ISSUE 10 Archives

SONNY CROCKETT CIRCA 2004 by Ryan Hall

September 27, 2018 · Fiction

The chain-store you were employed at made so many bad decisions that you pictured board meetings full of cross-eyed and drooling executives, giving power-point presentations that were actually crude finger-paintings rendered in their own feces. And it was there, at the end of things, that you met Ricky. He first showed up wearing faded acid-washed jeans and neon blue cowboy boots, with fluffed and teased hair pulled into a pony-tail. He walked right up to you, stationed in the cafe slinging shit coffee and stale snacks for every third customer that didn’t ask where the nearest Starbucks was. Standing in…

Ryan Hall

WHERE WE MARCHED, HIS FINAL YEARS by James McAdams

September 26, 2018 · Fiction

Here’s a pic of Dad and me marching at the Inauguration Protest, January 20th, 2017, he’s holding the IMPEACH TRUMP sign I duct-taped to his hand. He voted for Trump but that didn’t matter—what mattered, according to his neurologist, was that he get fresh air, sunlight, and exercise, away from the confinements of Lush Horizons. This one, yes, that’s him marching with the pink Breast Cancer Awareness cap at the Women’s March, January 21st. His gait palsied, hands slapping the air, mind still in the 60’s, the decade he said changed everything, the decade I was born. At the airport,…

James McAdams

THE BROKEN TEETH DIARIES by Joe Bielecki

September 25, 2018 · Fiction

We used to be in a mouth but were evicted by a fist in the winter outside of a bar by a bouncer. We weren’t unhappy in our home, but we didn’t mind being free from being drowned in alcohol and choked by smoke every day. The snow was cool. We hibernated like little white bears. We mingled with razor sharp salt that was used to tear through the ice that the snow was packed down to create. Our enamel was scraped away slowly. Small cracks formed and were filled with melted snow that froze in the night and expanded…

Joe Bielecki

BONDO by Harris Lahti

September 24, 2018 · Fiction

That summer I started working at Lexington Home for minimum wage. I spent shifts convincing residents to swallow pills brimming from paper cups. It was a powerful position. Or at least that’s what I told friends. I told them I could’ve swallowed every pill if I wanted. But the only question anyone ever asked was: “What happened to you?” I was permanently limping. My hips, shins, elbow were riddled with lumps and eggs. The city of Albany was full of cracks that stopped skateboard wheels dead and, it seemed, I’d found every one. I discovered the pink goo of car…

Harris Lahti

A CATALOGUE OF TEMPORARY OBJECTS by Clio Velentza

September 23, 2018 · Fiction

One by one they sat for their portraits. Littlest ones first. They stopped at the door and undid their braids. They rubbed their hair with vinegar and pinched their cheeks. The oldest ones were fearsome, they didn’t know how to listen anymore. One pricked her finger and spread the blood on her lips. They rolled up their ribbons and stuck them in their shoes. They spat and brushed their eyebrows. One by one. Littlest ones first, these ones still had hope. The photographer had one grey eye and one black. He would close an eye to look at them, and…

x-r-a-y magazine

KENTUCKY SHITS by Giovanni DeJaneiro

September 21, 2018 · Fiction

Steven lived alone in a small house on a cattle ranch at the bottom of a hidden valley. He didn’t have city water, air conditioning, or internet. The kitchen stank. Empty beers crowded the table and counters and stovetop. A flyswatter hung on the wall—flies hummed through the air. Dishes towered in the sink. Bright orange slime curdled in a dirty saucer, seemingly the source of the hideous reek. He inflated a mattress in the family room, where a floral couch faced a huge wood stove. Grains of rice, toenail clippings, bottle caps, and dirty tissues overspread the coffee table….

x-r-a-y magazine

THEME PARK SUICIDE by Teddy Duncan

September 20, 2018 · Excerpt, Fiction

I’d been to six flags before and I knew that there was a ride called goliath that you could manually unbuckle the seat belt even after the ride had begun. I don’t fully understand what I was thinking at the time but I don’t think anyone does when you get away from a sickness like that, like when you have a stomach ache and forget what it feels like for your stomach to be normal and you wish and hope and pray for it to be normal and for the stomach ache to end, so that normal becomes a glorious…

Teddy Duncan

OPENING WEEKEND by Clare Nazarena Tascio

September 19, 2018 · Fiction

OPENING WEEKEND THE HARD PART IS THAT IT ISN’T HARD. TO GO ON LIVING. AFTER. THE LIVING JUST…GOES. JUST GOES ON AND ON! WITHOUT ME. AND I HAVE TO WATCH IT GO. AND I CAN’T CATCH UP TO IT. AND I CAN’T REALLY WANT TO. SO IT GOES. ON AND ON. SOMETIMES I SIT IN THE FRONT ROW, BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS TO SIT IN THE FRONT ROW, AND BECAUSE IT’S LIKE SITTING REALLY CLOSE TO A BONFIRE. I WANT YOU CLOSER AND BIGGER. BUT SOMETIMES I SIT ALL THE WAY IN THE BACK. WHEN I’M THAT FAR AWAY…

Clare Tascio

DROP SHOT by Louis Dickins

September 18, 2018 · Fiction

Sonia is ashamed of her husband. She’s sitting with a crowd of people at the local tennis courts in horror, as her husband Paul prepares to serve. He hasn’t won a game, and he and his opponent are deep into the third and final set. It’s a hot, windy day at the South Morang Tennis Club. There’s a barbeque sizzling in the corner and cups of cordial set up for the kids. It’s the quarterfinals of the local tournament, and Paul’s lifelong dream of winning the cup is being violently dismantled. At 48 years old, Paul is seriously overweight and…

Louis Dickins

GRANDMOTHER by R.E. Hengsterman

September 17, 2018 · Fiction

A low metal growl rises, and I leap from the bed. Ten… nine. By seven, she’s reached the cornered hill of Fletcher and Fields. Her brakes protest with a tinny squeal. By five, I’m half dressed. At three, the throaty rumble of the eight-cylinder engine grows. By the time I reach zero, Grandmother has arrived. She slides from the bench seat of her station wagon and navigates the piles of dog shit left by our beagle. Her pink, black-strapped handbag drapes her forearm. Her coifed hair is motionless. She has pressed her clothing into fine lines of order. Mother, Father, and…

R.E. Hengsterman

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