Josie uses her key to let herself and her sister Amy into Cora’s apartment. She walks in first, then turns to see Amy standing in the doorway, hand braced against the doorframe. Josie says, impatiently, “Come on.” Finally, Amy enters this apartment their mother lived in for three years, moving here after she injured her knee and at last accepted that it made no sense for an older woman to be living in a house with two sets of stairs. But Amy has never seen it, because she’s so stubborn and unforgiving. Watching her older sister walk slowly into the apartment reminds Josie, painfully, of their mother. After she got sick Cora slowed down too, as if just moving her body hurt.Josie opens the window over the kitchen sink. It’s stuffy, the air stale. The apartment has that unlived-in feeling of coming home after a trip. Cora had been in the hospital for twelve days prior to dying, during which Josie came here only once, to pick up her alpaca shawl and pairs of cozy socks. But it’s very neat. There are three plates and a coffee mug drying in the dish rack. Cora never used her dishwasher—“What’s the point?” she’d say. “It’s just me.”. Now Josie puts the plates and the coffee mug in the cabinet. It’s not a big apartment, all one long floor with the bathroom and the bedroom in the back. Nonetheless it’s pretty. Their mother has great taste.Had. Watching Amy look around, Josie wonders what Amy will want, will claim. The painting over the decorative fireplace is quite valuable, for instance. Amy must remember that painting; their mother bought it years ago. It was inspired by a photograph of a girl sitting in a cornfield with her legs bent behind her. The girl in the photograph was crippled, couldn’t walk, though you can’t tell that from the photograph, or from the painting. At any rate, it’s worth money. There are other things in the apartment worth money. Josie wonders whether Amy is assessing these items—the artwork, the knickknacks on the end table, a ceramic pear, a Murano blown-glass vase—and calculating their value. She studies Amy, in her cowl-neck cashmere sweater. Amy, like Cora, values material objects. Earth signs, both of them. Josie feels her lips tighten and thin into a grimace. Amy pauses by the framed photograph of the three of them on the end table, taken that day they went to Point Reyes and ate three dozen oysters—so many oysters! It’s the one photograph of Amy in the living room, though Josie knows there’s another one by Cora’s bedside table, taken after Amy’s graduation from Smith. The living room photo flatters Amy more than Josie, who is squinting. They used to argue about photos. “Delete that one! I have a double chin!” Watching Amy, Josie hopes she feels bad. The heat of the feeling surprises her, since just yesterday she was telling her friend Bridget “My relationship with Mom was good—well, Mom was complicated, but mostly good. I’m worried that Amy will take her passing much harder than me, because they were estranged.” But now, she wants Amy to feel shitty. To confront her rigidity and selfishness. To brim with impossible regrets.How hard could it have been to visit Cora in the hospital? To make peace? Every time Josie visited her, she saw her mother turn to the door, see her, and a flash of disappointment would slip over her face. Because of course Cora would have hoped that the silver lining of dying is that Amy would want to see her. “Mom is dying.” Josie told Amy that, two weeks ago. The only time Amy had come up in conversation was towards the end, when Josie was holding her mother’s bony hand and Cora looked into her eyes and said, “Tell her—” She never completed the sentence, and after waiting a minute, Josie said, “I will, Mom.” And she will. Someday. At some point Amy might ask, “Did Mom give you any message for me?” and Josie will tell her, because Josie knows perfectly well what Cora meant to say, even if she never in fact said “Amy” or completed her own thought. But Amy will have to ask! She will have to fucking ask.Josie watches Amy pause in front of the loveseat and coffee table—that’s where their mother used to sit and watch TV, her Brit Box detective shows, and do her needlepoint. Her sewing basket is on the coffee table, as always. Amy bends, fishes inside of it, and grabs Cora’s embroidery scissors. She always bought the same kind of scissors, tiny ones shaped like a stork, the upturned beak the blades. The loops you stuck your fingers through were the legs. “I want these,” Amy says, looking at Josie. How they loved those scissors when they were little girls! They always wanted to play with them, to cut out their paper dolls and snowflakes. “They are not a toy,” Cora would say, sternly. Also: “Be careful!” Though Josie understands that she probably meant be careful not to cut yourself, not what she’d assumed then—be careful not to damage my scissors. The sisters regard each other. The scissors are lovely, but not valuable. They probably cost less than forty dollars. Amy isn’t asking permission, Josie thinks. She isn’t saying “May I have these?” She gives permission anyway, as if the scissors are hers to dispense. “Take them,” says Josie, putting peculiar emphasis on the verb.
On the Fourth of July the grandmother took Vase to the top of the warehouse where a rickety carriage of iron stairs led to the roof. The sky was as orange as a snake’s belly and smelled of powder and dust and oil. They sat without speaking watching the brilliant detonations which Vase had never seen before just as she had never seen the full horizon of sky over Los Angeles and when the grandmother felt tired Vase was sorry to have to leave the sight so soon. Vase had only been with the grandmother for a couple months at that point. The grandmother had taught her how to garden and read and she was now learning new words from the library of old paperbacks printed on groundwood paper that were stacked in piles over much of the warehouse. While Vase did this the grandmother worked in her private quarters on humming machines doing business for the municipal government. Then in the evening the grandmother would cook herself a stew using the root vegetables Vase had harvested and sit sipping at her table while Vase stewed in the black bath that bubbled in a metal basin which had been built into the center of the kitchen. Then the grandmother would say good night and leave Vase there in the dark until morning.There were no guests. The grandmother made short calls and sent messages through her computer about her work and men in black vans would once in a while knock on the heavy front door to drop off boxes of essential equipment and supplies. When this happened the grandmother would tell Vase to keep to the agriculture room or one of the other out of sight parts of the warehouse before unbolting the latches but the men never stayed anyway. By fall the grandmother began to let Vase ask her lots of questions because neither of them had anyone else to really talk to. She tried to answer in as many words as possible so Vase would learn how to be a conversationalist although she kept professional and revealed as few truths as she could.That winter the grandmother received an especially long phone call and told Vase that she had to leave for the night or possibly two to deal with some pressing matters for the mayor. She packed a briefcase with folders and hard drives and set the black bath to boil and left Vase in the dark locking the door to the warehouse behind her from the outside. The car that arrived for her took her north to City Hall on a circuitous route that was without incident but when the driver started it again in the morning to return the grandmother to her warehouse they were both instantly killed by the detonation of an explosive device that someone had wired to the ignition switch.Vase stayed in the black bath for a long time. Her hair and skin became black and her teeth became black and her eyes became black too. The mayor tried sending some of her staff to the warehouse to retrieve what the grandmother had been working on there but the city broke into real disarray and none of them made it. The lights had been left on in the agriculture room and the vegetable garden overgrew and vines and bunches of foliage took root in the decomposing books and doves and chickens made their way in through one of the windows after it was knocked out by debris from one of the neighboring buildings which had only been reinforced for earthquakes. The sky was red and black then but Vase did not see this.After the bombings stopped boys began to make their way through Los Angeles in search of sustenance and items of value to sell secondhand. One of them entered the grandmother’s warehouse with a crowbar through the door in the roof and was surprised when he found a bubbling vat of what looked like oil with an oil-colored girl asleep in the middle of it. He thought she was very beautiful and took a photograph with his phone and when she remained unresponsive to his camera flash he touched her to see if she would wake. Her skin made his hands itch and smell like copper and he tasted copper in his mouth too. When Vase stood up they were both startled. Vase tried to talk to him after waiting in the dark for a while but by then he was the one who did not move no matter what words she spoke to him. She heard the door swinging upstairs and went to the roof and watched the sun set in the green sky over the far-off encampments of Santa Monica.By that next Fourth of July the rains had really picked up and so had life in the city. Inside the squash and tomatoes rotted into stinking beds of seed. The birds which had survived began to move out of the warehouse and traffic could be heard again on some of the streets in the distance. No one wanted to set off fireworks anymore but the air was so thick that people could use colored spotlights to create patterns in the raindrops and chalk particles in the sky. Vase sat silently on the roof and watched a blue and magenta spiral burn through the atmosphere above City Hall and saw shapes like silver serpents move eastward over the Hollywood Hills and into the long desert where Las Vegas had been. She did not understand that the grandmother would never come back home.The rain covered her completely. Her skin became translucent and she felt warm and cold at the same time. She wondered what the word was to describe this feeling but when she asked the last of the doves it answered with a cruel platitude that had nothing to do with her question at all and soon she was all alone again.
It’s another hot day, and the tide is rising. The son shoulders his father’s rifle and walks back toward the beach house thinking the reason he’s shot the hole in the tank is because his dad refused to buy him a half million follows.“Please like, comment, and subscribe.” He says, holding his phone at eye level and trying to steady his hand because he is still shaking with generational anger he will probably never understand. Water spills out onto the ground as the cat patiently watches the flapjack octopus scurry to the opposite side of its tank. Time is running out. The big cat hopes to eat soon. There is a large hole in the glass that the son put there, and soon this flapjack octopus will be sucked out with the last of the water onto the beach where the cat is waiting. “I can’t wait until the tank drains,” the really big cat says. “Because I’m going to eat you.”“I don’t know why you want to eat me so bad,’ says the flapjack, who is a gentle creature. “You know, I’ve never ever given you a reason to dislike me. I don’t really have anything against cats. It’s the rich man that bothers me, and I think he should bother you too.” “I imagine you are tasty,” the cat says. “The notion preoccupies me. Anyway, don’t blame me. This isn’t my fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. Blame Capitalism.” Neither of these animals actually say these things. Not strictly speaking. Animals cannot talk. At least not in any way we can understand. What the cat actually says is this:Meow. What it means, and what the flapjack octopus knows it to mean, is this: Blame Capitalism. Because they’re in Miami and because Miami is in Florida and because Florida is in the United States of America, Capitalism is the system on which the cat places most blame. What the cat thinks, and would say if it could, is that their owner, a multi-billionaire, is the reason for a great many conditions directly relevant to their present moment. The flapjack octopus would not deny this, though it does find it a tad ironic. It is a fact that the very big cat, the hole in the tank, and the boy with the rifle have all come to their present circumstances because of this very rich man. This man, a man who heads a notably successful private equity firm, likes guns and cats and rare octopi and has a son. If it were not for him, all of their material circumstances would be very, very different. Incidentally, he is very busy, this rich man, and ignores them all unless it’s convenient for him, which is most of the time.At any rate, there are octopi in large tanks all over the premise of this beachside property. Cats as well. Big. Well fed. Cats. And oh boy, do they want to eat the octopi. Every single one of them, especially this one. Meow. Luckly for this cat, the others haven’t yet come to investigate. That the cats had, up to this point, never been given the opportunity to eat any of the owner’s exotic octopi is a great source of consternation. One that leads them to understand they are living tragic lives, surrounded by what must both be delicious and lovely rubbery meat they can never chew because, among other things, they don’t have the resources. Meow.Capitalism. It was the only reason for all the octopi to be in and around this rich man’s house where the cats could see but not eat them instead of in the ocean where they belonged. This is doubly true for the flapjack octopus, which is exceedingly rare and unattainable to anyone who is not super rich. It’s also the reason for the hole in its pressurized tank, which was put there by the son of the rich man. “How about that, Dad?! How impressive is your big tank now?!” He had shouted while uploading the video of him shooting the tank to his socials. The flap jack octopus, who we might assume is trying to calculate its chances of survival, is running out of time, and the cat has a point as to why this is the case. “Damn this rich man and his son and his cat! God, I don’t want to die.” the flapjack octopus laments. “This is all very frightening. Beyond all that, this cat refuses to take responsibility for any of its actions, the state of its life, or recognize its own culpability in a much larger, very flawed system!” This last part being a common criticism of those who level systemic critique toward their specific and individually lousy lots in life. The flapjack didn’t say this last part. If you wanted to get overly technical, it didn’t say any of the parts, not precisely.What the flapjack octopus actually says is this: Bubble. Bubble.But it says it emphatically so, and as you might imagine, the cat is unmoved. To be fair, the octopus is conflicted as, as much as it’d like to, it can’t really see a clear path beyond our current systems of capital. Not that there couldn’t be one, it’s just that it can’t imagine what that would look like. “I am but a simple creature,” admitted the flapjack octopus on many an occasion, “so, it could be that in this case my pessimism is the result of my limited imagination.”Despite the self-deprecation, it is important we do not underestimate the complexity of the octopus, who it could be said, much like America’s Bard, contains multitudes. The flapjack does not want to die. To be eaten. But even more than this, it doesn’t want to be alone anymore. To be possessed by some rich man. It does have hope for freedom. For too long it’s been like a fish out of water, only instead of a fish, it is an octopus, and instead of being out of water, it is in a tank, separated from any kind of good company, or anything familiar to its species. It has not just been lonely, but existentially lonely. What’s worse than this is that the tank is in clear view of the ocean, so that the octopus, for as long as it’s been here, can see its true home. It can see the surf rolling up, over and over again, inviting him back to the place it knows it belongs, with what we as human beings might think of as equivalents of friends and family.What the cat doesn’t understand is the octopus has actually been waiting for this opportunity because it could be a chance to escape. The boy doesn’t understand this either, though this shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us because there are so many things the boy does not understand.Another thing he doesn’t understand is how, due to increased levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere, the sea level has been raising. For the octopus, this is a very important because if the pressure of the water leaving the tank is strong enough, and the tide is high enough, and the sea level has risen enough, then it has a chance at that thing it’s been waiting for. Freedom. But not just freedom. A return to the world it belongs. This would make the flapjack octopus very happy. Happier than it’s been in a long time, and the flapjack octopus deserves to be happy because it is a gentle creature. Bubble. Bubble.Is this octopus capable of the complicated calculations it needs to solve concerning its chances of survival or not? Probably it’s capable of some math. Most creatures are, even the son of the rich man. Speaking of, he is still walking toward the beach house, checking the engagement on his video. People are watching. They are liking, commenting, and subscribing, which is good because that is what he’s asked them to do. If asked, the son would’ve been able unable to say why he got so mad he shot the hole in the tank other that it felt like the right thing to do after his father refused to buy him a half a million bots to increase his subscriber numbers. And that he thought the video would make good content and generate no small number of followers, which in his mind was only fair since his father had denied him so many. The real reason? He is acting out because he idolizes his father more than anything in the world and never gets to see him because his dad is always too busy figuring out ways to increase his wealth, which communicates to his son, either subtly or unsubtly, that his father loves money more than he loves him. The fact that this was true for all major movers of commerce and industry does nothing to make the son feel more loved. The fact the father is just repeating the behaviors of his father before him doesn’t make the son feel more loved either. Ultimately, what the son wants is for his father to smile at him the way he smiles at his exotic flapjack octopus. To care about him the same way he cares about his money. In the absence of this, the son has learned to seek validation through the praise of people he’s never met by making social media content in hopes of becoming a major influencer. In short, the cat is right. Capitalism is to blame.Meow.And what of the flapjack’s chances of survival? Let’s look at the variables. The number of gallons in the tank. The tide. The position of the sun and moon and their gravitational pull on the ocean.The current. The speed at which this octopus must swim to get to a livable depth. And most of all, the release of CO₂, the warming of the earth, the melting of ice, and the rising sea levels. The conclusion? We cannot know. This story encapsulates only a brief moment in time. But one might imagine the flapjack’s conclusion is this: if the ocean level has come up just enough that when it gets sucked out of the tank, it rockets directly into the choppy surf and out to sea. Then, there is some likelihood that the flapjack octopus can safely get to the bottom of the Atlantic where it can spend its time hanging out with its friends and family waiting and watching the ocean levels rise and rise until everything on the surface, including the rich man, the son, and the cat, eventually drown. It's a very satisfying thought for the octopi. Mostly because the only rich thing left on the surface then would be the irony. Bubble. Bubble.
When Mother’s belly bloomed again, she pointed a french-tipped finger at the richest man in town. The accusation, though baseless, haunted him-- it polluted his polished lawn, noosed his silk ties. This was a man shrunken, a spirit corrupted, a man of real stature driven sick. But the town was small, and Mother was only getting bigger, and so he wished her away with a lump sum.Mother had two girls at home. The little one, blue-eyed and painted with the peachy, airbrushed skin of Jesus, thought she might’ve been born of dirt, like Adam, or rib, like Eve. The big one was old enough to know that she was half from mother’s tummy, she assumed the other half might be chipped wallpaper, or oil spills, or the pink in the faces of men at truck stop diners. Even when it seems these things disappear, the rich man often thought to himself, a certain stain is left on a man, a certain debris accumulates inside the soul. The girls had attached to their mother erratically. They sat sunny-side up, transverse, breech-- had to be unknit by gloved hands, unzipped from the same scar on her belly. The births were emergencies-- horrific blurs of fluorescent lighting and hospital blue. Mother requested a mirror for each procedure, glimpsing, in the fuss, creation-- the whole red mess of it. The rich man had three of his own. On Sunday, terror among the parishioners. Mother and her girls arrived late, sulked into a front pew during the Nicene Creed. Wives’ eyes darted in horror between Mother’s belly and their husbands. Through their loyal recitation-- Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen-- they wondered: who made her a mother? Our fathers? Our sons? -- God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God-- Or worse, someone from out of town? The rich man’s own voice shook at the pulpit. He thought, a man can assemble a kneeling congregation-- He will come again in glory-- A man can raise a town from dirt-- His kingdom will have no end-- and for what. When Mother was young, she’d gone to a city. She was a girl then: golden, freckled, life so everywhere in her. It was a city from tip to toe: sparkling up into the clouds and carrying on a grisly, sticky version of itself underground. Mother stood in the highest point of that city, over evry metal monument reflecting sun and blue, over every creeping thing that crept in concrete veins, over every clay creature men had sculpt from dirt, and, summoning the miracle machinery of her insides, spoke:I will name this silver, and this riverThis, beneath my rib, cityThis, beneath my city, railI, blessed by the maker and the maker myselfWill tear trembling towns through mine divine routeIn agony, I will bear the fruit.
The Gimp BoxI lay in my apartment worrying about death and worrying that my constant worrying would eventually manifest in my sickness and death. So, when I saw a job ad looking for a “big guy” who was willing to “become anonymous” and to live in a “dungeon”, I said: Bingo. Because I really needed a place to hide out from Shovel. Mrs Beatrix’s place of business was on the cobbled streets of the Rossebuurt district, Amsterdam.“That house,” said a man, pointing at a terrace house. “The dungeon is below,” he said, with a terrible excitement. “Are you the new Gimp?”I said nothing. “How old are you?” he said in a whisper.“Twenty-six.”The man swallowed. “Mrs Beatrix makes the Gimps wear masks, so you never see their face,” he said. He looked crazy, but crazy in a way that I could handle. Not the pitiless kind that made Shovel a monster. My first month working for Mrs Beatrix, I learned to hog-tie clients, and gag them. I learned that clients liked to laugh as they whipped me. And I began to feel like maybe I wasn’t as heinous a person as I had thought. This all happened strictly under contract, on Tuesdays through Saturdays, matinee and evening sessions. Mrs Beatrix turns the dungeon lights off at ten pm each night, and I get locked up in the Gimp box with Gary. I’m 6’4” so the box is tight, it’s wide enough but not long enough. Gary gets in first, curls up, and I spoon him. We sleep together like big puppies.Gary used to be an accountant. He is short and pudgy with grey skin and greying hair that’s flat almost as if it’s been ironed. He is teaching me the Gimp code. In our situation it’s good to stick together, he says. Follow the code, he says. He’s a good leader. You know? We live in symbiosis. We ablute together. We eat together. That shit engenders a closeness. Gimps are supposed to be occasionally “naughty”, sometimes we’re supposed to resist the clients and—but what happened was, I punched out a farmer from Nacogdoches, TX. Broke off his tooth.This farmer was strangling me. Not in an out of the ordinary way, but certain kinds of men remind me of Shovel. And this Nacogdoches toolbag reminded with more veracity than most. And I fucken lost it. À la his broken tooth.So after we get locked up in the Gimp Box, Gary says, “You’ve got a lot of repressed rage, buddy. You broke the Gimp code.”“I know, man. I’m sorry.”“Also, you breached your contract. You’re lucky Mrs Beatrix didn’t fire you.”“I know. Thanks for talking to her.”“The client wants to sue. Litigation, buddy. And we couldn’t find that tooth. Luckily, she’s got a soft spot for you.”“She fucken hates me.”Gary sighed...“I’m sorry man. I know you’re trying to help me.”“I’ve never seen a Gimp go ape-shit like that,” said Gary. “With one of your arms chained to the wall? No, I have not seen that. Just between you and me, that was impressive.”I didn’t say anything.“You’ve had some experience brawling, huh?”“Some,” I said quietly.“Buddy. Are you hiding from the law?”“The law? No. I got myself in trouble with a guy.”“And he’s not a good guy to be in trouble with?”“Yeah.”“It’s okay,” said Gary. “This is a good place to hide. You’re anonymous. But you also need to be submissive, okay. Calm.”“Yeah.”“Now, let’s go to sleep. And no more bad dreams, okay?”“Okay.”“Because we live in a nightmare world, buddy. A world of the dark and the depraved. And so our dreams are our freedom. So dream of white sand, untouched and serene, the ocean lapping warm over your feet, coming and receding like a heartbeat – Dum-dum, dum-dum....”Gary goes through the ritual, and I fall to sleep. Since I’ve been working for Mrs Beatrix, my nightmares have been less. They are almost gone, Gary says. He says it’s just training. You do the work, work hard on yourself, then you change. You change yourself. Rather than external shit changing you. Then you’re on a path to freedom.Doing the workThe dungeon has brick walls and slate floors. Easy to clean. It has a wooden door like a castle. It’s heated by pipes and is always warm. Sweating is important to the clients. Two Saturdays a month, Mrs Beatrix runs the beginner sessions. Mrs Beatrix has to work hard to get the newbies into the zone. Every new face, I’m looking for Shovel. Would he recognise me in this devil-horned oni kabuki mask? While I’m chained against a wall and getting limply cat-o-nine-tailed by a short fat guy with his balls duct-taped against one thigh and his dick duct-taped against the other? Gary is in a leather onesie that you crawl into via an ass-crack zipper. He has a red-fanged oni kabuki mask on and an elegant lady is tentatively slapping his bottom with a paddle.When Mrs Beatrix finally creates a suitable atmosphere of fear and adrenaline, when the clients enter the zone, what I see is: Gary is getting hot candle wax dripped on him by a bird-like male in a fedora hat. And Gary’s oni kabuki mask, is it smiling, or grimacing? I can’t say. But it’s just a mask, and under the mask Gary is calm, because Gary is on a white beach, feeling the sand between his toes, feeling the sun on his back, seeing the wonders that God hath made. The fedora hat man gets me in a choke hold and I’m gagging for air while Gary serenely submits to about twenty pegs being latched onto his nipples. I wish for that kind of serenity.What does the Gimp contract allow?-Open handed slaps,-Pinching,-Tickles and horsey-bites.Just for starters.Gary and I have different contracts. In my contract there’s no nudity. No sex. General cleaning duties. Light battery. Slapping, whipping, etc. Strangulation within reason, no blackouts. Those are the basics, which is good enough for most clients, apart from the more sickos. The sickos want more and pay more but are still never happy. That’s why I also have “security duties” in my contract. The idea is I’m a Gimp primarily, but also a Security Guard in the event of some sicko getting out-of-kilter. My safe word is Bananas. But if a sicko gets out-of-kilter and my role becomes Security, then the code word is Thunderdome.A hundred dollars an hour, plus board.But Gary’s got different clauses in his contract.Because Gary can take almost anything, submissively and contentedly.-Getting peed on, for example.At the same time as wrestling a client, Gary is watching Mrs Beatrix’s back to make sure no one sneaks up on her, and also keeping an eye on me—he can tell just from the pallor of my skin what my O2 levels are. I’ve seen him subdue volatile clients with little other than gentle patting; love basically. What Gary does, it comes from compassion. The clients come for Mrs Beatrix in the same way that fans went to see Nirvana because of Kurt Cobain, not realising that there in back was the hero Dave Ghrol.By the end of the beginner session, Mrs Beatrix is stepping on client faces, twisting her foot down on strangled balls. She is six-one and PVC-clad. Only wears black. She is visually ageless, and raven. How I see all of this is through a plastic bag over my face held there by the pale, hazy form of a plump patron. My hands are chained to the wall and there is a moment of panic but Beatrix pulls the bag off my head just before I call Bananas.She has a sixth sense for that shit. And she whips the frenzied plump guy into a corner and he begs for forgiveness.I will kill that fat shit if I ever see him in the real world.Oh I will. Oh my God, I am a killer at heart.I memorise the motherfucker’s face.Which, of course, is a breach of the Gimp code.Sometimes in the Gimp box, Gary coughs. He tries to muffle the coughs, but we are pressed together in just loincloths, so I can tell. I’m not sure why he’s trying to hide it. But the morning after the Saturday session I see a fine mist of blood adhered to the wall of the Gimp box.What does the Gimp code say about secrets?The same as every other decent code. So I wipe the blood clean and say nothing. On SundayWe clean the dungeon. We use a high pressure washer. But first we scrub the walls with a Makita Power Bristle and a Bulk Blenz Industrial Cleaner that smells like Forest Pine. We mop the floor. We lubricate the chains and whips. Disinfect the swings, slings, cuffs, restraints, masks and gags (anything leather). Wipe down the nipple stimulators. Fold the laundered hand towels. And oil the dildo machine. This is all contractual.Afterwards we sit in the small courtyard out the back of Mrs Beatrix’s terrace drinking coffee. It is cold but sunny and I can sit out here without a mask. Gary says Mrs Beatrix is married. Her real name is Carol Smithers. “How long have you worked here, Gaz?”Gary looks up from the De Telegraaf, shrugs. “Ten years,” he says. Gary is wearing cargo pants and sandals. He is also wearing socks. “It’s been interesting work,” he says. “There’s always more to learn.”“Learn what?”“Inner peace,” he says, standing. “Let’s go for a walk.”I don’t know about that. No one knows me in this old part of the Dam. However, my likeness is easily described. Shovel has ways of finding people. There is an answering machine in an apartment that I still, theoretically, rent; and I called it not that long ago, and there was a message. Come see me, he said. Don’t make me look, he said, not indifferently but not without heat. The anguish of waiting, buddy, isn’t that worse than just plain blackness?“Come on,” says Gary. “We’ll be fine.” I pull my cap low and put my grey hoodie up over my head, and follow Gary into the gothic adventureland of De Wallen.The streets are one-way ruts made in Medieval times that are used now almost exclusively by Volkswagens. Sex workers in windows remove sleep from their eyes and stifle yawns. Gary buys a twenty-four pack of toilet paper and carries it around. In a church hall beside the Hash & Hemp Museum there is ballroom dancing on Sundays.Gary can dance.Waltz, Samba, Rhumba, Capioeria, Salsa, Tango, swing.He dances, portly Gary. He can lead. Good leading is invisible, unnoticeable. Gary maintains tautness between himself and his partner. When Gary and a new partner become synchronous, each surrenders to the other. Gary’s ability to surrender is his strength. It’s why he’s a good dancer and it accounts for the deftness of his fingers as he hogties a client, for his tolerance of fear and pain, and for his oneness with the revs of the dildo machine.HaircutGary wants to get his hair cut. I sit on the stoop out front of the hairdresser. “I’ll mind the toilet paper.”“I had a son about the same age as you,” says Gary. “He never made an effort with his appearance either.” Gary is smiling but there is pain there. The door bell chimes as he goes inside and sits and the hairdresser floats an apron over him.What I do with the info that Gary had a son is I wonder what if I was Gary’s son. Gary would be a great father. I lean back against the building and close my eyes.In my mind I see a debtor, a man so far in debt that it cannot be repaid by money alone. The man is on his knees, holding his forearm protectively across his face but it doesn’t stop the bat as the bat comes crashing down on his arm and his face and he lies shivering there, flat on the wet bitumen. Haha, harhar, goes Shovel. Again, he says to me, as I am holding the bat.When I open my eyes, a man across the road is staring at me. “You were talking in your sleep,” he says. He puts his finger to his lips and sits back into a shadow. I can see why I didn’t see him before, the building is grey and he is grey–grey face, grey beard, grey beanie, sitting in a grey sleeping bag, ready for the Arctic, but wearing black sunglasses and holding a bunch of dead flowers. This man is a chameleon against a wall, no predator would ever find. Perhaps this is a choice he made, to hide. Or, he has become like this through being forgotten. Does it matter? What it comes down to: he is no one.“What you doing with all that toilet paper?” he says. “You going to use it all?”“In time,” I say.But I get up and I give the man two rolls, and he asks how much money I have. I don’t like his smell, he smells like piss, I don’t like that I don’t like it but I still don’t, and for this reason I don’t lie to him. I tell him I’ve got fifty Euro on me. But I’m keeping it. I don’t know what you would use it for, but that’s not why I’m keeping it, I say to him. I’m keeping it because I’m selfish. I want it.“Well, thanks for the roll,” he says, holding the flowers and the rolls. “Happy dreams.”I take a mental snapshot of his face for this is a man who has seen me at my weakest and knows that I am vulnerable.Ampallang As I lay down with Gary and close the lid of the Gimp box, the dungeon door opens and Mrs Beatrix comes in. I can see her high heels through the breathing holes at the bottom of the box.“Hello boys,” she says as she sits down and crosses her legs. “How is buddy today?”Gary says. “He’s doing well, Carol.”Mrs Beatrix says, “He’s doing a lot better, lately.”Gary says, “yes.”I don’t speak to Beatrix. Gary is The Gimp Rep. Beatrix is negotiating an appropriate reparations deal with the farmer from Nacogdoches, TX. His dental bill was four thousand dollars. We don’t want any police or lawyers involved, so she is having to figure out a way to console him, financially. “What are you getting at?” says Gary.“Well, I’ve had a request that might help us with the finances,” she says. “A well connected, potential, new client, who is willing to pay extra if you were both to be ampallanged.”I feel Gary tighten. The tip of Mrs Beatrix’s heel begins to jiggle.“Body piercings are excluded under contract, Carol.”“Yes Gary. This would require an amendment. You’d be compensated. We’d all be well compensated,”“How well compensated?” “A thousand dollars, for each of you.”I try to advise Gary through touch that this is more than fucken okay with me.“I’m unsure if buddy knows what ampallanging involves Carol.”“Tell him it’s a male genital piercing that penetrates horizontally through the glands.”“A barbell through the head of the penis,” says Gary.My grip on Gary weakens.“Yes,” says Mrs Beatrix. “I’ll need to discuss it with him, Carol.”“Of course,” she says getting up. She pauses though. “Gary, this is an... important client. I...” she sighs.“It’s okay, Carol. Let me speak to buddy.”“Good night boys.”“Good night,” says Gary and there is a solemnity in his voice and great power, the amazing power of the unsaid and a kind of love. Gary says there’s nothing in the code that obligates a gimp to respond to non-contractual requests like this. But there’s the money though, Gary doesn’t mention the money. Gary’s question is: if it’s not in the contract, and it’s not in the Gimp code, then why (aside from the cash, I’m thinking), would we agree to this? This painful thing. And the answer for Gary is that Mrs Beatrix has been good to us and cares for us, and pain is just pain. Because Gary does things out of kindness. But I want the money, a grand might get me out of a good part of the trouble I’m in.A Bullet In The HeadThe body-piercing place is in a tattoo studio just over the Rokin. We have a booking under the name Carol Smithers. The receptionist’s eyes flick to my pants before she looks up. “Right,” she says, jabbing her thumb backwards. “I just need to get... Bear,” she calls.A bear-sized man comes out from the curtain, wizened and rough with scars. He assesses me professionally. “That’s some crazy ink, brother,” he says about my face. He slaps his palms together. “So, who’s first?”“I just need to sit down a minute,” says Gary, and he begins coughing.“You alright?”“Yes.” He nods, coughs. “You... go...”There is a white room behind the curtain. There are instruments. The young receptionist joins us. There is a big boned woman in there with a Maureen nametag in a nurse’s outfit who is wiping down tools with alcohol swabs.The Bear asks me if I want to sit or stand. He says that the young receptionist is going to do me. She hasn’t done genital stuff before, because she is a trainee, but that’s why we got the discount, he says, smiling.I stand in front of a waist-high workbench. The young receptionist puts a wooden block down perpendicular to me and I take out my dick and lay it along the block. Like a corpse at the morgue. She looks at it. Then she looks at Maureen. Maureen looks at it with a medical expert’s indifference. “Bear,” she says, “you want to take a look at this.”Bear comes over, raises an eyebrow. ‘Better use the bigger gauge,’ he says, and he selects a long, tri-bevelled, steel needle from a tray of equipment.. The average penis has a 3.2 inch circumference. You drive a 12 gauge needle through 3.2 inches of dick, then there is a scientific law from which you can deduce how much meat will be displaced by the needle. But displaced where? Out the side of the head? Like brains from a gunshot wound?The young receptionist holds the needle a half inch above my dick. The second before you shoot someone in the head for the first time, as the gun is shaking in your hand, that’s the moment you remember, the moment when you could’ve, in theory, refused. Through the back window I can see a timber Ferris wheel, its empty cages trundling up and over, the whole thing seeming to move like a giant cog driven by some mechanism of wind and time. The receptionist’s hands are trembling.…… “Just fucken do it,” I say to her.Gary and I shuffle back to the dungeon like two critically ampallanged soldiers. There is nothing for the throbbing except to ice ourselves and become absorbed in a few rounds of Canasta.But, there is something wrong with Gary in the Gimp box that night. I wake up because he is so hot he’s burning me. He goes stiff, then his body becomes a bag of air, then it’s like the bag has wild rats in it. But I can’t wake him. I shove up onto my hands and knees and press my back against the Gimp lid. He’s convulsing. I slam myself upwards until the hinge gives. And I get out and Gary flails against the walls of the Gimp box. I bang on the dungeon door but it’s soundproof. The dildo machine weighs about 15 kilos so I grab it and ram the door open. Then I limp upstairs to the interior door that leads into Beatrix’s house. I bang my fist on the door. “We need help.”Bang. Bang. Bang.“Hello?”“Something’s wrong with Gary.”“Pardon?”I can feel Beatrix’s presence behind the door, strangely tentative.“Open the door Carol... Don’t make me bust it down.”The door opens a crack. There is a light behind the door and Carol–Mrs Beatrix–Carol Smithers is way older than I thought. She is an elderly woman. Dressed in a terry toweling robe, her hair in curlers, she looks fragile. Her eyes widen as she sees my unmasked, tattooed face, as she sees the version of me that I have long cultivated. I have worshipped all versions of the devil. “Call an ambulance,” I say.I carry Gary upstairs into Carol’s living room. The room is cluttered by two skirted, overstuffed sofas in floral green and floor lamps with lace-fringed shades. In the corner is an ancient man in a wheelchair, Mr Smithers I assume. He breathes through an oxygen mask.Carol is on her knees holding Gary’s head in her lap, talking to him. The way she talks to him, and smooths his hair, it’s what Gary deserves, that love. The Gimp BoxGary doesn’t come back the next morning. So I clean the dungeon. I clean it once so it’s clean and then a second time, because I’m in here alone but if I’m cleaning I’m not just alone I’m doing something.I’m sitting on the Gimp box icing my penis when there’s a knock on the dungeon door.“Buddy, can you get in the box please. I’d like to talk to you.”Beatrix comes in. She tells me that Gary is out of hospital, but he is not coming back. The doctor recommended against further Gimping.“What’s wrong with him,” I say. “Was it the ampallang?”“He’s...dying buddy.”“What?”“I’m sorry. He’s known for some time.”“What’s wrong with him?”“He said you’d ask that, but he doesn’t want anyone to dwell on it.”“Dwell on it... Well, how long has he got?”“I don’t know,” she says her voice shaking. “Not very long.”“Where is he?”Carol sighs. “He said you would ask that, but even if I knew I couldn’t tell you buddy. I’m bound by confidentiality.”“What, by the contract?”“Yes.”“... did he tell you not to tell me?”“I’m sorry buddy,” she says quietly. “It’s not about you or us, he wants to be alone.” Through the holes in the box I can see her heels and the shins of her leather pants. “I’ve known him since he was a boy,” she says. “I loved him, very much, before I met Alfred.”“Alfred. The old guy, with the tank?” “Gary says he doesn’t know if you’ll want to stay, if he is gone.”I don’t say anything.“Gary wanted me to read you something. Okay?”“Okay.”“Dear Buddy,” she reads. “I’ve known a handful of Gimps in my time and not ever have I felt as strongly for one as I do for you. I know you are a gentle man under all the smoke and mirrors, and I like that man. I know you hate the thought of yourself alone in the gimp box. But buddy, the sufferer is the liver of life, experiencing life as it is. The hedonist only ever searches for life. To live with suffering and worry is a learned skill like any other, to forgive is a learned skill too. And there is forgiveness in the box buddy. I found it in there. We live in a nightmare world buddy, but there’s a white beach somewhere with your name spelled out in its sands.”Carol folds the note. “You know I can’t do the shit Gary does.”“I know, we need to expand your capabilities.”“I don’t know about being in this fucken box alone.”“I know. I’m scared too. I’m scared of you. You’re a fearful creature. I want to do this though, if we can. I need to. Can I rely on you?”“I don’t know.”“Gary says I can,” she says.I can’t answer for what Gary says. I can’t say if Gary is right or wrong, all I can say is only Gary would say that.Carol tells me that she has done a deal with the farmer from Nacogdoches where we don’t have to pay his dental bill but...he wants to come back, with two Texan friends. For what she is calling a forgiveness session. “Is that something you could handle?”“I don’t know.”“It avoids any legal consequences.” “He looks like a guy I know. A guy I do not like.”“I’ll help you.” “Okay.”“Okay? Okay. I’m locking the box now buddy.” She’s had new hinges put onto the Gimp box with 40 mill screws. There will be no breaking them. I already miss Gary. I don’t want Gary to die. I don’t care about the Texans or the whips or the choking. What scares me is what is in this box.She locks the Gimp box and her heels click across the floor and the dungeon door locks. And what is in front of me is pure darkness and the questions that this darkness brings.“White sand,” I say. White sand.
Everything is fucked up, okay? Ask us what’s fucked up and if there was a gesture to gesture toward all of it, that would be the gesture we’d make. This deep, deep fucked upedness – which is also a wide, wide fucked upedness – means a lot of things. Geopolitical things. Authoritarian things. Environmental things. Toxic things.And you know what? We’re tired. And we’re guessing you are, too. And we’re just going to assume if you’re reading this that we’re all tired because we’re all doing our best fighting the good fight, doing what we gotta do, helping how we can help, protecting what we gotta protect.But at least the new Toxic Avenger movie is finally almost out, because as a reward for dealing with all the fucked upedness as best we can, we all deserve a little treat. And the treat we deserve is a remake of a low-budget horror comedy from the 80s about a twerpy, mop-wielding loser who is transformed into a hero by exposure to toxic sludge (aka the type of thing giant corporations describe to their shareholders as externalized risk). And that hero, of course, is Toxie, the ass-kicking superhuman mutant who defends the citizens of Tromaville, New Jersey from fascist thugs and corrupt politicians.Now it’s only fair that, while waiting for this treat you deserve, you reward yourself for doing such an outstanding job of waiting so patiently with – you guessed it – MORE TREATS. And the treats you deserve for so outstandingly waiting patiently are books.And the specific books you deserve are these, according to us (in no particular order):Behind Every Tree, Beneath Every Rock by Michael Tichy (Castaigne Press, 74 pages)Tichy’s kickass nature’s revenge novella answers the question, what if the Toxie and Treebeard had a baby, and that baby slaughters neo-Nazis.Maggots Screaming! by Max Booth III (Ghoulish Books, 342 pages)A father son duo find corpse copies of themselves in the backyard and decide to watch The Simpsons together, typical Texas activities! Max goes into every detail of decomposition and it's an absolute blast.Ghosts of East Baltimore by David Simmons (Broken River Books, 189 pages)John Dies At The End meets The Wire. David Simmons’ unique voice tells a deeply weird and extremely fun story in this horror novel that winds through the grittiest and grimiest corners of Baltimore where occult addictions and mechanized villains rule.My Dog Shits Cash by Luke Kondor (Bod Dot Press, 208 pages)We adore Luke's writing and we will shout about it from the rooftops. They're incredibly fast reads, that perfect Bizarro blend of absurdism, gore and humor. The latter half of this gets WILD.Transmuted by Eve Harms (Unnerving, 113 pages)Queer stories by queer writers! A back alley style gender affirming surgery goes haywire for our protag Isa in a big way. Eve’s descriptions are delicious.Lars Breaxface, Werewolf in Space by Brandon (Spaceboy Books, 320 pages) It's stupid fun riding along with badboy space werewolf Lars and his gang of misfits through the galaxy, causing mayhem and escaping from some of the most fucked up space enemies ever, including a variety of killer dildos. This book has a one-star Goodreads review that reads, “DNF - so ridiculously crude” and a five-star Goodreads review that reads, “So ridiculously crude I finished twice.”Slices: Tales of Bizarro and Absurdist Horror by Scott Cole (Black T-Shirt Books, 160 pages)Round out your toxie reading with a collection! The weird has its roots in short stories, and Cole is a master of hooking you from the first page. Huge variety here, so there's something for everyone.Bullet Tooth by Grant Wamack (Broken River Books, 164 pages)A VHS-entombed demon awakens and wreaks havoc on the streets of Chicago, manipulating people around a student artist named Caleb and stoking beefs to fuel gang violence and feed on the ensuring death. This is literary B-movie horror with a message that hits its targets dead on.Witch Piss by Sam Pink (134 pages)Sam Pink’s signature deadpan absurdist lens on everyday life turns the experience of hanging out with neighborhood oddballs into a series of strange adventures. Another Chicago story, the abandoned buildings and dead-end streets set the stage of this side-splittingly hilarious book where Pink’s reveling in bad taste and broken dreams calls to mind some of Troma’s best (worst?). The Nothing That Is by Kyle Winkler (179 pages)A broke-as-hell employee of a small town catering business versus a cosmic manifestation of demonic greed. Love a likeable loser turned working class hero!Coyote by Max Restaino (Amphetamine Sulphate, 69 pages)A grim and grimy love letter to the forbidden horrors and pleasures of cult VHS gems, Coyote legit feels like a cursed and grainy lo-fi nightmare.Chaindevils by Matthew Mitchell (Weirdpunk Books, 128 pages)A propulsive post-apocalyptic splatterfest where meth addict warriors terrorize the post-apocalyptic countryside and wage chainsaw-powered war against all manner of menacing mutants. And there’s lust and love and a blood red anti-authoritarian streak running through it too! And finally, here are our shameless plugs for each other’s books, which we both genuinely love and which absolutely belong on this list:Inside-Out by Lor Gislason (DarkLit Press, 86 pages)Gislason’s debut novella gushes with lo-fi gore and goo. But don’t mistake Inside Out for nihilistic ultra-violence – the sympathetic characters and relatable emotional arcs make this not just gross, but fun. Is cozy body horror a thing? It is now.Skull Slime Tentacle Witch War by Rick Claypool (Anxiety Press, 298 pages)I'm in awe that Rick can make a story featuring a guy who pukes knives pull at my heartstrings. It's such a “this is what writing’s all about” inspiration. Live your best goopy life!So… yeah. It's easy to get lost in futility when the world is this fucked up on the regular. But that just makes the little moments of joy and weirdness even more important to hold on to. Watch a stupid movie. Read a demented book book. Tell your friend a bad joke. And take it one day at a time.
On some days, you’re a ghost to your own body. Some mornings, your bones feel borrowed. Never been yours. Just something you’re renting till it all breaks down. You lie still and feel every joint light up like someone lit a match inside your marrow.
***
It’s 4:27 am and you’re staring at your laptop, trying to write a suicide note that sounds less dramatic than it is.All you’ve got so far is, I am tired.Three words. Nothing more. You backspace it and watch the cursor blink like it’s judging you. It’s the only thing in this room that has energy left. Your chest feels like it’s being stomped on from the inside, but you’re used to that.That’s the thing about sickle cell anaemia. It doesn’t kill you quick. It just… makes life a battle to survive. One crisis at a time. You were born on a rainy Friday in Accra. Your mother still says your scream sounded like broken notes on a piano. You spent the first two weeks in an incubator while your father paced the hospital halls, Bible in one hand, borrowed money in the other and watched for miracle. You almost died three times before you could crawl.By age 6, you knew the word “crisis” better than your own name.At 10, you learned to fake smiles in class when your fingers swelled like fat sausages and your spine throbbed like it had been crashed. Teachers called you lazy. Friends called you weak. You learned how to laugh it off.At 12, you wrote your first story. It was about a boy who turned his pain into fire and burned down everything that hurt him. You showed it to your English teacher. She said, “This is very… interesting.” She never brought it up again.Now you’re 25. A writer. Or at least you try to be.You’ve submitted stories to every online magazine. Most people never reply. The few that do send the same line, Your work is interesting but doesn’t quite fit our current needs. Or the usual, unfortunately we must pass it down.You used to believe that meant try again, edit the story and submit a better one. Now you just delete the emails without reading.One time, an editor told you, “Your writing’s too dark. Can you maybe add more hope? Readers like a little light at the end of the tunnel.”You wanted to ask her if she’s ever spent three nights awake trying not to scream because your bones were fighting each other. There’s nothing like hope in your journal. Just pain. Your friends say they love you.But they also say things like, “So, what triggers your sickle cell? Like… if you drink too much or what?”“Do you think you’ll live to 40? Have you thought about kids? I mean… would that even be fair?”Sometimes they say nothing at all when you tell them about the bad nights. They just drop emojis.A friend once said, “But at least you get to stay home and write, right?”Right. Stay home and bleed without screaming. Stay home and count your red blood cells like coins in a dying piggy bank. Stay home and write stories no one publishes and even if published, no one really reads. You want to die. You were more than tired. You just hate being the only one in your body who knows how much this hurts.You’ve thought about everything: Overdosing (you’re already halfway there with the meds anyway), slitting your wrist (but that might take too long, and you hate mess), hanging (but there’s no beam in your room that looks strong enough) and sometimes you think you’ll just will it. Just lie here and tell your heart, you can stop now. Just go.Last week, your old crush Dufie texted out of nowhere.“Hey stranger. Was just thinking of you. You, okay?”You stared at the message for two hours. Typed “yeah, all good” and deleted it.You almost told her.Almost said, “I wake up and it feels like my skeleton wants to escape.”“I haven’t written in weeks because my hands don’t always obey anymore.”“I think I’m losing the war in my body.”But you didn’t. Because Dufie likes pretty things. And you’re not one of them. You’ve never been attractive.The sun’s starting to argue with the horizon. The pain has reduced but your hands still shake. You start typing again.I’m tired. But I’m here. And I wrote this. That must count for something.You save it as a draft. Just in case you wake up tomorrow. You have a half-finished novel on your desktop called Sinking Life. It’s about a sick boy who becomes a famous writer and dies before his first book is published. You wonder if maybe you should finish it before you go. Or maybe leave it half-done. Let someone else write the ending.
***
It’s 4:48 am now.Your parents prayed for ten years to have you. Ten long, fasting, and all-night vigil years. Anointing oil on their foreheads every Sunday, candle wax melting into prayer mats, womb soaked in prophecy and mouths sipping holy water. Your mother nearly died giving birth, and your father named you, Nhyira — blessing.The irony doesn’t escape you. You were supposed to be a miracle. Instead, you became a calculation. A schedule. A lifelong stress no one clocks out of.“Don’t sleep without a blanket.”“Did you drink water?”“Take your folic acid.”“Have you eaten?”“Don’t strain yourself, remember your blood.”Every phone call is surveillance. Every visit feels like a check-up. Every hug is full of fear.You started noticing it in their eyes by the time you were fifteen. The look that says, if anything happens to you, we’ll die too. You became the air they breathed and the choking in their throats.Your father still tells people, “My son is a writer.”He doesn’t mention you haven’t published a single book. That you’re rejected more than you’re read. That you spend most of your days in a dark room, writing paragraphs you delete an hour later.Your mother is worse. She sends you Bible verses every morning. Sometimes five in a row. Psalm 118:17 is her favorite, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”You don’t have the heart to tell her that just surviving doesn’t feel like living. And the good works is the death you keep waiting for to come. You tried, though. God knows you did.
***
You enrolled at the University of Ghana, studied English, made few friends and got good grades. Interned at a radio station. Had hope. Had plans. But pain doesn’t respect dreams. And crisis doesn’t care about deadlines.By your third year, you missed too many lectures. Couldn’t walk some days. Couldn’t even speak some nights. You almost died in a hostel room surrounded by empty ORS sachets and paracetamol drug to subside the pain. Your father drove from Tema at midnight. You could tell he wanted to be angry. He wanted to ask why didn’t you call sooner?But he just held your hand and said, “You’re all we have.”And that’s what broke you. So, you moved out.Rented a tiny single room in Dome. Far enough that your mother can’t drop in unannounced. Close enough that your father can still send Jollof with the delivery guy. They didn’t understand it. Your mother cried for a week. Your father just said, “At least let someone stay with you.”You said no. You didn’t want a nurse. Or a cousin. Or a caretaker. You just wanted yourself. And a space where you could fall apart without making someone else bleed. You told them it was for your writing. But really, it was because you couldn’t bear to see them wait for you to die.Some days you wonder if your mother regrets praying for you. If she watches you limp into the living room and thinks, maybe it would’ve been easier if we never had him.You try not to think like that. But the thoughts come anyway.You are their answered prayer and their curse. You’ve tried to write about it before.A story about a woman who gets her miracle child and then loses her mind caring for him. You submitted it to a magazine in Nigeria. The editor replied, “This feels too personal. Too bloated. Can you give it up with some humor?”You laughed until you almost coughed blood.
***
It’s 5:02 am now.You hear the muezzin call for prayer from the mosque across the street. A rooster screams behind your window. Your joints feel like they’ve been replaced with rusted bolts. You haven’t slept.You open your WhatsApp. Your mother has already sent you Psalm 118:17 again. You type, “Morning, Ma. I’m okay.”You delete, “I’m okay.”You type, “I’m still here.” Then you put your phone down.You hoped your mother wouldn’t reply instantly. Because if she did, it would be another trap. Another invitation disguised as concern.“You should come to church. The Legon Interdenominational.”“The drama group needs someone like you to write their plays.”You never told her that your heart has been dry for years. That the ink she sees in your stories is mostly pain. You don’t believe in miracles anymore. The first and only time you went to the church, you sat rigid (as if you were imprisoned) in the back row, counting ceiling fans and exit signs. The choir sang and you wished to be a part of them. But you weren’t about to stand up there and sing to a God who hasn’t even blinked in your direction. The same God who lets you scream into your pillow night after night and never sends even a squeak back.You can’t write for a drama group when you’re living in one. And the script? It’s just hurt on repeat.The fan keeps spinning. The cursor keeps blinking.You close the suicide note; you’ve not changed your mind. You just want to finish one more story first. A second chance to live for few minutes.
Name:You almost write his surname in place of your own, a knee jerk response. You slap the mosquito that has landed on the back of your neck to feed. Upon assuming his name, you forgot your own. You grapple with the correct spelling. The vowels squish uncertainly inside your head, the consonants bumping awkwardly like soup dumplings. But this should be the least of your concerns. After so long together, your name isn’t the only possession you’ve left behind.Reason for moving:You can make something up here. It will be simpler. A barbecue fire that got out of control, a raccoon infestation, or neighbors who practiced with their heavy metal band. But surely that’s ridiculous. No one listens to heavy metal anymore. You chew the end of the pen even though it’s plastic and you leave mouse-like teeth marks like the others before you. You finally write something blasé, like work commute. You won’t say the truth because who does. You won’t give him the satisfaction.How long do you want to rent the property for: The last time you moved, it was into a home of your own. You felt grown-up and financially intelligent as you signed the mortgage papers. You took photos holding hands in front of the house. Look at her, look at him. So young yet so responsible. What great taste they have. There was a city skyline view from your kitchen window. You bought knitted placemats together. You invited people over for rosé and tartlets on the deck you built. You were proud. And then later just embarrassed. Look at her. She put so much into that house, just to lose it.Do you have any pets: You got a rabbit during lockdown. As a bunny it was adorable, cartoon-like with its gigantic floppy ears. But the bigger it became, the more it bit, tearing the flesh from your fingers every time you proffered carrot sticks. He watched and snickered when you flinched in pain, enjoying the punishment. Well, you wanted a pet, didn’t you. You brought this on yourself. When the rabbit escaped, you crawled in the dirt on your hands and knees for hours, while he only half-heartedly scanned the rose bushes. You always wondered how the rabbit managed to open the cage door all by itself.Do you have any references: You had friends, before. You were even described as ‘friendly’, on one or two occasions. But when you left his circle, few reached out. When former acquaintances bumped into you, they contracted sudden and debilitating prosopagnosia. They immediately forgot about your existence, as though you only existed in a specific storyline of their invention, in a universe where you were not an individual but a couple. Maybe you should have gone to that pottery workshop and made friends of your own. Instead you relied on him for social sustenance. Now look at you, reluctantly providing the number of an elderly neighbor who once called you ‘a nice young lady’. You don’t know if she will remember you, or if she’s even still alive to answer the phone.Do you have any children:He could never comprehend why you didn’t want to bear his offspring. Come on, now. They would be practically genetic superhumans—with his creative wizardry, his culinary accomplishments, his knife-sharpening skills, his cutting-edge assessment of your flaws. And you…Well, you were strong, built for carrying heavy burdens. Remember that time you pushed the car all the way up the hill? Actually, you can’t remember his exact words. Instead you spent too much time wondering if that was all you truly provided—a sturdy pair of arms and legs, like a well-made table or a shoe cabinet.Have you ever been evicted:You wonder if it counts to be thrown out of your own house. Not physically, he never used his hands. His words were sufficiently sharp enough to peel the skin from your resolve, to fillet the soft and secret parts of your body and turn it into a dish of his choosing; a serving of perfectly seared offal. Your charred innards displayed on a hot plate for all the neighbors to see. You carried your own boxes of possessions to your car because remember, you were strong. You were made for this. At least in the physical sense. Why should we rent to you:You list all the appetizing traits you think they want to hear: you are clean and tidy, you are quiet. Except the inside of your head feels like a burgled home, littered with the debris of your poor choices. You don’t feel like picking up the broken glass or wiping the puddles of your own blood. You fester in the same pair of pumpkin-patterned pajamas. You eat ice cream wriggling with worms. Nobody pays attention to your outbursts of sorrow and rage, or if they do, they politely turn up the television volume. You try to circle back to what you were like before him. You were a good listener. You were kind. Weren’t you? You had slick ironing skills. You could iron wrinkles out of the wrinkliest clothes.Thanks! We’ll get back to you ASAP!Slowly, eventually, you emerge from within yourself and wash your decrepit body and brush your foul mouth. You put on that dress you loved but hid away, that grasshopper-green one he called unflattering. You eat something extraordinarily carbfull. You finally call your sister back, because someone still gives a shit about you. You start to rediscover who you were once and what you liked doing and new cool things, too, like cutting up the socks you stole from his drawer with giant scissors. Then you pick up the key to your new apartment and your boxes are still heavy but you’re strong, remember? Look at you. You can do hard things, even when it sucks.
He was known as the best guitar player in the United States.Maybe the world.I didn’t know; I’d never met him.Luke. I had friends who knew him, had seen him play in the French Quarter, or they themselves had jammed with him in one of those hill houses in San Francisco when he was part-timing as a tour guide in Ghirardelli Square.They attested to his skill. His virtuosity.The word “singularity” was used.“Heaven sent,” got thrown around. I was told outside a restaurant that there was a girl in Morocco who was “nearly his equal.”Close in skill. But not better. “It was like watching a new element be created,” said my friend whose band had once opened for Luke at a club in DC, in some little dark bar down a long bright alley in Dupont Circle, where my friend said you could be almost-homeless and eat falafel and mujaddara indefinitely, sleep legally in the park with a blanket and pillow, and somehow see the Washington Monument over the tops of the Magnolia trees, all without the cops hassling you. “Isn’t that America?” my friend said. I pretended to scroll on my phone when he told me these things, and, honestly, stopped inviting that friend over for garden beers because he threw his bottlecaps in the peat soil, which upset the other occupants of my tri-plex—all of whom worked in the garden in the hot part of June and all of whom felt that my friend didn’t respect the effort that went into their dirt work. What surprised me.What really hurt.Was on a less hot day that same June, the new and wonderful girl I’d started dating said she knew Luke. She said they used to hang a bit. A little bit. For a time. She confirmed his irradiant brilliance and said his name only once during our conversation. Just one time. But it was enough to make my eyes tighten, my hands go cold, and my heart––hidden beneath a lidocaine patch because I’d pulled something in my chest while attempting to turn ground in the carrot bed––race with a sense of approaching, or possibly arrived danger. "He played a twelve-string Stratocaster made of driftwood and stolen car parts," she said one night while we lay close but untouching. “It sounded like God getting over something.”Later, she said she could never really pin him down, that he was charming but chaotic. And that she now valued stability and emotional awareness in a partner over all things. Excitement. Spontaneity. Carnal attraction. She told me the end wasn’t bad with Luke.No. He just ran off somewhere absurd like Finland or West Oakland.It was fine.Probably for the best.And she said all this like it would comfort me. Which.It didn’t, of course. No. And neither did her story about the last time she saw him, barefoot in a parking lot, playing "Blackbird" in reverse, which caused the nearby starlings and roof pigeons to fly in strange new ways, which then caused more than a few midair collisions.“He could twist time a little,” she said. “Even the birds got lost.”I laughed because it felt like The Move. But she didn’t laugh back. No. She just looked out the window like the air might still have something he made in it.Time passed from there. Big fat time.In which: I ricocheted off something on my way to work, broke my bike, rebuilt it, planted squash too early, spinach too late, tried a joke I brought with me from California, watched the joke die in a meeting, had another meeting, wherein I pitched Activision a game where all the crops had died and we need to sell-off the farm equipment, the harvester, balers and dozers, the silos and snow movers, the endless braid of irrigation sprinklers that roll over the cornstalk, had everyone in the boardroom staring until I said I had other ideas too, had no other ideas, none, but to make it all better my caring girlfriend had made me my favorite dinner using a newer and healthier and much-raved about recipe on a night when I needed her the most, and needed everything to be old in a non-new way, but she insisted on change. Small change. But still, change. And I wanted to tell her.I wanted to say. That I shoved someone into a wall once.When I was seventeen. My girlfriend. Who’d made me so angry. And I was sorry, but it didn’t matter.And that this wasn’t like that.No.But it wasn’t not like that entirely either. No. She kept Luke’s pick in a velvet pouch in her purse. I found it when she asked me to grab her lipstick. It had teeth marks on the edge like something half-animal had gotten to it. It was a ravaged thing. “Did you love him?” I asked one morning, finally brave.She blinked slow, like it was a question she hadn’t heard in a while. Then she shut her eyes and prayed for a car accident.A bang.Something loud, possibly outside or down the street––something to break up the moment. It didn’t come, so we stayed quiet at the table.After. I learned the bass just to keep up.Joined a band that practiced on Tuesdays and sometimes Sunday but never performed. I wrote her a song.She said it was sweet but asked if it could be more truthful or more honest.Or more of both those things. Then. One night.Months after we stopped talking.I heard this strange music outside my window. Something like thunder politely arguing with itself. Or airplanes kissing. Or mad earth. I went out in my boxers.I went into the garden. And there he was: a shape against the streetlight. Playing something that made me listen. He didn’t look up. No. Just played.And played.Until my body became like a water balloon that he was in charge of. Then.He ended his song. And removed his capo from the 4th fret and dropped it into his proud bindle. He dipped his head to the late night applause: the clapping of the maple leaves and the yard dogs barking rowdily with delight. His long, untamed hair––which held more gray than I’d imagined for a man who I understood to be three years younger than myself––dangled calmly in the dark. He looked like one of the men who fished for trout off the top of the overpass. Or.Like one of those simple types who worked the factories off Hasting Street, stamping out hubcaps and tailgates, hood ornaments and passenger-side doors.He shrugged his shoulders and cracked his neck. With his guitar slung over his back he suddenly looked very obvious. Very normal. Like a normal person.The kind you stand behind in line when waiting to order something. His t-shirt holey and threadbare. Like a rag you’d use to plug a wound or wipe your dog’s paws with.He didn’t look at me.Not really. I was hiding in the garden between the hollyhocks I’d planted and let die. But I could see him. Luke. His eyes: blue, white, housed and brilliant in the almost midnight of my late street. He stood for another moment.Then another moment. And then.Then.He wiped his nose against the collar of his shirt. And he was gone.
***
I called her the next morning and said, “I think I saw him.”And she didn’t ask who. And she didn’t ask how.No.She just whispered, “Yeah.” And then.“He does that.”
I work part-time at a dry cleaners, but I’m mostly known for posting cute videos of otters that make people smile. Most people thank me for my work by liking and sharing my videos but some people, like two or three a month, ask me to post videos of otters having sex. When I tell them I don’t post lewd otter content, these people usually say mean things about my penis. For instance, how it’s microscopic. Or how it’s bent like a Russian sickle. Or how it smells like pot roast. If I could brush these comments off I would, but sometimes they really mess with my head and I have to take off my pants and double check my penis is not a tiny pot roast scented sickle.Yesterday I was in the bedroom and my girlfriend, Shelly, caught me trying to get my nose near my penis.“Jesus Christ,” she said. “It doesn’t smell like pot roast, it smells like pennies.”Shelly and I have been together for almost two years, but our relationship hasn’t been going very well lately. Shelly used to work as a bank teller and in her free time she would post cute pics and videos of tigers for the entire world to enjoy, but there were some people, like fifty or sixty every day, who begged to see her naked. For a long time she said no way, but these people were relentless and a week ago she said fine, as long as you pay me $79.99 a month.
***
Today I took a break from otter posting and stood outside Shelly’s office. Her door was shut, but I could hear her chatting with someone named Lawrence. I heard some sultry whispering and then some sexy giggling. Then I heard a bikini top being unstrung and tossed erotically onto the floor. You may wonder how I know what a bikini top landing erotically on hardwood sounds like through a closed door, but like most people I have incredible hearing when I’m super jealous. After her session ended, I knocked on her door. Shelly answered it wearing a tightly cinched robe.“When are you going back to posting tigers?” I asked.“Probably never,” she said.I could tell Shelly was annoyed I’d interrupted her again. Since she’d started her new job, I’d been interrupting her about twenty times a day to tell her how much I loved her or to tell her how beautiful she was.“People really loved your tigers,” I told her.“My tits are my tigers now,” Shelly said, tightening her robe and closing the door.
***
I hadn’t taken Shelly on any dates lately because I was saving up all my money for my leg un-lengthening surgery. I’d gotten leg lengthening surgery a year ago because Shelly wanted to wear heels without towering over me. The surgeons snapped my leg bones and screwed in some titanium rods and after my femurs fused back together I was three inches taller. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago, Shelly got drunk and admitted she loved me more when I was shorter.“I’m sorry,” she said, “but your old personality and your new height just don’t match.”I remembered how when I’d woken up from my original leg lengthening surgery, Shelly and my parents were all standing by the side of my hospital bed. I was pretty out of it, so instead of thanking them for being there, I asked my parents why when I was young and they wanted to have sex my dad threw seventy five cents out into the lawn and told me not to come back inside until I found a dollar.“Jesus Christ,” my dad said, “this again?”Fine, I’d brought this topic up a couple of times before, okay maybe like every time I saw my parents I said something about it, and sure, sure the last time I’d brought it up I had compared the quarters in the lawn to less shiny and less valuable blood diamonds which had made my mom cry because she was really against blood diamonds.“You threw those quarters into the lawn like twice a day,” I said. “Sometimes it was freezing out and that one time I got bit by those fire ants.”“Everyone in our neighborhood did that,” my mom said. “Even Pastor Curt’s kids were out there searching for quarters in their lawn.”“It was bad parenting,” I said. “It was an absolute betrayal of trust.”
***
My blood pressure was rising and my heart monitor started beeping faster and faster. Shelly knew where this was headed, so she pressed the button that controlled my pain medicine about 10 times and I drifted off to sleep before things got any more heated.
***
I met up with my friend Calvin for brunch. I told him how Shelly and I were going through a rough patch. Calvin had been against my original leg lengthening surgery and now he was really against my leg unlengthening surgery.“Your body is a unique tapestry and altering it to fit someone else’s desires is totally fucked,” he said.“Of course,” I told him, “but there’s also nothing in the world that says I love you more than having incredibly painful elective surgery. Everyone knows that it works way better than having a baby to save a relationship.”I told Calvin how I’d bought a wig and some sunglasses and a fake mustache and paid for an individual session with Shelly for later that week.“That’s a horrible idea,” he said.“Maybe what she’s doing isn’t as bad as I think,” I told him. “Maybe it is super innocent. Maybe I’ve got nothing to worry about.”“Maybe what she’s doing is way way worse than you’re imagining,” he told me.
***
I had my session with Shelly later that week. I knew I couldn’t be at our house, so I drove over to the grocery store parking lot and put on my disguise.Shelly came on screen, smiling, wearing a tiger print bikini. Unfortunately I had not cleaned out the back window of my car and all the otter stuffed animals I kept there were visible to her.“Ughh,” she said. “Take off the fucking wig and the stupid mustache. I know it’s you.”“I was just curious what you were doing,” I told her. “I just wanted to talk.”“We’ve talked enough,” she said. “I can’t do this anymore.”I started to plead with her, but she clicked off the session and my screen went black.
***
I drove around for a while and when I got home I saw Shelly had chucked some of my things out onto our yard. I gathered all my clothes and books and threw them into my backseat. Then I sat there in my car and cried while I watched all my favorite otter videos, otters swimming around and splashing each other, otters juggling rocks on their chests, otters chowing down on sardines. When I stopped sobbing, I drove over to my parent’s house to see if I could crash there.When I got there I found my two nephews, Kaden and Karl, on their hands and knees, crawling around in my parent’s lawn.“Grandpa threw five bucks into the grass and told us not to come in until we found it,” Kaden told me.While I stood there Kaden found a quarter, held it up to his brother.“Sweet,” Karl said.The two of them were laughing, they looked happy. I looked at my car, filled with all my belongings and then I got down on my hands and knees and helped them search.
