then he laughed. “Oh right,” he said. “That guy, he’s too much.” I stood outside Hilltop for a while, watching the cars go by, people in them hunched over the wheel, leaning forward as if to move along faster. The

sun dipped just beneath the mountains, setting the horizon on fire and then it was gone, leaving the sky a bruised color. I could go home. I could not. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been out of school for a few hours and I already missed someone standing over me and telling me what to do, telling me how it was going to be. Buck up,

young man, and look me in the eye. Time is short. I leaned against the stucco and a few pieces crumbled against me in pink bits. I turned and with my hand removed a larger piece and I tossed it into the street. I imagined Pablo tearing down the fat manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house with his own two hands and then the fat man tearing down Hilltop with his hands and the rest of us watching them do it, thinking that there was probably no better feeling in the world. I took off another piece and threw it. A car honked at me for that one. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d make my father come in with me tomorrow. I would. We all just needed a trim, that was all. Cold water against our necks. Baby powder and some light brushing to finish it off. The feeling once more of what it means to sit still and get a decent cut.

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