All posts by Benjamin

Co-founder of gutwrench.

Another Winter Night in Chicago

By Maryann Lozano

Carl stepped in a slushy puddle that was deeper than he had expected, and dirty snow and mud splattered all over his pants. He went back inside to change, and his mother assaulted him with a long tirade about how much more trouble he was causing her now that she had to wash his mud-stained pants. 

“You’d think she was having to use a hand-crank washing machine and hang the heavy, wet clothes on a line,” he thought as he rushed out the door.

Of course he missed his usual train and was late to work.

“This is the third time this month you’ve been late, Carl” Frankie said.

“I know, I know. I stepped in a puddle and had to change – couldn’t come in with mud all over my pants, could I?” He tried to chuckle but it sounded more like a groan. “Anyway, I’ll start leaving the apartment a little bit earlier from now on. I promise.”

Carl knew it was better to ingratiate himself by apologizing than to punch the guy in the face, which was what he really wanted to do. He had to be careful. The doctor from the hospital had called in a favor to get Carl this job, and if he messed up it would be hard to find another one.

At lunch, Carl went down to the cafeteria on the first floor of the building. He always brought a sandwich from home, but every day he bought a pop and a bag of chips so that Mr. Wu couldn’t complain that he wasn’t a paying customer. Once a month, on payday, Carl would buy a burger and fries.

“Oh. Now who’s a big spender?” Mr. Wu would say, rolling his eyes.

Carl fantasized telling him to shut his pie hole but kept it to himself. 

He sat alone in his booth, choosing the one in the back of the café so that people wouldn’t watch him while he ate the lunch his mother had packed for him. It was the same thing every day – Underwood deviled ham on white bread, an apple, and the chips he bought. Once Mama snuck in whole wheat bread because she had heard on television that it was better for you. Carl brought the uneaten sandwich back home and Mama had yelled at him for wasting food. 

“If you don’t want me to waste food, then don’t give me shit that tastes like tree bark.”

Mama had slapped him across the face. “I ain’t going to stand for that kind of language in my house!” she yelled. “You’re going to go straight to Hell if you don’t watch that tongue.” Mama always threatened him with Hell. He figured it was her snake-handling upbringing. But the next day his sandwich was on white bread again.

While he was eating lunch, he heard the guys in the next booth talking about Monica. They called her a “fat bitch who stuck her nose in everyone’s business” and agreed that they hoped she’d get fired in the reorganization that was coming soon. Carl ran his hand through his thinning, wavy brown hair. He wanted to tell them to shut up too, but Frankie told him that he’d get fired if he caused another scene.

Carl had a crush on Monica. He saw her his first day and found her plain face and straight blond hair beautiful. He might have a chance with someone like that. Carl passed by her desk as often as he could. She always smelled of Dove soap and Jergen’s lotion. Sure, she was a little bit heavy, but his mama had always said, “Don’t look at the outside, son, look at the inside.” Mama was rail-thin—he liked a woman with a little meat on her.

Carl spent the afternoon doing his rounds, cleaning up the break rooms, and making sure the bathrooms were stocked with supplies. He finished early and sat in the dingy, maintenance office reading a true-crime magazine he’d squirreled away in his top desk drawer, slamming the drawer shut any time someone came in. Carl felt more at home in this office, where the walls were covered with black streaks and pockmarks, than he did anywhere else in the building, which was decorated with fancy modern art and shining chrome fixtures. 

Finally, it was time to go. Carl gathered up his things—his collapsible coffee cup that Mama insisted on hand-washing each night, his old worn leatherette wallet, and his newspaper. He put them all into his nylon briefcase with the duct-taped handles. He noticed that the tape was coming up, the handle now sticky. 

“I’d better stop on the way home and buy another roll,” he said to himself. He said goodnight to Frankie, who grunted in response, and walked out.

The darkening day was crisp as he stepped out of the revolving door to walk the two blocks to the train station. He stopped to read the headlines on the evening paper in the box on the corner and was almost run down by a group of people with suitcases. They had come out of the Hotel Lakeside next door to his building.

“I’m so sorry,” said one of the travelers. She was dressed in blue pants, a white turtleneck sweater, and a North Face jacket with a scarf hanging from the collar. She smiled as she narrowly avoided running over Carl’s foot with her bright, floral-patterned rolling bag.

She was sort of pretty, and Carl considered offering to help carry her bag but thought better of it when she turned towards one of the men and started talking to him. The man was tall and handsome and spoke with an accent. Maybe he was her boyfriend or something? Carl hurried past them.

On the platform, an older Chinese man and his granddaughter were playing “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” on violins. Carl loved listening to classical music—it was the one thing that had kept him sane at the hospital, and Mozart was one of his favorites. Frankie made fun of him when he listened to public radio in the office.

“What? Are you a fairy or something? Who listens to shit like that?” He’d say. 

Carl would shrug and turn the music up until Frankie left again. Frankie listened to rap music, and the lyrics excited Carl in a way that made him uncomfortable. Classical music helped calm him.

The little girl, probably no more than six or seven, played a tiny violin. She rolled her feet back and forth on pink shoes as she played. Every time someone dropped money in the open violin case on the floor in front of them she looked at her grandfather excitedly, but he kept his eyes tightly closed. Carl took a dollar out of his wallet and placed it in the case with a wink and smiled at the little girl. She stepped back warily and missed a note. Carl hurried along as the old man opened his eyes.

The group with the suitcases were on the platform as well, and they were all smiling, watching the musicians. The woman in the white sweater told her companions that she played a tiny violin when she started taking lessons at age five. She was standing to Carl’s left and he took the opportunity to take a better look. He decided his initial assessment was correct — she was kind of pretty with curly brown hair and blue eyes. Some people might think she was a little bit heavy, but in Carl’s opinion, she could stand a few more pounds. 

He reminded himself to stop staring. He could tell by the way her eyes darted away that it made her uncomfortable. 

******

Carl stared at women a lot. Mama always got mad when she caught him doing it, but that was only because the police had questioned him that time the pretty girl from the mailroom had disappeared. 

The police showed up early on a Saturday morning, knocking loudly on the door. Mama had answered the door in her dressing gown. Carl, in his bedroom, listening by the door, heard murmuring and then Mama’s footsteps down the hall.

She opened his door without knocking, hitting Carl in the head.

“Carl! You get out here right now! These policemen are wantin’ to talk to you about some girl from your office.” She glared at him.

“What girl?” Carl asked. “I don’t know anything about any girl.”

Mama grabbed his bathrobe and threw it at him.

“Get out here now.” She said again and turned back down the hall.

Carl walked into the living room and faced the two cops who were standing by the closed door. Mama was in the kitchen making coffee, grim-faced and angry.

“Good morning, officers,” He stammered. “What can I do for you?”

“Do you know Emily Apperson?”

“I think she works at my office, but it’s a really big company, so I don’t know everyone.”

“We think you do know her. We have records of phone calls from your phone, here,” he pointed to the green rotary dial phone on the table, “to her cell phone. And we know she complained to HR that you were making her uncomfortable at work. And now she’s missing.”

Carl shuffled from one foot to the other. He hadn’t known that Emily had complained about him. She was pretty, with green eyes and blond hair, and she wore scarves year-round. Carl had always wondered if she was hiding some kind of a scar or something. Scars fascinated him, and he liked to fantasize that Emily had a long, angry, red scar right down the side of her neck. He imagined running his fingers down its length as she wrapped her scarf around his neck. 

“I called her a couple of times to ask her out, but she was always busy. It wasn’t really a big deal. She said no and I gave up.”

Mama offered the officers coffee, but they refused and left. Good for them, Carl thought. Mama’s coffee was almost as bad as the rest of her cooking.

After the officers left, Mama had watched through the window as they drove away and then turned on Carl. 

“That girl called this house just this past Thursday, threatenin’ to tell the cops if you didn’t stop callin’ her.” She shoved him, backing him into the living room. “Why can’t you just stop being so weird?”

Carl sat down on the couch. He shook his head. “Mama, I swear I didn’t do anything to Emily. I called her some, but I was always too scared to actually ask her out, so I just hung up. But I didn’t hurt her. I swear.”

Mama shook her head, disgusted, and walked back into the kitchen.

“I’m tired of cleaning up your messes. And I don’t like the cops coming and snooping around here. You behave yourself, Carl. Or I swear I’ll throw you out on your ear.”

Mama turned back into the kitchen and took one of her shirts out of the washing machine. She shook it and held it up considering the brown stain on the sleeve.

“Darn it.” She muttered, balling up the blouse and putting it back in the washing machine.

Carl assumed that the stain happened when she was cooking or cleaning and that she would find a way to blame it on him. He braced himself for the usual verbal assault but she stayed quiet. 

On Monday, everyone at work whispered about Emily’s disappearance. Frankie told Carl that they wanted to fire him right then since she had complained about him, but they decided to give him a second chance. 

“But it’s only because you were in that loony bin before, and your shrink is a friend of Mr. Fields. They felt sorry for you.” Frankie brought up the hospital as often as possible. He liked to hold other people’s secrets against them. 

*****

Carl was so lost in his thoughts that he almost didn’t hear the train pull up to the station. Everyone pushed on, but two of the suitcase men didn’t make it and Carl saw them waving and yelling as the train pulled away, like they believed they could stop it. Carl thought they looked stupid trying to get their friends’ attention. Another train was coming soon.

The train pulled away from the station and the men vanished from view, left behind as their group moved on. Carl was reminded of a long-ago field trip, the words, “if you get separated from your group, just stay put and someone will come back for you,” running through his mind. That’s what the teacher had said the day his class went to the museum. Carl had been gazing, fascinated by a painting of a woman being held down by a monstrous angel. When he looked up and realized that his whole class was gone he stood perfectly still, just like the teacher said to. No one came back. Finally, a policeman had called Mama and she had come to get him. 

I got a beating that day, he thought.

His teacher never said anything about it. Carl figured she was concerned that his mother would make a fuss, but he could have told her not to worry. Mama blamed him for getting left behind. 

“You’re so stupid and careless,” Mama told him with a hard swat to his head. “If I were your teacher, I would have left you behind too.”

Mama was mean, but Carl knew she just wanted him to be smart like her sister’s kids. Smart enough to be a success so he could take care of her.

“Now I am successful,” he thought. “I’ve got a good job but she still yells and complains about the work she has to do.” Carl caught the white-sweater woman’s eye. She was standing a few feet in front of him on the train, facing him at first, but then turning around when she saw him staring again. 

“I’m gonna move out soon anyway,” he thought.

He couldn’t ask Monica out until he had a place of his own. Frankie had said a million times, “Carl, you ain’t gonna get any pussy until you move outta that apartment.”

Frankie should know—if you believed the stories he told, he got some every night

Sometimes Carl called Monica, but he could never bring himself to speak when she answered the phone.

Carl looked up at the woman again and smiled to himself at her discomfort. Even though she had turned away from him he could still catch her eye because the windows in front of her were slightly mirrored. She kept glancing to see if he was still staring at her. 

It was hot on the train despite the winter weather. The woman unzipped her coat and the scarf fell from around her neck. Carl bent down, picked it up, rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. It was a soft, flannel scarf, not silky like the one he found in Mama’s hope chest.

Carl wasn’t supposed to go into Mama’s room at all. But sometimes when she was gone, he’d sneak in and look through the chest. Her wedding dress was at the very bottom, like a dingy lace cushion put there to protect the other knick-knacks from harm. There were the brittle, yellow photographs of people he didn’t know. Mama’s wedding ring and some other jewelry sat in a small, wooden jewelry box, and there were lots of old papers–tax returns, jury duty summons, Carl’s birth certificate, and a copy of her father’s will. There was also a small pearl-handled knife and an old, stained baby blanket. Recently, something new and unexpected caught his eye—a silky scarf with an emerald green vine running through the pattern. He knew he was pressing his luck but he took it anyway and hid it under his mattress.

Back on the train, Carl handed the woman her scarf and looked past her reflection to see his own. He was big and clumsy with a thinning spot on the top of his head. His blue eyes bulged—some mean boys on the train the other day had called him “bug eyes.” He smiled at that Carl in the window, but the smile looked more like a grimace. Maybe that was why his staring made people uncomfortable— because his eyes bugged out and he could never make a smile look nice. Every few minutes Carl made eye contact with the woman again. He could tell she was getting mad, and finally she looked into her briefcase, rifling through the papers in an attempt to avoid looking up again. Carl didn’t care. This was his stop.

Carl exited the train with a final glare at the woman, who looked relieved that he was leaving. He headed down the stairs to the street, walked right past the convenience store, and then remembered the duct tape and turned back.

“Carl!” his mother screeched from her window across the street. “Carl! You’re late!”

“Sorry, Mama.” He yelled back. He had hoped she wouldn’t see him but she was waiting and watching for him, just like always. “The train was late today. I’ve gotta go in here for a minute. Do you need anything?”

“No. But hurry. You’re dinner’s ready. If you don’t eat it soon I’m gonna throw it out.” She slammed the window shut against the cold.

Carl rolled his eyes and walked into the store. Mama was in one of her moods. Frankie said he’d never live with his mama. He said she was a pain in the ass bitch, and he guessed Carl’s mama was the same. Frankie thought all women were. Carl thought he was probably right, knew that he was right about Mama, but figured no one as beautiful as Monica could be like that.

As he walked past the magazine section Carl grabbed a Penthouse Letters and tucked it under his arm. Then he found the duct tape and got in line. The woman in front of him was Mrs. Fleming, a friend of Mama’s, and he hoped she wouldn’t notice the magazine. She’d be sure to tell Mama, and then he’d be in trouble. Mama found his magazine stash before he went to the hospital, and she went ballistic, smacking Carl around before she burned the magazines.

Mrs. Fleming didn’t even notice that Carl was behind her. He paid for the tape and his magazine and put them in the briefcase, walked across the street and up the stairwell.

Even with the lamps turned on, the apartment was dark. Mama had put some black and white photographs of her parents and Carl’s father above the couch, and a cross over each doorway. The only other attempts at decoration were lace doilies on the coffee tables and a large family Bible on the sideboard. 

Everything else was barren. 

Carl’s room had a twin bed, a functional dresser with a small black and white television on it, a bedside table with a drawer, and the cross above the door frame. Mama liked the house to be spotless and was always telling Carl, “I can’t keep cleaning up after you. You know my health don’t allow it no more.” But he knew she’d keep doing it no matter what because it gave her something to complain about.

As Carl walked in the door, the smells of dinner assaulted him. Meatloaf and beans again. It seemed that was all Mama cooked anymore. He hoped she had at least gotten ketchup.

“Did you get ketchup this time, Mama? You know I don’t like meatloaf without ketchup.”

“That’s a fine how-do-you-do for your mama,” she pouted. “You should be glad I even cooked at all. My joints is hurtin’ bad today, but I still spent hours in here cooking your dinner. I ain’t waitin’ on you hand over foot all the time to get treated bad like this!” 

Carl hated that his mother held onto her Southern accent with an iron grip. She had been in Chicago for at least 40 years, but still peppered her speech with ain’ts and dropped final consonants like pennies into a wishing well. Carl didn’t know why they stayed in Chicago after his father took off. He was just a baby at the time and thinking about it now, he wondered why she hadn’t moved back to Alabama, where she was from. He had never met any of her relatives—her parents had died before he was born, and Carl had no idea if she had aunts or uncles, or even cousins. He didn’t remember his father either, of course. When he was a child, he asked her once in a while why his father never came to see him. “He’s just gone.” she had told him. “That’s all you need to know. Gone and left me alone with you to take care of and clean up after. And you’re going to turn out just like him.”

She threw the meatloaf pan on the counter, turned on her heel, and stormed out of the kitchen. “I guess her joints are better,” Carl thought as he followed her into the living room. 

“I’m sorry, Mama. I just wanted to know if we had any ketchup.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Carl knew he had to make up with her if he wanted any peace. 

“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you mad – I can get my own dinner tonight. Do you want me to make you a plate?”

Mama seemed appeased, at least for the moment. “No, honey. I’ll just eat something later. How was your day?”

“Oh fine, I guess,” Carl answered as he walked back into the kitchen. “The train was late.” He finished serving his plate and walked into the living room again. As he sat down on the couch, a few green beans spilled onto the rug. Carl quickly set down his plate on the TV tray and covered them with his napkin. Then he turned to see if Mama had noticed.

“You dropped your napkin, Carl. You’d better be careful not to spill anything. I use up all my energy keeping this house clean for you. I told you not to eat on the couch anyway. And don’t forget to say the blessing.” She started down the hall towards her bedroom, muttering to herself about the uselessness of reasoning with a clumsy dimwit.

Carl breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the napkin and the beans. Dinner was overcooked as usual; the beans were limp and the meatloaf was dry. After Mama’s outburst, he was scared to ask about the ketchup again, so he choked down what he could and threw the rest in the trash, careful to cover the evidence up with the other trash in the can.

Later that night, after Mama went to bed, Carl was watching the news in his room and saw a story about a plane crash that had happened earlier that evening. The flight had been from Chicago to Pittsburgh. He wondered if the white-sweatered woman was on that plane. Then he picked up the phone and dialed Monica’s number, blocking his own as usual–a trick he had learned after the Emily incident. She picked up after two rings. 

“Hello? She said in a raspy, sleepy voice.

“Did I wake you up?” Carl couldn’t believe he had actually said something this time.

“Who is this?” Monica asked. When she heard only silence she said, “Are you the one who’s been calling me every night?… Are you?… Answer me!” 

Carl smiled at the increasing panic in her voice. He imagined her standing up in a sheer nightgown, looking out the window to see if she was being watched, the way Emily had done the evening he snuck out of the house at midnight and called her from the phone booth outside of her apartment building. 

“I’m going to call the police if you don’t stop calling me!” Monica said, her voice rising with fear and anger.

Carl heard his mother shuffling down the hall and quietly hung up the phone. He opened the drawer and pulled out a small Bible, opening it to a random page. The door opened and Mama looked in. She was wearing a long, flannel nightgown with red hearts all around and had her white hair loose. She looked like a Valentine’s Day ghost, Carl thought. 

“Did I hear talking? Were you on the phone? Who were you talking to at this hour?” She glared at him and shook her finger, her voice getting shriller with each question.

“It was just the television, Mama. I was watching the news. And now I’m reading.” He held up the Bible to show her.

Mama looked suspicious. “If I find out you’re makin’ calls again, I’m gonna disconnect the phone. I don’t want no more cops coming around here.”

“I wasn’t on the phone! Goddammit, Mama! It was the television! And don’t you ever knock? I’m a grown man. I should have some privacy.” 

Mama stormed in and struck Carl across the face.

“Don’t you be talkin’ like that in this house! Lookit you. Holdin’ the Lord’s word in your own two hands and usin’ his name in vain at the same time,” she said with disgust. “If I find out you’ve been makin’ calls again, I swear you’ll regret it. All I do is clean up your messes. If I have to do it again, I’ll throw you out on your ear. You can go find yourself somewhere else to live. See if you can find another fool to do your laundry and cook your meals. Someone who don’t mind living with the devil!”

Carl knew she would never actually kick him out. But he also knew it was best to play along. Carl squeezed his eyes together and thought about the dog they had when he was a child. He had loved that dog and was heartbroken when he got home one day and found that Mama had gotten rid of it. The childhood trick worked, the tears pooled in his eyes.

“Mama. I don’t want to leave.” Carl sniffed and wiped his eyes harder than necessary to make them tear a bit more. “I’m sorry. I’ll watch my language. But you have to believe me. I’m not making calls anymore. I promise.” He put his face in his hands and peered through his fingers. 

Mama’s face softened almost imperceptibly. Carl saw and knew he had won. 

“Fine. But if I hear that kind of talk again, you’ll be out on your ear.” 

The cross above Carl’s door frame bounced on the wall as the door slammed.

Carl listened until he heard the toilet flush and Mama’s bedsprings creak as she got back into her bed. He put his hand between his mattress and box spring and drew out a silk scarf with colorful flowers, enhanced by a lovely, emerald green vine running through the pattern. He rubbed the scarf on his cheek and smiled. Then he reached into his briefcase for the magazine.

Not for Human Consumption

By Jon Sokol

Larry watched as his young friend squinted at an open can of tuna.

“This product not for human consumption,” Deke read aloud.

He turned the can around to show Larry the picture of an orange cartoon cat licking its mouth.

Deke tossed it into the smoky campfire the two men had built to keep away the god-awful South Georgia mosquitos and pissed-off yellow flies. He took another bite from his half-eaten cat food sandwich and tossed the rest into the flames. Deke would cry if he were alone.

Instead, he fished out a tin of Copenhagen from his blaze orange timber cruising vest and smacked it against the heel of his hand. He lifted the metal top and held the cardboard container to his nose savoring the pungent odor of the snuff.

Image by Jon Sokol

Larry fished around in his brown paper bag and pulled out a small Tupperware bowl filled with red Jell-O cubes. He lifted the top and shook the gelatinous mass until it landed with a plop in the dirt between his worn-out boots.

Deke looked over at him and shook his head.

“Dammit, Larry. Every day I watch you dump that shit out on the ground. Why don’t you tell Mrs. Soo you don’t like that mess?”

He placed a wad of dip on his tongue and rolled it around his mouth until it nestled in the familiar spot between cheek and gum.

“Believe me, bud. It’s just better this way.”

Larry snapped the lid on the plastic container. He took a long drink from a warm can of Diet Rite and balanced it next to him on the log.

Larry was a veteran. He had served in the 7th Cavalry Regiment in Korea, but he never talked about it, even when he was ripped on bourbon. Back then, the brutality he witnessed didn’t feel right, even for a once narrow-minded Georgia boy. He would just shake his head when asked about the war and say, “It was so fucked up. Nobody knew what they were supposed to be doing.”

The war atrocities that Larry saw in Korea haunted him still. He credited Soo-Min with saving his once bigoted soul, but privately, he attributed much of his change of heart to his disgust at his unwillingness to stand up to the malicious slaughter of those innocent refugees, almost all women and children.

After two tours of duty, he returned stateside with his Korean bride and enrolled in the School of Forestry at Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College in Tifton. Two years later he was living back in his hometown, cruising timber and running planting crews for the pulp mill up the road in Savannah.

That had been over forty years ago. Now he was teaching young Deke the ropes. It was time for him to turn in his cruising gear and hang up his snake chaps. In two weeks, he would turn sixty-five and have his modest retirement party on the same day. He and Soo-Min were set to haul their horse trailer and otherworldly possessions to northern Colorado. The thought made him smile. He loved his community, but he was disgusted with its excruciatingly slow progress. Still perturbed at the double-takes people gave him and his wife. He was ready to move on.

He was going to miss Deke, though. Most weekdays for the past six months, he and Deke had worked together cruising timber from sun up until the early afternoon, then checking on loggers, site prep operators, and fertilizer contractors from the air-conditioned comfort of a company-owned Ford pickup.

Image by Jon Sokol

Deke was from north of Atlanta and fresh out of college. Twenty-two years old and fifty thousand in debt to the U.S. Government who had carelessly loaned him the money to go to the University of Georgia. He told Larry that, in Forestry 101, he was taught how he could save the planet and all its endangered species by applying well thought out silvicultural treatments to bountiful forests. He said they never told him he’d be humping through pine plantations in hundred-degree weather and moving to a small town known only for having a shitty sawmill and a string of church burnings.

The two men sat on the log together and talked about Larry and Soo’s recent trip to Atlanta to see the Olympics. Larry told Deke how bittersweet it was to see Muhammad Ali, once unbeatable now trembling with Parkinson’s, light the cauldron. And how excited Soo was when Michael Johnson won the gold medal in the 400 meters. But Deke was clearly not interested in the conversation.

“How’s Jill doing?” Larry asked before tossing a handful of pecan halves into his mouth.

Deke swatted at a mosquito, stood up, spat in the fire, sat back down. “She’s going to Minnesota to see her sister.”

“Well that sounds fun.” Larry would not look at Deke.

“She says she ain’t coming back.”

Larry took off his round eyeglasses and wiped them with a faded red bandana. “You sure?”

“I’m sure. She said she didn’t want to be married to a homophobic racist anymore.”

“Hmm. Sounds like she’s pretty sure.”

“What do you think about that, Larry?”

Larry raised his eyebrows and blew out a long horsey sigh. He put his glasses back on wrapping the wire legs around his ears and stuffed the bandana in his back pocket. “Those are some pretty serious allegations.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Deke’s leg bounced up and down like an erratic jackhammer. “The last argument we had was whether Tupac getting shot dead was a good thing or a bad thing.”

“I’ll guess which side you came in on.”

“Look, I might have some opinions, but I wouldn’t say I’m racist. That asshole’s songs were about killing white people.”

Larry put up his hands as if to stop traffic. “I can’t say I ever heard any of the man’s music, but saying that anybody deserves to die is a bit harsh.”

Deke crossed his arms and spat tobacco juice. The fire sizzled.

“Look, here’s the deal,” Larry continued. “Most everybody I know in this damned town is a homophobic racist. Preachers, teachers, the man who owns the bank, my own momma. It’s just the stew we swim in.”

Deke looked him in the eyes then dropped his gaze back to the fire.

“The good news,” Larry said, “is that you didn’t come out the womb that way. It ain’t as natural as people let on. I mean, it’s up to you, but you can change.”

“I don’t know, Larry. She’s got her mind made up.”

“Oh, no. She’s gone. You’ve screwed the pooch on that one, son.”

Image by Jon Sokol

Deke removed his ball cap and clawed his fingers through his dirty blond mop of hair.  “I haven’t even told my folks yet. What am I supposed to say to them?”

“Maybe ask them why they raised you to be so damned hateful.”

“Come on, man. You know I’m as nice a guy as anybody. You and me get along good, don’t we?” Deke’s eyes reddened with anger.

“Yeah, but I’m a straight white dude.”

Deke jerked to his feet. “Fuck you, Larry.”

“Settle down a minute, son,” Larry said. Deke turned his back to the older man. “So far, your education has been mostly in classrooms, Sunday school, and hanging out with your folks,” Larry continued. “You’re out on your own now, and you’re going to find out that things are not as simple as you were led to believe.”

Deke shook his head slowly. “What the hell are you talking about, Larry?”

“I’m telling you that you need to think long and hard before coming up with your opinions. Put yourself in other people’s shoes before you spout off some bullshit you learned watching cowboy movies.” Larry tilted his head to the side. “Jill called you out on that, didn’t she?  Said to stop being John Wayne and to listen for a change.”

“Wait,” Deke said. “How did you know that?”

“Kid, I know more about you than you do.” Larry stood in front of Deke and looked him in the eyes. “I’d love to give you some life-changing advice, but I know you. You’re going to have to live your way through it.”

Deke broke eye contact. He walked to the fire and kicked dirt over it, extinguishing the flames.

“You’re going to have a lot of regrets one day,” Larry said. “Regrets you’re not counting on now. When that happens, don’t beat yourself up about them. Just be glad you can recognize them as regrets.”

Larry turned back to the log and drained the rest of his soda. “In the meantime, just try not to be a dick to people.”

“Jesus,” Deke whispered. He stomped up a cloud of powder dust to the truck and climbed in behind the steering wheel and slammed the door. The engine made an initial screech and settled into a throaty purr. Deke glared through the windshield at nothing in particular. He rolled down the window and spat.

Larry stretched his wiry frame. He squinted as he looked westward into the cloudless blue sky. Turkey buzzards circled overhead, drawn to a stench that only they could smell. Probably some dead armadillo or possum. Something not fit for human consumption.

The Short Straw

By Vanessa Reid

“Go on, stupid! Pick your straw,” said Burl. “I ain’t got all day.”

Teddy stared up at the boy who was at least a head taller than he was. He looked into Burl’s black eyes and thought how this was an impossible situation since Burl was making him choose a straw in order to decide who had to go into the old Walmouth place and Burl had most certainly rigged it so Teddy would select the dreaded small straw. 

Burl’s cronies Paulie and Little Man had already chosen their straws and miraculously, lady luck had been with them. They grinned on either side of Burl Bogle, the biggest, meanest bully at Grover Cleveland Middle School. Teddy sighed and selected a straw. It was the short one. 

Little Man danced around as he hooped and hollered at the top of his lungs. Paulie stood by Burl, with a quiet, slick smile. Burl grinned so hard he looked like a puppet, his face split in half by crooked yellowed teeth. “Well, the straw says you go in, Tumor Teddy. Whatta you know about that? Are you gonna go in like a man?” Burl snorted, “or are you gonna be a pansy like you usually are? Do we have to put you in that old shithole, Tumor Teddy?”

Teddy sighed. He knew this day would come. He could have counted on it like Salisbury steak on Wednesday and church on Sunday. He knew that he had no choice. “I’ll go,” he said solemnly. 

Burl looked disappointed. “No tricks, Teddy. Do you hear? Don’t go sneaking out the back or something. You stay in there until we tell you to come out.”  

Teddy nodded, pocketed his straw, and turned to walk up the steps of the old Walmouth place. He hesitated for a moment taking in the dying house. Once a stunning Victorian with two turrets and a bronzed cupola, its expansive porches sagged, its paint peeled, and its broken windows squinted at Teddy. 

Every Halloween, kids dared each other to enter to see if the ghost of the owner, Mr. Wally Walmouth, still walked its halls. The story went that old Wally Walmouth killed himself in that house when he found out his son died in combat. Kids said the authorities didn’t find his twisted and torn body for over a week. They said he took a swan dive off the upstairs balcony and broke every bone in his body, and now, he wouldn’t leave until his son came back. 

Today wasn’t Halloween, however. It was only April, a special treat just for Teddy, courtesy of Burl Bogle. Big Butt Bully Burl, Teddy thought darkly.

He walked up the front steps which crackled with each footstep. He stood in front of the front door and he hesitated. Teddy turned his head toward Burl and asked, “Are you sure you want me to do this?” 

“You’re not a pansy. You’re a pussy! Get your ass in there, Tumor.” His sidekicks giggled. 

“Yeah, pussy. Get in there, Tumor!” Little Man croaked. Burl gave him the side-eye. Little Man stopped smiling. 

Teddy hated that nickname. Burl gave it to him in the fourth grade after Teddy’s father died from a brain tumor. His grief made him quieter than he already was, and in addition to his small size, Burl seized upon Teddy like a new toy. Burl had beat him up too many times to count, he stuck his head in the toilet at least once a week, and once even made Teddy eat worms in front of Lavender St. James, the prettiest girl in school. Teddy was so upset that he peed himself. It was the second-worst day of his life. 

Teddy reached for the doorknob and after a couple of tries, shoved the door open. He walked in slowly and closed the door behind him. 

Paulie grinned. “He’s gonna come running out like a pussy, right, Burl?” 

“Oh, sure he is. Right, Burl? He’s gonna come running out and oh—he’s gonna pee himself, even. Right, Burl?” Little Man echoed, jumping up and down. 

“Shut the fuck up, you two,” Burl said. “Yeah, he just might pee himself,” Burl said to himself softly. He grinned wider.  

The three boys stood watching the silent house for what seemed like a half an hour. “M- maybe we should call him out, huh Burl?” Little Man asked. 

“Shut up!” said Burl. “Just give him a second. He ain’t been scared enough yet.” Burl squinted at the house, frowning. “What the hell is he doing in there, anyway?” 

Seconds later, they heard a loud crash followed by a thud. It seemed to echo through the house’s halls and spill out of the broken windows. Then, Teddy screamed. “Help! Help me, please.” There was uncomfortable desperation in Teddy’s voice, and the boys could hear him begin to sob. 

“What the hell?” Burl said. Paulie and Little Man just stared at the house, mouths hanging open. 

“Please, Burl, I’m hurt. I need help,” Teddy called through a broken, dirty window, but the boys couldn’t see anything inside. 

“Are—are you gonna go in and help him?” Little Man asked. Paulie looked nervously at Burl, waiting for his answer. 

“I ain’t going in there. We’re going in there. And we ain’t going in to rescue Tumor. We’re gonna make sure he’s not pulling something. Then, we’re gonna kick his ass and lock him in a closet for a while. If he’s pulling something, he’s about to learn real fast that you can’t mess with Burl Bogle. Come on!” The other two boys exchanged worried glances. 

Burl headed up the steps to the front door, then turned around to see Paulie and Little Man still standing in the weeds of the front yard. Paulie looked grave. Little Man looked terrified. 

“Get your pansy asses up here now, or I’m gonna lock you two in the closet with Tumor!” The boys walked up the steps and Burl gave the door two sharp shoves before it opened. Then, the boys walked in, leaving the door cracked open behind them. 

The inside of the house was just as they suspected: dark and decrepit. There were old-fashioned parlors filled with sheet-covered furniture on either side of the foyer which faced a long, dim hallway. Above them on the second floor, a horseshoe staircase spilled down either side onto the landing below, shreds of rotting green carpet dotting the steps. 

“Help me, please,” sobbed Teddy from somewhere up above. The boys looked at one another, relieved not to have to walk down the dark hall in front of them, and then they headed up the stairs on the left.

Once they reached the open hall above, Burl shouted, “Where the fuck are you, Tumor? You better not be jerking us around!” 

“Here! I’m here,” Teddy called from a room to the left. “I’m hurt.” 

The other boys looked at one another and Burl led the way to the door to the left. He reached for the doorknob and then stopped. 

“What is it, Burl? Is he crying for his dead dad or something?” Little Man joked. Burl shot him an angry look and then turned his attention back to the door.

“Be quiet!” Paulie hissed. “Can’t you hear that?” Paulie jerked his head toward the door. Little Man, silenced, leaned toward the door to listen. 

The boys could hear a deep male voice coming from the other side of the door but couldn’t make out what it was saying. “Yes,” Teddy said to someone. “Yes. Yes, okay.” The man’s voice continued but the boys still couldn’t understand it. “I know, you’re right,” Teddy whispered, almost too low for the boys to hear.  

Burl flushed. “What is this? Some joke? I’m gonna kill that kid!” He threw the door open and the three boys rushed in. They found Teddy sitting on a sagging couch next to a broken window, the flimsy sunlight creeping in, and on the other side of the moldy velvet seat sat an old man in a strange suit.

“What the…?” said Burl. 

“You were right when you said they would come,” a smiling, uninjured Teddy said to the man next to him. “You are a wise man, Mr. Walmouth.” Teddy turned and smiled at the other three boys. “Boys, I want you to meet a friend of mine. This is Mr. Walmouth and you are in his house.” 

“Ah! The infamous Big Butt Bully Burl. We have been expecting you, son.” Burl stood in front of the other two boys and paled as he watched the old man in disbelief. 

“What the hell?” Burl said shakily. “You…you ain’t Walmouth. He’s been dead forever.” Little Man had begun to sob and Paulie tugged at his sleeve as he stepped back to the door. 

Mr. Walmouth grinned humorlessly exposing rotted teeth and tiny white worms crawling through the blackened holes. One fell onto his dusty lapel and wriggled there before sliding into his lap. “Yes, Burl, I have.” 

Little Man screamed and Paulie pulled him out of the door and down the stairs. Burl swayed on his feet as a wet stain spread on his crotch. 

“So, Burl,” Mr. Walmouth said. “It seems we need to have a little chat about my son Teddy, here.” 

Burl shook his head. “No, please no.” 

“Oh, yes. I insist.” The door slammed shut behind him. 

Teddy closed the front door and skipped down the steps of the old Walmouth place. He turned back and looked at the house with fondness. He had been coming here since January when Burl had become too much and the grief had become more than he could bear. 

He thought that it would be the right place to take his own life so his mother wouldn’t have to find him, but the day he chose to die turned out to be the first day that he had really lived in a very long time. That day, he met old Wally Walmouth and they became friends. They had much in common—especially their grief—and it was nice to be understood for once. 

Teddy remembered the day he entered the house and climbed to the top of the staircase. He was crying as he stood on the railing looking down and the floor below. At that moment, Teddy’s pain crested. He bent his knees and was preparing to jump when an unseen blow knocked him backward to the floor of the second-floor landing.  When he looked up, Mr. Walmouth stood above him frowning. He had never seen a ghost before but Teddy wasn’t scared. 

Mr. Walmouth guided Teddy to the parlor where they sat and talked for hours. Talked about the death of Mr. Walmouth’s son and his own suicide. He had jumped from that very banister. They talked about Teddy’s father, and how that sorrow was an unending curse. Mr. Walmouth’s grief had overtaken him just like Teddy’s. 

Mostly, they just talked about mundane things like fishing and the books they both enjoyed. Teddy learned that Mr. Walmouth and his boy used to fish together after church on Sundays just like Teddy and his father. Soon after that, Mr. Walmouth began to call Teddy “son” which was a comfort to Teddy. Just like a protective father, when Teddy told Mr. Walmouth about Burl and the other boys, Walmouth said not to worry about them, as long as Teddy kept coming back to visit. 

Now, Teddy was ready to live his life in peace. He was so grateful. Grateful for Mr. Walmouth’s friendship and guidance. Grateful he didn’t hurt his mother more than she had already suffered. Grateful that it was all over. Burl would never bother him again, just like Mr. Walmouth promised. The other boys wouldn’t mess with him either. Maybe they could even be friends. Teddy would come back soon to visit and to thank Mr. Walmouth, but not until they found Burl’s body and all of that business was behind them. He almost couldn’t wait to go to school tomorrow.  

Teddy paused in the overgrown yard, took the short straw from his pocket, and stuck it in his mouth, smiling as he headed home.

Death Never Dies

By Liesel Sloan

April 3, 1978 — This is what is clear to me:

A classroom full of giggling, awkward 11-year-olds facing an equally anxious, and definitely not amused teacher, on the first day of the first time Baltimore County required Co-Ed Sex Education. Something forgotten, per usual, allowed me a brief escape to my locker. Our classroom was located last on the left of a single long hallway and, from that perspective, I saw her walking toward me with the principal at her side.

Immediately, in only the way a child can spot their mother from 1,000 yards, I knew who the woman in the tan London Fog trench coat was, and I knew someone was dead.

My grandfather, her father, had died only two months before, and, having seen her then, I must have recognized the walk, the face, the aura of my mother in grief. Even with this knowledge I was naive, unprepared for her words spoken as she continued guiding me to the exit.

“I need you to be strong for me. I need you to be strong for me.”

I don’t remember the last time I saw my father.

Did I stop running around to say good-bye? Did I tell him I hoped he had fun with his friends? I think perhaps I spoke on the phone to him during a time when long-distance calls from traveling parents were rare and expensive.

Maybe I told him I loved him; I hope so.

“Daddy’s dead,” she said.

Of course tears came; the explanation of the plane crashing into the Nassau Harbor.

“They’re dead. They’re all dead.”

I was placed in the middle of the front seat between my mother and…someone. This was the time when all the mothers drove large, wood-paneled station wagons and seat belts were optional.

We still had to pick up my brother, Kurt, from his school, and eventually I was left in the front, still pressed against this person who is nothing but a shadow in my memory.

My mother and Kurt now in the back, we drove to my grandmother’s house. There was no talking, no radio; only the broken half-man, half boy sobs of a 14-year-old. My brother, always bigger, always better, always braver, never cried, and I wished nothing more than to comfort him. No thought for my mother, not one.

To this day I am ashamed of this, but perhaps it was easier for me to understand the impact of this moment on my brother. How could I know then what it means to lose a partner, a best friend, a breadwinner?

Daddy’s death made the news. Just as today, five prominent businessmen, twisted wreckage, body recovery, makes good copy and great visuals, with the face of the broadcaster appropriately solemn.

There was pressure to get to his parents’ house before 6 p.m., so they would hear it first from Mom, be prepared when all the friends of the family began to call in shock or only to seek the juicy details in the safety of viewing tragedy from afar. I didn’t go with my mom and brother, but stayed home alone, hidden in a bedroom. This was probably seen as selfish, callous, but I believed, with my whole heart, that the news would immediately kill them.

It didn’t, of course; you don’t live to be in your 70’s, through two World Wars and the Depression without experiencing great losses and continue to keep breathing whether you want to or not. Did I choose well? Was it better to only hear of my grandfather falling to the ground unconscious, my grandmother’s scream so piercing it brought the neighbors to the door than to see it?

There followed the usual rituals and memories are spottier, but to outward appearance I was strong. In the ultimate act of cowardice, to avoid my grieving family, when given the choice I went to school the next day. I pushed away any efforts from teachers to give condolences; I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to feel it. All my classmates knew. I had called one the afternoon before. “Guess what? The weirdest thing happened today. My dad died”.

I wanted to see the body.

I needed to see the body and was refused. He was in the water too long, bloated to the point that the suit could not fit even after the morticians had done their best. Only our priest in a moment of strength that could only come from faith looked upon the ruins and confirmed that the shiny coffin in the corner contained my dad. I didn’t believe him. I no longer had faith in the agent on earth of a god who had allowed this to happen. It could have been worse; one of the others had been decapitated, his body destroyed, becoming, literally, fish food. His half-open casket showed what was recovered, a perfect head sitting atop a sawdust-filled suit.

His funeral was standing room only. My uncle, so estranged from Daddy in real life, threw himself sobbing across the casket crushing the flowers and causing the petals to litter the aisle as the pallbearers carried it from the church. During the drive to the cemetery, my brother and I turned, kneeling to look out the back window, proud to watch the seemingly endless line of cars snake behind us. A confirmation that this man had mattered to more than just us.

It saddens me that my actual specific memories of Daddy are more related to his death than his life, but what does remain, even stronger 42 years later, is the “feeling” of him. His love for me, his belief that I “would be fine as an adult” has carried me through my life; given me hope when otherwise there would be none. His joy and sense of fun, his love for my mother, his creativity and work ethic gave me a road map that even while I took the scenic route to adulthood guided me toward where I wished to be.

At this point in time, we are surrounded by the constant threat of illness and death. We receive the daily worldwide totals of lives lost via our phones, or Facebook, just as past generations were informed through newsreels, the radio or from the trusted voice of Walter Cronkite.

An oddity of grieving and loss is that one can ask what is better?

To see a loved one waste with illness or dementia; to have them stolen from you piece by piece, or in one instant; they were here and now they’re not? When you read this, so many of you will still be so fresh in your grief.

Feeling isolated even while sharing in a worldwide event, it may not be encouraging to know you will miss them forever, but the truth is you will.

The other truth is that it’s OK.

You will be OK.

With love,

Liesel

This Is How We Say I Love You

By Cat Taylor

Not-quite-yet hungover,
sprawled on couches,
beanbags,
beds,
pronounced like “drink some water,”
and “we’ll go to Waffle House in the morning.”
We’ve never stopped wearing our hearts on our sleeves
still sewing them back on
where our parents would have stuffed them in a drawer somewhere
When someone uses the wrong pronouns –
on purpose
That someone doesn’t get invited anymore
and that’s how they know we love them

This is how we say I love you
All-the-way hungover
Speaking it so quietly
it just might be a prayer
I can never remember how they like their coffee –
but I ask them every time
Knowing we’re all just
lonely lighthouses on abandoned islands
showing weary travelers the way home
offering cigarettes and sweet tea

This is how we say I love you
All verbal hand grenades over a game of Monopoly,
near brawls over subs vs dubs
I love you
Spoken so often
that sometimes it comes out as
laughter turned quiet because it’s starting to hurt

This is how we weather the storm
Love baked into every casserole
(we’ve got vegan options, too)
Barefaced and laid bare
no need to hide here
No “positive vibes only” drivel
Bring your bad vibes
Your frightened and trembling vibes
We’ll love you through those, too

If I haven’t told you today,
I love you
We’ll go to Waffle House in the morning

waffle house.” by shil is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0?

Soup

By Kit Fay

maybe it’s the way i was raised
or maybe it’s my cancer rising
but i only ever feed myself well when i am feeding someone else.
i mean,
my love language is soup.
which is why my whole house smells like curry, garlic, and ginger,
why over the course of a couple of days i spent twelve of the hours i had meant to spend sleeping
pressing blocks of tofu,
individually sauteing seven different types of vegetables in fresh herbs and aromatics,
and really testing the capacity of my roommate’s food processor.

I don’t remember when I first started believing that everything that feels good is either dangerous or morally wrong, or, most likely, both, but I imagine it started with the church.

I don’t remember when I first started believing that love looked less like a fairytale and more like my best friend falling asleep in my sweater with her head on my shoulder, so close I could smell my shampoo in her hair, but I imagine it started with her.

I once spent six months eating cold unseasoned green beans out of a can for almost every meal because suffering for suffering’s sake feels righteous when you believe that you deserve it. I once spent ten years pretending not to be a dyke for essentially the same reason.

And lord, am I ever. A dyke, I mean. A big, masculine dyke,
Like,
I have always been more king Kong than Fay wray.
Like,
I have always been taught to be afraid of what my hands can do.
I remember big fat dykes depicted as monstrous,
Only able to destroy,
And I wonder if that’s why there are so many of us who make things.

i keep a knife in my pocket most of the time because i have been backed into enough corners to be cautious,
but mostly,
i use it for fixing things and cutting fruit.
danger is contagious and i do what i can to stop it from making me dangerous,
I do not want to be a frightened and frightening thing.
but one time a woman i really liked tried to wake me from a nightmare,
and with ghosts still circling my head
Before I was awake or aware,
i punched her in the face.
When I opened my eyes, there was fear in hers and blood pouring from her nose and no amount of apologizing could unbreak what I had broken.
she kissed me and told me she still trusted me and it made me remember all the bloody noses that i had once forgiven with similar ease.
So i told her i was thinking of moving to oregon and that work was getting busy and that i would wash and return her tupperware before she left in case it was a while before i could see her again.
i hugged her at her car
and she held me for too long
like she didn’t even notice all the sharp things where my skin was meant to be.
i spent the next six months
bleeding venom and avoiding handshakes.

And I don’t mean to say that I am violent,
Because I am not,
I do not yell
Or degrade
Or intimidate,
I never sleep punched anyone else before or since,
I would never hit a friend or a lover while awake. I only wear spikes to make people think before they touch me, I am all flight or freeze. But violence is not the only way to hurt someone you love. Shutting down or running away can break a heart too and blood all looks the same when it’s drying on your hands no matter where it comes from. So now I try to protect the people I love from everything dangerous, including getting too close to me.

i keep a knife in my pocket most of the time,
but on days when my body remembers in the present tense,
i take a knife from the kitchen block instead.
i cut up limes and sweet potatoes,
drown out the sirens in my head
with bubbling water and simmering oil.

i’m still learning what love looks like,
and i am so tired of breaking,
and maybe this is why every time i see someone beautiful i fantasize about building them a house,
maybe this is why i make soup.

i am only easy to love
on the days when love is not a life raft.
i have never been afraid of fire
but i am frozen earth
full of ancient seeds,
already there are new green things pushing up through cracks in me
and i worry that if the ground were to thaw,
softer things might take root,
and i am afraid that anything delicate might not survive in me.

It’s not that I am wholly unable to love recklessly,
I run whole body into the ocean every time i see her,
emerge breathless and invisible and singing praises to nobody at all but the stars.
The last time I wanted to die, I took an overnight bus to the ocean. I held my breath and dipped my whole body beneath the surface of the sea,
tried to practice drowning but instead,
by mistake,
fell in love all over again with the waves and the moon and the stars,
All the beautiful things too big and too powerful for me to hurt accidentally.
I am a soft foolish thing,
All alive and longing.
I have loved fully
What I always knew I could not hold,
My tiny heart so full of moon and sea
And every mountain
That every place is now both a home
And not.

I am not as afraid as I used to be,
I have done a lot of therapy,
And maybe one day I will sleep next to somebody breakable without feeling guilty.
And I think maybe one day,
I will trust myself enough to love the softest things that love me in the fearless way I love the ocean.
And I don’t know when that day will be,
Or whether you will stick around long enough to find out,
but i do know that i want you always to be warm and full of good things,
so in the meantime,
If you want it,
I made you some soup.

Riddles

By Jack Walsh

The late afternoon sun hung low beyond the city walls, and the glare obscured the enormous thing crouched in the shadow of the gates – a thing that had suddenly become very shouty.

An inhuman voice bellowed, the force of it sending a cloud of dust blowing past the man on the road. “Step forward!” The traveller did not feel inclined to do so.

“I said step. Forward.”

The man swallowed, raised his arm to shield his eyes from the sun, and took a step.

“C’mon. Little bit more. Scooch on up.”

The man, squinting, took another half-step.

The thing sighed. “Zeus almighty, guy. Just come into the fucking shade already.”

The traveller crept up until the sun dipped behind the walls. And there, guarding the way in, was a creature more horrible than any he could have imagined. The cruelest eyes looked at him from within a woman’s face, and a long tongue flicked itself over blood-stained fangs. Below all this was the body of a lion, a sight rendered all the more grotesque by the incongruous addition of eagle’s wings. It was an unholy abomination, a magical being seemingly designed by committee.

The creature watched the man as he struggled to process her appearance.

“And don’t forget the tail,” she said, pointing behind her. “It’s a snake.”

Indeed, an asp raised up from behind the monster. “What? I wasn’t paying atten…Oh, hey. I’m the snake.”

“Hey…” said the traveller. “I’m Oedipus.”

“And I…” said the monster, pausing with a flourish as she spread her wings. She then shook her tail with annoyance.

“Sorry,” said the snake.

“And I…” the monster repeated as the snake added to the drama of the moment with a fearsome hisssssss, “am the Sphinx.”

Oedipus said nothing.

“The Sphinx!” she said again.

After a beat, the snake added, “hsssssssss?”

“Like in Egypt?” asked Oedipus.

“No, that’s like a totally other thing,” replied the Sphinx.

“So, you’re like a sphinx.”

“No, I’m the Sphinx!” she screamed, a small burst of flame coming from her throat. “Ow! Holy shit!…I didn’t even know I could do that! Fuck. Do you have any water?”

“Uh, I…I’m sorry. I don’t,” said Oedipus.

The Sphinx flexed her jaw a few times and, grimacing, smacked her lips with distaste. “Ugh, gross…So, you. I imagine you want to go into Thebes or something.”

“Um, yes, ma’am.”

“Then, you must answer…my riddle.”

A look of vague recognition crossed Oedipus’s face. “Oh. The riddle of the Sphinx.”

The Sphinx rolled her eyes. “Ugh, Ares, Apollo and Athena, yes, of course the riddle of the Sphinx.”

“Now, remind me of the deal with that,” said Oedipus

“If you get it right, you pass safely into the city of Thebes.”

Oedipus nodded. “Gotcha.”

“If you do not…” the Sphinx paused again. The snake hissed.

“I die,” Oedipus jumped in.

“Yes,” said the Sphinx, annoyed at the interruption. “Yes, you die. Horribly. Right here.”

“You can turn back, though,” she added. “And maybe I’ll let you run a while across the plain before I swoop from the heavens and devour you alive.”

“Very well,” said Oedipus.

“Very well what?” The Sphinx stutter-stepped with excitement. “You’re going to run for it?”

“I will answer your riddle.”

“Oh.” The Sphinx frowned. “I should warn you; no one’s ever gotten it right.”

“But I shall,” said Oedipus.

“But I shall,” muttered the Sphinx in a sing-songy tone as she reached under one massive wing and pulled out a laptop computer. “Okay. Let’s see here…” She opened it and typed a few keys.

“Shit. Hang on.” She tried again.

Oedipus politely feigned interest in the architecture of the city walls.

“Oh, duh. Caps lock,” said the Sphinx. She clicked the mouse and scrolled down for a moment. “Okay, where was…a ha. Here we go. Oh, you really are quite doomed.”

Oedipus exhaled and rubbed his sweaty palms on his tunic.

The Sphinx looked at him over the top of the monitor and began.

“Name a city…that does not have an “O” in it.”

Oedipus blinked. “Uh…”

“I bet you can’t!” the Sphinx gleefully interrupted.

Oedipus glanced past the Sphinx. “Um…” he coughed, ”Thebes?”

The Sphinx’s jaw dropped slightly, and then she looked back at the city behind her.

“Athens, also,” suggested Oedipus, helpfully.

The Sphinx scowled. “Okay,” she said, looking back at the laptop.

“Oooo, also, Atlantis, Sparta, Delphi…”

“OKAY!!” snapped the Sphinx. “Enough! Fuck. We’ll move on to the next one.”

“Wait, what?” asked Oedpius.

“The second riddle.”

“You just said there was a riddle.”

“No, there’re three.”

“Well, you didn’t say that.”

“Well, there are. Obviously. There are always three magical things. Three wishes. Three guesses of the goblin’s name. Three, I dunno, ghosts or whatever. Three riddles. Okay? I just have to find the next one.”

They were quiet for a moment until the Sphinx began to mutter. She tapped the keyboard angrily several times.

“Shit. I think my IT guy is doing updates right now.”

“In the middle of the day?” asked Oedipus.

“I know, right?” said the Sphinx.

“You should eat him.”

“Ha ha. I totally should.”

“Yeah.”

“Hmmm…”

Oedipus shuffled his feet. The Sphinx watched the screen. The snake hissed softly to himself.

After what felt like several minutes, the Sphinx spoke. “So, what brings you…What’d you say your name was?”

“Oedipus.”

“Right. What brings you to Thebes, Oedipus?”

“I’m here to see my girlfriend.”

“Ah, a special lady in town. Got a picture?”

Oedipus pulled up a photo on his iPhone and handed it to the Sphinx.

“Oh, cute,” said the Sphinx. “Although…”

“What?” asked Oedipus.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that…you guys look a lot alike.”

“What?” Oedipus laughed. “I don’t know. I don’t really see it.”

“You don’t think so?” The Sphinx held the picture in line with Oedipus’s face and eyed the two. “I mean it’s almost like she could be your sister. Or your moth…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, y’know how they say,” said Oedipus, taking the phone. “Couples kinda start to resemble each other.”

“Do they say that?” asked the Sphinx. “Hmmm. I thought that was about dogs and owne…oh, hey! Here we go. Next riddle.” She looked at the laptop, and began to read.

“I truly believe that Cyclops is the son of our lord, Poseidon, God of the sea…”

Oedipus waited for more.

“I bet this won’t get many shares. Are you brave enough to share this?” asked the Sphinx.

Oedipus glanced at the Snake, who gave him a look that suggested that if he had shoulders, he would shrug them.

“Tick tock,” said the Sphinx.

Oedipus looked at her. “Wha…?”

“Are you brave enough to share this?!” demanded the Sphinx.

“Y…Yes?” offered Oedipus.

The Sphinx smacked the side of the computer. “Gods-dammit, you are really good at this!”

Oedipus cleared his throat in a way that he hoped seemed modest.

“But I shall feast on your entrails, yet!” shrieked the Sphinx. “I shall drink your blood and pluck your heart from your che..oh, shit. Here’s a good one.”

The Sphinx’s eyes moved back and forth over the screen. Oedipus couldn’t help but notice that she silently mouthed the words when she read.

After a moment, the Sphinx pushed the screen partway down and looked at him. “You have been a worthy challenger…”

“Oedipus,” he said.

“Right. A worthy challenger, Oedipus,” the Sphinx continued, “but you will soon learn that mortals were not meant to match wits with the scions of Olympus.”

The Sphinx opened the laptop again.

“There is a creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening,” she said.

Oedipus opened his mouth to reply but the Sphinx continued. “This creature is man. Like if you agree.”

Oedipus blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“99% will get this wrong!” added the Sphinx.

“I..” began Oedipus and then looked at the snake again, who had clearly lost interest at this point.

“Like if you agree!” shouted the Sphinx.

With some confused hesitation, Oedipus forced a queasy smile and raised his hand in a thumbs-up gesture.

The Sphinx let out a horrific wail, beating her mighty wings and thrashing her tail furiously. “Aaaaaaaa!” said the snake. At the edges of the surrounding plains, thunder boomed. The Sphinx once again fixed her fierce eyes upon Oedipus. He braced himself.

“Okay, well, enjoy Thebes,” said the Sphinx while clicking the mousepad. “The place right inside the gate has killer moussaka, just FYI.”

“Oh…” said Oedipus. “Cool.”

“Actually,” the Sphinx mused, “I could really go for some, now that I’m thinking about it.”

“Aren’t you, I don’t know,” said Oedipus. “Aren’t you supposed to die now that I solved your riddles?”

“Hmm? Oh, no, I don’t think so.”

“I thought maybe you were going to throw yourself off a cliff or something.”

“No,” said the Sphinx. “I mean, I have wings. So. That would be weird. Anyway, you wanna grab a bite? They’ve got WiFi. I have other things I could ask you for fun. Wanna find out what character from the Iliad you are?”

Oedipus eased past the Sphinx, who was making no real effort to move out of the way. “Oh, um, thanks. But, I need to get going and see my mom…I mean, my girlfriend! Haha that was crazy.”

“Mmmm,” said the Sphinx, offering no further comment aside from a raised eyebrow as she turned her attention back to the internet.

fearless

By Jeremy Maxwell

for Amy Tecosky

“Let’s go to Nike,” Sydney says, and starts putting on her shoes. She doesn’t bother with socks because the stick-poke on her leg is not even an hour old, much too fresh for fabric. Fraggle is already getting ready to do another one on somebody else, laying all the shit out on the table and taking giant slugs of whiskey straight out of the bottle. Yesterday he sat in the kitchen floor and did all the veins in his feet, turning them into tree roots twining up his legs. Blood and ink all over the linoleum, it looked like a fucking murder scene by the time she made him quit.

The radio is up loud and when she finishes with her shoes she stands up and turns it off, stops and looks around. Fraggle glances over at her in the new quiet and shrugs, drops everything but the bottle and heads for the door. Chad and Stacy are making out on the futon in the corner and Sydney kicks it as she walks by. They pull their faces apart and Stacy starts messing with her hair and straightening her clothes.

“Come on, Jupiter, get in the car,” Sydney says, and the giant dog lifts his head up off the couch. His ears twitch forward and that’s about it. Chad and Stacy get up and follow Fraggle out of the apartment, hands already all over each other again. “Jupe. Come on,” Sydney repeats and the dog lumbers down off the couch and stretches hard into his front legs. He yawns and shakes his head and follows everyone out the door.

I’m hunched over the coffee table rolling more joints, even though there are already a dozen laying in front of me. I take a drag from the one in my mouth and call behind her as she disappears outside. “Nike? Y’all can barely even wear shoes,” I holler after them. No one listens or cares and I get up and start sticking joints in my pockets. “Well goddamn, hang on,” I say, and hurry to catch up.

***

Thunder Kiss ’65 is playing in the car and as soon as it’s done, Sydney starts it over. She is yelling at Stacy in the backseat and it’s hard to tell if she’s pissed or just wants to make sure Stacy can hear but either way it sounds like she’s having a shouting match with Rob Zombie. “Look,” she says, “when you hit him there’s only three things he can do.” Fraggle swerves around another hole in the road and everybody goes leaning into each other and then back again when he corrects the wheel. The dog is taking up more space than anyone and I try to push him over but it’s no use and I go back to listening to Sydney.

Chad and Stacy are still pressed hard together for no reason and Sydney turns full around in the front seat. I pull out a joint and light it and hand it to her as Fraggle drops the gear and starts the drive up the mountain. We aren’t going to be able to go much further in the car but there’s a place to pull over and park after the first bend. Sydney hits the joint and blows the smoke in Stacy’s face. Stacy looks away from Chad and when she sees the look Sydney’s giving her, she tries to scoot away from him, pulls her hands out of his lap and starts straightening her hair and clothes.

“Yeah, sis,” Stacy says. “Three things.” Chad starts to reach for the joint but Sydney doesn’t even glance at him and hands it to Fraggle instead. He billows smoke against the dashboard as he rounds the bend, finds the cut and shuts off the car. The radio dies when he opens the door but Sydney’s volume doesn’t change. Fraggle gets out with the bottle and takes a long slug, opens the back door for Jupiter to jump out. The dog doesn’t move, even when I start pushing on him.

“He can lash out,” Sydney yells. “He can run. Or he can freeze.” She gets out and leans back down into the car, face to face in the backseat with Chad. “Come on, Jupiter,” she says, and the drop in volume and tone make it clear she wasn’t just yelling over the radio. She glares at Chad from inches away as the giant dog jumps down into the dirt on the other side. He immediately hikes a leg and pisses on the tire. I wait for him to get done before I get out.

Fraggle has already started up the road with the joint so I light another one and climb out of the car.

“That’s not even true, Syd,” I say. “There’s all kinds of shit he can do.” She doesn’t say anything, just pulls her head out of the backseat and scowls at me over the roof, so I keep talking. “He could pull out a weapon.” She keeps glaring, and I go on. “He could fall down and have a seizure. Hell, he could even,” I say, and she cuts me off.

“Are you done?” she growls and steps out of the way so Chad and Stacy can finally get out. They stretch in the sun and Sydney slams the door and walks over to me, reaching for the joint. I hit it again and blow the smoke in her face. “It was anecdotal, you fucking assmonkey,” she says and punches me in the arm. I don’t fight or fly or freeze, I just start laughing and hand her the joint as Jupiter follows us up the road, all of us lagging behind Fraggle and the bottle.

***

Nike Missile Site LA-94 sits on top of a mountain off Sand Canyon Road in the LA National Forest. By the time we get up there Jupiter is panting full out like he might quit and lay down any minute, but as soon as he sees the concrete pad he trots right over and starts drinking from the puddle of water pooled in the corner on the far side.

“When’s the last time it rained, you reckon,” I say, and Sydney stops on the path and calls the dog.

“Jupe, that’s probably radioactive,” she says, “get over here,” and the dog comes panting back across the pad. His tail wags when Sydney starts to move again. She scratches his giant head and he falls in behind her. “Some kids died up here, you know,” she says to me as I fumble around in my pocket for another joint. I find a bent one and spend a second getting it straight before I light it. “Well, back there on the road,” she says. “Prom night.”

“They did not,” I say, and hand her the joint. Chad and Stacy are over by the radar station, leaning up against the wall. They’re starting to get handsy again and even though Sydney’s squinting into the sun she rolls her eyes hard enough for me to see.

“They damn sure did,” she says. “They went to my high school. They were headed up here to smoke pot or make out or whatever kids do after prom. I think they were drunk,” she says, and looks away from Stacy, finds Fraggle out at the edge of the cliff, drinking hard from the upturned bottle. We start to make our way over to him, passing the joint back and forth while she tells me about the ghost that haunts the road we came up, how her hair is flying out on all sides, her face a ruin of made up flesh. How she moves up and down the road trying to find help for her friends. “She doesn’t walk,” Sydney says, “she just floats above the ground and lunges at you with outstretched arms.”

“Tell me you don’t believe this shit,” I say, and Sydney starts to laugh.

“Do you believe there used to be nukes right here under our feet? You better believe I fucking believe it.”

I look over my shoulder for a girl in a floating prom dress, but she’s not there, just some dude coming up over the edge of the hill, carrying a canvas bag. Sydney and Jupiter lope up to Fraggle, standing there in his bare feet, every vein of them tattooed with India ink. She takes the bottle from him and turns it up, finishes it off in one smooth gulp.

“Jesus,” Fraggle says. “I couldn’t of poured it out in the sink that fast.” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a flask as I hurry over. The sky stretches out in front of us forever, and I wish I wasn’t out of breath.

“You better call your sister,” I say as Jupiter watches me pant, and Sydney turns around. She looks behind me and sees the guy with the bag, takes a few steps back toward the radar station.

“Stacy. Get over here,” she yells, and Stacy pushes Chad away and starts to straighten her hair and clothes. “Right now, Stacy,” Sydney shouts, and Chad finally notices the man who has joined us on the mountain. They leave the building and come lurching across the concrete pad at a trot.

The guy doesn’t pay any attention to us, just walks over to the edge of the cliff on the opposite side. He’s wearing spandex pants and he kneels and puts the bag on the ground. Once he has it open, he starts digging around inside. Sydney looks ready to charge him and knock his ass off the side of the mountain, but all he’s pulling out is a bunch of long poles and an even bigger bunch of fabric.

“Is this guy pitching a fucking tent up here?” Fraggle says, as we watch the guy start putting it all together. He hands me the flask and I take a long pull.

“I’m pitching a tent up here, if you know what I’m saying,” Chad says, and Sydney turns around and punches him in the stomach. His face turns red and you can almost see the steam shoot out his ears as he doubles over and freezes.

“That’s too flat to be a tent,” I say, handing the flask back to Fraggle. “Shaped all wrong, too.”

“Well what is it then,” Sydney says as Stacy moves to comfort Chad. He shrugs her off and steps back, sulking, reaching for the flask. Fraggle twists the cap on and puts it back in his pocket.

“You guys are assholes,” Chad says.

“That’s right,” Sydney says. “Keep your fucking hands off my sister.”

“Guys,” Stacy says. “Look.” Everyone stops and looks at her, follows her outstretched hand. “It’s a fucking hang-glider,” she says, pointing.

The guy steps into it and starts getting his hands set as the group of us goes stock still. We wait there a moment with the silence fraught around us, the city too far away to hear. He takes a couple of steps forward and launches himself like a missile off the mountain.

“Holy shit,” Fraggle yells, and all of us go running over to the other side of the cliff. Jupiter jumps and barks, and Sydney has to grab his collar to make sure the giant dog doesn’t go tumbling over the edge. “A fucking hang-glider,” Fraggle says, and pulls out the flask and hands it to Chad. I dig around for the last joint and we get it going, fearless, staring after the man as he sails ever smaller through the Santa Clarita sky.

Don’t Lift a Finger

By Tawny Powell

Mark was a drunk, though he wouldn’t admit it.

Instead, he said, “I don’t really drink,” which I know means he can’t because he already told me he’s a writer.

He carried a water bottle full of tobacco spit, discreetly, as if to carry shame like a cheap umbrella, halfway hidden under his arm but still needing it anyway. At least that’s what everything else about him said.

So he’s a writer. A “famous” one. God bless his heart.

I wouldn’t know. I don’t follow anyone famous but Beyonce, but he spoke Needy like a language he’d denied himself. Which might be to say Mark denied himself things like booze on any given night or any real sense of accomplishment. Or himself.

Supposedly, Mark was the last to interview Hunter S. Thompson before he blew a bullet through his skull. Said he’d been asked to interview him specifically because their writing styles were so similar.

Mark, edgy, resourceful, his legs taking up the entire aisle of the bus, as if he needed that much space, plenty of weight to throw around but not much to hold onto.

If he wanted your time, consider that a gift because he didn’t like most people.

Besides, he’s “famous.”

Outside the old school bus window, I get lost in the lush green jungle. Hungry and thirsty for the freedom of nature, I’m so at peace with ‘getting away.’

My ex would be here if I had my way, next to me on this dark green seat, devouring the other Conch Fritter I picked up at the bus station in Belize City. I never invited him. Too afraid he’d say, ‘No’ and of the empty despair that would follow that kind of rejection. From him.

It’s my birthday, anyway. No need to messy this trip with what isn’t.

Mark asks if I want to get a drink later, as if that was something I might actually say ‘no’ to on my birthday. I know this because I had already said, “I can’t wait to get a drink when we get there!” Mark takes the easy way out with women. Perhaps I am a little too available. Perhaps he, too, is fearful of rejection.

Either way, he never called. I got plenty of drinks anyway. At the bar. On the walk back to my hut. In a tent. In the backyard. Of the nature lodge where I stayed.

The tent belonged to the owner’s cousin:  a late 30’s gentleman whose wife recently left him and took the kids. He was devastated. And handsome. He kept a tall bottle of rum and tequila in his 1-person pup tent home. He even fetched me a fresh coconut as a chaser. I played popular, emotional American R&B music from my cell phone over the WiFi.

He never tried to kiss me.

An awkward thing happened when we arrived to Hopkins Village via taxi. Myself, Mark and this guy named Will, who seemed pretty cool but didn’t say a whole lot, shared a cab literally from the side of the highway in Belize to the center of Hopkins Village.

Mark said that someone had made his reservation for him and that he was staying at the guest house just across the street from Will. Sounds convenient enough, I thought. But after dropping both of them off and carting out their luggage, the taxi driver took a slow U-turn toward the direction of my lodge, and out walks Mark from the hotel where he supposedly had a reservation.

He mumbled something like, “they’re not being very nice ‘cuz they won’t let me to leave my bags there while I go to the gift shop to get my reservation info” and … I dunno Mark.

Kinda sounds like bullshit to me. But like a kind Belizean, our taxi driver dragged Mark’s enormous, “it’s really heavy” backpack back into the trunk of the Isuzu Rodeo, again, and gave Mark a ride to the gift shop, where he left him to sort out his business.

Seems like Mark gets a lot of free things out of the kindness of strangers. Or by exasperating them.

In hindsight, my solo-travelin-ass is glad that Mark didn’t see where the taxi dropped me off and had no idea where I was staying. Something really tells me:  be grateful for that.

And I lied earlier.
He did call. Two days late, like any good drunk.

I had already left Hopkins Village. It was cute but quite boring. My highlight was a motorcycle ride from this tiny restaurant back to the nature lodge, by this adorable but way-too-young-for-me cruise ship singer.

I told Mark I was leaving on Thursday. He must’ve forgotten that too.  But he did call.

I was half a country away at that point and totally disinterested in a phone conversation with a man I barely knew who talked way too much about himself for my taste. He gave me the excuse via text that he must’ve “butt dialed” me “on accident.” Of course, followed by, “though not that I wouldn’t want to talk…”

I am not sure what made Mark think I was desperate. Maybe the way I longingly gazed at the Belizean countryside, instead of him. Or maybe because I was alone. He really wasn’t cute though, not even in the pathetic, self-deprecating but I-want-to-help-you-see-the-value-in-yourself-because-you’re-an-artist kind of way.

He wanted praise and compliments – that he would never actually accept – because no one’s opinion mattered more to Mark than his own. Though he wouldn’t dare admit that or give himself any credit.

Mark is the worst kind of person to date.
Or even befriend.
If you meet a Mark, don’t fuck him.
He won’t call you back.
And not because he doesn’t want to. Because he does.
He just doesn’t believe he deserves you.
Don’t fuck Mark.
It’s an empty hole of dread and remorse, like Mark is to himself.

Maybe he is just like Hunter S. 
1 interview away from a headshot.
And not the celebrity kind. Or, the celebrity kind.
Either way, I think you know what I mean.

Don’t expect him to call.
Or even lift a finger.
He won’t.

No need to messy your life with what isn’t and will never be.

Trouble and The Good Girl

By Lena Kotler-Wallace

I was born a Good Girl. In sweet, pinafored dresses, hair tied neatly with a ribbon, hanging down straight and shining to the small of my back – because I brushed it every night 100 times like someone from somewhere once said to. I was precocious, but not in that obnoxious way, so as not to challenge the adults around me. Like a good Southern child my “pleases and thank yous” were always followed by a “ma’am” or “sir” strung out with a charming drawl that hinted at more of the kind of genteel South, sweet teas sipped on porches, than it did of the banjo-playing, cousin-screwing hillbilly variety.

I was a Good Girl, and good girls got praise. They got love. They got fathers who paraded them proudly in front of friends to recite their multiplication tables or mothers who hugged them tightly as they stood tall, a perfect doll-like trophy. Good girls got parents who told stories hinting not so subtly that their daughter was not just pretty but SMART.

Good girls did not get the terrifying father who slammed doors while their hand was still in the frame, or who left them sprawled out on the floor, his handprint welling upon their cheek when they corrected his math.

Good girls did not get that glaring look from their mothers. The ones that let them know that with a single childlike misstep such as forgetting to clean their room or making a B on that quiz, they could be too much for the Good Girl persona to bear.

That look and those words inevitably let me know I had suddenly slipped from being The Good Girl to (capital T) Trouble.

I learned very early on that I did not want to be Trouble.

As a child growing up in one of those houses that the neighborhood kids were told they couldn’t play at as their parents pretended they couldn’t hear the horror show going on behind closed curtains, I learned bad things happened because you deserved them, and, if only I had been a Good Girl, then daddy wouldn’t hit, and mommy wouldn’t say those mean things that honestly left wounds much deeper than any punch my dad could throw.

I avoided trouble like it was my sacred mission. The Holy Grail of Good, however, proved to be a difficult thing to achieve. Turns out living in a fear-filled, abusive household tends to give a person some mental health issues, and things like depression and bipolar disorder are not something that Good Girls contract.

I soon learned that Good Girls also only come in sizes like thin or straight. They are only that 1990s kind of liberal that’s really just a Republican in a blue power suit. They are not radicalized. They are not queer. They don’t fucking curse. They are not any of those things that can’t politely be put on the family Christmas card.

Good girls are silent trophies you put up on a shelf. They aren’t me.

Now, staring down the barrel of 35, those people who taught me to fear trouble are all dead and buried. The monsters in the dark are gone, and I can finally face the truth that chasing the phantom of the Good Girl won’t protect me. That actually it never did.

And maybe that’s okay.

Being silent. Being good. Well, it’s no longer an option.

Because life can’t be lived in perfection. The very act of living and existing in our world means that at one point or another you will be too much for someone, not enough for someone else.

You will be too smart.

You will not be in the right body.

You will be tired, and you will say the wrong thing.

You won’t be tired at all, and you will still say the wrong thing.

No matter what you do. No matter how carefully you try to pass in our fucked-up world, you will somehow not fit in that straight cis/het mold of the Good. The day will come when it is your turn to be trouble, and that is not something we should be scared of.

We can’t.

I can’t.

Not just because I deserve that kind of unconditional existence. I do. But so do those three kids who now call me Mom, who are looking to me for love.

And I’m going to love the ever-living shit out of them. I will love them when they bring home A’s, and I will love them when they forget to do their homework entirely. I will love them when their rooms look like a hazmat team is needed, and I will love them through all of the messiness of life. They will know that they are safe and celebrated, and, no matter how much trouble they may be, they will know this is not a home that worships at the altar of The Good Girl.

This is a house that makes trouble.