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NEIGHBORS by Will Cordeiro

May 12, 2020

It was an in-service day at school, and the bus dropped me off at home three hours earlier than usual. The doors were locked. The extra key was gone. I tried to wedge a screen-window open. The neighbor saw me trying to break into my house. He invited me over. Reluctantly, I said okay.

My neighbor had me sit on a big velvet chair and handed me some chocolate milk and a plate of vanilla wafers. After I’d eaten them, he said he wanted to show me something. He opened a door to what looked like a closet. He entered a narrow vestibule, a corridor of some sort. He waved back at me. I followed him along the length of a gently sloping hallway by focusing on the bald spot at the top of his head. Otherwise, he almost vanished down in the darkness. Just when I thought I’d lost him, a light snapped on; a row of glass cases glared back at me.

I was blinded, squinted, stared while grimacing at distorted faces half dissolved in the sterile halogen radiance—at my own face multiplied and floating in the mirroring glass until my eyes adjusted. “My collection,” he said, sweeping an open palm around the room.

He had been living in the house next door for as long as anyone remembered. My father rarely exchanged more than a couple words with him, though. My father distrusted most people, especially after mother died. Consequently, I didn’t know my neighbor’s name.

“What do you think?” the man asked, smiling. He ran his fingers through a wispy tuft of hair, pushing it over his bald spot. He leaned in toward me, and his eyes disappeared behind the milky luster reflected in his pinched-looking wireframes. He breathed out an odor of sourdough and ripe mayonnaise.

I concentrated on my environment: on the gallery-white walls, on the close musty air. I turned to gaze at the surrounding cases. Inside them, I could now see, were little mousetraps of every description, coil-loaded ones and glue traps and ones that captured the rodent alive. Strangest of all, each one was baited with cheese or peanut-butter, set and ready to spring at any moment.

Disoriented as I was, I suspected I must be standing directly beneath my own house. In fact, underneath my own room, if my sense of direction could be trusted. I heard footfalls, muffled shouts from above. I thought I heard my pull-string robot, its voice repeating, There’s a snake in my boot! Someone’s poisoned the waterhole. Reach for the sky!

ANOTHER ROAD TRIP STORY by DS Levy

May 11, 2020

Two months ago, after flirting with a handsome Ojibwa who poured stiff Margaritinas, Fonda tottered over to the slots and maxed out her credit card, setting her back two grand. Which is why, heading south on I-31 after an afternoon wine-tasting in Traverse City, I’m surprised when she tells us from the back seat that her inner voice just whispered: Twenty bucks will move your spirit toward prosperity.

Since her heart bypass last year, Fonda’s been on speaking terms with her gut. “You know that ‘feeling?’” she says. “Well, I’m finally listening.”

“Did your gut mention how long you’ll have to play?” Bets wants to know. “’Cause I can’t afford to call in sick tomorrow.”

“Twenty bucks,” Fonda promises.

***

The giant marquee in front of the Little River Casino & Resort advertises “Only Tonight! Bitty KISS!” Bitty looks exactly like Gene Simmons—shiny black Brillo pad of hair, dark sunglasses, plumped up lips—except he and his sidekicks are little people.

“Could be interesting,” Bets says, snapping her gum. She and I can’t afford to gamble. We like to joke that our monthly Social Security checks barely cover our ass-ettes. Sure, Bets works part-time at Lowe’s “making do,” and I get a chunk of my husband’s life insurance, but still, we’re pinching retirement pennies.

Fonda can’t afford to gamble either, but she doesn’t let that stop her. She’s been on disability for twenty years since she and her former boyfriend, who turned out to be “another manic phase,” dumped his Harley in the UP. She’s got a steal rod in her thigh, but it doesn’t interfere with her pulling the one-armed bandits.

Fonda walks ten steps ahead of us, the smell of easy money and cafeteria grease wafting through the electronic doors along with a gush of stale AC. For her, this Neon Oz with binkety-dinkety computerized sirens is her idea of heaven, enough buzz and bling to seduce the most tone-deaf sinner. After she pays to play, she waves adios amigas and wanders across the casino looking for a hot machine with a cushy seat.

Bets and I wander off, weaving around gamblers with fanny packs and credit cards tethered to lanyards, dependable oxygen tanks pushed aside. Though penny-pinchers, we’re not above being hypocrites and agree to splurge on All-You-Can-Eat Crab Legs and Prime Rib buffet for $29.99. But before we track the scent, we pass a dark, quiet bar. We’re on our third snake bites, watching a big-screen of the floor, when all hell breaks loose. Lights flash, bells ring. Someone’s hit the Big One.

“Come on,” says Bets.

We slither off our stools and stumble out onto the floor where a crowd has gathered.

A guy shouts, “It’s letting go of 300 grand!”

“Quick, what do you call a group of gamblers watching someone hit a jackpot?” a grizzled guy with a leather Hell’s Angels vest asks me. Before I can guess, he answers, “Jealous.”

An old man with a flannel shirt scratches his gray beard. “Man, I just played that machine.”

Bets and I pray that when folks part like the Red Sea it’ll be Fonda sitting there in a stream of gold coins. She’s been struggling to pay her monthly trailer rent and has hinted she might get bounced soon.

But when we push through the gawkers, all we see is a dazed gambler with outstretched hands, coins spilling out of an ecstatic machine into an overflowing plastic pail, a strobe light flickering, rapturing the winner to the Almighty Slot Machine in the Sky. And when the winner turns around, she has pink bangs and an “I Went to Vegas and This Is All I Got” T-shirt—definitely not Fonda.

***

We find our Fonda in the snack lounge with a chocolate soft-serve ice cream cone. Turns out she blew ten dollars before her gut spoke up, told her she was wasting her time and money, and that it was hungry. She stares at the overhead flat-screen TVs—kickboxing, Canadian curling, the World Poker Tour. A skinny guy on one screen jumps up and kicks his opponent square in the jaw.

“These slots are so tight,” Fonda says, “they squeak.”

Bets asks her if she’s seen the handsome Ojibwa bartender. Fonda shakes her head. “Has the night off.”

***

On our way out, we pass the crowded auditorium where the Bitty KISS concert is just getting started.

“C’mon,” I say. “We’re so late, we’ve got plenty of time.”

Bitty and his band come on stage. Not only does he sing, he raps and thrusts out his red salamander tongue. If he wasn’t so darn cute—if you could imagine him taller—he could almost pass for the real deal.

There’s only a handful of people in the crowd, so we move down to the front row and watch as Bitty dances over to the edge of the stage singing “I Was Made for Loving You.” He bends down and stretches out his tiny hand. Bets reaches out, and he starts singing to her. Up close, under the lights, he looks 110-years-old.

I stare. It’s wrong to stare. Yet it feels wrong not to. Bitty pumps his bulbous fists, spits into the hot mic, thrusts his bantam hips.

When the song’s over, I poke Bets and Fonda: “Taxi’s leaving.”

***

We stroll past indoor ponds with fake lily pads, our ears thrumming from the music. Outside, a silent gray dawn is just starting its show.

Fonda and Bets worry I’ll fall asleep driving and make a big deal about keeping me awake. But as soon as we hit the road, they’re both out, heads slung back, snoring.

Wide awake, I keep thinking about Bitty. How we all sang along, our mouths moving without our hearts’ concern. I feel bad I watched the show with the same enthusiasm I’d watch a car wreck. The whole evening seemed strained—Bets and I tossing back shots, Fonda wanting so damn bad for those machines to cough out cash. This is our life now, I think. Holy hell.

I scan the highway. Up here, if it’s not suicidal venison, it’s crazy wolves or raucous raccoons.

We’ve got the road to ourselves. If I push it a little, we should make it back in time so Bets can get to her job at Walmart.

This retired life. It’s having time without money, or money without time. It’s watching days fly by like the birch and fir trees along this highway. It’s friendship and sadness and what-ifs and maybe-nots and who-knows. It’s a bad poker hand on a hot table, or a cold slot machine that suddenly sizzles.

Up ahead, three sets of green eyes glow from the dark forest. I slow down, not because I my gut says I should, but because I know how it feels to be hit hard.

HUNGER by Tyler Dempsey

May 10, 2020

Robbed.

The ski-masked man squeezed my biceps.

“Easy,” I said.

He went, “Get in, fucks,” and nodded toward a black SUV, gun under Eddie’s throat. “Don’t even think about it.”

Eddie called shotgun.

That was yesterday.

Eddie’s my roommate. I’m 34. Too old for a roommate.

I fucked up.

Eddie’s on the couch. You could say “living” there. Old vomit, pink—like brain blended with Monster energy drink—arced but didn’t clear the cushions. My cat’s purring caked in matter needing chemicals to remove.

Ed’s stomach jiggles from a tank top. A hairy muffin hidden for later. Pink on his cheek, he loads a pipe with drugs.

“You know. We’re broke. After the robbery. Where’d you get this? Sure, thanks. Robbed. Never thought you’d be here is the thing. The couch needs cleaned. Maybe you could get off a few months? Actually, I’m selling it. Do you like cats?”

He “salvaged” what we’re smoking from the cushions, he says, as if defending it. It vaguely resembles something I smoked a week ago.

“I have an idea.”

“If it’s moving out, to a shelter or a new house, I’m ears.”

“I’m hungry.”

I look at his cheek.

“I’m listening.”

“Saw this movie. Guys burglarize a neighborhood, taking only shit they find in freezers. Like ham the wife bought ‘cause it was five bucks, now hard as a dick. Not even the husband cares if it goes missing. We hit a few. Food for a month.”

“I’m listening.”

Eddie could afford something like rent this way.

“This might work, I was gonna sell plasma for my aunt, who needs plasma. I’m not clear how plasma works. Let’s do it. How are we gonna walk with hams? I’ll be at load-capacity quick.”

“I got a car.”

How long had he been up?

“Shotgun.”

It’s a limo. I fucked up.

Ed parks on a hydrant; a stream catching sunlight, surges forth.

“I fucked up, Ed. Can I have back? I’ll never see inside a limo again.”

“Nah. Sit here with me. I get distracted, alone.”

Eddie’s a drag.

“This is badass.”

In gear, he creeps to the next house, considers the sidewalk, but instead eases on Ron’s grass.

“My neighbor.”

In the side-mirror, two girls laugh at the hydrant liberally hosing April’s air. Ron—neighbor who shuffles his driveway each morning, waving. He’s an asshole as far as I’m concerned.

“Do we have to hit Ron? He’s not bad.”

Ed looks at the limo, still idling, like, I was hoping to not be long.

Inside, Ed grabs Ron.

“Hi, Ron.”

In Eddie’s hand, Ron’s head slams the corner separating the kitchen from the living room. I don’t think he hears me over the screams.

On a black walnut table, in Ron’s spotless-year-round living room—carpet and furniture exceedingly white—is a Monster energy drink.

“It’s Monster,” I say, pointing.

Ron’s head is soft, where there’s head at all—pumpkin innards reluctant to release seeds. Pink, with flecks of Ron’s skull here and there, circle the spot where a head would be.

“Fuck, Ed.”

I think, This is good. We can eat yogurt while we wait for ham to thaw, certain Eddie hadn’t thought of that.

Ed’s scraping a T-bone coated in decades of frost with a butcher knife under scalding water; the frost withdraws revealing rotten treasures.

I spread lasagna from a Pyrex on the countertop.

We dive in.

I’m so hungry.

Ed tongues tidbits while I grab a tray of eclairs. Down in the sink next to where he’s scrubbing it goes; sopping hands raise piles, cheeks bulge, pastry drips from lips. I use my hand as a shovel to plumb chocolate from corners of the pan softened from dishwater.

“Yummm.” Ed grins.

His neck muscles strain working the T-bone, reminding me of a bald eagle’s leg I saw in a museum.

I feel bad for Ron. He looks like an old mop you let kids tie-die.

Partially-frozen steak resists Eddie’s teeth. Something about everything, the whiteness of Ron’s living room, his green lawn. Makes you unbelievably hungry.

I go to the window. The girls from earlier are peeling out in the limo. Grass and mud spray Ron’s lawn. Red and blue reflect back and forth in the hydrant’s geyser.

I hear sirens.

I run to the fridge.

Green bean casserole going soft on top comes out. We descend. He mops dregs of curdled sauce and beans with bread. I explode a bag of Doritos. Ed laughs. Chips rain down. “There’s never enough in the bag,” I say.

Crawling in the crumbs, I hear a knock.

“It’s the police.”

“No thanks!”

I look at Ed struggling to get turkeys from the freezer in Ron’s garage. It’ll work if he drops one.

“Ed.” I remember raccoons dying in a situation like this.

Ed. Not a bad guy.

“We’re breaking down the door.”

I fucked up. Not my day.

“One, two—”

My day will come.

“SOME STUFF I DID TODAY” by Michael Seymour Blake

May 6, 2020

JAKE’S DÉTOURNEMENT by Ben Robinson

May 6, 2020

The concrete slab lies resting at the centre of a clear perspex bowl that had until just now been full to the brim of cake mixture, a potential Victoria sponge whose life is suddenly cut short. As of mere seconds ago, the sugar, eggs, flour, and butter are splattered all over the tabletop and kitchen walls, the encounter played out in a split second flash of joyous rage and violence. The boy’s name is Jake. He was raised in an all-female household with four elder sisters whose relationship with him could best be described as fractious. Ever teased and chided over his ginger hair and awkward demeanour, bitterness has long since taken a hold.

“Ginger nut fell in the cut and frightened all the fishes

A fish came up and ate him up,

And that was the end of ginger nut.”

It’s his sisters Lotte and Helena doing the baking, joint champions of the annual village competition five years in succession with a sequence of unanimous victories. Their winning recipes are closely guarded and their time at the kitchen worktop is mapped out with the utmost precision. It’s this picture of control that Jake is determined to upset. To aid him in this objective, an off-cut of building materials from the garden patio has been smuggled into this chamber of baking excellence. The slab sits in wait silently beneath the worktop on the mezzanine level above the kitchen. The girls have been working on this cake since early morning and Jake’s anger is righteous. His act will represent, in accordance with Debord's theory, "the integration of present or past artistic productions into a superior construction of a milieu."

SENIORS ON THE MOVE by Mike Itaya

May 2, 2020

I’m Old Boy.

In the assisted living, they give me the journal, for a doodling. I write camphor, cancer. Camphor, cancer. I don’t give a shit. I’m Old Boy.

It’s Tuesday. And right off, things go bad.

Somebody swiped Rundy’s anxiety candle.

“Who’s fucking with my aromatherapy?” He wants to know.

I used to drink. I don’t have the mind for it. My back’s fucked. I sleep out in the banquet hall, like a plank, waiting on them lunch ladies. I flash peepers and spot Rundy beneath the salad bar—guzzling stuff—working up to frenzy. He monograms his onesie with ranch dressing, and banishes a spare bottle to the nebulous domain of his nethers. He’s big into spiritual growth and looking to boogie. I double-up on Depends, in case he tries to slip me the big banana.

I got no man-panties. Nothing to hide a half-master. I seen them old gals in whale drawers, and make for jumping ship. It gives you pause. Each Tuesday. Thursday. Wednesday. You get the whole goddamn picture. I heist contraband from the staff kitchen. Heist a tomato-mayo sammie. Right beneath my gown. Wake up. With a tomato-mayo sammie stuck to my chest.

I hang with Rundy. My roomie. This tragic melon-brain. He traps rats. And makes chess sets. With taxidermied rats. It gives you pause. He’s whiplashed. Too many U-turns underneath the sheets. I whip hell on him, for telling lies on my momma. I’d rather not go into it. We’re the best of friends.

We burned down our lives in Homochitto, Mississippi.

We mess around. We don’t go to “Seniors on the Move.” Melvin, this drowning goon, crapped out during water aerobics. With the floaties. And a Baby Ruth. And an empty wallet. All this for posterity. During the Ouija séance—for Melvin—I make the board say, “Black Jesus,” which really gets the geezers riled and moaning.

They drag me to Dr. Hypnos, who dims the lights and gets “professional.” Talking all slow and sad, like he’s got a line on me. Wanna talk ten years gone. Like I’m some kinda folksy mumba-chumba with my Rascal scooter and my “FAARTS” vanity plate. My ten year plan is to be dead for at least nine of them. He says, “Something’s got to change,” and right now, that something feels a lot like me.

I see now, I got off on the wrong foot here, talking out my buns. Which chafes. ‘Cause if you’re going to say anything, you might as well say the motherfucking truth:

My line is cut.

The cable is buried.

Sickness got me here.

My life is gone.

I came off a spree once, and found my son dead in his room. His big old moon cat sitting on top of him, staring at me. Staring through my shame. I think shame broke my mind.

I burned down my life in Homochitto, Mississippi.

My boy: there was ruin in his face even I could not tell you of.

But I have lived through things that might have killed you. And I have sharpened tooth on stone. I will wait for you behind happiness. I will take you from everything that’s gone wrong.

SAFE PASSAGE by Sharon Dale Wexler

May 1, 2020

Even though I know where the missing part of the toy gun is, I won’t tell. They haven’t asked. They ask each other but not me. Even if I tell them it’s under the kitchen table, that won't be the end of it; they won't settle down and sit at the table for the meal.

The dog smells like a boy on a camping trip. The breeder promised to deliver at three. Safe passage. Once inside, right away, the dog squatted on the floor.

The boy was only here every other weekend and, therefore, never showered. At first, the dog was supposed to be mine. But because I gave in, reluctantly, going along with the deceit, the dog only is mine when the boy's gone. I was the only one the boy wouldn't miss if I were missing. But before his father would buy the dog, I agreed.

The dog was my garden of Eden. Before Dude arrived, I knew no wrong. I didn't know what badness I was capable of. We are all looking to the dog for comfort we couldn’t find in food, TV, or our body.

The boy went on walks to the sewer, to sneak smokes, where the weeds grew higher than the house. See what you made him do, we'd fight over who cleans the dog’s vomit. We bonded by talking about the dog, worrying about its appearance and health. We had to be home soon because it's almost time to feed the dog.

Dude waits at the door to be able to be let out. I can hear him breathing behind the door, and there seemed to be a special relationship between us. His breathing on the top step and me thinking whether or not he would be safe from the boy let out. I don't mean to infer a relationship that was not there something supernatural unless it was there. For instance, if I said Dude find the leash and the leash was missing from its usual place in the drawer, and I couldn't find it, Dude would push me to the garage where I could find the leather strap hanging on the door opener.

The only noise in the house was from the dog barking to go out.

When the boy is over, I sleep in the room with the dog but cannot fall asleep. The dog can't find a comfortable place to lie down. I tried getting the dog to sleep in the bed. He circled around my side first; the father was sleeping on the other side or sideways with a pillow over his eyes.

BROWN RECLUSE by Cody Pease

April 30, 2020

Their arrival to the reception is further delayed when he sees a spider on the tongue of his boot. Both men refuse to wear the boot now. The taller man traps the spider beneath a glass, as his partner tries to decipher what kind of spider it is. A brown recluse. The two men debate on how to dispose of it. The taller man offers to throw the glass far from the house. To let it sit in the snow and melt when spring comes. The shorter man is too kind and stubborn; he does not want the spider to freeze. He wishes he had the ability to cure the spider of its nature. To let it live in a dark corner of their house. Another pet. The taller man protests, then points to the neighbor’s porch. The neighbor’s windows are drawn shut. The shorter man finds an alcove beneath the porch, where it’s dark and warm. He shakes the glass but the spider remains still. He names the spider. This makes him feel better if the spider is meant to freeze. He leaves the glass sitting on the stone slab.

ASSIGNATION by Joshua Hebburn

April 29, 2020

He bought flowers at the grocery store and put them in a wine bottle with a little water and an aspirin. He put them on the nightstand. There, for her, so the room wouldn't smell of him.

He took the ingredients from the plastic bag that said, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You in red block font on the side. He took out the butcher block. He smashed, peeled, and chopped the garlic. He halved, skinned, sliced, and chopped the onions. He blinked, he blinked, he blinked. He put the onions in a bowl. He put the onion bowl where it wouldn’t bite his eyes. He quartered the brussels sprouts and put them in a bowl. He put the big pan on the range and swirled olive oil supposedly from Tuscany on it. He salted and peppered the steak. He ate a raw brussels leaf.

She didn't arrive. From the kitchen, through the living room, he went. He sat on the bed. He took the flowers from the bottle and drank the aspirin and flower water. It didn't really make him feel anything, but it was something different to do. It forced him to make a face. He’d found, but would never acknowledge, that he could do almost anything if he was alone and he stopped imagining somebody.

A little while later, he put the flowers back in a bottle with water, this time, for himself.

FISHSPLAINING BAUDRILLARD by Faye Brinsmead

April 28, 2020

The robo-guppy came in a tank with LED lighting, soothing ocean sounds, and coral reef background wallpaper. Proven stress-buster, Bernie said, handing me the box. There was some study in some journal. After 10 weeks of fish-watching, 75 percent of the subjects flushed their anxiety meds down the john.

I took this as a hint he didn’t want to hear any more about writer’s block, impostor syndrome, the library’s overdue loans policy, or anything else connected with my PhD on Baudrillard.

He looks sinister, I said. Those mean little eyes. Must be in on the techno-gadget revenge plot. I took Baudrillard literally in those days.

After christening the guppy Jean, I ignored him. Maybe it was ingratitude that drove Bernie away. There were other sources of discontent: the hyperreal hair clump in the shower drain, my preference for synthetic food.

When we finally had the we have to talk talk, his reasons surprised me. I feel like the you I knew has been mummified in layers of French philosophy. Nothing you say is your own words anymore. Just some quote from some dead dude.

Given his fondness for citing scientific publications whose names he couldn’t remember, I found this ironic. Plus, it amused me to think of myself as a postmodernist quote-machine simulating Bernie’s girlfriend.

I let him have the TV, bed, couch, table, fridge, ironing board, and vacuum cleaner. Simulations like Jean and me are low-maintenance, I said. He declined the pop art poster of Baudrillard, saying he felt unworthy of Saint Gizmo. It saddened me to think his prolonged and free education had been a waste of my time.

I rented a room above a pub with a fine view of overflowing rubbish skips. Relax, it’s only simulacrum trash, I joked to Jean on putrid summer evenings. I was getting into the habit of throwing witty little squibs at him. It made me feel better about my post-nearly-everything condition.

At night, Jean and I juddered to the cover-band beats of Eagle Rock and Highway to Hell. I started talking (yelling, actually) while I typed. It helped with focus, and created the illusion of an audience.

The hypermarket turns every theory (including the theory of the hypermarket) into dentures more viscerally real, more horrifyingly alive, than the mouth that contains them.

Like a tent revivalist preacher, I was high on my own rhetoric. The less it meant, the more wasted I got.

One night, in a lull between Beds are Burning and Scarred for Life, Jean said, quietly but distinctly: You don’t understand the role of the technological object in the transition from modernity to postmodernity.

Wowsers! I don’t know why I kept up the bantering tone. Why don’t you explain it to me? Go on, fishsplain it.

Jean delivered a mini-lecture on Baudrillard’s position and my failure to grasp it. He sounded like a toothless person talking through a snorkel in a cyclone, but his analysis was relentlessly clear. I was crafting a jokey compliment when he added, Forget Baudrillard.

There’s a critique of Baudrillard called that, I said. I reference it in my thesis.

He gurgled impatiently. That isn’t a quote. Well, it is, but it exceeds the function of quotation. It’s a command. Forget Baudrillard. I’ve outBaudrillarded him. There’s a Linux PC in my brain cavity. A hydraulic pump moves my tail. If you’d bothered to unpack the remote control, you could manipulate me from 10 meters away.

The whole pub was screaming Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again. Or maybe they were lip-syncing to synthesized screaming.

I looked up to Saint Gizmo for guidance. Forget Baudrillard, mouthed the pop art Baudrillard.