The Unraveling
by B.L. Makiefsky
When I was married, I wore clothes too large. Pants, jackets, sweaters draped my thin frame like a tarp thrown over a pile of sticks. I felt protected. My ex-wife Ruth said it was because I was trying to be bigger. Maybe better. But isn’t that what marriage vows are? A promise to be someone you’re not? Fittingly, when the marriage ended, I started buying clothes that were more appropriate. I wear normal sizes now, that is, large, and not extra-large or, in my grandest illusions then, XXL.
Now my mother tells me it’s time to rejoin the land of the living. Her exact words. “Danny,” she admonished me last week. “You don’t measure up.” All my life, she’d been trying to get me to take on more. Classical music, ballet. Aeronautics. Cheeseburgers. “I only meant,” she said the next day, trying to apologize, “that you’re not the man you used to be.”
But I don’t want to be fat, or thin. Just whole.
Tonight was my daughter Joey’s high school graduation party. She had attended a private school and Ruth and I wanted to do it right. We rented the lavish banquet hall at the country club I no longer belong to. Open bar. Dinner. Five-piece band. For the occasion I bought a stylish Armani-like suit on sale that fit me to a “T.” The saleswoman at Macy’s had assured me that it wasn’t too tight. That is the look now, she said.
My date Angie, a friend of a friend’s friend, wore something you’d see on the red carpet in Hollywood, not in a town like ours. She turned heads, is what I’m saying.
My daughter rolled her eyes when I introduced her to Angie.
Past the bar on a table were photos of Joey, from diapers to diploma, which I showed to Angie. I was in a few myself. She asked if I’d lost weight. I told her that I used to wear clothes that were too big, trying to live up to what I was not. She turned to the bartender, ordered a martini and said, “how stupid.”
I left for the men’s room, where things truly started to unravel. I was facing a row of tall urinals, polished, stately, like sailors in dress whites standing at attention. You stand before these things, and they invite you in close; you feel worthy. I was staring at the marble wall, minding my business, when a voice called out from a ways down: “You’re looking fit, Danny-boy.”
It was Herb, my ex’s fiancé. A stockbroker and bodybuilder. I said hello, and thank you. I never liked him much, not because he was dating Ruth, but rather…he was well built and knew a lot about money. And was dating Ruth. There was the time, too, when Ruth and I were having a spat over child support and I didn’t know I was on speaker phone. Until Herb said, “You’re bigger than that, Danny.”
On our way out of the bathroom, I noticed that even Herb’s clothes had muscles. I made certain to open the dungeon-like door for him. It took a good push. When the door closed behind me, it brushed my coat sleeve. I thought nothing of it.
At our table a short time later, between the serving of the salad and entrée, Angie started to pinch and tug at my elbow. A signal, I thought. The start of something grand. I pressed my thigh into hers. She smiled, and tugged all the more. My funny bone leapt with joy. My heart soared. But silver threads and golden needles it wasn’t going to be. You might say loose ends bothered Angie.
The head of school stood up to speak, and the music stopped. He thanked Ruth and me for the privilege, as he put it, of entrusting to his care Joey’s desire for a higher learning. He asked Joey to stand, and she looked lovely in her soft blue crepe gown (half of which I had paid for).
Angie started to tell me something, just as the guests stood and applauded.
As I stood, however, the right sleeve of my suit coat slid from my elbow to rest at my shirt cuff, held by only a robust thread or two. Angie’s hand went to her mouth. A minor calamity; few, if anyone, had yet noticed the doughnut-like bangle on my wrist. Rather than applaud and risk exposing my wardrobe malfunction, I raised the fist of my good sleeve overhead to cheer Joey. Guests—some dozen tables—thought I was asking for quiet to make a speech. They sat down. The room was still, or nearly so, as several people squirmed right and left to better see me.
Terrified, I looked back at them, these faces plump in their riches, or fearsomely desiccated, staring expectantly at me. What did they see? A dandy and pretender, or candle in the wind? The band started up again. A drumroll.
I simply waved to the guests with my left hand, smiled and started to sit down. Until my well-tailored pants ripped at the seat. Rather loudly. My mother laughed so hard she spit food. From the table next to ours, Herb said, also rather loudly, “probably the blue cheese.” More laughter. I turned to see him grinning, and my daughter make a face.
Angie got up and left.
I got back to my feet quickly.
“I’m a thin man,” I cried out. “A shell of one, bones and nothing more. This world of ours makes a poor shelter, it covers so little. I cheat it every chance I get, and dance naked in my dreams.” People continued to stare at me. I looked away, then down at the jumbled threads of my life—family, marriage, daughter, romance—a sleeve now lying like someone’s fucking Halloween sock discarded in my empty salad bowl, bits of cheese and shredded carrot stuck to it.
“It’s a tight fit, this,” I said. “Thank you for coming.”
B.L. Makiefsky was the winner of the 2012 Michigan Writers Cooperative Press chapbook contest, for the short story collection “Fathers and Sons.” Among publications, his work has been featured in (or is forthcoming) are the Detroit Free Press, Dunes Review, Thoughtful Dog, Pithead Chapel, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Fiction Southeast, Hypertext Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, the Great Lakes Review and the Jewish Literary Journal. For links to his work, please go to blmakiefsky.com. In addition, his one-act play, Bagman, A Play Between the Lines, was a contest runner-up at the Old Town Playhouse in Traverse City, Mich., where his full-length play, A Good Joe, also received a staged reading.
Three Blue Dresses
by Ellen Graham
Number One 1965
My first blue dress came all the way from DuQuoin, Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah. Grandma Lehn lives in DuQuoin and we don't see her much. She is rich and she is distant. She sends things. The dress is the color of the asters in Mom's garden. It has silk ribbons, lace, tiny buttons, ruffles, a bow at the neck, puffed sleeves, and starchy petticoats. It is frilly , girly, too tight across the back, stiff-skirted, and puffy. I hate it. It hurts to put it on and it hurts to take it off. It pinches my chubby belly, just like my Girl Scout uniform. It has a matching plastic headband that is so tight I get a headache. Mom is mad I won't wear it. Or the rabbit fur muff Grandma sent. I think grade school is hard enough without wearing that on the bus. It is like something a girl in the olden days would wear to skate to school. Mom takes me to the Cottonwood Mall to buy a shift the color of mustard. She tells the saleslady I have broad shoulders and it takes me a while to understand this isn't a compliment.
Number Two 1985
Because it was a perfect dress, because it was a drop waist silk, because it was a perfect indigo, because it was a sleeveless, because it was scooped back and front, because I was young, because I was perfect then, because you touched my back with your perfect musician fingers, because your eyes were the color of smoke, because your knee pressed against mine, because I could smell the sweet peas, because we were together in the garden, because I saw a perfect full moon behind your perfect naked body, because your hair was thick, because I could hear the crickets, because your skin was perfect, because I can close my eyes and still you're there, I will always love that dress.
Number Three Right Now
The dress I have on now is the exact milky blue of the Salish Sea when it laps the rocks at the inlet. It is as soft as a moth's wing. Washed over and over and over again. It feels warm. Comforting. Comes to my knees. Short sleeved. Actually, it is technically a gown. Open in the front. The scalpel needs easy access. As I sit. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting in my blue dress.
Ellen Graham is a freelance theater director based in Washington. Her writing focuses on the West and stories of open spaces, both on the land and in the heart. A prize-winner in Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers, she has also been published in Narrative, High Desert Journal and Everyday Fiction. She is at work on a series of stories about growing up in Salt Lake City. She can be reached at herownself@outlook.com. Thanks for reading.
Permission
by Pasquale Trozzolo
As if something out of a sailor's dream, you walk in, like an actress, superior yet terrified—prey, hunted—eluding. That walk—maybe you were born with it, although likely an acquired trait, to compliment your red hair and accent. You speak in whispers—another of your movie star tricks, and it works, makes me get close.
Looking like you have something important to say, you charge toward me. Impossible to miss in that mini dress, my eyes follow—like a construction worker. That half-empty bottle of wine you're holding only adds to the allure. Heart pounding, I watch with an accelerating desire, thinking the sort of thoughts that might get me arrested. With no hesitation, you lean in close and whisper, "Follow me." Instantly I know I will never forget you.
What started quickly turned into—well, I don't know how to describe it. All I know is that I've been writing poems about you for decades—still, not sure if I'll ever be able to stop or forget. And the truth—I don't want to stop—or forget. I wonder what happens to you when I write about you this way. Can you feel it? Am I bad for it? You are not on my mind all the time. I don't want to see you again. I don't want you back. I don't want anything more. Just when I'm alone with my thoughts—can I have you?
Pasquale Trozzolo is a retired madman from Kansas. He also spent time as a racecar driver and grad school professor. His poems and short fiction have appeared in numerous journals, and The Poetry Box published his debut chapbook Before the Distance in December 2020. Still no tattoos—or MFA, he continues to complicate his life by living out as many retirement clichés as possible. https://www.facebook.com/poetpasquale
Future Me
by Jennifer Sheridan
Future Me might have hesitated. Future Me might have her hand on the car door handle, feel its cold metal, cold seeping between her bare fingers like a ghostly tongue, and just let go, thinking, neh. On second thought, neh. I don’t think so.
There’s a crossroads there, right there, between the Past and Future Me’s, the same person up until that moment, making identical choices. Past Me, and Future Me both turning her head at the sound of leaves crunching underfoot. Upon seeing him, emerging from between two vibrant red trees, that angle over towards each other. Which will drop its leaves first? Both me’s curious, and innocent, protected by the very size of our lakeside property. Naively believing, without even consideration of otherwise, herself to be safe here in a small clearing of trees not far from the house. The dew, after all, has not yet dried on the grass.
Only later, gasping and choking against a balled-up, blood-soaked bandana, bound up in the truck of his car, does she realize she never heard his car’s engine approaching, or his tires on the gravel road. But this is only Present Me, who went on to experience things, terrible things, before she died, things of which Past Me would never know.
The Me Forever in the Present of that moment by the car door, after he said he needed help, his dog was having puppies, after he said it was close by, not to worry. She’s the one to blame. Future Me might have backed away. Made a different choice.
Perhaps Future Me feels his eyes on her back, can sense the smile drop from his lips, over gritted teeth. Future Me hears the leaves crunching amiably underfoot, unwitting, and smells woodsmoke and, faintly, bacon, blowing down from the house on the cold morning air, off of the water. And, on a whim, turns back and waves, without stopping, stepping backwards, gives a tiny see ya, no hard feelings smile. Future Me, a mere ten paces on, feels safe, but ready, if need be, to run, up to the house. Having calculated: his size and slow reaction time, the distance to the door. Knowing in her Future bones, based on the direction of the breeze, just how far her voice can carry, if he gave chase. Which he doesn’t.
And Present Me settles into the passenger seat, which is white fake leather, and dirty. A grease stain where someone else’s head had rested. But she’s bored, so bored and playing with puppies would be something she could dream about long after. And it isn’t very far. Or something. Somehow, she isn’t thinking. She isn’t thinking that the world could end now. She leans her head against the window, and imagines newborn puppies, how they look like little seals, wet and mewling. Until she notices how fast he is driving, and his thick wormy fingers inching toward her thigh.
And later, when she knows for sure that she will not survive this, feeling her limp body thrown roughly inside the trunk, this Me, whichever one she is now, imagines herself as Past Me, walking through that screen door into the kitchen. And, seeing Mother’s turned back standing at the sink, she imagines becoming Future Me, who’d have made a different, better, choice, and takes a shuttering breath.
Jennifer Sheridan is a poet and bookseller living and often staring out the window in New York City. Her writing has appeared in Spectrum, Rattle, and Hole in the Head Review.
The Waitress’s Statement
by Steven Horwitz
Yes, I know James.
I served him most mornings, a plain bagel and cream cheese, a decaf Americano. He almost always sat at the two-top at the window, his back against the side wall.
He was, is, well mannered, almost courtly. He said please and thank you and he actually rose slightly when I approached his table. It’s funny- I don’t know whether to talk about him in the past or present tense.
But there is something different about him. He’s agonizingly shy, diffident. And that smile. There’s nothing funny about his smile. It’s like a barbed-wire fence.
I thought, when I first met him, that he might be neurologically impaired somehow. Not unintelligent. It was more like he was half a beat behind. Somewhere on the spectrum, maybe? The odd son of wealthy parents, I thought. Manners like his don’t come cheap
We talked a little- about the weather, movies, but mostly about my career. He was really interested in my auditions. James knows and loves theater- Shakespeare and O’Neill, Moliere and Ibsen. He doesn’t seem to have much interest in anything written in the last 50 years and I don’t think he goes to theater. I got the feeling he didn’t get out much.
Six months ago, I was cast as Laura in The Glass Menagerie. It was a small production in a small theater downtown.
I knew I could use James’s mannerisms to build Laura’s character. I watched him closely. Laura, the broken keeper of delicate glass figurines, and James,seemed so similar, He never looked me in the eye when I waited on him. He stuttered slightly when he talked. His conversation was awkward, but he moved his hands gracefully, involuntarily. I knew I could use all of that.
And once a day he’d remove all of the sugar packets from the rack on the table and spread them out in different patterns. Sometimes he would make a circle of the packets and sometimes a square, a rectangle, or a trapezoid. Always a shape. And he would put one sugar cube in the middle and stare. Then he’d sweep away the pattern with the back of his hand, gently, and replace the packets.
I knew that my Laura played with her menagerie in the same way.
The production was a success. The Star Tribune reviewed us well and I was singled out. I felt a little guilty, like I had stolen James, exposed him.
When you came in so quietly and handcuffed him, when he turned to look at me as he was being led out the door, when he bowed slightly and smiled, although the thought had never crossed my mind before, I knew. Nobody had to tell me that James had killed a woman. Maybe women.
Becky, the other waitress, over there, just told me that you guys found photographs of me in his apartment—shopping for a bathing suit, kissing my boyfriend, walking with my sister. And that on his desk there was an expensive crystal unicorn with its horn snapped off.
My God, is that true?
Steven Horwitz is co-editor of two short story collections, "Twin Cities Noir" published by Akashic Books and "Amplified: Fiction By Leading Alt-Country, Indie Rock, Blues and Folk Musicians" published by Melville House. He is associated with The Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop. He lives in St Paul, Minnesota and can be reached at snhabr@gmail.com.
Skid Mark
by Amy Braun
We were sardines on that school bus, lined up and crammed into tin, eyes wide with the threat of being consumed by something larger. Back-leg sweat formed against green plastic seats. It lingered, awaiting the chance to evaporate.
Mark, a second grader, slid past me in the aisle that afternoon. His hair covered his ears; once-a-month trips to the barber unaffordable.
I wonder now if he felt afraid that afternoon. For the next day we would all come together again, trapped and restless.
Doors opened to let him out.
Psssst.
He stepped down.
Then Pssst. Closed.
Bus doors are locked with air and that’s the sound of it escaping, displacing, going wherever it is that air goes when it leaves us. Is it up?
Out?
An eighth-grader raised a window and shouted through the opening, “Good riddance, Skid Mark!”
Kids laughed.
Mark didn’t turn around as he crossed to his trailer and slipped inside.
And me?
I tried to remain as still as possible to contain the smell as we drove on to my stop on the far side of the apple orchard.
At home in the downstairs bathroom, I emptied contents from my underwear until the bowl. It dropped. Splashed. I stared.
Flushed. Watched it disappear.
Shame has the stench of a farm animal’s pen. I went to the pigs. Their snouts greeted me, sniffing, snorting, hungry. My soiled undies fit through a hole in the fence at waist level and I used a long stick to push them deep into the muck.
The name “Skid Mark” stayed with him through middle school.
In the fall of his freshman year, alone in his trailer, Mark leaped from his father’s unused recliner and hung himself from the ceiling fan.
What sound does air make when it’s trapped?
Amy lives and teaches in rural Vermont serves as president of the League of Vermont Writers. She has been featured on VPR and NPR several times as an advocate for teachers, her students, and their families during Covid19. Some of Amy’s published nonfiction and fiction include: “The Plastic” for Apple in the Dark, “A Passing Glimpse” in The Heart of New England magazine, “Solstice Saturday” on ESSAYDAILY.org, first prize with “Rare Coins in a Red Bucket” and ”Hospice Holiday” for two of The Herald of Randolph newspaper’s holiday contests, and “Vanilla” on Brilliant Flash Fiction’s website. Several of her original plays have also been performed virtually and in person. Amy can be found on Facebook as Amy C. Braun, Instagram @myblagz, and both Twitter and Tik Tok @mykinderquotes.
Persimmon-Leaf Sushi
by Candice Kelsey
The woman enjoyed listening to a Japanese podcast called In Praise of Country Things. As an episode lamenting the growing dependence on electricity in cities like Kyoto ended and the next episode on the unusual foods of small cities such as Fukuyama. Specifically, she is treated to a detailed lesson on how to make persimmon-leaf sushi when she notices a young boy of maybe four years standing on the sidewalk by himself.
A delicate, slim child with an aura of helplessness stood in the shadow of a mailbox on Mullikin Road, a two-lane rural stretch dotted with the occasional Club Car, white-tail deer, and dog walker. It dead-ends at the Savannah River.
This delicacy is enjoyed in the mountains of Yoshino…
She lowered the volume and her passenger side window as she pulled closer to the child.
“Hey there! Are you okay?” she attempted, cognizant of the irony in slowing to make sure he was safe while resembling a predator ready to snatch him off the street.
Startled at first, he answered, “Yes, my brother is up there.” He pointed two-hundred yards ahead toward a larger boy waving a large stick. “My dad dropped us here and went home.”
Every ten parts of rice one part of sake is added just when the water comes to a boil, came faintly from her speakers.
“Where do you live?”
“In that neighborhood down there by my brother.” Suddenly and for no apparent reason, he dropped to his knees and continued moving toward home in a strange crawl-walk hybrid. “I’m so tired of walking” were the last words she heard him say. His brother was now throwing rocks at a nearby house.
She began driving and resumed listening to her podcast. Thin slices of lightly salted salmon are placed on the rice, and each piece is wrapped in a persimmon leaf, the surface of the leaf facing inward. The father never appeared, and as she passed the older brother, she was struck at his disinterest in the car that had been engaging with his little brother. She didn’t give them another thought and enjoyed her evening at home although the frozen spinach lasagna stirred in her a desire for fresh sushi.
The next morning, she awoke to a series of buckshot reverberating from the woods between her fence and the river. This occurrence was nothing new yet no less disconcerting. She unplugged her phone, placed it on the bathroom counter, and began getting ready for work while picking up where she left of in her Country Things podcast. Then in a rice tub or sushi box, the interior of which is perfectly dry, the pieces are packed standing on end so that no space remains between them, and the lid is put in place and weighted with a heavy stone, as in making pickles.
As she drove Mullikin Road toward work each morning, she was vigilant in watching for deer. When she was lucky, she’d see a family a few hundred feet from the shoulder; when she was unlucky, she’d see a carcass blanketing the shoulder. Today she saw two deer carcasses. One was larger than the other, and they were separated by about two hundred yards. She caught her breath. A glance in her rear-view mirror confirmed the grisly site.
Prepared in the evening, the sushi should be ready to eat the next morning. Her mind recoiled to the previous evening when she encountered the strange pair of boys, specifically the younger one who reminded her of thinly sliced salmon. She pulled to the soft shoulder by the entrance to Riverside Elementary, not yet populated with morning bicycle bustle, mom golf carts, or indignant crossing guards. She turned down her podcast and whispered, “Those deer are in the exact same spots as the boys were yesterday.” She turned her car around and drove back to investigate.
Indeed, the smaller deer had been gutted— dressed, the hunters called it— and left on the sidewalk precisely where the smaller boy had randomly dropped to his knees. The larger deer too had been dressed beside the house he pelted with rocks. A large stick rested beside the carcass.
She heard a faint voice explaining A slight bit of vinegar should be sprinkled over each piece with a sprig of bitter nettle just before eating.
Candice Kelsey is an educator and poet living in Georgia. She serves as a creative writing mentor with PEN America's Prison & Justice Writing Program; her poetry appears in myriad journals including Poets Reading the News and Poet Lore. She is the author of Still I am Pushing (2020) and won the Two Sisters Writing Contest (2021). Recently, she was chosen as a finalist in Cutthroat's Joy Harjo Prize. Find her @candicekelsey1 and www.candicemkelseypoet.com.
Scales
by Richard Weems
Yesterday, I’m making my man sloppy turkey: ground turkey with my secret ingredient (ground clove…shhh). When my man is over for dinner, my standards go way way up. If I brown an onion when I should have only sweated it, I nearly hurl the whole shebang out the window, skillet and all. I was all about stirring the sauce to achieve the ideal reduction and keep the meat from sticking, so I barely noticed when my man twisted open a beer, but I heard it when he said, “My brain is dying.”
I didn’t want to turn away from the turkey, but this announcement shattered me. We’d been dating seventy-three days, and this was the moment to reveal his imminent demise? Was he expecting me to notarize his final wishes? Call his family? How much family did he have, anyway?
He took another swig. “Like just now, ‘poof,’” he said as he made an explosion gesture by his temple, “a few thousand-plus cells just died on me. Dead space up here,” knocking on his noggin.
I stared into the skillet as though through a porthole at a wet, fresh crime scene.
“At this rate,” he said, “I’ll have no brain left in 48, maybe 57 years?” My man is 27 years old.
This is the perspective my man has of the world. Say we’re walking down the street, my arm around his because I’m clingy. He’ll point to the sky and announce, “That star there? Hurtling at us right now at thousands of kilometers a second.” He’ll look around as though he hopes panic will ensue in the immediate vicinity. And it has: I’m evaluating nearby shelter candidates for their possible rat density, proximity to food and water, number of exits.
Then he’ll squirm free of my grip and spread his arms. “Only several million years before impact!” My man is all forward trajectory, his present expanding like the post-Big Bang universe itself.
Josie considered these boil and simmer episodes (where I boil and he simmers) a setup. “He’s shtupping someone else for sure,” she concluded, wine in hand (wine is requisite for our association). “He gets you thinking globally or even galactically, and him passing on a communicable doesn’t seem so catastrophic. Member the last one?”
I don’t really remember the last one because I am, of course, small-scale. I relish the lump of my man’s bicep or forearm in my grip, BOGO sales on ground turkey, the crinkle paint flecks make when I peel them from my bedroom wall. If I don’t have an item of eminent importance in my immediate grasp, I fall into a torpor of uselessness and fear I may slip scarlessly under the surface of existence. Mom had four jobs and otherwise presented herself as little more than a lump on the couch my two brothers and sister waved me away from while they tended. And what is a dad? Last and smallest in line, I lived on what others had already partaken of. Acknowledged only when in the way.
I mean, look at me! I cling to my man because I’ve had so little to cling on to.
My man and I retired to my futon with our sloppy turkey and beers and cranked open my laptop for a movie. I voiced a fondness for the lead’s hairstyle. My man thought the trope of the professional woman desperate for motherhood was overplayed and the voiceover so Scorsese.
The next day, Josie and I pair our requisite wine with cheese fries, and I tell her most of how things went the night before. I tell her he won’t be coming around anymore. I tell her he’s gone.
“But is he? is the real question.” Josie dangles a cheese fry over her glass as though considering a dunk. “I’m not sure how easily you can shake a guy who references Scorsese during Look Who's Talking.”
I set my face to channel serious and assure her he’s gone…well, not quite. What I say is, “He won’t be walking through my door again.”
Josie looks like she wants to be convinced, but still, “That’s what you said about the last one.”
I didn’t mean it then, so I say, “I didn’t mean it then.”
Josie takes a long pause, as though she can pressure me to crack. She can, but she doesn’t pause long enough. Rather, she sighs as though letting out a held breath and says, “We’ll need another fries, I guess. Making this a celebration might give us both hope.”
Hope? Hope’s for those who busy themselves with tomorrow. My only hope right now is that I’ll be able to sneak parts of my man out the window to the dumpster below (see? not through my door ever again) so I can keep just the parts I want to remind me of him. The parts that will make me feel he’s never left.
That night, I clung to my man and took it on faith that the jargon he used and the critics he cited were actual, that every movie ever made had been slipped into its properly labeled drawer in the history and breath of the medium by people smarter than me. My man was wearing the shirt I liked so much, square of plaid after square of plaid as though with a plan, but I didn’t care what larger pattern it formed. I admired how each square slid along against itself when pinched. My man yapped along about something, probably intended to impress me.
What was his name again?
No matter. I realized what I needed to do to satisfy my needs.
I pinched this square in front of me to test it, to see if he could manage its way out, like a lizard giving up its tail to a predator.
Richard Weems (@richardkweems) is the author of three short fiction collections: Anything He Wants (finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize), Stark Raving Blue and From Now On, You're Back. Recent appearances include North American Review, Aquifer, 3Elements Review, Flash Fiction Magazine and Tatterhood Review. He lives and teaches in New Jersey.
Dear Doc
by Allison Futterman
For S.S.—one of the good ones.
Make sure to lock your bedroom door at night. This is what he really wants to tell them. Or sleep with a weapon within reach. Don’t be fooled by the rare moments that seem like genuine human feeling. It’s just a very skilled act. He wants to tell the parents this, but of course he can’t. He has to couch it in a palatable way. Sometimes even ambiguously hopeful.
“Let’s discuss our short terms goals,” he might say. “Robert or Ryan or Richard made it through last week without causing any injury to his siblings. This is good.”
True, their son pulled the dog’s fur to the point that it let out a bloodcurdling yelp, but he did not slam his sister or brother’s hand in the door. He called both his parents vulgar names, along with telling them how stupid they were, but he didn’t threaten them. “This is progress,” the child psychiatrist says.
This work only leads to two places. You become indifferent or it drains you. In his case, it’s stressful and taxing. Because as much as he wishes he didn’t, he still cares. All these years later. He cared when he was idealistic after residency. It was new and he was filled with enthusiasm about helping troubled, ignored, and abused children.
He saw all the run-of-the-mill conditions psychiatrists encounter. Anxiety, depression. Although anytime a young child has either of those, something is very wrong. He maintained a caring spirit when he went on to research and teaching. Studying these troubled kids was going to be a way for him to bring about change. He wouldn’t just be another doctor who spouted psychobabble but offered no help.
So he worked with the worst of the worst. They called them “callous-unemotional.” Adults that displayed their symptoms would be diagnosed as having antisocial personality disorder, colloquially what’s referred to as a psychopath. Officially, nobody under 18 can be given this diagnosis. But the shrink knows. He knows psychopaths are mostly born, sociopaths are usually made. He’s seen plenty of both.
He knows very quickly when he meets them. Sometimes the more charming they are, the more dangerous. Rarely has he been surprised, either in a bad or good way. He’s not shocked when they lie, steal, or violently hurt others. He’s not even stunned when some have tried to kill a family member, classmate, or teacher.
Unfortunately, he hasn’t enjoyed the pleasure of being proven wrong by overestimating the negative consequences that could happen in certain cases. Never has he thought, I really misread this one. And yet, he still has a part of him that want to believe he can help.
Some of these kids have it very bad. Abusive parents. Neglect. Poverty. If he can get to them early enough, which is rare—there’s a glimmer of hope. He tries to work with the parents to bring out the best in their kid, to help them turn a corner. Many thoughts go through his mind, but the words that come out are said in a calm, professional manner. Inside, he’s thinking you’re living with a powder keg. It’s not going to end well. Among other things.
Sometimes it’s “try not being an asshole to your kid.” Or “did you ever think of hugging him instead of screaming”? Other times he’s thought, “You’re just horrible people, no wonder he wants to stab you in your sleep.”
But he keeps it professional. And he likes to think he’s had some impact. His studies have been published in many professional journals. He’s spoken around the world. He has an important position at his university teaching hospital. But he’s tired. Years of this takes a toll on a person. Most of his colleagues just go through the motions, but he can’t. It would be easier if he could. He’s tried. It’s a weird thing, actively trying to be less tuned in.
On really bad days, he goes to his drawer, where he keeps a letter from a former patient. The outlier. The anomaly. The unicorn. He was damaged, but not to the point of no return.
He told his patient that he needed to get as far away from his parents as soon as he could. “Accept your aunt’s offer to live with her,” he told him. He gave him his cell phone number, something he almost never did. “You can contact me if you need to talk.”
“Boundaries,” his colleagues would have said.
It’s not like he was inviting the kid to live with him. There were times he wanted to ask his colleagues if they ever actually did anything, other than write reports and prescriptions. In his opinion, “boundaries” was too often an excuse to be lazy and not invest any of yourself.
And about nine years later, he got the letter. He never shared the contents with anyone. Not a colleague. Not his kids. Not his wife. It started, “Dear Doc—and ended with “You saw the truth. When nobody else noticed or cared, you did.”
Every now and then, he glances at the letter then puts it back in the drawer. And goes on to the next meeting, the next session, the next fucked up family.
Allison Futterman's flash fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in a variety of literary journals. She can be found at allisonfutterman.com.
Avenue of the Giants
by Linda S. Gunther
The hotel was his safe haven, yet in an angry town. Lots of gang activity reported there.
Fate had drawn them together on the Avenue of the Giants. He wanted satisfaction in that three-story dilapidated hotel in the nothing town of Miranda, California.
Her sparkle would be gone; the dirty blonde.
He didn’t care about God. He didn’t give a crap about religion. He laid his green plastic placemat down on the wood table by the window where the dusty blue curtains were drawn. He took out the black leather shaving kit from his suitcase and spilled out a dozen small tools onto the mat. He swaggered across the room to the bed where she lay all pent up, a white handkerchief stuffed in her mouth.
No limits, he thought. He would seduce her. Admittedly, she was a complicated devil. Had a fine, tight petite body and from what he could tell from their conversation at the bus station, a decent level of education.
In his own time, in his own time. His own time.
She wriggled her feet, fighting the white cord wrapped around her ankles, the cord he purchased early that morning at Ace Hardware twenty miles away from that town. The cord had become his friend, the same cord he used to tie her wrists behind her back.
Her knees were bent, her yellow hair flung half over her saucer brown eyes, one of her fake eyelashes trapped between the strands of her matted mop pasted to the side of her cheek. Her tight pale-yellow jeans were stained wet, gray at the crotch. “Peed yourself? Rude bitch.”
He’d take her down while she peered into his hungry eyes. Tears would dribble down her mascara-smeared cheeks. He’d pull the other eyelash off before he’d start the music. Play his favorite song, Mac the Knife. He didn’t like that fake look, would never allow his teenage daughter to wear false lashes or hair extensions. He liked ‘natural,’ all natural.
The phone rang. On the bed, the woman’s body jerked. He picked up the phone, and listened.
“Yes, he replied, “I said, pepperoni and cheese; no anchovies. Knock twice and leave it outside the door. You got my credit card earlier.” He listened. “Twenty minutes? Got it,” he said, and hung up.
He felt emancipated, free, powerful like a king. And on top of it all, he’d have pizza, too.
He laid down on the bed next to her, put his hairy arm across her heaving chest, enjoying the tremble of her body close to him. He fell asleep. The knock at the door woke him. He waited a couple of minutes before opening the door.. He didn’t want to deal with a human being. Not now. A skinny pimply teenager wearing an AC/DC t-shirt handed him the pizza box.
“I told you to just leave the damn pizza by the door, and go,” he barked at the boy.
“Sorry. What time you and Mom gonna be home?”
“Why?”
“I want to borrow your car if it’s okay. I have a first date with a girl from school and I’d like to impress her with the Mercedes. Please, Dad.”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” He turned to take a quick look at the squirming woman on the bed, then back outside the door. “How about we be home before seven? That work?”
The boy smiled. “Great. Thanks Dad.”
Closing the door with his foot, he flipped open the pizza box, the cheesy tomato smell taking over the hotel room.
He placed the box on the bed close to her. The loose fake eyelash had slipped down her face to the side of her chin; the black smudged mascara under her eyes reminded him of clown paint.
He pulled the handkerchief out of her mouth. “You hungry?” he said, dangling the pizza slice close to her nose.
“Does a mermaid need water?” she said, grinning up at him.
Linda S. Gunther is the author of six contemporary suspense novels: Ten Steps From The Hotel Inglaterra, Endangered Witness, Lost In The Wake, Finding Sandy Stonemeyer, Dream Beach and Death Is A Great Disguiser. Her essays and short stories have also been featured in a variety of literary publications. Author Website: www.lindasgunther.com.
Micro Dose
by Doug Bootes
Tired of lame internet dating sites and Tinder? Ready to hook up and cozy on down into an LTR? Try this crazy trick!
One of the most amazing secrets I’ve uncovered through a lifetime of obscure yet ground-breaking behavioral research (and Wikipedia) is that only 5 percent of mammalian species are monogamous, while close to ninety percent of their avian counterparts are 100% faithful - naturally!
What gives, I asked? Then, I discovered the crazy cool chemistry secret of pair bonding!
So, are you a vertebrate? Are you interested in the production and rearing of offspring? Or maybe just looking for a safe, mutually satisfying, bi-weekly walk on the wild side?
Then let me tell you about this new, hypo-allergenic method which guarantees avian-strength affinity from that special someone.
First, choose the desired commitment level:
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· Nighthawk Clandestine - for quick, extra-pair copulations! Fun!
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Word sovereignty tends to elevate sound over meaning in the prose and poetry of Doug Bootes, who instructs Creative Writing students at the Institute of American Indian Arts when not mentally or physically wandering the open spaces of New Mexico. His somewhat absurdist musings also appear in Poetry Northwest and many other respectable publications. Contact him at dhbootes@yahoo.com.
Sehnsucht
by Stevie Billow
In her arms, laying in the grass beneath the night sky, I realize that I am the only person she will ever hold. I am her only child; her one breathing, bleeding creation. She is my only creator and only I will be held to her chest and know the rhythm of her beating heart.
I am four years old and have a rudimentary understanding of wish-making. We watch shooting stars manifest, only to dash themselves against the blackness.
My head lays on her breast.
“What’d you wish for?” I ask. I realize that wishes must be kept secret for them to come true, but our secrets are always kept together.
“Hmm, to lose ten pounds by Christmas,” she runs a hand down my hair, “what about you? What’s your wish?”
“To be a boy.”
Her response is quick and sad, “oh, honey. No you don’t.”
I am six and awake in bed. The room is gray in the wintry dawn. I look out my window at the frozen stalactites trickling down from our roof. I imagine myself as a miniature arctic explorer, scaling the ice with their trusty toothpick and twine looped over their shoulder. The explorer notices me, smiles and waves. I wave back at my other self. My first true secret.
I am ten and do not want to play softball.
“The ball’s too big and I can’t do underhand,” I am leaving my last baseball practice at the community center. We get to the car and I toss my duffle bag in the trunk, “why can’t I play baseball?”
“I’m sorry, sweet-pea, but you’ll be too old for the team next year,” she crouches low and offers her hand. I take it and she squeezes three times. I squeeze three times back. She smiles and that makes me smile.
“Just try softball, ok?”
“I want to be on the baseball team.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Can’t I be like Mulan?”
“What?”
“You know. Cut my hair and pretend to be a boy and then I can join the baseball team.”
We get in the car. We buckle our seatbelts.
“That’s just a movie, sweetheart.”
“But I suck at softball!”
“Don’t use that word.”
“I stink at softball.”
Her eyes are in the mirror, crinkled at the sides, “I’m sure you don’t stink at softball,” she looks back at me, but not at my face, “besides, you have such pretty hair. You don’t want to cut it.”
I am thirteen and want to cut my hair.
We are at the only hair salon in town. The linoleum floors are peeling in places, curling into yellowed tidal waves. The backs of my knees, bare against the chenille chair cushion, are sweating. I leaf through the old photo books, looking for the shortest women’s hairstyle I can find.
“Maybe keep it long enough so you could still put it up and keep it out of the way?” she suggests from the seat next to me.
“It won’t get in the way if it’s short enough.”
She runs a hand down my hair and settles it on my shoulder, “what about a bob? Right off the chin.”
I flip the page. The women’s section has ended. The next chapter begins with a collage of square-jawed men with buzz cuts and fades. I think of my secret. My explorer. I imagine their hair.
I linger too long on the men’s section.
She turns the page back for me and points to a middle-aged woman with thin bangs plastered to her forehead, “what you want is a pixie cut! That’d look so cute on you, honey.”
My hair is cut and I do not look cute.
I am sixteen and, at last, I understand. I learn the names of my secret feelings. I understand what the explorer is. Who they are. Who I am. I am happy. I am afraid.
We are in the living room, in our pajamas. I tell her.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. But there are articles and books on this stuff.”
She starts to cry, “I just don’t want you to make life harder for yourself.”
“It’s ok,” I want to hug her. I want her to hug me.
“So, what are you then?” she forces a little laugh through the sobs, “you’re not a boy or a girl, so what are you? An alien?”
She smiles at me and I am flung across the room, out of our house, and into the sky. I wheel through the air, past the clouds, and into the dark isolation of the exosphere. I want to freeze over. I want to plummet to the earth and be extinguished by the fires of my descent. Instead, I hang there. Weightless. Unmoving.
Alone.
Later, she will tell me she meant it as a joke. She had only wanted to lighten the mood. She takes my hand and squeezes it. Once, twice, and a final third time. I squeeze back, relishing the strength of our tether and knowing it has never been pulled so taut.
I am twenty-two years old. I am in my childhood bedroom. Packing. Not packing for summer camp or college. Packing for a life known to her only by phone calls and holiday visits.
She joins me, a picture frame in her arms. We sit on the bed and she holds the photo face-up in her lap.
“Remember this?”
I see myself, seven years old, kneeling in the grass, wearing a white dress and a lacy Easter bonnet. I have a gap-toothed grin and squint into the sunlight.
“I remember that dress being itchy as Hell.”
She shoves my arm, “come on. You were so cute!”
She looks at the photograph and, again, I feel her longing. I feel her mourning a person who did not die, mourning a daughter who never existed.
I hug her and hold her head tight to my chest.
“I’m here, mom.”
“I know, baby girl.”
Stevie Billow is a creator and educator currently based in Cambridge, MA. Their creative work has previously appeared in Meat for Tea: the Valley Review, Beyond Words, and is forthcoming in The Blood Pudding. They sporadically post on Instagram @wollibs.
The Parade: New York City
by Andrew Sarewitz
I can’t remember the year. Sometime in the early 1990’s. It was a Sunday, toward the end of June. Hundreds of thousands of people. I didn’t march every time, since I almost always worked on Sundays, but this particular year I walked down Fifth Avenue in New York City to celebrate Gay Pride.
I didn’t enter from the uptown starting point. I had only intended on watching from the sidewalk with the crowds of spectators. I broke through at 42nd Street and decided to walk. I was by myself.
The weather was threatening. Grey clouds and the scent of impending rain was constant. But it staved off as the floats and bands and half naked men and drag queens and political groups marched down Fifth Avenue toward the arch designed by Stanford White at Washington Square Park, where the parade would turn west off of Fifth Avenue toward Christopher Street and the Hudson River.
I was at 26th Street when the hordes of marchers began to stop. For fifty blocks from the front of the parade up to south east corner to Central Park, all life stood still to say a prayer for those who had fallen to AIDS. 1 O’Clock PM. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in the streets and on the sidelines of Fifth Avenue joined hands and bowed their heads for a moment of silence. It was so still in the center of Manhattan, you could hear birds cooing and people breathing.
As the quiet set in, the heavens parted and the sun broke through, sending streams of light, soundless and blinding, washing over the collective prayer. It was ethereal. A moment later, the clouds closed in, blocking the sunlight for the rest of the day. The parade resumed, joyous and proud. I’m not a religious man but it felt as if God was saying “I know.” It was otherworldly.
26th Street. That has stayed in my memory because it’s where Stephen lived before leaving the city to die one day after his 33rd birthday, in the Massachusetts port town, where he was raised.
I won’t forget the sixty seconds of sunlight breaking through. I can’t be the only person to have memorized that grace. I suppose it doesn’t matter, but I wish I could recall the year. From the mass of witnesses that day, I hope someone remembers.
Andrew has written several short stories: (website address: www.andrewsarewitz.com) as well as scripts for various media. Mr. Sarewitz is a recipient of the 2021 City Artists Corp Grant for Writing. His play, Madame Andrèe (based on the life of Nancy Wake, the “White Mouse”), garnered First Prize from Stage to Screen New Playwrights in San Jose, CA, opening the festival in August 2019. Produced with a multi-cultural cast and crew. His play Five Men, Four Beds advanced to the Second Round at the Austin Film Festival Competition. Andrew’s script, The White House is a Finalist in the Pitch Now Screenplay Competition.
Joules 12
by Darren Chase
“You still up for wrecking my hole today?” Monty texted.
“Bike over so I can sniff your sweaty ass” was Rex’s immediate reply. Monty remained breathless for the second or two it took for the iPhone’s glowing ellipsis to disappear and reveal Rex’s next missive: “You. In my bed. Twenty minutes.”
Blood rushed to the base of Monty’s dick. Unemployed and receiving Pandemic unemployment assistance, he was grateful to his asshole for bringing purpose to the day. If he left immediately, he’d have just enough time to make it over the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn with the perfect bouquet of pheromones for his trick’s exacting taste. To arrive precisely on time excited him at least as much as the promise of an orgasm. He jumped out of bed.
Monty had stayed up way too late the night before watching a documentary on black holes. He thought he would sleep in, but had nevertheless awakened early and anxious, recalling flashes of the night’s vivid dreams, vignettes that conformed to the film’s editing:
[EXTERIOR: A British country estate, swans, ducks, leafy trees.]
[Cut to INTERIOR where, on a large chalkboard, four famous physicists work out the details of a long mathematical proof.]
All night and early into the morning, Monty had marveled at how, through a complex equation working out to “Joules 12,” the physicists, three men and one woman, had somehow proved that information is not destroyed in a black hole; that, on the contrary, it is transformed and reassembled within the hair-like aura around the edges of a black hole’s event horizon. Monty found it chilling that before this discovery, physicists must have had to embrace the very unscientific understanding that where black holes were concerned, chaos reigned.
“Joules 12” thought Monty, as he pedaled his CitiBike hard up the bridge’s incline on the Manhattan side, “such an arbitrary number to prove order in the universe.” He glanced at his Apple watch. If he gunned it on the decline, he’d make it to Rex’s place with only minutes to spare.
He reached the bridge’s highest point, and for a moment his thoughts became subservient to his physical exertion: He pedaled as fast as possible over the level section at its center to gain speed on the decline. As the bike began to angle downward, he mused, “Did black holes begin the big bang?” and then, allowing his legs to rest during the first moments of descent, “or do they end it?” Again, he began to pedal, increasing his speed, passing several cyclists who were cruising down gently, aided only by the Law of Motion. As he reached the bike path’s exit at the foot of the bridge, he braked, slowing for the turn onto South 5th Street. He was covered in sweat. Perfect. He checked his updated ETA. He would be in his trick’s bed at 9:22, exactly twenty minutes from Rex’s last text. All was right in the universe.
Darren Chase teaches high school in New York City. Also an accomplished opera singer, he has released several albums of classical songs. His translation of Wilhelm Müller’s "Die Winterreise" is used for English-language performances of Schubert’s song cycle all over the world. He studies writing with Bruce Benderson. He can be found @chasedarren.
Attercop
by Kit Tiefling
You look world-weary. Here, sit a while. I’ll tell you the story of a knight and a princess. I promise you haven’t heard this tale before. We spinners know this story. A gift for my guest.
The king had one daughter who killed her mother in childbed. Such tragedies are rare among our kind. Humans are fragile. The princess was approaching adulthood and had yet to accept a suitor. She’d dream instead of lowly Tom, squire to Sir Maximillian.
Who knows the dreams of maidens, you say?
I do. I heard her dreams as I spun in the corner. It is the gift spinners have: we spin ourselves into dreams.
Sir Maximillian’s dreams were gold and purple. He wanted to be king, as all boys do when they become knights. Sir Max’s family were merchants, rich but untitled. You know what human ambitions are, they shape the dreams of their children. Sir Max’s dreams had been spun by a generation of hungry, grasping social climbers.
Cruel, you say? Yes, cruel but accurate.
Squire Tom was a farm boy and his dreams were that dull.
I often visited the stables where Sir Max and Sir Bert and their squires competed for the bravest tale. This one slew a wyvern. That one bested a giant. Sir Max did not boast any louder or lie any better. His lies were reserved for the princess.
He’d sing to her of her beauty. He alone would uphold her honour. The girl was bright, much too bright for Sir Max. And far too bright for Tom. They saw her for her grace, her wealth, her crown. Since they couldn’t see the warp and weft of her dreaming, they couldn’t know her fire.
I admired her, yes. She changed her destiny as easily as you change your shoes.
This kingdom sat at the feet of great mountains. To the south were farms and the sea my people first rose from. To the north, nothing but steely sky and black rock. Trolls guarded the mountains, eating whoever attempted the crossing. There’d been a bridge long ago, when the mountain passes opened like books. Traders had made the journey that swelled the kingdom’s coffers.
The princess knew this and named a challenge at her birthday tournament: her hand for whomever slew the troll of the bridge. Her hand and the crown. Sir Max’s purple dreams were a terrible temptation.
Not Tom’s, no. Humble boys have humble dreams. A full belly, a soft bed, a warm body beside him. Terribly dull.
Sir Max opened his dreams for me, so I stepped in and let him shape our meeting. Oh, such a delicious secret. The form he gave me is like what you see now, only two-legged and two-eyed. And male. Sir Max desired a prince, not a princess.
“We are well-met, sir knight,” said I. He thought me flirtatious. His purple dreams turned lusty red.
“Are we, Attercop? And what of this dream?”
I admit, I lied. Sometimes lies are what’s needed.
“This is an omen, sir knight. I’m here to tell you what you wish, and that it will never be.”
“Then I will kill every spinner in this castle, Attercop, and you.”
He was lying. He didn’t kill without purpose.
“I could help you, sir knight. I’m here to offer a deal.”
“What deal, Attercop?” said he. His eyes were hungry for my shape. I had to refrain. He didn’t belong to me yet.
“Only this. I will give you magic to slay the troll and you will give me your soul.”
“And the crown?” He wasn’t thinking of any crowns or princesses, not with what awoke between his legs.
“I take it you accept?” said I. He smiled. He was handsome. I admire that in humans.
“I do. My soul is yours once the crown is mine.”
His smile faded like ink in water when I told him I must bite him to seal our pact. I didn’t bite his neck, now you ask. He enjoyed it all the more.
While he slept off our meeting and his red dreams became purple again, I hurried to the mountains.
It is a simple thing to slay a troll, for they are stupid and I am smart. I turned into a lamb and lured it into the great river under the bridge. Trolls are heavy like rock and like rocks they can’t swim.
Knights were not long in coming to my new home and they all died quickly. When Sir Max arrived with Tom in tow, he had Sir Bert on his heels. I will say this: no one can prove Sir Max pushed Sir Bert to his death. No one but Tom.
Sir Max brandished his sword. In my trollish shape, I smiled.
“We are well-met, sir knight.”
His golden dreams turned black, like his eyes. I gave him a good fight, and when he struck the killing blow, I went meekly. He took a claw for proof and he and Tom returned in triumph.
Now, you know the human conscience is prickly as a spindle, and Tom’s troubled him. The morning of Sir Max and the princess’s wedding, Tom’s conscience unspooled like yarn in a cat’s claws. He told the scullery, who told the cook, who told the steward, who told the princess, who told the king.
For his honesty, the king awarded Tom a knighthood and the princess. The lovely princess had her humble squire. For his treachery, Sir Max was banished . . . which is how he ended up at my bridge.
“You promised me a crown,” said he.
“You promised me a soul,” said I. “And I never said you could keep your crown.”
“Then my soul?”
“You needn’t be dead to give it,” said I. Sir Max smiled.
Yes, it is a love story. Sir Max’s soul came to me once I’d consumed his life.
Oh this seat? It is rather like a web, isn’t it.
Kit Laver (they/them) is a writer and library technician from Toronto, Canada. By day, they love helping readers find that perfect book; by night, they’re crafting speculative fiction in a caffeinated fury. "Attercop" is their first published flash fiction. Their short story "Diamonds and Dolls" was also long-listed for an award. When not writing, they’re catering to the demands of their adorably picky guinea pigs or photographing their growing collection of BJDs. You can follow them on Instagram at @aweetiefling.
For Pete
by Edward M. Cohen
Aron was a year and a half when Laura and I divorced. I’ve spent a good chunk of my life guilty about the pain I caused and the misery of the break-up and the chaos in his life afterwards.
She and I had met in college and rushed into, what was for me, an affair based on homosexual panic; my first with a woman – and my last. Of course, in my innocence, I got her pregnant and there was no other solution but to marry. It’s a familiar story in Ohio. where I come from – a long way from Stonewall.
The truth could not be kept hidden for long – not from me – and when it exploded, so did the marriage. I found a new life but still kept closely in touch with Aron; visiting him regularly. When he was older, he started spending weekends at the new home I shared with Pete. Pete, because he loved me, also loved Aron. He was a music teacher so one of the ways he connected was to give Aron piano lessons. The boy was amazingly talented – he’s grown now and, what do you know, a musician! Pete would be pleased if he knew – but Pete and I broke up, too.
What happened was that Aron was seeing the school psychologist because he was causing trouble in class and Laura and I were required to see her also. At one meeting, she said, “Aron talks a lot about Pete. Who is Pete?” In my stupidity, in my newfound freedom and bravado, I said, “It’s never come up so I’ve never mentioned it but I’m gay and Pete is my lover.” After all, Laura knew and I had grown so comfortable with my new life that it made sense to have it out in the open.
Apparently, not in Ohio. Laura reacted as though I had committed a felony – not my being gay, but my announcing it. The psychologist was worse. She babbled on about how she couldn’t continue to see Aron if she was put in a position in which she had to keep secrets from him, how perhaps he shouldn’t visit my home anymore, how she would have to check with her district supervisor, how Laura might be advised to talk to her lawyer. This was only twenty years ago. Can young people today even comprehend what it was like?
The idea of fighting never occurred to me; too cowed to check with a lawyer on my own. So I gave in to the school’s demands – supported, of course, by a stony-faced Laura. Aron could visit my home only if I assured them that he would have no contact with Pete. Pete would have to stay in a motel any time Aron was there. It was either that or Aron would have to switch to another school and Laura would take me to court. Guilty and ashamed about Aron, I agreed – now to be guilty and ashamed about Pete.
After all, he loved the kid, too. It had started because he loved me and wanted to be part of my life but it had evolved into a love all of its own between him and the little boy. When I told him what I had agreed to, the blood drained out of his face. Soon, it drained out of our life. How could I have said something like that to a man I loved? How could I have told him there was something so wrong with him that he could have no further contact with my son? Society starts the process but we end up punishing ourselves.
Pete and I broke up not long after. The hurt, the disappointment, the silence between us had simply grown too wide. I don’t know where he is now. I don’t know what happened to him. But I am writing this as a love note to him. I hope he gets to read it.
Recently, I knew I had to tell Aron. I was afraid he would discover the truth somehow and never forgive me for lying to him. I didn’t want some slip of somebody’s tongue to destroy the trust that had been built between us. I couldn’t imagine he hadn’t figured it out on his own – he is a bright, sophisticated guy but I wanted him to hear it from me.
Walking to the movies one day, I blurted it out.
“Aron, there’s something I want to tell you – and it’s going to be hard.”
“What’s that, Dad?”
“I want you to know the truth about my life - that I’m bi-sexual.”
“Oh....”
“Well, gay really is the word. I was bi-sexual when I was married to your mother. That, I guess, is obvious...”
Thank goodness, he giggled. His charming little-boy giggle.
“But since then I’ve been gay. All my lovers have been men...”
“Pete...” he said.
I was astonished. It had been many, many years since he had seen or heard of Pete.
“Pete,” he murmured. “My first piano teacher..”
“That’s right.”
We walked in silence but I was so shocked by his immediate connection that I didn’t know what to say. He seemed to be mulling it over so I waited for him to go on.
“You know,” he said slowly, sweetly. “My girlfriends are always astonished that I have such deep, close men friends. It’s something that’s always been in my life and something that’s really nice. That comes from you, from you and Pete. Because I always knew how much you meant to each other.”
What could I say? Now that I think of it, I should have said, “Thanks.” But I was stunned into silence – and admiration. He’s such a wonderful boy, such a lovely, loving son. Obviously, I didn’t do everything wrong.
But I wanted you to know too, Pete, wherever you are.
Edward M. Cohen's story collection, "Before Stonewall," was published by Awst Press; his novel, "$250,000," by G.P. Putnam's Sons; his novella, "A Visit to my Father with my Son," by Running Wild Press. His chapbook, "Grim Gay Tales," is forthcoming from Fjords Review. He can be found on Instagram @ Edward M Cohen. This story originally appeared in Cleaning Up Glitter.
Sunday with an Old Friend
by Holly Allen
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Maggie asked through a mouthful of greasy takeout. “Can’t you just tell her that I need to spend some quality time with my beautiful wife?”
I shoved my foot into a tired sneaker. Flecks of house paint speckled the drab fabric. Jesus, I don’t even wear these to work. Shit gets on everything.
“I wish I could,” I said, “but you know Linda’s been having a hard time with her husband. I already canceled our last meet-up at that Italian place. She needs the support.”
“Listen,” Maggie pressed, “I’ve been Googling this Luxe Living Health and they’re a giant pyramid scheme. Half the products are pumped full of corn starch or some shit. Most of the saleswomen don’t even make a dollar a month in commissions. One woman on TikTok said the fertility supplement gave her kidney stones. I wouldn’t go. You’re just begging the breeders to sell you trash.”
I stole a bite of Maggie’s chow mein.
“Damn, that’s pretty good.”
“Hello? Sylvia? Did you hear a word I said?” Maggie scoffed as I planted a fat kiss on her forehead.
I made my way to the front door, waving my hand in casual dismissal.
“Yes, yes, I heard. I know they’ll be selling stuff. That’s why I’m not taking my wallet. And before you ask, yes, I do have my driver’s license. I’m just going to support Linda. Save me some of that chow mein, will you?”
As soon as I took a bite of the pizza Linda had put out for everyone, I felt myself praying that Maggie had honored my request and saved a bit of Chinese for me in the fridge. This wasn’t Round Table or even Little Caesar’s. It was some sort of Gluten Free concoction baked in huge, misshapen rectangles. It was thin as communion wafers. The crust, from what snippets of jumbled conversation I caught on the subject, was some blasphemous labor of canned chicken, arrowroot powder, and egg yolks.
“It only took about fifteen minutes in the oven,” Linda crooned.
“That’s so quick!” a woman in Scooby Doo scrubs said with a toothy smile.
I watched the circle of women around me, chewing feverishly as the “pizza” became sticky the more I worked at it. It’s gonna glue my damn mouth shut, I thought. Half the women, including myself, sat on folding plastic chairs that Linda had set up in her den. The other half had plush armchairs or a seat on the cushion-laden sofa. I shifted my weight in the stiff, unyielding chair. They must’ve got here early, I thought, watching the sofa-women with increasing jealousy.
“So, now that we’re all here, I think it’s time to talk about some of the new products this month,” Linda began.
As soon as she spoke, a hush fell over the room. The sudden silence and the ribbons of golden light streaming in from between the dusty Venetian blinds transformed the room into a solemn chapel.
“You girls loved the Luxe Living Foaming Facial Cleanser so much that we’ve released an electric face wash brush to go with it!”
Linda held out a thick pamphlet with garish graphic design to the woman to her left. The woman took the proffered pamphlet with a slightly bowed head.
“Most facial brushes on the market take a charger but here there are no annoying cords to worry about. The Luxe Living Facial Scrub Brush takes batteries so it’s portable and can go with you wherever.”
Wouldn’t the cost of batteries add up though? I was running my tongue over my teeth thoughtfully, trying to remove every bit of stuck food, when Linda called out to me.
“Sylvia!”
I bit my tongue in surprise.
“You’re working construction now, aren’t you?”
“Not exactly construction,” I muttered, my tongue throbbing. “Renovations, more like.”
A woman to my right with bleach-blonde extensions leaned back as though I might be contagious, a look of shock on her face.
“Right, right,” Linda said with a nod. “Well, this brush would be perfect for you. All that sawdust and dirt and whatnot. Not to mention all the chemicals from cleaner or glue or housepaint. I see your shoes.”
Linda craned her neck forward and pointed a pale finger towards my sneakers. The woman in Scooby Doo scrubs shaped the letter L across her chest like it was the sign of the cross. What? A second woman performed the same, solemn sign. I remembered an aged, faded photograph propped up on posterboard near the front door to Linda’s house picturing women performing the same symbol. The Luxe Living sign? I guess? Is that a thing?
“Oh, right,” I muttered, my face growing hot.
Just say no. Nine pairs of eyes were staring at me. I felt my chest grow tight. Just tell her you aren’t here to shop.
“Listen, Linda, I’m sorry but I didn’t bring my wallet,” I said in a rush, the syllables tripping over one another.
The silence returned to the room then. It was heavier now. The only sound was the groan of the nearby air conditioner. I could feel the chill of air passing over my head. The women all turned to Linda then, expectantly, reverently.
“You knew this was a Luxe Living Health party,” Linda said stiffly. “Sylvia, I don’t know why you’d be this selfish. You know I only want what’s best for my friends but how can I help you connect with products that will let you lead a Luxe, healthful life if you want even given these products a try?”
The silence grew expectant, hungry even. The stranger beside me gave me a forceful nudge. I turned and saw that she was offering me the pamphlet that Linda had passed around. She held it gently, her hands supporting it, cradling it carefully from below as though it were holy scripture.
Holly Eva Allen is a queer writer currently living in California. Her poetry and prose have been previously published in magazines and on sites such as Funicular, Peculiar, Sand Hills, and Farside Review. Holly is currently an editor for Foothill Journal, Passengers Journal, and Horned Things. She is currently working on an English degree at Claremont Graduate University. You can find her work at hollyevaallen.wordpress.com or follow her on Twitter @hollyevaallen.
Transitioning
by Dean Gessie
“You pronounce it mix. Try it with me, children. Mix Rogers.”
“Mix Rogers.”
“Well done. Any questions?”
“Do you have a cold, Mx. Rogers?”
“No. I am feeling better than I have in a long time.”
“Did you go to Disneyland?”
“No. I was absent for personal care.”
“Your voice sounds different.”
“Well,” said Mx. Rogers, pointing at every student, “a voice is a unique instrument.”
The children were nonplussed, but flush with interest.
Mx. Rogers smiled and signalled for the children to gather round. “I have written a story,” they said, “for story time.”
The pupils moved obediently into an open semi-circle.
Mx. Rogers read from their iPad.
“Ellie the Eel had smaller fins than her brothers and sisters. Therefore, she might swim off course and lose sight of her goal. The other eels wanted to help, but they didn’t know how. Nigel the Most Unkind Eel called her Aimless Ellie.”
Sarah raised her hand immediately and said, “You shouldn’t call people names.”
Micah said, “We’re all different.”
Mx. Rogers nodded affirmatively to each student and recommenced.
“Ellie the Eel became separated from her brothers and sisters. She was not strong enough to make the climb upstream. The other eels looked on with sadness and regret. They wondered why Ellie was not the same as the rest of the group. You can call yourself Ellie the Eel, said Nigel the Most Unkind Eel, but that doesn’t make it true.”
Eugene said, “Nigel is not very nice.”
Elijah said, “A life vest would solve everything.”
Mx. Rogers continued their story, “Ellie the Eel was having a real identity crisis. She needed to know who she was. And she was prepared to ask anyone.
“Early the next day, she came upon a seahorse who just happened to be giving birth to his babies. Ellie introduced herself and said, Can you tell me who I am?
“Sammy the Seahorse answered, Well, that’s not for me to say, but you certainly are an early bird.
“‘I’m not a bird! said Ellie the Eel. I don’t have feathers and I can’t fly! Nonetheless, Ellie knew that eels eat worms, just like some birds. It was all so confusing.”
But Eugene’s confusion was elsewhere. “Can boys have babies?” he said.
Mx. Rogers said, “Seahorse boys do.”
Serena said, “I like your haircut, Mx. Rogers.”
Mx. Rogers answered another question before continuing to read. “Yes. You can take her at her word. Ellie is not a bird.”
“Later that morning,” continued Mx. Rogers, “Ellie the Eel met a spiny water flea who happened to be making babies all by themselves. I’m asking everyone, said Ellie. Can you tell me who I am?
“Scarlett the Spiny Water Flea said, Well, that’s not for me to say, but you certainly are an eager beaver.
“I’m not a beaver! said Ellie the Eel. I don’t cut down trees with my teeth! But she knew that eels spend much of their time in water and some of their time on land, like beavers. It was all so confusing.”
Daniel raised his hand and made an astute observation. “My puppies and the flea babies don’t have a dad.”
Mx. Rogers answered a question. “Yes,” they said. “You can take her at her word. Ellie is not a beaver.”
And then the children found themselves in a game of cascading recall.
“She’s not a seahorse,” said Rajeev.
“And she’s not a bird,” said Eugene.
“And she’s not a flea,” said Serena.
“And she’s not a beaver,” said Micah.
Mx. Rogers complimented the children on their memory and continued, “The last neighbour that Ellie the Eel approached was a catfish. Said Ellie the Eel, Can you tell me who I am?
“Cliff the Wells Catfish answered in the form of a riddle. Nid wyf yn gwybod, he said, which means, I don’t know. But, he added, sometimes, backwards is forwards. Cliff the Wells Catfish knew that eels, like catfish, can swim backwards.”
Micah said, “How can you move forward and backward at the same time?”
Hassan spoke immediately and revealed the depth of his old soul. “By pointing yourself,” he said, “in the right direction.”
Mx. Rogers gasped, drew a big heart in the air and pushed it in the direction of Hassan. And then they finished their story.
“Ellie the Eel realized what she had to do. She propelled herself upstream by swimming backwards. Her brothers and sisters greeted her with joy and cheers. Hip! Hip! Hooray! they shouted. Nigel the Most Unkind Eel shook his unkind head. Who are you? he said. You don’t swim like the others.
“I am who I am, said Ellie. I am ELY THE EEL!”
Mx. Rogers closed their iPad and answered one last one question. “Yes,” they said. “You can take them at their word. Mx. Ely is a genuine eel. There is strength,’ they added, “in difference.”
All the children applauded. They were less interested in the moral of the story. It was somewhat boring and unnecessary. However, each was delighted that the story had a happy ending. Hassan, the old soul, made an observation that seemed to satisfy and offer closure, “Mx. Rogers and Mx. Ely say their name the same way.”
And then the children enjoyed snack time and nap time and play time. And each hugged each other and their teacher at the last bell.
Dean Gessie is an author and poet who has won dozens of international awards and prizes. Among other honours, Dean was included in The 64 Best Poets of 2018 and 2019 by Black Mountain Press in North Carolina. He also won the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award in England, the Allingham Arts Festival Poetry Competition in Ireland and the Creators of Justice Literary Award [Fiction Category] from the International Human Rights Art Festival in New York. Elsewhere, Dean won the Frank O’Hara Poetry Prize in Massachusetts, the Enizagam Poetry Contest in California, the Ageless Authors Poetry Contest in Texas, the Indigo Open Poetry Prize in England, the Spoon River Review Editors’ Prize in Illinois, the Southern Shakespeare Company Sonnet Contest in Florida, the COP26 Poetry Competition in Scotland and the UN-aligned Poetry Contest in Finland [in honour of the U.N. Climate Change Conference]. Dean’s short story collection – called Anthropocene - won an Eyelands Book Award in Greece and the Uncollected Press Prize in Maryland. He has a book of poetry forthcoming [goat song] from Uncollected Press.
Sinking Under
by Melissa A. Morgan
Dapple shade and constant traffic camouflage me as I watch your old apartment from across the street again. I tell myself that you’re inside, concealed by an oak door and fabric-blanketed window, but you don’t even live there anymore. Not that you told me.
Fingering my half-eaten cacao bar, I ache for another taste of you, one more bitter morsel. I deserve more, don’t I?
Lofty clouds saunter overhead. In the tunnel of red-brick buildings wind whips my hair, stinging my eyes. A scrap of brown paper dances, twirling into the air around the caged trash bins and crepe myrtles lining the street, and then tumbles down the sidewalk out of sight.
You called yourself a nomad. Wasn’t that the word? I guess that you could be anywhere, Shanghai or Montreal or Paris. Wherever you are, you took a slice of me with you.
But don’t let that worry you. I’m practically whole again. Only a scar here and there, the residue of us.
* * *
Your eyes flashed, a sign advertising vacancy. Come to Phaedra pulsed in red, hot light. I jumped at the invitation and basked in your warm glow, sinking in and under.
Hours turned into days. With one hand on my throat, you burrowed into me. My tongue ran down your arched spine, tracing phases of the moon rendered in black ink. Rent by tooth and nail, our flesh was ultimately soothed with kisses and climax.
We camped on my futon with a single sheet and each other to keep warm. You told me of your travels and how you spent last fall as a model for life drawing classes and now work temp jobs in construction.
“Everything is temporary, isn’t it,” you said with a wink.
I told you of my childhood in the South and how my parents shunned me when I came out to them. You said you were a wanderer and poet at heart and called me a lamb in the wilderness.
On our third morning, I awoke contorted and content to you sipping black coffee and nibbling a cacao square. Was it Tuesday or Wednesday?
“Here,” you said handing me a square of my own. “You need nourishment.” You kissed my forehead and then leaned against the doorframe. The stark white walls glowed against your chestnut hair and sun-kissed skin.
I tossed the whole thing in my mouth. Already dry, my mouth became a desert. My furrowed brows and pained face betrayed my desire to please you.
“Small bites are best,” you said as amusement gamboled across your face. You threw yourself onto the futon, and a ceiling of laughter floated above us.
I’d meet you around seven at your place, an apartment on Caster. Once considered the wrong part of town, gentrification had turned the artist lofts and low-rent flats along Caster Street into luxury apartments.
I’d missed several days of classes and three shifts at Fat Sam’s by the time I bathed you in the Caster Street apartment. I scrubbed eggshell paint from your arms and shoulders and washed your dark curls. The intoxicating smell of your rosemary shampoo and mint bodywash left me dizzy. You pinned me to the teak bench. Afterward, we ordered noodles and beef tataki for dinner. You pecked at two cacao squares for dessert. I declined your offer to share, opting for dessert beneath the stars. You were delicious.
Back and forth, your place then mine.
You fed me sprouted bread with warm brie and loganberry jam, and I washed a swath of drywall mud from your calf, revealing a ring of ornate orange and black koi. We fell together through my shower door, the one with the frosted swan, sending shards of glass and splatters of my blood to every corner of the bathroom. You mopped my tears and blood, covering my wounds in bandages and kisses. Later in bed, we imagined the conversation with my landlord and laughed like hyenas. We made milk-chocolate love, and all was right in the world.
In the deep, dark of morning you peppered my forehead with feather-soft kisses. You whispered something like, “this has been fun. I’ve got to go. You should get more sleep, Dear One.”
Night came and went without you. I wilted along with the niçoise salad that I’d prepared for us. My calls went unanswered. I took the bus to the Caster Street apartment, and a lady with loose, grey curls looked puzzled when I asked for Phaedra.
“Oh, the house-sitter? You’ll have to call the agency, Dear. We came home last night,” she said, closing the door.
* * *
The frigid concrete steps beneath me pierced my skin, sending daggers of ice up my spine. I looked at the oak door and then back at the cacao bar in my hand, taking one last nibble of the bitter chocolate before tossing it into the bin.
Melissa A. Morgan is a fiction writer living in Pontotoc, MS with her wife, Lisa. Melissa’s work has been featured in Ligeia Magazine and garnered an Honorable Mention in the 2021 William Faulkner Literary Competition.
1970s Rainbow Blues
by Kyle Ingrid Johnson
2022 Pride Contest Winner
The voice of Van Morrison scratches through the speakers singing about money the color of blue. My lover, Veronica, and I sit at the bar and watch Midnight easing her back up and down the pole in the middle of the stage. It’s late afternoon; the audience is slim.
Lighting up a cigarette like the woman in the song, Veronica moves her shoulders with the music but wonders aloud how Midnight can dance to such a beat.
She’s dancing to her own beat, I say. Making her own blue money.
The bar manager passes behind us and puts a hand on each of our shoulders. You girls, good? I wonder if he means in real life or in the amount of liquor in our glasses.
We tell him Midnight is our friend. His eyebrows raise. He looks from one of us to the other and invites us to his office for an audition so we can be like Midnight, too.
We laugh. Veronica has her own blue money. Films. She’s on everyone’s reel, in everyone’s bedroom, and in the throb of everyone’s lust. She’s a star. A blue star. She could write a book better than anything Van Morrison is singing about. The best part is that she loves me.
You look familiar, the bar manager says as he steps back and eyes her a bit more. She swallows her Rusty Nail, nods her head, and tells him he has probably seen her here and there. The theatre by the square. The cinema by the station. On celluloid that can be rented from the backroom of a shop.
The song goes on. The manager turns to me and nods his head toward the back. I shake my head. I look at Midnight and think about her paycheck, but I imagine mine is bigger. I am not as public as Veronica; I don’t want to see myself on a smoky screen in a tiny cinema that smells of men. But Veronica’s paycheck is bigger than mine. She’s a star. A blue star. And yes, she makes that blue money.
I look directly into the manager’s eyes and tell him no. I don’t need a job on his stage. He doesn’t know that I have my own stage, my own men. A short string of regulars. Five-minute guys. My own apartment. My own rules. Lots of privacy. Easy money. Blue money.
It’s all blue. Midnight’s cash. Veronica’s cash. My cash. All blue. I drink up my Brandy Alexander. The only part of our lives that is not blue is our love. Love is the color of warm plum.
Dusk. Men flow into the lounge. Midnight perks up, wraps herself around the silver pole and with great precision winks at the man closest to the stage. Veronica blows her a kiss with an uplifted hand. I stick out my tongue, try to make her laugh. I know she won’t. She’s in control.
The manager leaves us as lost propositions. We wave at the bartender to refill our drinks.
We give the bar manager the finger behind his back. Veronica’s foot moves from her barstool to the one where I am sitting, and I feel her leg start to entwine itself with mine. We are women. We are in charge of our own blue lives, making blue money and spending it. Because blue money singes fingers and disappears from pockets, it never lasts long. It must be spent. We spend ours. We celebrate our love and try not to think about tomorrow. We know our love will outlast our money.
Kyle Ingrid Johnson won First Place in Madville Publishing's recent Kirkus-starred anthology "Taboos & Transgressions." Her work can be seen in 13th Moon, Water ~ Stone, OPEN: A Journal of Arts & Letters, Welter, and in the Harvard Bookstore's travel anthology "Around the World." She won Honorable Mention in the Barry Lopez Creative Nonfiction Contest published in Cutthroat, and has another well-received piece in Madville's "Being Home" anthology as well as a story in the Quillkeepers Press LGBTQ anthology, "The Heart of Pride." Kyle Ingrid lives in Boston, MA and can be contacted at IsolaBlue@aol.com.