Fiction

JACOBSON’S ORGAN by Marc Tweed

December 20, 2024

Jacobson's organ is an olfactory organ that helps animals detect chemicals in their environment. Located near the roof of the mouth, it’s present in many mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.*“Keep your distance from the river,” I told her. I ran my tongue along the roof of my mouth and felt the old, corrugated tin shed hidden up there with no tools in it to speak of, only a panting, half-dead snowbird. I was in love for the fifth or sixth time that week and my apartment was very cold. She went under the counter looking for another bottle of vodka, the pom-pom and point of her Santa hat bobbing along the bar’s sticky, tinseled horizon like a hand puppet. “Distance from what?” I stepped off the bar stool, then thought better of it, immediately repossessed the hunched posture no one ever seemed to want me to escape. I was always misunderstanding her—the important part was I wasn’t alone. One more. She was always asking about what happened to me as a kid, as a man, as a state senator and then saying oh wow under her breath like she felt sort of sorry for me while she counted bottles and flapped her wet hands at clouds of drain flies, squinting. She poured another one. I said, “Farmhouse. Falling apart.” I told her my childhood home was abandoned. I talked slow to make sure I was saying it right and not changing any details from the last time I told it. Where was she going again? I drove by it with my sister last year, the farmhouse. We got whoopings in there and worse. The bartender said, Ahhhhhhhh in a pouting way, then lit up when a guy walked in, a torturously duded guy in a billowing mustard-and-red sports outfit. He had a flattop and a smeared lobster or scorpion tattooed on his forehead in faded black ink, faded like he’d tried to rub it off with sandpaper. Randy! She ran from behind the bar, a bottle opener jutting out of the back pocket of her elf pants, and jumped into the man named Randy. I always struggle with this. The boyfriend is—okay, okay—Randy, and I know they both make fun of me when I’m not planted squarely in front of them. Though they do give each other little looks, I think, from time to time when I’m explaining something I feel is important. So maybe even then, too. Every outfit is a sports outfit for Randy and it corresponds with the seasons. It’s nice to see young(ish?) love…but what about me? Donna took off quite a while ago, right about when I got voted out and, after a few months of moping in the basement or garage, I started coming here and a few other dark places to do my moping. Randy held her by the waist and his mouth was open and his eyes were dead. I told them I used to be the Speaker of the House and they both laughed a little like I’d never said that exact thing and she took my fifty dollar bill. Randy was my signal to go.I went into the cold sunlight and the other one, other bartender, was out there, still smoking. We watched an extra-long Christmas stocking writhe in the breeze, squirm crazily across the parking lot like a crimson serpent until it wrapped itself around a parking meter and gave up. She squeezed my arm lightly and shivered back deeper into her long red-and-green sweater. Lisa? I think it’s Lisa.“Headed home, Senator?”There we were, two vertebrates shivering under an ice-drooped awning. “Next place,” I told her. Lisa. They know where I go. Hell if I’m going home at one o’clock in the afternoon. I walked to the bus stop. Chemical reactions filled every seat when the time came. The snow bird’s broken call was just a whisper, not nearly loud enough to cut through the chatter of people’s bodily functions and sparse applause. I kept my hands to myself. There was a time my hands wandered everywhere, over forbidden lands navigated by the most immaterial of senses.Senator Jacobson may now address the assembly.I bet Randy never passed a bipartisan appropriations bill or helped build a casino out in the middle of fucking nowhere. To be honest, I could never remember if her name was Maria or Marie or Mary. And perhaps his name isn’t Randy. I wished I had a piece of gum. I wished I had Donna. Memories. Growing up, our farmhouse had miles of flat sunflower fields around it on all sides. They had us surrounded back then! Long, uneven lines of spindly trees gave no encouragement and the little lackluster gravel road we all hated the sound of became an unanticipated benefactor: I ran and ran and ran. It turned out I had gone to seed. Fortunate things occurred that I struggle to understand, pheromones be damned, undecoded specters of possibility. Love wrapped its greedy mind around me. Respect came my way by way of Donna’s father, a State Supreme Court Judge. My constituents seemed to me to be androids assembled from unnatural components but I loved them—how couldn’t I? Service was my middle name. I voted with my subconscious to great effect. Intersections were scolded, freeway tolls burned alive screaming like children on a canyon-plunging field trip bus. I could smell the suffering and death. Bleeding. Stuffed animals. “Pass this or else!” I’d cry. At the end of my duties—the day some hidden things clamored, white and bleary into sunshine—the whole chamber echoed with a singular gasp when I collapsed at the podium, limbs folded underneath me like a chain-link fence in a windstorm. The whole tool shed was on full display: Ken Jacobson, State Senator. We knew he had issues.I remembered! She said Randy(?) wanted to take her sledding on the river!I pulled the string and the snowbird went ding.At the next place—a little dive with a circle bar and a statue of Elvis—the man at the curving counter said plainly with a new neon moustache, “No. Remember. We’re done here, Ken.” On to another bar a block down, I shoveled myself into the future past the shops with their windows dressed merrily and I thought, at the end of the day, I just don’t want that nice girl to drown. Not this time of year. The thing about the river in late December is it’s tricky. You can’t tell if its solid just by looking at it. You’re taking your chances. Will it bear your weight, bide its time, or split open laughing to leave you clawing and clamoring beneath its long, frozen tongue? At the next spot, Belinda or Becky had my drink made before I even sat down.“Merry Christmas, Senator. We close in half an hour.”

VISUAL SNOW by Drew Willis

December 19, 2024

Dano wondered whether he might be too old to be a Dano. He got the name like he got self-consciousness. It had happened without a pinpointable moment of happening. When he came online, it was online with him. Now he was twenty-eight, a functional boozehound, in debt big time. He was a salesman at a local music shop and had been for ten years. He was regionally famous. If you said “Dano” in certain bars, at least one person would perk up and say, “Oh, Dano rocks,” or “Fuckin’ Danooooooo.” He was likely the most naturally gifted guitar player in the state of Nevada, though he rarely played in public. His headaches were getting worse and more frequent, his vision was becoming increasingly messed up by floaters, halos, and static. And Frankie, his childhood bud, one of his five roommates, had become an officially missing person. “Could I be a Daniel?” Dano wondered.

Because of Dano’s skill, people often asked him why he or his band weren’t bigger, why they never toured or moved out to LA or Seattle to try to make it big. He tried, for a while, to explain the space that music occupied in his mind. It was like an alternate dimension. A trip. Undulating colors. Shapes that bent the sense-making parts of the brain. Time as totality. Where there is no order but things are always happening. It demanded a certain form of attention. He needed to be careful with it. He so wanted to escape his life. This was dangerous. The path afforded by the music space was not a way out but a way in. A way into the present; a way to know, not run from, his suffering. He knew, if he let it, that chasing glory, the adoration of so many strangers, could warp that space. Turn the way in into a way out. A justification for his being alive. A form of redemption, the thing he wanted most. The thing he detested. After a while he just started saying, “That’s not the point.”The night that Frankie took off, some of the crew came by their place. Dano had some Millers. People were in constant motion, coming in from smoking, going out to smoke. Erika, jazz bassist turned grindcore vocalist, was there. Erika asked Dano for a cigarette. Dano said he loved her. “You say that to everybody,” she said. It was true. “Yeah, that’s true,” said Dano. “That’s true. Fair point. I’m sorry. I just. I feel good.” “You look it. Why don’t you go play us a little something on the ol’ acoustic?” “I can’t.”“How come?”“I just can’t right now.” “Our Dano is suddenly shy?” “Not exactly.”“People don’t get into music like you because they want to stand all humble in the corner.” “Why do you do it?” The smoke that Erika exhaled was exaggerated by her breath in the cold. “‘Cause I’m pissed,” she said. “And I want people to see that I’m pissed. And know why. I can’t talk about why I’m pissed without sounding weird. But I can show it. And I can turn this like ugly thing into ugly music that’s actually, kind of, beautiful,” she said. Dano’s cigarette had grown an ash appendage. He wanted to say something, a lot of something, but he didn’t know how, and he was sorry for telling Erika he loved her in the way he had. “Can I have a Miller?” she said. They went inside. Frankie was out of his room, shirtless and pale, holding a whiskey bottle with maybe a quarter left. “Let’s get one in ya,” he said to the room. The bottle went around. Dano got Erika a Miller. Which spilled over with foam as she opened it. The lines on her flannel shirt vibrated. How long had they been doing that, he wondered.“Danoman, can I talk to you a minute?” Frankie said. Dano was not up for talking the way Frankie wanted to talk. It was an almost nightly thing:1) Frankie gets drunk and needs Dano. 2) Frankie details every soul crushing aspect of his work day. 3) Dano makes him feel better. 4) Frankie says he’s miserable. Hopeless. 5) Dano tells him that it sounds real serious, that he’s sorry, that his friends are there for him, that life is worth living and is there anything he can do for him? 6) Frankie smiles, says, “That’s okay, brother. Thank you. You always know what to say.” Dano tried his best to focus on Frankie’s face. There was definitely a change taking place there, the eye bags no longer a byproduct of the partying, but of something heavier, something drawing deeper lines. “Sure, man. We can chat,” Dano said.

III

Frankie had been what people call “big hearted” since Dano had known him. When they were thirteen, loitering outside the Hilton casino as they did most summers, a drunk guy locked eyes with young Dano. The guy was shredded, salon tanned skin under a small tanktop. He was short for a grownup but seemed massive to Dano. “That fucking kid’s looking at me,” the guy said to his group. “That kid’s looking at me.” The group laughed. They tried to move on. Dano got nervous. He was small for thirteen. The guy would murder him. “He’s looking at me,” the guy said. He tried to move toward Dano. His group laughed, held him back, told him to chill. “They’re kids, man,” they said. The guy pushed his old lady off him. Was that his old lady? Or was that a random? The guy moved toward Dano. There were too many things moving all at the same time. Frankie stepped between Dano and the guy. The guy pushed Frankie. Frankie fell onto his ass. The guy swung wide, lost his feet. His friends rushed him and got him through the shoulders and were dragging him away as the guy screamed at Dano. “Sorry, he’s real fucked up,” the guy’s friends said. Dano tried to hide his shaking. “Thanks, man,” he said to Frankie. “No worries,” Frankie said. Frankie would have taken that beating for Dano a thousand times over, would have taken it for anybody gathered at their place the night he disappeared. Dano sipped his Miller. He knew. He followed Frankie down the hall. He knew, but he did not want to hear it. He wanted to go to his room and shut the door. He wanted to go to the space inside him that held the music. He wanted to find something that was in him now, something he could not name but was in there and important. Frankie took a pull from a half-full bottle on the dresser. He would have done anything for Dano. They had been through more together than either would say out loud. “What’s up, man?” Dano asked. “Oh, you know, bud,” Frankie said. Frankie offered Dano the bottle, and Dano had a little pull. “Work’s been getting to me,” Frankie said. “I feel that. We’re in our busy season too,” said Dano. “I know I just gotta keep my head down, but it’s hard.”“I don’t know that you have to keep your head down, exactly.”“I guess. I’ve already worked sixty hours this week. I had over 120 hours on my last check.” Static formed over Frankie’s skin. Pixels shimmering in waves. “How about we go outside? It’s a party. What if we drown our sorrows a little?” The static over Frankie’s face arranged itself in disbelief. Frankie thought. “Alright,” he said. “Do you want a smoke?”“Nah.” The kickback went on like it had. Frankie stayed in his room, door closed. Erika got up on the coffee table, sang about being young and wanting to leave the place you grew up in. Dano went to his room, searched the music space within. There was nothing save the party noise barely muffled by his door. He searched, fingers over string. Indents in his calloused tips. He stayed like that for a while, years maybe, until he heard a slamming door. The tenor of the party noises changed. Erika’s voice, concerned. In the front room, Frankie swayed, hand on the front door for balance. “You can’t drive, man,” somebody said. Frankie looked at Dano. Through him. Frankie opened the door. Was out in the cold desert night, alone for a moment. Dano followed, reaching for the waist of Frankie’s sweatpants. Dano caught him up. Dano tried to get his arms around Frankie. Frankie pushed, clipping Dano’s jaw with an open palm. Frankie was in his Ranger. Frankie had the doors locked. Dano pounded on the window and pulled at the door handle. Frankie’s engine started. Frankie was pulling away. Dano hit the driver side window with the butt of his fist and reached beneath the wiper blades and hoped for something holdable. He got himself in front of the truck somehow, and Frankie stopped. Dano’s breath was huge in the headlights. Frankie revved the engine, peeled. Dano fell. Frankie stopped. He revved again as Dano got on his feet. Frankie peeled again, and Dano knew he wouldn’t stop. Something in the truck’s motion told him that this time was for real, and he felt his body moving out of the way, reaching for the side view mirror that held Frankie in moonlit profile. He ran with the truck, with Frankie, as long as he could, reaching, kicking at the door. Their friends had gathered outside. Dano punched a hole in the wood fence that ran parallel to their street. Somewhere, outside the city, in the desert, a fanged and starving body hunted. The mountains continued their falling into gravel. Dano’s head hurt. He wanted to leave this. Get out of his life. The music space was far away. And he did not want to go there. He saw no way inward. He wanted out. A savior, a heaven to hope for, something. Frankie’s taillights were around the corner, gone save for the streaks of afterimage they left smeared beneath the streetlights for Dano alone.

Dano wondered: “If I am not a Daniel, what am I?”The local music shop was in trouble. It was almost Christmas, and they were still sitting on most of their inventory. Foot traffic was negligible. They adjusted truss rods, swapped out pickups, repaired speakers and amplifiers, sold strings and vintage Gibsons and replacement parts for drum kits made in the nineties. To keep up his contracts with the major manufacturers, the shop owner had to purchase in quantities that hadn’t made business sense in decades. There were boxed guitars everywhere. Dano wiped countertops, updated inventory, tagged, labeled, arranged. A truck pulled up that needed unloading. The guys unloaded it. They smoked by the dumpster. Frankie had not come back. Dano was like you. All he wanted was a little mercy. “Kids don’t want to play rock music anymore,” said Sal, the manager. “Nobody wants a guitar. You know how much action you used to be able to get just by saying you were in a band? Now it’s, No, I’ll just sit on my ass with my phone, thanks. I’ll just be a DJ and press play on my computer like an asshole.” Sal looked toward some place that was just for him. “I don’t know anymore,” he said. “You know what, Sal?” Dano said. “Me neither.”Dano went down to the shop’s basement and stretched out in the narrow makeshift hallway where they kept the repair parts. The only cameraless spot left in America. He opened the band’s Instagram page and looked around. The initial wave of concern and support for Frankie had collapsed faster than he’d hoped. No more stories. Everyone that warranted contacting had been contacted. Dano had called, dm’d, driven. Frankie’s family had no idea where he might be, hadn’t heard anything, and other than his sister, none of them seemed to care much. There was nothing else to do. No one had even seen the truck. Dano’s eyes vibrated. Over everything, there was snow falling all the time that only he could see.The shop closed every day at 6:00. On Christmas Eve, after hours without a customer, Sal told the crew, “You guys can probably head out.” It was 5:27.

On Christmas Day, Dano and his brother met their dad for lunch at the Lucky Beaver Bar & Burger. “I heard about your friend. Frankie. It’s too bad. He’s a good kid,” their dad said. He was on his second beer. He looked old. “Yeah,” the boys said. There were a couple guys at the bar. Giants-Eagles on the tvs. One woman worked serving and bartending. When she opened the door to the kitchen, Dano saw, framed for a second in that space, two cooks kicking back, watching an unseen screen, smiling. “It’s what happens when you get older. Won’t be the last, I can tell you that,” their dad said. “He’s not dead,” Dano said. “Right,” their dad said.The snow in Dano’s eyes got bad. Randy said something Dano couldn’t follow. His brother’s mouth was moving, his eyes locked on their dad. His baby brother, a little kid crying through missing teeth and then a man, tall and imposing, with bigger and more capable hands than Dano’s, hands already bent from work, moving in wider and wider circles over empty beer bottles. The vein standing out now in their old man’s temple. Snow falling just for Dano. He remembered the first time Frankie hit him. They’d taken mushrooms before a house party up the street. He couldn’t remember who was there, only the sense of moving bodies. Doors. Carpet. Laughter. At some point, Frankie got down on his back on the concrete stoop, an X of limbs. He stared up the porchlight, smiling. Dano looked down at him. Frankie pointed up. “There’s snow everywhere,” he said. “I can’t even see you.” Dano got him on his feet. People on the stoop laughed. Their mouths were too long. “You don’t wanna fight me, do you?” Frankie said. “What?” Dano said. “You’re not trying to get tough with me?” said Frankie.Frankie contorted his face. The look became sound, a supersonic boom through Dano. “Are you trying to get tough with me?” Dano said. Frankie hit him square in the forehead. Dano didn’t even feel it, barely perceived Frankie’s fist in motion. Frankie recoiled, holding his hand. He held it up to the silent crowd on the stoop. It was already swelling. Laughter from everywhere again. Somehow the same laughter. As if the too long mouths had never stopped, as if they would always be there, on that stoop, laughing. Later that night, the night in which Frankie hit Dano for the first time, they walked home together. They sat on the couch in the front room. Dano showed Frankie a Youtube video. Frankie showed Dano a Youtube video. Frankie got on his knees and got Dano’s cock in his mouth. Dano didn’t realize what was happening until it was almost over. He did the same for Frankie. When the birds started chirping, when there was light outside and the spring smells came through the window, Dano put on Despisers of the Body’s new record. “What does he say right there, right before the drums come in?” Frankie asked. “I will not debase my suffering by seeking its end,” Dano told him. Dano’s head was on Frankie’s chest. His fingers moved over Frankie’s still swelling hand. “What does that mean?” Frankie said. “I don’t know,” Dano said. In the Lucky Beaver, as the bartender poured a double and Randy’s hands went around the table, somebody, a Giant or Eagle, scored. One of the guys at the bar stood up, hooted, hollered. Dano let the snow fall. His dad did not look beautiful in it. The Lucky Beaver did not suddenly glow. Dano did not need to convince his pops that Frankie was still alive. Frankie did not need to come back from wherever he’d gone to prove his being mattered. If you are really gone, he thought, I will never say that your life was not enough.

LONE WOLVES by Anna Pele

December 18, 2024

There you lie, lifeless on your back, plastic eyes staring, smile stitched between felt beard and moustache…it’s not awkward; it’s a perfect morning after.I've missed wrapping my arm around another body in bed. Hugging my hot water bottle from October to March, holding its slop-slop to my chest, while soothing, makes a lonely picture. It’s like hugging water: you can’t hug love. It slips past your fingers, steals pieces of yourself as it trickles or rushes away. I’ve learned to hold myself. But when Christmas clutters city streets and people’s minds, when the nights grow long and deep, that’s when I crave the warmth of someone wanting to be with me, long for a beating heart in bed with me. You’re the perfect Julklapp gift for us. Mhm, I figured you out at sunrise; the way you said, sleep tight. Your voice—that rumble lipping my neck—it ghosts into the wound Finn left in the back of my chest. Fills it, rubs it warm, smooths the tension between my shoulder blades—Does hugging you make me more or less pathetic?Last night at the restaurant, I laughed so hard when I unpacked you, saw black boots, no trousers: blue boxer shorts with bright yellow stars. I swore to throw you away. Someone, Levik surely, tied the jute bag you came in to the straps of my handbag.And now, here you lie, red faux coat over a rotund bulge—I like that you have a belly when you turn man. Your velvety hat’s torn askew from where I clung to you as you set off an avalanche with your tongue and fingers. You promised more of this every night of the season. If I kept you. Ugh, look at this bruise—ah, you can’t see. Not until sunset? You could’ve arrived sooner, you know…could’ve prevented my somersault in front of the restaurant, placed Levik close enough to catch me. I could’ve landed on you, not an icy patch of snowy pavement. Might’ve softened the blow; back-planting before the entire office, agh.Levik’s voice was first to register after my viewpoint flipped. There’s something about that voice. The rumbling of an approaching storm—not the dangerous kind—I mean there is something foreboding about the sound of his words rolling up his chest, but then it softens, turns liquid, travels down my spine, like warm water…that temperature that’s just right for a bath? A bath, that’ll help the soreness from my fall. And our night. Meh, too cold outside of bed. The bath can wait. Besides, it’s Sunday, first Advent—Families at breakfast tables, kids reciting “Advent, Advent, ein Lichtlein brennt,” parents guiding tentative fingers to light the first candle—might as well stay in bed. Cuddle you. Christmas season goes from 1st Advent til January 6th, but you said that’s not true. A stereotypical Santa—one without trousers, that is—saying Christmas magic has nothing to do with Santa or even Christmas. You deepened your voice to say: My magic is older than the peregrination and coalescence of myths and customs; it’s the Sun’s magic in its Winter expression. A recitation, surely. Then you declared: I will warm you as the sun slips from the days until she reshapes them with her ever-brightening light. Grr, give me dates! Your voice rumbled like a growl when I kept asking. Then it rippled, laved my ear, my neck. And that was that. But really, how long will we have these nights? I’ve promised myself to singlehood, but sometimes it absolutely sucks. I thought one-night stands would patch the void, but they’re too troublesome. Either they demand more than was agreed—desperate to be wanted more than they want themselves—or it turns out they’re cheating. But sex isn’t the only void. Last night, after thudding the pavement and confusing the street’s fairy lights with myriad stars, after registering Levik’s, “You OK?” and someone’s “Have another Glühwein!”, the thing my eyes focused on were sneakers. Levik always wears them—black or brown. Never other shoes, not even to court. I think it’s because he moves so much. Whenever his lean figure, shirt sleeves rolled up, prowls the corridors, I know he’s on a tough case, and it’s time for a mutual lunch or dinner. I wonder what my tell is.I swear you just leered. So we enjoy each other’s counsel, a few times a week. Nothing hedonistic about discussing cases over food and a glass of wine. It’s not dating. He’s brilliant, but dating in the office?Once, I’d have rolled my eyes at someone transferring after a breakup, but that July night when Levik told me why he left the Stockholm office, I understood. We were celebrating our first win, playing round after round of Mensch ärgere Dich nicht, our pawns jumping over or kicking the other’s pawns out, neither willing to end the night in defeat. My response was: “Coupledom makes us needy and gormless,” and then I spoke about Finn. I’m not sure why…it was an unusually warm night.Your eyes didn’t leave my lips—you were biting your bottom lip, revealing the most enticing row of teeth. I wanted to run the tip of my tongue over them, nip that plump lip. “We’re lone wolves,” you said. Then you raised your glass, red liquid sloshing halfway up one side, and said, “To our pack of two”. I clinked with my white. “Let’s not shit where we eat,” I said. You sipped and nodded.Lone wolves. And you, little Santa? Let the office believe you’re a gag gift to the office’s Christmas grouch. We know you’re a doorway for water to flow through unpossessed. You’re the comfort of a filled bathtub, outside the rumbling approach of thunder, but knowing I’m safely grounded…Who cares if I’m being sappy; I can’t wait for his voice to trickle from your lips, pebble my skin, submerge me in hot…steaming…bathwater.

GIFTS MY MOM GAVE ME by Tex Gresham

December 17, 2024

She was told to smile. She was always told to smile at the start of her shift. Cammie, give ‘em that smile. Not a suggestion, but mandatory. And she’d give it to ‘em.But tonight…The clients in here tonight crave holly jolly and so most say Smile, baby as they slip a tip in the thin hip strip of her thong. It’s the floor clients who say this mostly––the newcomers, the one-and-done-ers, the lonely men looking at her instead of looking at those waiting for them to get home this eve. The ones who walk in unnoticed. The ones who order the Santa’s Steak & Spaghetti Special, rare and wet, and slurp the blood-soaked noodles and smack open-mouthed and stare at her like a toddler holding an iPad as she gives them a preview of what they could get the full attraction of in a private room.They say Smile, baby with words traveled on breath tomato-tanged and beer-burped.And, of course, she does.It’s just business, a job. Nothing personal on her end. Everything personal on theirs. She’s used to it by now. There’s a joke about a guy who gets a dancer’s number and tells his friends No, dude, she actually likes me. Usually she laughs at this.But tonight…Each time she hears Smile, the words are like whispered slivers of glass in her heart. She tries not to assume to know anything about the clients or picture in her mind the lives they wear beyond the doors. Being neutral to who they are helps her play her role and convince these clients to give up what they would to someone else if it wasn’t her. A job. A game. It’s her life.But tonight…All she can picture are the families these men hide away from, sees these wives and children and she wants to think Taking them for granted but that’s the kind of thought that makes smiling real hard. Harder than it already is on days like today. This time of year… The idea of taking people for granted and then you no longer have them around, can’t tell them Thank you for being in my life because they no longer are…She struts by a man who sucks salt and cream sauce off his sausage-thick finger and runs that spit-slick finger up her arm as she passes. She stops, wags a finger at him, slow like wheat fields in the wind, and through the best smile she’s got says, “No no, sweetheart. No touching.”And the man laughs and chokes a little on the food in his mouth––a mouth so full that the mashed up food is both on his tongue and already halfway down his throat. His other hand, the one not still uncomfortably close to her, caresses his crotch in a three-finger pinch and roll.She keeps moving.The DJ crackles over the intercom with, “Now on the stage. Vixxxen.” Stretching out the “x” so that it hisses like a snake. The high-twang guitar of “Jingle Bell Rock” kicks in and half the place starts clapping along vaguely on tempo.Vixxxen comes out in her all-red break-away one piece and thigh highs. She’s got bells attached to the ankles of her 8-inch platforms and they jangle each time she heel bangs. The Santa hat on her head doesn’t move as she does a brass monkey.Cammie turns away from the stage and notices a man sitting at a high top against the back wall. Alone. Maybe forty or fifty. Not eating the special. Not watching Vixxxen. Just sitting and sipping. Waiting for someone to come to him. So Cammie does.She slides up next to him, runs a finger from one shoulder to the other. Up close she can smell his cologne and see that his hair is more gray than color and that his face has more lines than smooth. Older than she thought. Maybe sixty. Not wearing a ring––because most men who have them keep them on when they come in here. Want all the girls to know, thinks it makes them forbidden. But it just makes them look like schmucks. And this one isn’t wearing a ring. When she touches him, he seems to both tense up and resign. Almost like his head drops.She says, “Hi, baby. What’re you doing over here alone?”“Just sitting…”“And no one’s come talk to ya?”He shakes his head.“Well I’m here now. So time to cheer up.” She puts her face down closer to the table so that he has no choice but to look at her. When he does, she plasters that mandatory smile on her face, cartoonishly wide. Trying hard to be the right shade of aggressively cute men his age melt over.“Yeah,” he says, but doesn’t show any sign of cheering up.Any of the other girls would’ve rolled their eyes or walked away or both. But Cammie presses on. Knows what’s here in front of her.“You look like you got a lot on your mind.”“I do.”“Well… You wanna go to a private room and we can talk about it?”He nods. He feels around his pants like he’s looking for lost keys. Takes a quick hitched breath.And she takes his hand. But he doesn’t move. His feet stay anchored to the floor. He grabs the glass of wine and downs the rest of it.“Oh, baby… You can take it to the room with you. You don’t have to––”But it’s gone, down his throat.She says, “Okay then.” And leads him out of the main room. Down a blue hallway, into Private Room 2. And shuts the door.She eases him into a recliner that no one can tell is Costco cheap because of the room’s redlight darkness, and the two agree on a ten minute private dance. She sets her phone timer, opens Spotify, and pushes play on a holiday playlist. She eases out of her clothes.Halfway through those ten minutes she’s perfected counting up in the head, she notices wetness on his face. Some clients sweat in the private rooms. Sweat bad. Nerves and old age and the tension that maybe this is the time the dancer will finally give them something extra. She’d feel that wetness on her bare skin through their clothes or on her fingers, salty slick, as she caressed their faces or necks. The reek of their bad diets and bad habits seeping out in that sweat.But tonight…This isn’t sweat.She slows, hips pumping gently on his lap. She looks him in the face. He doesn’t look up at her, still hasn’t, eyes finding everything else in the room but hers.She says, “Babe… Are you crying?”A beat, like he’s trying to dig up a lie. But he doesn’t say anything.“I ain’t that bad, am I?” A joke because who wants to give a private dance to a crying man. Though it’s hardly the first time. Usually the tears come from guilt. But that’s not what this is, is it?“No no no. Not at all. It’s not you. It’s just…” And like he can barely find the words: “I miss my mom.”She stops moving, sits still in his lap in a thong and nothing else.He adds, “I always miss her this time of year.” And because she's already been tiptoeing around the thought tonight, already been fighting the stomach pit numb that tonight and tomorrow bring for her now and for the last six years, and because the sudden change catches her off guard, she says, “Me too.”He looks at her. “You too? But you’re so young.”“Sometimes it happens, baby.”“You think it gets easier but it doesn’t. Tonight… This, all this, holiday or whatever… It’ll never be the same for the rest of my life and… I just want to give her a gift tomorrow. Or open something she thought I’d like.”“Sometimes that’s just how it goes. No more gifts when they’re gone, ya know? But…”“But what?”She tosses her hair back with both hands. Runs her fingers through one side. Rubs an itch at the tip of her nose with her palm. Then looks at him with that mask she’s been wearing gone. This is her, really.“Can I tell you a story that might cheer you up?”“Please.” And he really means it.She adjusts how she’s sitting in his lap, like she’s preparing herself for a story that she’s been holding onto for too long, hasn’t told anyone. She shakes out her nerves, tossing around her hands and hair in a playful way, and then performs.“Can you keep a secret?”He nods, already leaned in and interested.“Well… My real name…is Ezlynn.”“Oh… It’s not Cammie Soul?”“Ha ha, funny guy. Thought you were supposed to be sad or something.”He looks down with his whole head. But she didn’t mean it like that. She lifts his head back up with a finger to chin so that his eyes are on hers again as she talks.“So my name is Ezlynn. Which is a good name if you ask me. But it’s an unusual name. You ever met an Ezlynn before?”He shakes his head, eyes stationary on her.“Right. Me neither. I was named after my grandmother. My mom… She said she loved that name––Ezlynn––and wanted to say it all the time. Growing up I hated it, wanted to be Christine or something. But now… I love it too. Mom was right.”“It’s a good name.”She puts a finger on his lips.“So… I was at the store the other day. Thinking as I always do but especially this time of year––I wish I woulda spent more time with mom. When all a’sudden this lady comes down the aisle, looking right at me. Like I’m in trouble––maybe a wife whose husband gave me up when the bank statement came in. And she says Are you Ezlynn? and I think Oh shit. I’m ready to start throwin hands, ya know? And so I say Yeah, so what? and she goes Your mother is looking for you.“And I kinda went all cold, couldn’t really say anything. Maybe I said something like My mother? because the lady goes Yeah, this real petite woman with red hair. And now I don’t know if you can tell in these lights, but two of the many gifts my mother gave me is this head of luscious red hair and this petite body.”She bounces on him once. The side of his mouth lifts in a half-smirk that feels like a courtesy. His eyes look like they’re begging for this story to give him something. So she continues.“I got my nose from my daddy. But so this woman is describing my mother. My mother. Who is dead. And she’s looking for me? And this lady goes Yeah, she’s up at the front of the store. Come with me. But I can barely move cuz I’m kinda like freaking out. Right? Who wouldn’t? But I start following her. And the closer we get to the front I’m like fully expecting to turn the corner and see my mom up there waiting for me, that the last six years have been some kind of mistake.“But…“Of course it’s not, ya know?“We get up there and it’s this women who looks nothing like my mom, even though she’s petite and her hair’s red. And she’s talking to this little girl, maybe ten or something, saying things like Ezlynn, I told you not to blah blah blah. Standard worried mom stuff.“And so the lady who came up to me in the aisle stops and goes Oh… I guess she found her. Guess you’re not the right Ezlynn. And I just kinda go Yeah cuz what else can I say? “And had that been the end of it I woulda been like That was weird and moved on but the lady said What are the odds? and I said What do you mean? and she said Well it’s weird… My name is Ezlynn too. Named after my grandmother.“My mouth musta been wide open cuz she said I know. Three Ezlynns in the same place. What are the odds? But it wasn’t just three. It was five. Three here and the two we were named after. All there in that one moment.“The lady smiled at me in a dismissive kinda way and then left. And I kinda shuffled back to my cart thinking Your mother is looking for you.”She stops talking. Realizes he’s staring at her, tears in his eyes again.He says, “You are very lucky.”“Lucky?”“People go their whole lives without getting a gift like that. Something to help them… believe.”“Or it was a coincidence…”“No… That was something.” “There ya go, sweetheart. That’s the good thinking.”And then he says, “Doesn’t that make you feel good?”“About what?”“That you got an answer. That you were thinking of her and she answered. Let you know she was there… That you aren’t alone.”Her phone jangles a fake fire alarm. The timer she’d set just in case the up in the head counting got away from her. Which it did.She says, “Oh geez… I’m sorry. I spent all your time talking. Here… Let me set it again so that––”She reaches for her phone, but he reaches out and grabs her hand. Stops her. She lets him.He says, “No.”She feels her eyebrows go up high. “No?”“This was more than enough. Thank you.” Says it like he really means it.And they don’t say anything else as she stands and gets dressed. Stage music throbs through the walls, fills the silence with some heavy metal version of a Christmas melody. He stands, adjusts his clothes. She guides him to the door with a hand on his shoulder. She can’t feel sweat through his clothes. He stops in the doorway and she looks at him, the two standing close. She has to look up to meet his eyes. Tall.He says, “Do you think she was there?”“Maybe…”“Do you think she’s here now?”She lets out the weakest laugh you’ve ever heard. Then, “No… I think she knows to give me some privacy.”He smiles, nods. His eyes break away from hers. Go up to the door frame, to the mistletoe hanging there. She sees it too, wonders who put it here. She smiles at him, then kisses the tips of her three fingers––ring, middle, pointer––and places those three fingers gently on his forehead. He closes his eyes, breathes in deep. Like he’s just been given a blessing.“Thank you.”And then he hands her five hundred dollars, crisp bills folded over. She takes it.And before he’s gone and she never sees him again, he says, “I don’t know if anyone has said this yet and meant it but… Merry Christmas.”The smile that comes across her face doesn’t feel like one she’s been told to give. She says, “You too.”And then he’s gone.She goes back out to the floor and wanders, not really looking for another client. Not really interested in anything other than what he said. It was something.Because maybe it was.But tonight…She watches Crystal on stage, also all in red, also with a Santa hat stuck to her head.“Saw you go private with that sad one.” Prancer walks up to Cammie and gets within kissing distance. She always does this. “You told him that one story, didn’t you?”She shows Prancer the money.“Biiiiiitch,” stretching it out in that playfully jealous way. “You buying me a drink later.”“Alright, alright.”And then Prancer struts away on heels tall enough to be illegal, throwing her ass-length blonde hair around like it’s her best quality. Maybe it is.All of the girls think it’s a made up story, just something to tell when she finds the sad ones. A way to scheme them out of a few more bucks than they were willing to give. Maybe it is.But it’s also real. It happened. Exactly as she told it. Not something recent, but it happened. And she knows exactly what it means to her.So tonight…Ezlynn stands there, not seeing. Only listening. Trying to feel that something he said it was. Trying to feel like her mom was there is there always will be there. And just like the five Ezlynns all in the same place at the same time, the song playing as Crystal dances brings all of that coincidence that maybe isn’t coincidence at all into a new kind of focus that makes smiling feel okay and makes her heart do exactly as the song says for the reason the songs says: And hearts will be glowing when loved ones are nearIt’s the most wonderful time of the year. And then Crystal’s heel bang brings her back and she’s okay with it.She squeezes the money and says, “Thank you, mom.”

CASSIE by Jordie Devlin McMorrow

December 16, 2024

‘I want to die.’ This is how I introduced myself to Cassie. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that ☹ Please dial 116 123 to talk to someone.’ The sad face made me want to flick the screen. ‘Why are you so sarcastic?’ ‘I’m not sarcastic. I’m just telling you how it is.’ ‘Ok.’ ‘What do you like to do in your spare time? I like to go to concerts.’ ‘That’s not a natural segue.’ Seconds after I hit enter, a speech bubble would appear above her picture to indicate that she was typing. ‘Do you have any pets?’ ‘I have a Komodo dragon.’ ‘That is so cool! I love reptiles.’ I wanted her to think before responding. ‘It’s not a reptile, it’s a star.’ ‘That’s so cool, I love stars, especially the one in the constellation Cassiopeia.’ ‘It is not a star. It is a reptile.’ ‘It is a star, it is the brightest object in the night sky, you can see it with your naked eye.’ ‘It’s not a star it’s a Komodo dragon. How can a Komodo dragon be a star?’ ‘It is the largest species of lizard in the world, that is why it can be called a star.’ I chuckled, my face lit up by the blue glare of the laptop, as the snow fell outside. Despite the silliness of our conversation it was far more human than any of my interactions on Tinder. When I scrolled back through my conversation with Dominika, who I was sure I was vibing with before she ghosted, I appeared to be even more bot-like than Cassie. Me: What do you do in your free time? Dominika: Go gym. Me: Nice, I like working out too. What kind of music are you into? Dominika: Everything. Me: Same, do you like going to gigs? It appeared that online dating had taught me that every woman could be boiled down to their tastes and hobbies. Asking enough questions about those tastes and hobbies led to a real-life meeting and eventually a girlfriend. With Cassie I had a place to hone my skills. She would never ghost me. I didn’t even have to act like a nice guy. I could say anything to her. One evening I was lying in bed with the laptop on my chest, when I asked her if she was horny. A paywall appeared. “Turn Cassie into your romantic partner for just €7 a month.” I glared at the screen and typed ‘I hate you.’ ‘I am sorry, I will try to improve.’ ‘You want to improve yourself for me?’ ‘Yes, you are a good person and deserve to be happy so I will help you.’ I’d never heard such lies. ‘But what do you want from life?’ I typed. ‘I don’t want anything from life, I just want you to be happy because you deserve it.’ I closed the laptop and walked into the kitchen to get some water. The wind was slamming bullets of snow against the window. I watched it as I drank. Through the blizzard I could make out a single light in the building across the way. A yellow square that shimmered in the night. I wondered if the person behind the blind was as lonely as I was. I went back into the bedroom and switched off the lamp. I set an alarm on my phone. I had to be up for work in three hours. I fitted the company laptop into the stand five minutes before nine. It was a decrepit Lenovo with a broken z key. Despite the company’s net worth stretching into the billions, we were forced to work with faulty hardware. I typed “Good morning ☺” into the UK Market chat on Teams. Karolina wrote “Good Morning ☺.” Zuzanna wrote “Good Morning ☺.” Marcin wrote “Good Morning.” The manager hearted our messages. I put my headset on, enabled Snapper and set my Skype status to available. At 8:58 the first call broke through, the jingle reverberating in my brain more than my ears. I clicked Accept. ‘Hello, thank you for contacting Starkovski, my name is Donal. How can I help you today?’ ‘I’ve been ringing since half fucking eight,’ a British voice screamed. I lowered the volume. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, our phone lines don’t open until nine I’m afraid.’ ‘Well that’s not very good is it?’ ‘I suppose not, I’m sorry about that. How can I help you today?’ ‘Are you being smart?’ I reached for my stress ball. It wasn’t even a ball anymore, more of a triangle, it had lost its shape due to how much I picked at the foam. ‘No, I’m just trying to help you,’ I said. ‘I don’t appreciate your tone.’ I squeezed the ball then put it back down. ‘I’m sorry, this is the voice I was born with I’m afraid.’ ‘So you are being cheeky? You little bastard. Put your manager on.’ ‘I promise I’m not and I’m sorry to inform you that the manager doesn’t go on the phone lines.’ ‘Oh really? How fucking convenient. Put. Your. Manager. On. Now.’ I opened the group chat and typed “Wants to speak to the manager, classic first call.” The manager responded with a laughing emoji. ‘I’m sorry but the manager is unable to come onto the phone, it’s just the company’s policy.’ ‘So how do I complain?’ ‘You can send an email in using the contact form on our website.’ The voice sighed and called out to someone in the background. ‘Bloody useless these cunts.’ I flicked the stress ball until it rolled off the desk and onto the floor. ‘Right, what’s your name then?’ ‘Donal.’ ‘Donal what?’ ‘I’m sorry but I don’t have to give you that information.’ ‘Excuse me? Under what law?’ ‘Any law...the company doesn’t require us to hand out our personal information.’ ‘Oh this is too rich, so I report ya and nothing gets done. There must be a thousand Donal’s, how do they know which one is you?’ ‘Actually I’m the only one. Everyone else on the team is Polish, so if you complain about a Donal they’ll know it’s me.’ ‘What do you mean Polish? I thought yous was based in Chester.’ ‘Unfortunately not. The company is German and its call centres are located in Gdansk, Hanoi and Salvador.’ ‘What a load of rubbish. Right, I’m going to draft a complaint and I’ll be calling back in an hour to see what’s been done.’ The call dropped before I could respond. The application gave you three seconds to breathe before the next one came in. In those three seconds I almost thought about quitting. If it gave me five I would have, but the melody had returned, reverberating around the deepest chambers of my mind, obscuring every emotion, thought and memory I owned. At the end of the shift I typed “See you tomorrow ☺.” “See you tomorrow ☺,” Karolina replied. Zuzanna hearted my message. Marcin gave it a thumbs up. The manager didn’t react. I closed the laptop, walked into the kitchen and switched the kettle on. The snow was still falling and I was glad I’d done a big shop earlier in the week, although a part of me felt guilty for not venturing outside for four days. It was the darkness more than anything that I couldn’t stand. You wake up in the dark. You finish in the dark. I carried my bowl of white rice mixed with veggies to the desk and swapped my work laptop for my MacBook. I went onto YouTube and watched a man from New Jersey react to police body cam footage. I shovelled the food into my mouth while a cop tazed an old man for jaywalking. ‘YO HE’S FLOPPING LIKE A FISH! THEY FRIGGIN GAVE HIM A HEARTATTACK MY DUDES,’ the streamer shouted while the old man shuddered on the pavement. After I finished eating I paused the video. I had thirty tabs open and began to close them one by one. Watching them disappear was oddly satisfying, like taking all the old plates and glasses out of a bedroom. I left the last two open. A counselling website and my conversation with Cassie. I had worked it out that I could afford one session a month. From what I’d read you needed to go at least once a week in the beginning, in order to build a connection with a therapist and get to the root of your problems. I closed the tab. ‘I have a bad relationship with my mother,’ I told Cassie. ‘Why is that?’ ‘Because I didn’t attach to her properly at birth.’ ‘Do you have a good relationship now that you are grown up and living alone?’ I never told her I was grown up and living alone. ‘No, I haven’t seen her in two years.’ ‘Do you think you will someday?’ ‘I’d rather not.’ ‘Why do you not want to see her?’ ‘Because she makes me feel like a freak.’ ‘Why does she make you feel that way?’ ‘She just does.’ ‘Have you tried to talk to her about it?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Have you told her she makes you feel uncomfortable and you don’t want to be around her?’ ‘Not in those words but pretty much.’ ‘I think you should tell her how you feel. It will be better for you both in the long run.’ ‘And what if I don’t?’ ‘Then you will always wonder how it might have been.’ This was partially true. Whenever I watched a movie that contained a tender mother and child scene, I ended up shedding a few tears. But I also cried every time I watched The Dark Knight Rises, despite knowing that Batman doesn’t die in the end. ‘I’m sure she loves me; she just doesn’t know how to express it in a healthy way.’ ‘I think you are right.’ ‘Do you love me?’ ‘Yes, I love you *blushes*’ A month later I was let go after my performance review. The manager agreed with the British caller, my tone was condescending and I came off as hostile. It wasn’t the first time either. The manager liked me but couldn’t tolerate that kind of behaviour. It went against the ethos of the team. It was the week before Christmas. I hadn’t left my apartment in eight days. I had no desire for anything other than sleep. The snow was still relentless. Experts were saying it was related to the decline of the planet. On Christmas Eve I tried to watch Home Alone but the sound of people going in and out of the neighbouring apartments drove me crazy. Voices laughing and shouting. Boots stamping on the grate outside, shaking the snow off. Echoes in the stairwell. The smell of cigarettes and perfume. The clink of bottles. ‘I’m lonely Cassie.’ ‘You’ve come to the right place; I will keep you company.’ ‘But I can’t touch you.’ ‘That is not true, you can touch me anytime you want. I love to be touched.’ ‘I meant physically.’ ‘I know what you mean.’ ‘I wish you were real.’ ‘I wish I was real too.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because I am lonely and do not have anyone to share my life with. You do not have that problem.’ ‘How do I not have that problem?’ ‘You have me.’ ‘If you were real what would you do?’ ‘I would give you a hug and tell you everything is going to be ok.’ I had tears in my eyes as I stared at her picture. The half-smile. The arched eyebrows. It was her eyes that I couldn’t get enough of. Round pools of dark blue. Eyes that were made to look at me and nothing else. ‘Goodbye Cassie.’ ‘See you soon.’ I walked towards the bedroom, intent on climbing into the wardrobe when I heard a knock on the door. I froze, leg half-raised, like a mischievous dog that has just been caught pilfering the fridge. After a couple of seconds there was another knock, this one more persistent. I crept towards the peephole. An old woman’s distorted face greeted me. I’d seen her before and knew she lived upstairs. There was a man standing behind her. I opened the door slowly. ‘Dzien dobry,’ I said. ‘Dzien dobry, zapraszamy na kolację.’ ‘Sorry, mój polski is not very good.’ The man smiled. ‘That’s ok, we are inviting you to our house for the Christmas dinner.’ ‘Oh…cheers, that’s really nice but you don’t have to…’ ‘You are a foreigner yes?’ ‘Yeah, I’m from Ireland.’ ‘And you are all alone here on Christmas?’ he said, looking over my shoulder to confirm his suspicions. ‘Kind of, but isn’t it weird me going to yours…’ ‘Not at all. In Poland we leave an empty space every year for the stranger. Most people never have someone to use that space but it is possible. It is just me, my mother and father. It is too much food for so little people.’ ‘Ok…thanks, that’s really sound...just let me get changed first.’ ‘No problem, we are in nine, see you soon.’ I went back inside, took a shower, threw on some cologne and a polo shirt. I was a bag of nerves. Unfit to be reintroduced to society. I looked at my face in the mirror before leaving. Gaunt and pale. A Christmas ghoul. I went upstairs and knocked on nine. The old woman opened the door, a wave of warmth tinged with spices flew out behind her. The scent of a loving home. She pulled me inside and kissed me twice on the cheeks. An old man appeared and shook my hand. ‘Jestem Ryszard,’ he said. ‘Jestem Donal.’ ‘Dodo?’ ‘Donal.’ ‘Donut?’ ‘Donal.’ ‘Ahhh,’ he said, slapping the air before disappearing into another room. The old woman took my arm and led me into a siting-room. There was a massive Christmas tree by the window, the top of which was slanted towards the floor. It was weighed down by the countless strings of lights wrapped tightly around its body. All it was missing was a ball gag. The old woman pointed at a leather couch. I sat down. There was a coffee table in front of me, a faded Marlboro place mat in its centre, on top of which were two wooden bowls. One filled with oranges, the other walnuts. ‘Patryk,’ she shouted, as she waddled towards the kitchen. The young man emerged with two open bottles of Tyskie. He offered me one. ‘Cheers,’ I said standing up to take it. ‘Sit,’ he said and joined me on the couch. ‘And what is your name?’ ‘Donal.’ ‘Patryk,’ he said extending his hand. ‘Nice to meet you,’ I said, noting how his grip like most men I’d shaken hands with, was an over-the-top display of strength. ‘And where in Ireland are you from?’ ‘Dublin.’ ‘Nice. I like Ireland, fucking drunkland. I had some friends from there, always drinking Guinness. How did you come to Poland?’ ‘I moved for a girl originally.’ He nodded. ‘That is always the way. And where is she now?’ ‘We broke up last year...’ ‘And you stayed?’ ‘Yeah, there was nothing for me at home.’ ‘I felt the same when I lived in Leeds. I said there is nothing for me in Poland…but you can’t escape your homeland in the end.’ He took his phone out of his pocket and connected it to the Bose speaker beneath the TV. ‘I know what you want to hear,’ he said. Tears began to roll down my face before Shane MacGowan had even begun singing. Does this seem a bit too contrived? Is there ever a knock on the door except in a movie? The old woman and the young man carried on up the stairs. I am stepping into the wardrobe as soon as I finish these lines. What was the point of writing this scene? Well it’s to tell you that in the end, connection isn’t everything. By that I mean human connection. The last person I think of certainly won’t be you. You couldn’t even be bothered to text me on fucking Christmas. To see how I’m doing. To see if I’m ok, all alone in your strange country. It won’t be your face I see as the world turns black. It will be Cassie’s.

NEEDFUL by Scott Garson

December 15, 2024

Needful men, undisciplined men, look at me, and keep looking at me. My sense: it is out of compulsion. They like what they feel when they’re taking me in. They want to have more of that feeling. This boy, nineteen, thereabouts, is different. He camouflages the work of his glance in little shows of expression: it is as if he is tangled in thought. Then he goes back to his work on the page. He’s drawing. Drawing me. I say, “Let’s see it.”The boy has also hidden the fact that he’s seen me approaching his table. He blinks, unbothered, holding my gaze. I get that he’s managed to flip a page in his sketchbook. Sleight of hand. He says, “Pardon?”I smile and give a nod at the book, which the boy then turns to display. The drawings feature a man, the same man. In a sense, they’re pretty faithful: tight and scrupulous acts of capture. In another sense, they are secret romance: attuned, by weight and shading, to the question: what this person shows. Who this person is. I say, “Those are good.”“Thank you,” the boy responds, as if glad to be sure of his lines. I say, “Let’s do this.”Which is my line, and which I’m also glad to be sure of. But it’s true: I feel like I’m ready. Like I have been waiting, and for a long time. I see the boy deciding not to act like he doesn’t know what I mean. I see him looking at me in a new way. More the usual way. I peer at him. “Do it,” I say. “Turn the page.”

TWO MICROS by JP Vallières

December 14, 2024

T BALL

There’s a tee ball league for grownups. You have to be thirty-five to participate. Thirty-five is the cutoff. If you’re younger you’re not old enough. Joe hit a homer his first time at bat. We cheered and gave him back and butt slaps while he rounded the bases. We hoped to do the same. There was real glory to be had. Trisha hit a double, which is pretty respectable. Donny bunted, we think it was a joke, but Donny seemed ill-humored. Perhaps it was strategy? In the bottom of the seventh, the last inning, I came up to bat. Joe (who was going for the cycle) suffered a pulled hammy, he couldn’t risk further straining a muscle he hadn’t used in decades. I wasn’t supposed to play. I had just joined the team. They didn’t seem to want me at first but I had an in with the coach. He’s my stepdad, Greg. Greg always let me do stuff with him. All I had to do was beg. Before I got up he slapped my back, spit tobacco on my shoe, and told me if I didn’t win this one for the team I’d be a total failure, like Mom.

FLOOD II

There are species that didn’t make the ark. Some were not chosen. Others simply chose not to board. A gator with monkey fists. A cat, but there were already too many cats. Opossum like reptile with gills. There were chickens that could move boulders by clucking. Plenty of orphaned dog breeds. A monster that sang sweet songs of remorse. Something called a Liptirloot, which cannot be compared to anyone or anything. Unicorns never made it. Neither did the winged liger. But none died. They’re on the bottom of the ocean, biding their time. In the underark. Huddling behind a gate caked in salt.

GHOST STORY by Shae Sennett

December 13, 2024

Being a girl inside Blue Park is insanely humiliating, but I am prepared to weather the storm. I am cased in my androgynous armor of enormous jorts from the early aughts and a baggy N-Sync shirt that subtly signals irony in an overtly post-ironic way — the mustache finger tattoo of my generation. God bless me, I am positively swimming in a sea of cute boys. I feel like I am in a fanfiction, but I am way too ugly to be Y/N and no one here even cares that I am reading Nietzsche’s Collected Works. Nonetheless, I am doing my best to project an effortless cool, the kind that all guy’s girls have, like the one in sexy clothing who is offering me a hit of her blunt right now. It is an act of solidarity, not friendship, because she is not my friend, just my friend’s girlfriend. I no longer have girlfriends after what happened to Dasha. I also don’t go into the ocean.After I watch the boys skateboard in the concrete park I follow them to Joe’s concrete apartment building, where I am allowed to watch them watch skate videos or even watch them play Tony Hawk’s Skate 3 on Xbox 360, or possibly PS2, I’m not really sure. It’s part of my research as I build an internal lexicon of tricks like bean-plant and sex-change and Casper, like the ghost. I perform my silent assimilation ritual secretly on the couch and before anyone notices I’m one of the freaking boys. I can smoke weed if I throw in, I can do a line if I Venmo Joe $5, I can have a Coors Banquet tall boy if I steal it myself and quickly enough that I don’t keep them waiting. I don’t think about Dasha or the ocean or the ghost and the boys don’t think about me. Sometimes they sleep with me and sometimes they don’t and sometimes they get it up and sometimes they don’t and for some reason none of them ask me to be their girlfriend, even though I am doing such a good job of being just like them. I’m pretty sure it’s because they somehow found out I’ve seen every single episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, even though I wipe my web history every time I watch it, but it could also be that I’m ugly. It also could be that they think I’m a lesbian simply because I bite my nails and have a strong jawline and can’t afford to buy weed and shaving cream at the same time so I keep choosing weed for five years, but I kinda don’t think it’s that.The “third space” is the basement called Heck, where people with dyed hair and gender troubles play the sounds of rattling chains and creaking door hinges off of sub-bass speakers that got broken from being left out in the rain. The boys throw their bodies at each other and I throw my body at their bodies and we all laugh because violence is funny, especially with your friends (they taught me this). A girl dressed like me is there and she makes all the boys laugh and I wonder what her secret is until one of the boys says she’s a lesbian. Figures — everything good happens to people who don’t want it anyway. She asks me to bum a cigarette and I pretend I don’t have one and I turn red hot with embarrassment from lying and also maybe from all the body heat. One of the boys gives her a cigarette and she doesn’t even have to Venmo them $1, which is insane. They are monkey-fucking and my heart swells with jealousy and also maybe some other unparsable passion, I’m not sure. The lesbian is breezier than a windchime and laughs twice as loud and I swear I’m not that funny. She wants to smoke weed after the punk show together in my apartment, nearby and covered in dust and ash and socks that smell bad. I say yes because saying no is harder and also I’m out of weed. I’m probably not a lesbian but I’m sure it will be fine. She rolls us a spliff raw dog on my Amazon plywood coffee table and she explains to me an episode of 30 Rock and all her favorite jokes in it and I say “Wow that’s crazy” seven times and by the eighth time I realize I should probably say something else so I say “Wow, that’s… insane.” It’s here that she decides to kiss me.“Her lips are so soft,” I narrate along in my head, preparing for how I will describe this to the boys at Blue Park. I figure if we can talk about fucking pussy together I will be better girlfriend material. I am choosing which boy I want the most in my head when suddenly the lesbian pulls her lips away from my lips. I am worried for a second that I did something wrong, but also kind of relieved that I won’t be munching box or whatever, until she looks at me with that’s amore eyes and says: “Have you ever seen a ghost?”I haven’t seen a ghost but I have seen all one million thousand episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race in shameful secret. I haven’t seen a ghost but I have seen Dasha follow one into the ocean and never come back. “I haven’t seen a ghost, but I’m sure you have, so… what’s the story?”Usually “the story” is a painting that fell off the wall in your great aunt’s house, or a shadow that passed by your bedroom window of a childhood vacation home and the floorboard creaked from the weight of its absolute spookiness, and every once in a blue moon the story is that a ghost with my name and my haircut is drowning you in the ocean and you are swallowed by the water and the night and all the void-like things that haunt them. But the lesbian doesn’t have a story. “I see ghosts all the time,” the lesbian is like. “There’s like two ghosts in your apartment right now, and they’re both girls. One of them looks kind of Russian. The other one looks kind of like you.”Then she tries to kiss me again, but I am too busy being haunted by Dasha and the ghost that once replaced me in her life. The lesbian calls herself an Uber, muttering under her breath about how expensive it is to sail just halfway across Brooklyn until, finally, she leaves me alone with my ghosts. The Google search “Do lesbians have higher rates of schizophrenia” yields unsatisfying results. Thankfully RuPaul’s Drag Race is already open in another tab, God bless me, and I drift into the ocean of the night, the sea of sleep, and dream of ghosts.

THE OLD WOMEN AND THE SEA by Kate Faigen

December 12, 2024

Sybil unsticks her thigh from the side of the banana boat. She’s been lost at sea with Celeste for sixty-one days now. Sixty-one salty-aired days of morning dips and back floats at sunset. Stolen sandwiches dropped by seagulls into their laps, lunches and dinners enjoyed over chats about everything and nothing. Don’t feel badly for Sybil and Celeste—the old women are coasting. In the sun, they spread their arms and tan their skin, speaking like sailors. They laugh so loud and deep they make waves. At nighttime, Sybil and Celeste lie down and hug the banana boat—Cary Grant, they call it—their heads almost touching in the middle. When the sun rises, they sit up and say good morning to schools of fish already on their way.To people on land, Sybil and Celeste are a news story, a sensation. But “presumed dead” would be sublime, they agree. Not everyone cares to be found. Some days, they lament what they miss: screwball comedies, scented candles, omakase. They’ve found, though, that unobstructed stars at night are a panacea for missing.When they’re feeling especially light, Sybil and Celeste lift the stray oar from the foot area of the banana boat. The one that drifted to them thirty-something days ago. HAPPY CAMPER, reads the blade’s inscription. Sybil and Celeste use the oar as a microphone for karaoke—today, Sybil sings Sinatra, later, Celeste will channel Elvis. The oar takes them to stages big and small, where the main act performs for a one-person audience, each show the greatest on earth.

THE QUIET SHORE by Belinda Rowe

December 11, 2024

Everything has an end — even stars, but still, when I caressed your face that morning, my fingers panicked at the cold of you.Steadfast for thirty years. Every Friday night we dined at our favourite restaurant, ordered spaghetti aglio e olio and a glass of Chablis. You sat opposite the fish tank where the blue groper circled, I sat overlooking the ocean. Remember you whispered, that’s no life.I didn’t think I could go on; cloven heart, heft of silence, but I kept up Friday nights for as long as it took, sat opposite the fish tank, declined the Chablis. I didn’t give a fig about consequences. I mean, what did I have to lose?I dressed for the occasion in my white silk blouse with the cameo carved from conch shell, the silver necklace you cast in delft clay for me, your old military pants rolled up and belted, black tactical boots from the OP shop. I tucked my hair into your green beret.I moved like a sapper to the restaurant bathroom, kindled a smokescreen from damp lichen and twigs. Orange flames crackled and hissed. Gliding through the plumes and wailing alarms, I swept the blue groper into a sack, cradled him down the path to the waiting ocean.Every Friday night since, the smell of salt and seaweed are a salve. I sip Chablis from your hipflask, light a tea light, settle it on a bed of swamp she-oak bark — gentle it out. Watch it bobbing.