Adelaide Literary Magazine No. 8, July 2017

Marlene’s eyes dart to touch on Danny’s face, but
then her hazel irises returning to the desert, a
landscape she hasn’t shown much interest in until
now. The clock is ticking, but it’s a different kind
of ticking. Danny looks at his wristwatch.

About the Author:
Michael Onofrey's stories have appeared in
Cottonwood, Evansville Review, Natural Bridge,
Road to Nowhere and Other New Stories from the
Southwest (anthology, University of New Mexico
Press), Terrain.org, and Weber - The Contempo-
rary West, as well as in other fine places. A novel,
"Bewilderment," was recently brought out by
Tailwinds Press.

49

THE PLANE RIDE

Kay Merkel Boruff

There is a place where time stands still. Raindrops I unpacked, put on a gown, and got into bed.
hang motionless in air. Pendulums of clocks float
mid-swing. Dogs raise their muzzles in silent I had never been alone, one love affair
howls. The aromas of dates, mangoes, coriander, eclipsed the next. Tonight I felt as if I were in a
cumin are suspended in space. As a traveler ap- womb, asleep and winter-like: winter-brittle, a
proaches this place from any direction, he moves tomb. As I lay, quiescent, I thought of the ride
more and more slowly. His heartbeats grow farther back to our bungalow. After hearing the news of
apart, his breathing slackens, his thoughts dimin- Merk’s death, I felt a shock. Then a sadness. Then
ish, until he reaches dead center and stops. This is quietly, slipping in, as a shadow of pale ice, a
the center of time. From this place, time travels slight exaltation: energy surging: we had raced
outward in concentric circles—at rest at the center, into one adventure after another. United. I envied
slowly picking up speed at greater diameters. Who him, his sharing that rich death before me—
would make the pilgrimage to the center of time? without me. Yet I thought of having someone
Parents with children, and lovers. who had made the transition, someone who wait-
ed on the other side. I thought of his dying in a
—Einstein’s Dreams war zone, bullets bursting around his H-34, the
grey mountainous aircraft. Grey uniforms. Grey
“Why didn’t you kiss the boys good-bye?” I said. helmets. His grey shroud lifted by impetuous men
who chased the scream of death, rounds pinging
“Peter and I feel like it’s better not to make on the roof, through the floor, through his head—
a big deal of our leaving. It seems to make them a sharp, painless red streak piercing the darkness,
less anxious.” then the light.

Allyson smiled and put her arms around The news was not that difficult to hear. One simp-
me. ly kept on living and breathing. How could I stop
my heart from beating? How could I tell my mind
I thought of Merk’s death, now more than to cease functioning? I wanted to, but I couldn’t
five days behind me, his departing, hugging me, figure out how. Long ago, I learned to deny—deny
that crushed, comfortable, taken-for-granted the reality and the pain will never surface. I
feeling, protected yet not encumbered—his smil- dreamed, yet I couldn’t see Merk’s face. The
ing jauntily as he turned to wave, and calling to night’s id was a labyrinth from which there was
me, “I love you.” I was glad for my good-bye hugs no escape.
and kisses. Even the fuck you’s screamed at my
gentleman husband. No unemotional partings. The next morning the ride to the airport
passed uneventfully as we three drove to the Air
We ran to catch our plane at the military America office. Company officials awaited our
base. After the thirty minute flight from Udorn to arrival, ushering us quickly through a door
Bangkok, we claimed our bags and took a taxi to marked “Private.” Reading Merk’s files thirty-five
the Siam. Peter registered us, and the Turners left years later, they were afraid of what I would do.
me in my room. They had been waiting.

50

Surrounded by strangers, I noticed my hands. I followed the tall Oriental dressed in an Air
They felt clammy, my fingers were cold and my America grey uniform. My eyes cleared, and I
sandaled feet normally swollen from the heat read his badge. Nguyen. I hadn’t recognized him.
were suddenly cold. Peter was speaking to me, It seemed a lifetime since I met him in Sai-Gon.
but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I
could hear the words, but I didn’t understand. He handed me tickets and a boarding pass. “Mrs.
That sound in my head. Faint. Petal-like insects far Merkel, I was so sorry to learn of Captain Merkel’s
off in the distance. death.” He spoke as I remembered, in slow,
measured cadence. “He was a good man.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Nguyen.”
I listened, but I was having difficulty focus-
ing. The words. A mouth. Opening and closing. His I boarded before other passengers. After
eyes. I looked at his eyes. First the left. Then the putting my small wooden purse Merk had given
right. I was reading his lips. Taking notes. The man me for Valentine’s and the Mandarin bag below
was saying words I vaguely understood. I was my seat, I fastened my seat belt. As the plane
floating. The doctor spoke to me. began to fill, the seat beside me remained empty.
I closed my eyes. The plane taxied down the run-
“Kay, take your tranquilizer.” way. I screamed in my mind, Please don’t lift off. I
can’t leave him here. I can’t go on without him. I
Dr. Brown? Professor? I’m reading your held my hands in front of my eyes to keep other
lips. I can understand you. Yes, I’m fine. passengers from seeing my tears.

“Miss Boruff.” After the flight from Bangkok to New Del-
hi, we were on the ground only a short time while
Kay. a handful of passengers got on. I noticed a young
man walk the length of the plane and finally re-
“Mrs. Merkel.” turn and sit down next to me. He buckled his seat
belt around his slight frame, lighted a cigarette
Kay. and turned to offer me one.

“Kay.” “No, thanks.”

“Yes . . . Peter.” Single frames in my mind. He inhaled deeply. “Are you on a holiday?”
“Yes, I’ll keep the tranquilizer . . . in case I need it .
...” “I’m married to an Air America pilot. We
lived in Sai-Gon for two years, and recently we
“Don’t discuss Merk’s death with anyone, were transferred to Udorn, Thailand.” That was
Kay,” Peter said. okay to say. “Are you on a holiday?”

“Of course.” “I’ve been overseas for ten years, but this
is a holiday, of sorts. I’m flying back—to New
Then there was silence for several sec- York—to try and patch up things with my girl-
onds. Then tears. I hadn’t seen my parents or friend. She just wrote me a Dear John letter.” He
Merk’s parents for two years. I forced myself to drew deeply again on his cigarette.
concentrate. I had to stay calm.
“My husband’s name is Jon—the French spelling.”
My weight had already begun to drop, and
the circles under my eyes had grown darker. I “Do you like living overseas?”
stopped crying and gathered my purse and carry-
on luggage to leave. “Yes. Overall, yes. We haven’t been home
on leave for two years. I’m going home alone.” I
I hugged Peter. “Thank you.” I held his couldn’t think what to say. “My husband stayed in
hand. “I know it was hard on all the pilots. I know Thailand.” That was not completely a lie. Merk’s
you loved Merk too.” I hugged Allyson, I think to body had remained behind to return home the
gather strength to board the plane. “I couldn’t Pacific route.
have made it without you and the boys. Kiss them
for me when you get home.”

51

“Where’s home?” I stroked the two gold bands on either side of my
engagement diamond. “I’m sure everyone
I paused. “Texas. My parents live in Texas. thought I was pregnant.”
I haven’t seen them in two years. It’ll be good to
see them.” “But you weren’t?”

The “No Smoking” sign came on. “No, we have no children.”

“Would you like some gum?” I said. The hostess returned with my coke and his
beer.
As the plane lifted off, he extinguished his
cigarette and took a piece of gum. “At the base where Jon was stationed
when I met him, nurses spent a three-week orien-
The man’s appearance was a paradox to tation period before reporting for permanent
his youthful state: his eyes darted over me as duty. At the first happy hour in the Officers’ Club,
though he were mentally making notes. His hands he would scout the recruits for a prospective
drummed on the seat belt. His feet stayed only short-time romance. His roommates told me he
moments in one position, continuously crossing would bring a date home, position her in front of
and uncrossing. In contrast, the man’s mouth, the stereo or fire place, open a bottle of expen-
even the carriage of his shoulders, mirrored a sive wine, pop a frozen gourmet dinner he’d pre-
haggard, defeated expression, and his years over- pared into the oven, make coy conversation, and
seas had aged his skin to the weathered tan of a woo her into bed. I don’t mean to say Jon was a
tennis pro. I sat relaxed, relieved to make no philanderer since he went with one woman at a
more decisions. I needed only to exist. But I felt time. He was just . . . good as gold. Everyone
compelled to encourage him. loved Jon. Funny I didn’t fit into his mold. I hated
wine and wasn’t use to such Playboy maneuvers.”
“I bet if you fly all the way to New York, you can
patch things up with your girlfriend. When my I thought of the psychoanalysis Merk did
husband and I were dating, he debated endlessly on himself as a psychology undergraduate at the
whether to give up his bachelorhood at twenty- University of Maryland. Oversexed and under
eight. His little black book had girls’ addresses loved.
from around the world, girls from his first tour in
Viêt-Nam now living stateside, nurses from nu- “I met him at a party and immediately fell
merous military bases.” in love. Even though he passed out the first time I
talked to him on the phone.”
The hostess took our drink orders.
“That was an interesting ploy.”
“He got drunk three nights in a row and
asked me to marry him, then each time sobered “He had broken up with a girl and proceed-
up and changed his mind. Finally I told him to fuck ed to get drunk. I was returning his phone call,
off and took a job teaching in California.” and he smooth passed out. My girlfriend said all
her friends were in love with him, but they were
“Slow to anger.” afraid he would just swallow then up. They
thought I was crazy marrying him and traipsing
“To a fault. He asked, ‘If I asked you to around the world. His thrill seeking was catching.”
marry me, will you?’ I told him, ‘If you ask me, I’ll I turned the guards on either side of my engage-
tell you.’ I left him hanging for three days.” ment diamond. “We have a strange marriage.
Being apart from Jon is normal, actually,” I paused
“You Texas women drive a hard bargain.” at the correct past tense I felt compelled to say,
“since we lived . . . a pilot’s schedule—four days
“We play a lot of poker. I knew he loved home, four or five days upcountry. It’s a great
me. When he flew out to California for my birth- schedule to have more time together than most
day, we eloped.” married couples spend in ten years.”

“And you had your ring,” he said, looking I drank the remainder of my coke.
at my wedding bands.

52

“You go back to your girlfriend and try to patch “Anyone you knew”
things up. Give her lots of hugs and kisses and
then a little room. Don’t forget the chase, and “Yes . . . a friend.”
she’ll be there before you know it.”
Stanley’s words rang in my ears. Don’t dis-
I stopped talking and thought how strange I had cuss Merk’s death with anyone.
just told this stranger the story of Merk’s court-
ship. I closed my eyes and must have fallen In Udorn, I’d asked no questions because I
asleep. When I woke, I felt the plane begin its assumed I would receive no answers. It really
descent over Frankfurt. I began to worry what I made little difference. Merk was dead. But now to
looked like, dressed in a cotton mini skirt, sandals, see information I’d never been given—in print—
hair hanging to my waist, large smoke-tinted made me want to kill someone at Air America. I
glasses. felt betrayed by the press—and the Company.

“Would you like coffee in the snack bar?” Without conversation we drank our coffee.
the man said.
Several minutes followed, and the man
“Sure. I have a four-hour layover before I looked nervously at his watch. “God! I’m going to
fly to Washington.” miss my plane.”

“Do you have any carry-on luggage?” We exchanged pleasantries as I reached
out to shake his hand, once again giving him en-
“Yes, just the Mandarin bag under my couraging words for his crumbling romance. He
seat.” left to return to his plane. Or so I thought at the
time. Ten years later, when I told my girlfriend
After the plane landed, he got the bag and the story of my flight home, she said, Kay, didn’t
then led the way off the plane. I followed him you know. He was a journalist. He was interview-
because he seemed to know his way around the ing you. The article appeared in the Kansas City
airport. paper after Merk’s funeral.

“There’s an empty spot,” he pointed to a I sipped my coffee, now cold. It had been
table across the room and gave me the flight bag. twenty hours since I left the Orient. My eyes fell
“I’ll get two coffees. Cream and sugar?” on the first paragraph of the article.

I nodded. “A U. S. helicopter pilot was killed by sniper fire
while ferrying supplies to beleaguered Laotian
The airport was crowded for the month of government forces on the Plain of Jars. The U. S.
February. I snaked my way around the tables and Embassy spokesman reported Sunday the pilot
chairs—mothers feeding babies, young children was identified as John Merkle of Fort Worth,
bleary-eyed from time changes. Dressed in a sari, who was flying for Air America, a contract air-
one of the women laughed, showing a dark- lines to the Central Intelligence Agency.”
colored tongue. I wished I could emulate Indian
widows, throwing themselves on their husband’s I heard Merk and other pilots speculating that the
funeral pyres. I would find great satisfaction CIA owned Air America but the Agency’s proprie-
dumbly falling into the grave with Merk. taries were purposely nebulous. In 1987, after the
Air America Association raised funds and de-
Finally I made my way to the table. As the signed our own memorial for the 250 men killed
man joined me, our eyes fell on a New York Times and William Casey spoke at the dedication, ac-
lying on the coffee-stained table. knowledging the involvement of the Agency, we
knew, for the first time, that Air America was con-
I glanced at the headline and watched the nected to the CIA. In 1970, it was speculation. We
man’s eyes on the paper. weren’t in Viêt-Nam. We were nowhere—we
were in a zone of silence.
“CIA Pilot Killed. First Casualty
I stuffed the newspaper in my bag and
Plain of Jars Battle.” walked over to the duty free shop.

53

I looked at the perfume. Bottles of Joy lined one The two women talked, incessantly, annoying as
shelf. I didn’t need any Joy. Merk had just given gnats hovering in the air. Their first trip abroad,
me a new bottle. I skimmed the other shelves and spending a single night in a different country, now
stopped on a shelf of Hummels. on the plane, they excitedly discussed West Berlin
and Kaiser Wilhelm’s Cathedral. They said some-
Merk’s parents had visited relatives in Ger- thing about a “blue power puff.” I thought I must
many and each trip sent us Hummels. I saw a have heard wrong.
small figurine, shorter than the other twenty. A
child dressed in a postman’s uniform, with a jack- The woman sitting next to me said, “Are you re-
et, pants, and cap of mailman blue. The little boy turning from a vacation?”
held his arm outstretched, clutching a small par-
cel addressed simply with a tiny red heart. “No.” I forced myself to be civil. “My hus-
band flies for Air America, and we’ve been living
I said a prayer that Merk and I had saved our in Viêt-Nam for two years. I’m going home on
letters and took the Hummel to the cash register. leave to visit my parents.”
I thought of the letters mailed from Taipei. The
envelopes had no glue. Mail was censored. I “Viêt-Nam! Was that frightening?” Not
thought of the newspaper article of my husband’s waiting for a response, she said, “How long has it
death, his name misspelled. been since you’ve seen your folks?”

Time passed, and I heard the boarding call. “Two years.” I hoped short answers would
My learning disability makes reading signs in air- discourage further conversation.
ports frustrating, fearful that I will get lost, miss
my plane, do the wrong thing. I decided to take “Oh, you’ll find the states considerably
the tranquilizer the Company doctor gave me. changed. I teach at a university—Case Institute in
The entire trip would take twenty-seven hours by Cleveland.” The woman’s eyes widened. “The
the time I reached Washington. I had come long-haired hippies are disgusting!” The woman
through Europe, rather than flying directly to Los looked at my sandals. “I know you’ll enjoy being
Angeles, because Merk had planned to take me to home again.”
Europe on our home leave this May. I wanted to
be in Europe where Merk and I were meant to be. I wanted to scream, Home! My home is in
Together. The fatigue and strain in the back of my the Orient! Where my life was. Where my life
neck made a dull throb in my head. I knew Merk ended. But I said nothing.
had been shot in the head and died instantly. I
carried a vision of his brains and blood splattered When Merk and I dated, I asked him what
on the helicopter walls, like Jacqueline Kennedy’s he did in the service in Viêt-Nam. He said it was
pink suit painted with grey and red matter. In classified. Flying for Air America, he was em-
1994, after I received his files from Langley, two ployed as a “civilian,” and technically I could
years in the waiting, I learned the bullet entered question him about his work, but I never did. I
his trachea and exited the back of his head. The knew he wouldn’t want me to worry. He seldom
lead pilot of the seven aircrafts told me years lat- commented about his work. I assumed he would
er at an Air America reunion that his head wound discuss his work if he felt the need. I thought of
was clean. There was little blood. He died pain- the time he cried on my shoulder, begging me to
lessly, loving the war and excitement. But on the help him. He always feared I couldn’t cope with
plan ride coming home, I had Kennedy’s assassi- the stress of living in a war zone. His psychology
nation imprinted behind my eyes. degree let him think he was stronger than I was. I
thought once again of the newspaper article.
I found the gate and gave the attendant
my ticket. My seat was by the window. Looking As pleasantly as I could, I said to the wom-
out at the sky helped me stay focused. Centered. an, “Yes, mam, I’m sure I’ll enjoy being home.”
Two older women sat down beside me. I asked
the attendant for a glass of water to take the Frustrated I had wasted the tranquilizer,
tranquilizer, thinking I could sleep. I really wanted listening to the women talk about their trip, I fell
to be dead. in and out of sleep.

After several more hours of restlessness,
the hostess woke me and gave me a card to

54

complete. Groggily I filled in my name. My palms Dark clouds boiled outside the window, the pres-
began to sweat. Merk always filled out the cus- sure inside my head, a crushing vice. Tears welled
toms form. A surge of fear triggered in my mind: in my eyes and ran down my cheeks. Merk sel-
adrenaline shot into my bloodstream, dilated my dom saw me cry. The agony continued as the
pupils, altered my sight, clouded my mind; letters plane descended through the dark. Merk wiped
reversed and words disappeared, the printed away my tears. I remembered Merk’s words: The
page rendered into dark characters jumping spas- takeoff and landing are the most crucial times
tically on a dull grey web. flying. God, don’t let me die—not before the fu-
neral.
I glanced at the woman’s card and read
“Disembarkation.” I scribbled out the words and The hostess came on the intercom. “Ladies and
turned over my card to begin again. My god, I gentlemen, if you have items to declare, you pro-
thought, what do I put for my home address? I ceed to the green arrows. If you have nothing to
had left my last residence in Udorn, my husband declare, proceed to the blue arrows.”
in Laos, my household goods on the docks in
Bangkok. I wrote “42 Wichita Gardens” and I began rehearsing the words to the cus-
marked through it and wrote my parents’ newer toms agent. I hated to stutter and feel like an idi-
address. The city limits had been moved to in- ot or not be able to say anything. Or lose control
clude my parents’ home, and the street name was and break down. I have been living . . . . What
changed. I could feel depression creeping over tense do I use? I have lived in the Orient for two
me. I closed my eyes and chanted. Nam yo ho ren years. I have nothing to declare. I looked at
ghee keyo, over and over to quiet my mind. Merk’s gold ID bracelet. His gold Rolex was in my
Through grace I am the incarnate spirit. I dabbed purse. How did I explain several thousand dollars
tears trapped behind my lashes and looked up, in gold jewelry? I am a US citizen. Fool, he can see
shocked to see the captain briefly emerge from my grey passport. I have been living in Viêt-Nam
the cockpit door, then disappear. Merk loved to for the past two years. My husband flew for Air
fly. I thought of the only time I flew with Merk in America. He was killed five days ago, flying in
Nha Trang. He would never have been happy fly- Laos. Or was it yesterday? Words surfaced from
ing in the states. The Stranger. Mother died today. Or, maybe it
was yesterday. Once Sartre’s words seemed bi-
“Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned on zarre. Now they were real. What could I say that
the seat belt sign. Please extinguish all cigarettes. wouldn’t sound as though I had lost my mind? I
We will be landing shortly at Douglas.” have nothing to declare. I have been living out of
the states for two years. My husband was a pilot
I filled in the remaining blanks, too tired to for Air America and was killed. There. I’d revealed
care if the information was correct or made no information. Then I remembered the New York
sense. Times headlines and the young man drinking
coffee with me in the airport in Frankfurt, as
“The temperature is forty-five degrees. though my life were normal. I felt betrayed by the
Remember to check for belongs in the luggage government.
compartments overhead.”
A friend. Merk was my best friend.
The plane lurched. I began to worry about
the landing. Only once during an emergency land- The plane lurched onto the runway, and
ing in Phnon Penh had I been afraid. The plane cheers rose from the back of the plane—the noisy
had plummeted several thousand feet, and my group elated from exhaustion, pleased to return
dinner tray had risen inches. My stomach was to plumbing that functioned properly and tele-
driven up to my throat. My heart began its irregu- phones that spoke English. The two women be-
lar rhythm. I turned to Merk, expecting his normal side me chattered, afraid they wouldn’t make
blasphemous rage at the captain’s ineptness. I connections.
was shocked with his silence. I’d never seen Merk
react to fear. His face was ashen. The pocked I picked up my purse, got my flight bag,
marks from childhood acne shown with sweat. and thought of the last time I saw Merk—the mo-
We’re going to die, flashed through my mind. ment etched in my mind, playing over and over. I

55

stood on the porch of the bungalow. He reached riverbank. Thoughts of school. Thoughts of
the Company van and turned. I noticed the blue chores. Thoughts of siblings. Thoughts abandoned
of his eyes in the early morning sun. He yelled to to freeze time in pensive stillness. Postured lazily
me—I love you. in the fall sun, mesquite trees lined the dirt road
pounded smooth by kids and horses. The road
I followed the crowd through the airport to what I branched toward the river and our special place.
hoped was the correct line, and finally it was my Chinaberry bushes clustered along the murky
turn. river. The low wild trees covered the red clay
bank. Their berries pale orange shriveled on spin-
The balding customs agent appeared exhausted. I dly branches. Small grape-sized chinaberries that
imagined his thinking, One more stupid tourist, my mother used for decoration were hard as
trying to sneak back into the states with unde- knuckles and cancerously poisonous. The ochre
clared goods, trying to screw the government. He berries swayed in deaf silence. Our two lithe fig-
looked at my passport filled with exit and en- ures brushed rapidly through the gamboges ber-
trance visas from Viêt-Nam, Taipei, Bangkok. Sev- ries. Breathlessly, we hugged each other. Our
eral entries to Hong Kong and Singapore. He world was complete. Then my best friend had
stared at my cotton shift and sandals. Strange for moved away.
February.
I looked farther down the corridor and saw my
“I have been living in Southeast Asia for mother.
two years.”
New York Times
He continued to stare at me.
CIA Pilot Killed
“I have nothing to declare. My husband
was killed.” I didn’t pause but continued to First Casualty Plain of Jars
breathe, in and out, counting my breaths. “I’m
returning to the states.” A U.S. helicopter pilot was killed by sniper fire
while ferrying supplies to beleaguered Laotian
I stared at the man’s hands, huge, covered government forces on the Plain of Jars. The U.S.
with dark hair, his fingernails dirty. I didn’t look at Embassy spokesman reported Sunday the pilot
his eyes. I was afraid I would start crying. was identified as John Merkle of Fort Worth,
who was flying for Air America, a contract air-
He picked up the stamp and with a swift move- lines to the Central Intelligence Agency.
ment, he inked words into my grey passport, a
mute welcome. Misprision

“Next,” he said. “History is written as we speak, its borders are
mapped long before any of us open our mouths; and
People behind me shoved me aside. written history, which makes the common
knowledge out of which our newspapers report the
My body was lifeless. I was wrapped in a events of the day, creates its own refugees, displaced
chrysalis, a world of memories, a world of persons, men and women without a country, the
dreams. I was a hundred years old. I focused my living dead: Are you still alive, really?” —Griel
eyes through the deafening voices beyond the
gate and continued to walk down the grey corri- Marcus
dor. I didn’t want the journey to end. I wanted to
stop time and not have to bury Merk. I was
shoved again and paused as someone behind me
yelled, “JoAnn!” I turned and saw a child, about
twelve, who looked like my best friend in grade
school. I remembered the autumn day: JoAnn and
I had taken a vow to remain best friends. Giggling
over the phone, our voices muffles, secret plans.
Each slipped out the back door and then raced:
the West Texas wind and two scant tumbleweeds,
blowing from opposite directions, straight for the

56

About the Author:
Kay Merkel Boruff lived in Viet-Nam 68-70 & was
married to an Air America pilot who was killed
flying in Laos 18 Feb 70. She graduated from TCU
with a BA in English & Education; & from UTD
with an MA in Humanities, publishing her thesis
“Constitution of Advanced Objects: A Theory &
Application. Her work has appeared in the New
York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, Texas Short
Stories 2, Taos Magazine, The Dallas Morning
News, and the Wichita Falls Record News. In addi-
tion, she has work in Suddenly, Grasslands Re-
view, Behind the Lines, Fifth Wednesday, Adanna,
Stone Voices, Turk’s Head, Calyx, Meat & Tea,
Concho River Review, West Trade Review,
Offbeat/Quirky; and Paper Nautilus. Letters of her
husband’s and hers were included in Love and
War, 250 Years of Wartime Love Letters. NPR in-
terviewed Boruff regarding her non-profit Merkel
& Minor: Vets Helping Vets: A Class Act Produc-
tion. She attended Burning Man 2012 and then
climbed Wayna Picchu in Peru on her 71st birth-
day. Her novel Z.O.S. is presently being reviewed
by several agents.

57

BOOTS

Thomas Vollman

A few months prior to what should have been the Near the end of my first month in London, I finally
end of my final year of undergrad, my then- got a room in a flat up in Northolt. The sub-letter
girlfriend told me she was going to study abroad was a woman, a blackjack dealer at some casino
in London. out along one of the autoroutes. She worked al-
most every night of the week, so she and I were
It was the middle of the spring semester, on nearly polar-opposite schedules. When we did
but any identifiable aspects of real spring had yet cross paths—no matter what time it happened to
to hatch. The air was a rusty knife—unwieldy and be—she always seemed to have on some sort of
dangerous—and the whole city tossed and turned satin robe or gauzy coverlet, which was usually
under a thick, grey duvet of clouds. My then- untied so that I'd catch momentary glimpses of
girlfriend was set to graduate, but I wasn't; I her negligee or bra (always lacy and fire-engine
needed 12 credits and fourteen thousand dollars. red) or (on at least three occasions) naked breast.
The 12 credits didn't include foreign language, I moved out of her place in the middle of the
and the 14 grand was for unpaid tuition and fees, night after only about a week-and-a-half because
which triggered a hold on any future registration. she 1) sneaked up behind me in the kitchen one
Despite all of that (or maybe in spite of it), I morning, pressed me against the counter,
planned to go to London, too. My hold, though, tongued my ear, and whispered You know you
prevented me enrolling via the regular study want to fuck me (which I most definitely didn't)
abroad channels. and 2) barged into my what-I-thought-was-locked
-and-probably-was room late one night to see if I
Going to London was important. It was as wanted to shag her from behind while some oth-
if something fragile had to be held in place and er guy watched (which I likewise wasn't at all in-
my going to London would hold that fragile some- terested in doing).
thing exactly where it needed to be. I guess I sort
of figured I'd be able to sort everything out once I When I told my friends about her and her
arrived. Of course, I thought everything could be come-ons, they agreed that it seemed I'd been
sorted out when the time came. Everything. better off homeless.

The first two weeks I was in London, I And now, almost two decades later, that
bounced between a half-dozen hostels. I had no- same word, homeless, is clattering around inside
where to live since housing arrangements ran my brain, and the only thing I'm thinking is, How
through one's sponsoring school. Because of my many students are even at this school?, which is
hold, I had no sponsoring school, so I had no pretty fucked up given what I've just been told.
housing arrangements. The other American stu-
dents—the ones officially enrolled in the study A voice suddenly stabs forth from the cen-
abroad—gave me a nickname: homeless. It was a ter of our little group. It's the President.
joke between the dozen or so of us—my home-
lessness—and I suppose that since I was 23 years- "A hundred and two?" she asks.
old I should have known better, but I didn't.
I think she hopes, like me, that she's misheard the
figure. Sadly, she hasn't.

58

"Yes," the counselor repeats, "a hundred and stand and look at them—girls, boys, men, wom-
two."
en. How many of them, I wonder, are homeless?
The counselor's name is D'Marne, and she
looks quite young and has on these shiny, patent- How many of them have nowhere to go when the
leather heels with long, narrow points at the toes.
Her blazer is cinched tight by a single, diamond- bell rings at 2:45? How many of them are includ-
shaped button that wrenches her torso just above
her waist. She seems uncomfortably off-balance ed in that number: one hundred two? I
and disproportionate to both herself and the
space around her. wonder how the one hundred two survive. I won-

Her lips twist awkwardly around the words she der how they even show up, day-in, day-out, and
speaks, but I don't want to notice this twisting
since it seems so awfully inappropriate given the do whatever it is they’re doing. I wonder how me
implications of what's being said.
or anyone else can expect them to do anything
"The latest data," she continues, “and
we're swimming in data, indicates that we have different than whatever it is they're currently do-
one hundred two homeless students."
ing. I mean, just by being here, they've accom-
As she speaks, my chest collapses. Of
course, it doesn't really collapse because nothing plished a hell of a lot more than I ever would or
that trite happens outside of movies or short sto-
ries, but I am given time in the slow, beating could if I was in their position.
movements of blood and breath to think about
what, exactly, D'Marne's statement implies. I'm It's a raw deal they've been dealt. It's un-
uncomfortable with this, uncomfortable consider- fair, untenable, indigestible, and like a single
ing the explicit awfulness a reality where one spark that grows and multiplies and lights the
hundred two students at a single Milwaukee pub- darkest depths, I want to do something about it.
lic high school are homeless.
I need to do something about it.
I'm standing in the massive, open-concept,
glass entry way that anchors the north and south But what?
wings of Leslie Tech, part of a little huddle of ad-
ministrators from the handful of four- and two- Conversations erupt all around me—
year colleges that dot the map in and around the educrat talk about co-requisite acceleration and
city of Milwaukee. I see students in classrooms retention, about support and testing.
crammed with a complicated array of technology.
The students—at least a majority of them—seem But fuck all of that.
distracted. It's as if they've been teleported here
from bedrooms or isolation booths or places I want to say something—anything—to get
where this type of stimulation is foreign and rare us all back to the point that matters, the one
and so overwhelming that it almost posits a com- we’re all working so hard to ignore. But I can't. All
plete shut down of all cognitive processes. I can think about is the number one hundred two
and the way D’Marne’s voice shuttered like a
And now D’Marne is talking about some- slightly torn sail as she spoke it only moments
thing else, but I can’t pay attention; I can’t shake ago.
the thought of one hundred two homeless high
school students. This thought bothers me be- I'm restless and furious; I’m scared I might
cause I don’t know what to do with it. Holding it explode. But I can’t—I won’t—explode.
feels so heavy that I’m afraid I might slip and tum-
ble right off the edge of the Earth. Not holding it, What, then, can I do?
though, seems reckless. Not holding it seems irre-
sponsible and convenient. I shift and squirm and What can any of us do?

There are so many peaks and canyons
tucked into these insurmountable mountains. I
hate myself for not being brave, for not having
answers that don't exist. The only response me
and my privilege can muster is to tuck both of my
hands into my pockets and stare anxiously down
at my boots. I got them in Los Angeles from a
store on the corner of Lincoln and Venice Boule-
vards. I didn't pay for them, but I know they retail
for $559. Five hundred fifty-nine is a big number.
It's far, far bigger than one hundred two.
And even though these two numbers (559 and
102) are seemingly unrelated, it's their current,

59

conjoined context that seems to inspire every- And even with all this, I still can't manage any-
thing. I wonder as I stand here and stare at my thing but silence in the face of one hundred two
boots, how I can be so concerned with one hun- homeless 14 to 18 year-olds.
dred two when I care so little for five hundred
fifty-nine? I have so many words for so many other
things. I throw words away, toss them around like
There's weight behind five hundred fifty- disposable capital, and yet I can't make a single,
nine, but it's different than the weight attached to goddamned sound for any one of those one hun-
one hundred two. dred two.

I live in Wisconsin where minimum wage is So, as I stand here in this massive entry
$7.25 per hour. A Wisconsin resident who works way, the number one hundred two careening
40 hours-a-week at minimum wage earns a gross, through my skull, I think about my the cost of my
weekly paycheck of about $310. Taxes and pay- silence.
ins take a little less than 20%, which essentially
means that a minimum-wage Wisconsin worker But it's hard to talk about cost.
pulls home roughly $268 each week.
From a manufacturing standpoint, my si-
Sources that seem mostly credible report lence has no cost since nothing is expended in its
that the average American spends about half of production. By all intents and purposes, my si-
their weekly income on housing. Most of these lence is the very absence of production.
same sources state that between one-third and
one-half of the remaining amount is spent on From an economic standpoint, the cost of
food. That means that after housing and food, a my silence is nearly impossible to determine since
minimum wage Wisconsin worker has about it's unclear what's lost as a result of it. Also,
$89.33 left in their pocket for other things, both what's the perceived, apparent, or relative value
essential and non-essential. It's pretty clear what of my silence? That, too, is nearly impossible to
category my boots fall under, but let's just—for determine. I can't, after all, retail my silence. It
the sake of argument—pretend they fall into that doesn't actually exist in a physical, quantifiable
other category. If a minimum-wage Wisconsin sense. The argument, of course, can be made that
worker wanted to purchase my boots at the price it exists in a quantum sense—that it has weight
they retail for, they'd have to work for 6.26 weeks and utility and the ability to occupy space—but
and purchase/pay for nothing but food and hous- that discussion is theoretical. This discussion, on
ing. 6.26 weeks of work equates to 250.4 hours or the other hand, is real.
15,024 minutes or 901,440 seconds, which is a
fucking eternity, especially when you're thinking The truth is that I don't say anything be-
about how one hundred two students at a single cause I don't have to. I can afford to remain silent.
Milwaukee high school are homeless. It's even I want to say something, but I don't know what to
longer, I suppose, when you're the one who's say or how to say it and because I don't actually
actually homeless. The truth is I have no idea how have to say anything, I remain silent.
long anything is when you're homeless since I've
never been anywhere close to homeless except in These students—the ones in front of me, all
the tentacles of my most furious and terrible around me—they can scarcely afford my silence,
nightmares. There, of course, and at the butts of especially those one hundred two.
bad, tasteless jokes short on consequence, but
long on insensitivity. But none of them know what to say, ei-
ther.
I wonder how many seconds I could last if I were
actually homeless. Their voices don't work; they can't and
won't form words because what are those words,
It sure as fuck wouldn't be anywhere close anyway? I mean, how can anybody—especially
to 901,440. them—possibly begin express the awfulness of
homelessness at 17. Or 16. Or 15. Or 14.

Fourteen.

Fucking fourteen.

60

So they embrace their only seeming alternative, And my boots with their $559 price tag?
they manifest their voices through their actions, Well, they're innocent.
their demeanors. I stay quiet, they rage silently, After all, they're the only ones talking, the
and we all burn like some junkyard tire fire. How
can sentences be strung together, sentences that only ones making noise.
would become paragraphs and whole essays on I hear their sound every time I take a step.
injustice and privilege and opportunity (or the And it's so fucking loud against the back-
dire lack thereof) when words aren't available?
drop of my silence—against the backdrop every-
And whose fault is it? Theirs? Mine? Is it one's sickeningly ridiculous silence—that I can
the fault of the schools? The administration? The hardly stand it.
parents? Who's to blame, after all? The system?
I hear my boots all the time, echoing loud-
It has to be something, doesn't it? er and louder with every single step: Privilege.
Privilege. Privileged.
Something has to be to blame for this;
something must be at fault. About the Author:
Tommy Vollman is a writer, musician, and paint-
The awful truth is that it's not the fault of er. He has written a number of things, published a
any of those aforementioned things. It would be bit, recorded a few records, and toured a lot.
nice (or at least convenient) if it was. I mean, then Tommy was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for
we could point to one or two things (maybe even his 2016 short story, “Jimmy.” Recently, he’s had
three or four) and assign blame. That would give stories appear in Two Cities Review, Palaver, Pit-
us all something quantifiable to work with, some- head Chapel, Gris-Gris, and Per Contra. He was
thing physical and manifest. Then we could all selected as an Honorable Mention for Glimmer
dive in, right up to our necks if we wanted to, and Train’s “Family Matters” and was a finalist for
fix matters. We could solve the problem and insist Glimmer Train’s “Short-Story Award for New
that all it took was a fresh perspective, a willing- Writers”. He has some black-ink tattoos on both
ness to get one's hands dirty with organized of his arms. Tommy really likes Kurt Vonnegut,
effort. We could talk about how it really wasn't Two Cow Garage, Tillie Olsen, Greg Dulli, Tom
that difficult, after all. Then, if our solutions Colicchio, Willy Vlautin, and Albert Camus. He's
proved faulty, we could look for other, less appar- working on a novel entitled Tyne Darling. Tommy
ent elements—ones that hadn't before released a new record, These Ghosts, in Novem-
emerged—and we could reassign blame to them. ber of 2016. He currently teaches English at Mil-
Or, we could blame some aspect of the process. waukee Area Technical College and prefers to
We could analyze the process, gather more data, write with pens poached from hotel room clean-
and see where things went wrong. Eventually, ing carts.
we'd really know what or who or how to blame.
And that, we'd agree, would make all the differ-
ence.

But we can't do any of that.

I mean, we can (and we do) do all of that
(and more), but we really shouldn't. We shouldn't
do any of it since none of those things—those
convenient, quantifiable things—are actually to
blame.

It's the silence, really. The silence is the
problem. The silence is to blame.

The silence is guilty—mine, yours, their's,
everybody's. Our collective silence is fucking crim-
inal.

61

LOLA
Dana C Verdino

The young man with the tie exited the back of the was normally stationed by. She looked up and
café and into a sunlit alleyway that had a good waited for him to come into view, and when she
temperature, despite the rancid smell from near- saw his spirit, she put on a dainty smile. He briskly
by dumpsters. He made his way up the alley, past walked to her and bent down and gave her a kiss
low and high windows of apartment houses and on the cheek. You’ll never guess what happened
stores, and air conditioning boxes that weren’t to me today, he said, sitting in the chair on the
humming, because it was early spring. There was other side of the desk. Lafferty gave me a raise.
a chill in the air, but nothing too cold, and the
sunlight warmed his skin. He’s had only one drink, That’s terrific news, Stevey. So, how much?”
a pint of beer, while he sat at the bar contem-
plating how he was going to talk to his beloved, “Two grand more a year. Not bad, huh?”
Lola Jean. The name didn’t suit her. He thought
the name should go with someone darker with “I’ll say he could have done better, but we’ll take
dark features, but his Lola had pale skin, pale hair, it, right?”
and pale eyes. If it wasn’t for the curves of her
chin and nose, and the dimmer shade of her eye- He took her hands, which were folded on top of
brows, she wouldn’t have any darkness. She wore papers, one grasping a pen, and he enfolded his
light clothes, too, ones that flowed and swayed— with them. You know how much I love you, right?
wide pants and skirts the colors of tan and yel-
lows, and tops with flowers or horses or birds. Yes, Stevey, I know.
Her shoes were sensible and also light-colored,
along with the camel-colored satchel that she Would you mind if I showed you how much?
carried her books in. The man rounded the corner
onto a busier stretch of land with sidewalks and a Now you’re sounding strange. What are you
fair amount of traffic, the occasional ringing of getting at?
bells as people opened doors or answered their
telephones. He was stocky and not too tall with a I want to take you away on a trip. I was thinking
handsome face, perfectly oval with hazel eyes somewhere along the coast of Spain, Picture it…
and a five o’clock shadow. His tie swung from his
neck, a striped blue and purple tie that stood out Oh, gee, I don’t know about all that. Seems rather
on his white t-shirt. He worked in computers, so decadent, given the meager raise. She had a way
the attire was versatile and modern. He didn’t of being too sensible, and even if it hurt him to
have to wear a tie or anything in particular, so it hear it, it was plain truth. She was still sweet,
was just a fashion statement of sorts. He lit a ciga- somehow, when she spoke in sensible,
rette and continued on up the avenue to where straightforward truths.
Lola worked as an account representative at a
bank. It aint the raise, Lola. I’ve been wanting to take
you there since you mentioned it was a place in
She could sense his looming presence before he your dreams you’d love to go.
even entered through the front door, which she
I don’t know what I dreamed, Stevey. I think it
was Spain, but it could have been Miami for all I
know, or some unknown place that only exists in
dreams. I didn’t mean for you to take it serious.

62

Look, he said. My brother told me about this stranger, was capable of love, and not the kind of
great hotel overlooking mountains and sea, and love that was for oneself. Actually, she thought
it’s a great deal if we eat at the local places and about him often and perked up when he came
take a bus to the markets. We can sightsee on our into the banking center. Every bit of her perked
own without a guide. We don’t need a guide. up and part of her wept in a drizzle down her in-
There’s a palace that a king lived in nearby in Gre- ner thigh as she watch him glide by in a grey or
nada. And there’s beautiful parks and a flamenco black suit that fit him just perfectly and he’d give
dancing show. You’d be into that, right? her blink and a kind, “How are doing this morn-
ing?” He never stuck around to make much small
It all sounds super great. How about, let’s not do talk, but she’d watch him here and there talking
anything rash and we’ll talk about it some more business with the other higher ups or close his
over the next few days. Ok? door to work alone or make phone calls about
important matters. Although he never had a posi-
He sighed at what seemed to be a defeat, though tive thing to say, he never a negative thing to say
he remained hopeful and kept his smile. Ok, Ok. either. He was matter of fact, and Lola could ap-
Tell me about your day. He let go of her hands preciate that. Why sugar coat? If someone thinks
and she shuffled some papers off the desk and you’re a mean person because you don’t sugar
into a file in the cabinet beside her. coat, then they don’t understand what a truly
good person is.
Well, the doctor is in, and he’s snooping around,
making sure our ducks are lined in a row and Later that evening, Lola and Steve went to the
what not. The doctor was the president of the pub for beer and sandwiches. Lola got a grilled
bank. All the employees secretly referred to him cheese with ham, Steve ordered a steak and on-
as the doctor because he liked to diagnose prob- ion sub. Lola joked, “You’re not staying the night,
lems, and never had a positive thing to say. He’s are you?”
just say what the problem was and flit away like a
king on a magic carpet in his shiny suit and gelled They talked about work and politics. Steve was a
hair. Regardless, though, of his provincial attitude, libertarian and he spoke passionately about eco-
Lola found him exceptionally handsome. By all nomic and social topics that always seemed to
accounts, he was way beyond a typical appear- come back around to one sole ideal, which is that
ance, even a pleasant one like Steve’s. He was tall every human being should be provided the very
with a medium, sturdy build that was evident same things. It was a noble opinion, Lola thought,
under the fitted suit, a man about forty—forty but certainly one of fantasy. There were too many
two, clean shaven with a five o’clock shadow on other things to get in the way of his garden of
his upper lip and chin, something of an old time Eden. He would talk about welfare, immigration,
ad exec you’d see on t.v., but only real and in the the inequity of classes, but there was never a so-
flesh. Lola would sometimes imagine the rough- lution that made any sense to her. Do we just give
ness of his freshly shaven face as he kissed her people what they don’t earn? Do we dilute
neck and the area between her thighs. Any wom- wealth? Do we let in every foreigner? What will
an might think the same thing, so it wasn’t happen to jobs? To her job? Will she able to
shameful, but for the sake of Steve, she would afford a penthouse, or will there be any more
talk poorly about the man, although he wasn’t all penthouses? She listened with all she had to eve-
that poor in character. There was a time he rything he said, and she asked questions, but nev-
brought her a coffee from the shop next door. He er showed her doubts, because she wasn’t well-
said they messed up his order, but he remem- educated, nor well-opinionated. She liked poetry,
bered she liked vanilla flavored coffee because he Keats and Yeats were a few of her favorites. She
smelled one day at her desk, and he thought of carried several volumes of their poetry with her,
her. She thought a man who was overly narcissis- and the lines would give her comfort throughout
tic wouldn’t remember such a thing, would even the day. When she’d read Yeats’ Isle of Innisfree
take a notice of a minute detail such as that. or Keats’ …., she could lighten up and the stress
There was something careful and serious about would fade, because life is just love, and that’s
him, but also tender. Any man who could show really just it at the end of every day. This is how
a bit of thought for another person, albeit a near she and Steve could understand each other. At

63

the end of the day, it wasn’t about politics; it was he proceeded to tell them that the ever liars were
about the heart, the soul, the pursuit of happi- coming, that he was preparing for their arrival
ness, the sorrow of loss, the ultimate desire of and the dishes and glassware would be made into
love, that every human deserves. daggers and spears, which was like kryptonite to
the ever liars. He told something else about a
That night at her apartment, they lay on the floor time machine and asked if they wanted to join his
in the center of the studio apartment, among legion and prepare for their coming. They politely
colorful pillows, and they drank cheap wine and declined, blaming other obligations as the cause,
listened to Steve’s ipod mix of alternative music. and they wished him good luck in his pursuits. As
Sounds from the nightclub below her apartment they walked away, ever so slowly from the area,
came through the walls on every side and filtered they glanced back at him and saw him reach in-
in from the street out front. “I wish I could get out side his pants to scratch the front of himself or to
of here,” she said, swigging the tumbler of pink- do something else entirely, right there before the
red wine. old dishes and vases. Lola gasped, then covered
her mouth with her hand, so not to alert him, as if
“I told you, babe, give me another year or so and he were a lion and they were his prey. They held
I’ll have us in one of those swanky brownstones their laughter until they were outside.
you love so much. Personally, it’s a bit too high
brow for me, but if it will make you happy, that’s “I wonder if Mr. Slimy ever go the help he need-
what will be.” ed.”

“Oh, Stevey. You think everything is too high “How does one function in the world? It makes
brow and bourgeois.” you wonder if he had a home at all. And, if he did,
what was it like?”
“It’s boor-zhwah, honey, not boo-zhah.”
“Well, he seemed harmless,” Steve said.
“Oh, whatever.”
“I wouldn’t take my chances, “ Lola said, pushing
“And I just don’t think we need those things to be her body up from its indian style position to pour
happy. What we need is a revolution and not more wine. “You want more?”
more rich people being rich.”
“Absolutely. I mean, he wasn’t that bad. Just ec-
“Oh, Stevey. Don’t you think it would be nice to centric is all.”
have pretty things and good wine and fresh fish
every night for dinner? And, a maid too. Because “Oh, Stevey, he was bat-shit crazy. C’mon now.”
cleaning is for the birds! Don’t you think?” Lola thought about the doctor suddenly, and
thought that he’d appreciate such a story and
“We can afford sushi, and you have pretty things. would agree with her about him being bat-shit
Just look at the painting right there.” He pointed crazy. She was thinking more and more about the
to a Vrubel print hanging above her bed. In it was doctor these days. Now it was getting precarious.
a woman made of rectangular pieces of purples She didn’t like that he came into her thoughts
and blues and she is holding a dagger. “It’s quite when she was with Steve, but it was not some-
beautiful, actually,” Steve added. thing she could control. He would come into her
mind like a warm breeze or déjà vu.
“Oh, I know. I do love that painting, which hap-
pened to only cost me eight dollars at the Once After the wine was gone, they made love in the
New shop. Do you remember Mr. Slimy?” dim light of the apartment, there on the floor, as
the people danced below and Steve’s ipod buzzed
“Of course—Mr. Slimy.” They had called him that with nasaly voices of indie rock bands. He loved
after meeting him by the old dishes and books in the fullness of her body and how the curves were
the back of the store. He said he likes to buy old so severe he could sink his mouth into the crevic-
plates and use them to make his art. He was es and taste her skin. Flawless, milky skin. She
sweating profusely, his shirt stained in the pits wrapped her legs around him tightly and held his
and chest, and his hair appeared to have a face in her hands as he made small circles with his
melting gel in it, or it could have been some art body above her, grunting and calling her name, as
supply he used to create his art. This wasn’t the
strange part. When they inquired about his art,

64

if she wasn’t completely there and he was calling “You slept all day? I came by your apartment and
her back. buzzed and knocked. I called three times. You
were sleeping?”
For several more months, their life together goes
on similarly and without incident. As the tide “Yes, Steve, I’m really not feeling very well. I think
comes in high every night, so did their nights roll it’s the flu.”
over with ease and insignificance.
“Poor thing. I’ll come over and bring you soup.”
Then a day came when Lola called out sick to the
bank. She had, by all accounts, had purpose to go “No, I just want to go back to sleep. I’ll talk to you
there when she woke up that morning. Her and tomorrow, ok?”
Steve had a breakfast of eggs and orange juice,
whereby he left to go tinker with computers and Steve assured her he would not be a bother, that
she took her shower. Later in the day, Steve he just wanted to help, but Lola was in no mood.
called, left her a message. She got busy at the He would have to understand. Being sick was for
bank sometimes. But when an hour had gone by, the birds, and he’d have to let her ride it out in
then two, then three, he began to worry and peace. He heard no hide nor hair of her over the
stepped out of work to make his way the five next two days, and beside the time he spent at
blocks to the bank to check on her. Her station work encased in his cubicle programming codes,
appeared untouched, so he inquired with the he couldn’t go five minutes without a thought of
manager if she had left early, and he said she nev- her supple lips or the way she held his hand stur-
er came in at all. Steve pretended to remember dily. Her long, strong fingers entwined with his.
then, as if embarrassed that he wouldn’t know And, why didn’t she need any soup? What was
such a thing, given his status as her boyfriend. she doing for food? He finally broke down and
The manager, Becca, asked if she could send a called on Saturday morning. He wouldn’t be going
message. “I’m sure she’ll be in tomorrow,” she in to work and had nothing planned for the day.
said. Usually, he and Lola would do some grocery shop-
ping, take a walk to the river, chat about the peo-
“I’m Steve,” he said with a surprise mirrored in ple they watched go by, imagining their stories,
disgust. and sometimes they’d talk about Spain. For din-
ner, they might meet with friends at a Thai House
“Steve,” she repeated. “Steve what?” or a hamburger joint, which they were all ham-
burger joints for the most part, and by the time
“Steve, her boyfriend Steve.” they went home, they’d be drunk on food and
wine and whiskey.
“Oh, well, ok then, I’ll let her know you stopped
by.” This time, when he called, she answered right
away, as if waiting for his call. She said she was
“No need,” he said. I’ll be seeing her later.” doing much better, though still quite lethargic. “I
miss you,” he said. “I miss my Lola.”
“OK, then.” That was peculiar, Steve thought.
He’d seen Becca many times at the bank. While “Oh, Stevey, I miss you too,” she said. “I’m going
he never spoke to her, he was sure she would to fix myself up, so that I’m presentable. Then, do
have remembered him, the visits, the kisses on you want to come over. Nothing crazy, just some
the cheek. Was he that forgettable? flicks and food?”

He decided to check her apartment. There was no Later, at Lola’s place, they sat quietly on the small
answer to his knocking and buzzing. He called, sofa and watched an old western movie that Lola
listened for a phone ringing on the other side of found on television. It bored him slightly, but he
the door, to no avail. He didn’t have the key; it was comforted by her presence, by sharing the
wasn’t something they had discussed yet; it was- same air as something so beautiful.
n’t something she offered.
“I just love the sounds,” she said. “All the sounds
Just after 4:00, Lola finally called. She had not of these movies. The galloping of the horses on
been feeling well, she said. I stayed home to rest dry dirt, the spurs on their boots. The crackling of
and I must have been sleeping when you called.

65

the fires in their cozy, wood homes with the “It’s a girl, then,” the woman said. “She has a
creaky floors. It feels so good, doesn’t it? So craving and nothing else will do.”
warm.”
“She’s been sick. I’m taking care of her, spoiling
“Yeah, sure.” her really.”

“Oh, Stevey, you can’t relate, I know. You have no “I see,” the woman added. “You love her more
idea what I mean.” than she loves you.”

“Sure I do,” he defended himself. “The sounds. Startled by the comment, Steve said, “What?”
They’re old, like these movies are old.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just forget about me over here.”
“Oh, Stevey.”
“You don’t know anything about me…or her…or
Later Stevie took the train to her favorite Chinese us. Who are you, lady?”
eatery to get take-out. A pint of lomein, a pint of
fried rice, and the crab Rangoon. He got the “I’m nobody. Just forget me.”
sweet and sour chicken, and on the train, he sat
with the hot bag in his lap, steam seeping up and “Stay on your meds, okay?” He looked toward the
out of the plastic bag wrapped in the paper bag. front of the car and across the aisle at the man,
She could always eat it lukewarm, not cold. Never wife, and child, wondering if she was right about
cold. An older woman sitting beside him com- them. He laughed to himself after she got off the
mented on his treasure. “That must be good chi- train at the next stop. He shook his head. It’s
nese if you’ve taken the train to get it.” fuckin’ Chinese food, he thought. He jerked his
shoulders up then down. She fuckin’ likes this
“Something like that,” Steve said. place, he thought. It’s only three stops and two
blocks. He threw his head back. One way.

About the Author:
Dana Verdino's work has appeared in Fiction at
Work, Boston Literary Magazine, Camroc Press
Review and Heart Insight, the magazine of The
American Heart Association. Dana is an English
Instructor for Gaston College and lives in South
Carolina with her husband and four children. She
has an M.A. in English, and an M.A. in Education.

66

CLUB DE RÉSURRECTION

Jim Meirose

Many too many too many too years. We both do shit stuff to survive, and I don’t. Why the face?
wonder, you know, how they’re going to do it. You’re paying me to be frank. Yes, frank. Yeah,
This is why we decided to join the Club de Résur- yeah. Okay, sure ‘nuff, there you go. There’s
rection. It’s not spelled out in the contract, per se; Frank for you, okay? All Frank. Hey, hey, hey—
they just said they had to work out the right way Lord God thank you Jesus that I never got named
to do it without invalidating the experiment. I was Frank. Huh? What? Tested? You mean the tests
reading the wrong kind of paper my spouse had they give before entering a contract? Sure, we
never seen so I saw this ad supposedly placed by took them. We took them all. Despite that, we
the Club de Résurrection. Yeah, that’s right. It got there anyway. Just took about twice as long.
said, hey there! That’s how they talk, that’s how You know how I mean huh? Yeah that’s right.
they tell us we should talk. Hey you! That’s the How I mean.
official word they use in the contract and they
said that’s the word we should always use too. About the Author:
They’re going to, ahem—process us. Tired of liv- Jim Meirose's work has appeared in numerous
ing, and just can’t admit it? Not to use, you know. magazines and journals, including Calliope,
Well you can admit it to us. That other word. You Offbeat/Quirky (Journal of Exp. Fiction pub,), Per-
can admit about anything you can form your lips mafrost, North Atlantic Review, Blueline, Witness,
and tongue and will around to say out loud, to us. and Xavier Review, and has been nominated for
No, I can’t even hint. Hey! Are there things you several awards. Published books include: Under-
think of every five minutes that are secret that standing Franklin Thompson (Experimental novel
you just realized you have never said even once - JEF pubs (Recent - deal being finalized)), Inferno
out loud in your life? If I accidentally give off any (E-Chapbook - Underground Voices), Mount Ever-
impression except what the company wants, est and Eli the Rat (Literary Novels - Montag
they’ll dump my contract. If yes, come join us. Press). Visit www.jimmeirose.com to know more.
The Club de Résurrection; yes yes yes, join us. The
Club de Résurrection. That would be really bad
news. If you can say yes to the question are there
things you never ever said aloud that boom in
your ears day after day moment after moment
how about actually all the time, eh? I mean, then
I’d probably have to move back in with Mom.
Want to know what it would feel like to let all
those things go? Get a job, all that? Come join the
Club de Résurrection, we will show you how to
die having said it all, which is why your creator
gave you speech, to begin with. You know.
There’s a word to shut it all off, all off. All that shit
stuff. Come on and find it. Know what I mean?
Sure, you know what I mean. Because you got to

67

THE CLIFF

Kevin Wiggins

The sky, devoid of clouds, allowed the sun to blis- The brothers sat (Justin) and stood (Travis) re-
ter the land all day; until the night and the stars spectively on top of a cliff (a cliff they called The
and a full moon prevailed. Cliff) a few miles from Three Rivers, the county
seat, while both sipped beer on a hazy summer
For Justin, as he sat on the ground pulling his day that was dwindling into darkness. Streaks of
goatee and listening to the hot breeze rustle the blood red, pus yellow and bruised purple lazily
leaves, night was marching into position much crossed the sky like haphazard battalions.
too slowly. He tired of sweating, and trying to
discern the whistling in the wind. He couldn’t Cliffs towered over a landscape once dominat-
hear over the crackling and popping of the fire. ed by strip mines; mines now all abandoned and
The noise forced him to strain to hear any sylla- covered with high grass. Pine trees smothered the
bles the wind might offer. hills in the distance, and the beavers made their
dams in the spring water trapped between the
Retribution came to mind but he didn’t think cliffs.
that was it.
“Now listen to me …. (Travis stopped, took his
Then the crickets chimed in. He’d cuss at them time, puffed a smoke, swigged his beer while
and sometimes they’d stop, or not. piercing into the night sky with his squinty eyes.)
He told me he pushed Shawn off that cliff. I mean
Perhaps vengeance? Maybe. That’s what he this cliff, this very cliff.” As he spoke he jabbed his
was thinking before his brother Travis scrambled index finger back and forth in the direction of the
his concentration. cliff’s edge.

“Did you hear me, did you?” Travis pleaded. “And he was fucked up?”

Justin’s eyes were scanning the sky, as if UFOs “He’s always fucked up.”
were about to attack.
“If your fucking with me I'm gonna kick your
“I said I got drunk with Eric last night. He's ass.”
drinking a lot these days. Even using meth, you
know that? Selling it to kids.” “You and whose army?”

Travis stared down at his brother with a grave While Travis waited for his brother to absorb
face but the elder brother refused to bite: “I'm the magnitude of his words, the light wind shifted
done with that idiot.” and smoke from the fire attacked his eyes. He
turned his head away and wiped the tears from
“Kids on meth, and you don’t care?” his eyes with his beer-free hand.

“He’ll pay the price, one way or another … Justin pretended he didn’t notice. “Why’s he
those kinds always do.” talking now, after all these years, … to you no less
… you two haven’t been exactly chummy for
“And how many kiddies will go down with years.”
him?”

68

“You know Dominque and Trip? Kids that play in A jetliner flew across sky the, blinking red and
the playground by my house. You’ve seen them white. Darkness was almost complete. The moon
before. Well I was sitting on the porch and they wasn’t red; but it was full, and bright.
ran up to me and told me, to my face, he tried to
sell them meth, in broad daylight.” “Why you keep coming out here anyway?”
Travis asked.
“If he’s making it, selling it, using it” Justin said
while wiping the sweat off is brow with the back He waited for an answer but his brother ig-
of his hand, “it won’t be long until he’s dead … or nored him.
in jail.”
Justin preferred to listen to the crickets and
“Along with half the county.” watch the red and yellow streaks fade to black,
anticipating the stars that would soon be sprin-
“Half of Ohio.” kling across the sky.

Travis flicked his butt out over the cliff. The “All right,” the elder brother said, after a long
brothers watched the red sparks fly and hover in pause, “why don’t you get me a beer and we’ll
the breeze before the butt snuffed out and cogitate about the dead man walking.”
dropped into the abyss.
“Sure bro, I know you’re getting too old to get
“If he did kill Shawn, intentionally, we don’t off your fat ass. Arthritis is setting in,” the young-
have to do anything,” Justin said. “Dead man er brother teased as he ambled over to the cooler
walking.” and opened it before yanking a couple of sweaty
beers out of the melting ice. He even opened his
“All I’m saying is let’s have a talk with him and brother’s beer before handing it to him, then
clear the air. Maybe things didn’t go down like we watched his brother’s sweaty Adam’s apple bob
thought they did, all those years ago.” up and down as he gulped. He watched his broth-
er’s sweat drip off his nose before they both re-
“Nothing going to bring back Shawn. And the sumed their gaze up into the sky. Stars seemed to
Eric we knew, he doesn’t exist anymore.” be gathering from all over the Universe, like a
vast jury.
“Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.”
“Why don’t you call Andy and have him get Eric
“You ain’t the Lord. Lord of the flies maybe.” and himself over here,” Justin said, eventually.
“We can have a talk and get this all figured out.
“You need to open your eyes, brother, and let Personally, I think this is a bunch of bullshit.
the sun shine in.” Shawn fell off this cliff. He’s not the first nor the
last that will die out here in the strip mines. That’s
“We don’t need the sun, we need the moon. a fact.”
And there’s a full moon tonight … blood moon …
Blood-Burning Moon, Redemption Moon? Blood- “Eric’s capable of anything,” Travis warned.
curdling Moon.”
“Now. Not then.”
“You don’t make no damn sense.”
“Why don’t you call him?”
“It’s a story I read in school. About racism.
Can’t remember it right.” “I didn’t bring my phone.”

“Random you are.” Travis was still wiping tears “What if I hadn’t come out here?”
from is his smoke-filled eyes.
“I’d had a peaceful night.”
“It’s not that random. It’s about justice, or the
lack thereof.” Even though they were in their late 30’s, they
only had each other; but they didn’t see it that
“That’s what I’m talking about: Justice.” way. Born late, their grandparents and parents
were dead. Justin was divorced with one child he
Justin gave his brother a long hard nasty stare, never saw; Travis had never been married and
like his brother didn’t know a damn thing about had no children he was aware of. They had girl-
what he was talking about. friends but neither of them were in love.

69

“Looks like every star in the Universe is out to- “He sez he’s busy? You tell him this is non-
night,” Travis mused. negotiable. Either he comes here, tonight, or we
hunt him down like a dog.”
“The judge and jury.”
Travis could plainly see the ire and wrath in his
“You’re speaking in tongues tonight brother.” brother’s eyes, but he was surprised when his
brother snarled at him, so he decided the only
“You call Andy yet? I’d like some peace before thing he could do is snarl back, that is until he
this night’s over.” thought he might have seen a shooting star. Jus-
tin confirmed his hunch, and they both thought it
Travis pulled out his phone. He chatted with prophecy: This night would right a wrong, and
Andy for a while before asking where Eric was. Justice would be served. At the very least, truth
“All right, call me back.” would prevail.

“Did you even tell Andy what this was all “Tell him we just want to talk to him,” Justin
about?” said.” If he refuses, as a last resort, tell him we’ll
burn down is fuckin’ meth lab.”
“He knows, but he doesn’t want to deal with
it.” “No one knows where that is. He’s not a com-
plete idiot.”
“Then he shouldn’t. You find Eric.”
“Won’t be hard to find,” Justin scoffed.
“We all need to be here.” Travis knew his
brother understood that. “Tonight, we set things right,” Travis said. Jus-
tin nodded, barely.
Neither brother spoke for a while. The crickets
fell silent too. The air seemed to be getting thick, Once Travis walked into the darkness again,
like an invisible fog that you could feel. Justin returned to the cliff edge and stared down
into the blackness remembering what happened
Without warning, Justin jumped up and walked that night exactly twenty years ago. It was a blur
over to the edge of the cliff. He looked up into the for all the survivors. They were all drunk and
multiplying stars, then down into the darkness. stoned. If Shawn hadn’t fallen, or perhaps
Lastly, up at the moon; it wasn’t red and it wasn’t pushed; it might have been remembered as one
yellow. It seemed to Justin it didn’t know what of the best nights of their lives. It was on the eve
mood it was in, as if it was trying to make up its of their graduation, and they all thought the
mind about something. world was their oyster.

Eventually, Travis followed him. “We should But Fate had other plans, Justin lamented to
turn on some music.” himself.

“I don’t want to listen to that country bullshit He couldn’t stare down into total darkness for
you listen to.” long before his eyes turned upward into space.
Looking down offered no hope for the future.
“You can’t listen to Soundgarden all your life.” What’s done is done. But gazing upward into the
vastness of space offered hope, somehow. Maybe
“Call Andy again. And don’t do it here, go into not for himself, but for Mankind. Maybe man
the woods. I need to think.” would get it right, someday. He wasn’t even sure
what he meant, he was just searching for some-
“Anything you say asshole.” thing positive.

Justin watched his brother fade to black before When Travis returned, he sported bloodshot
turning on his car and listening to “Black Hole eyes, and a silly grin. And he took two more beers
Sun.” It might be a sad song, but it reminded him from Justin’s cooler.
of good times, and that’s why he couldn’t listen to
it all the way the way through anymore. “The stars are out thick tonight.” He handed a
beer to his brother but Justin didn’t want more
A few minutes later, Travis returned. “Andy sez beer, he wanted an answer.
Eric’s busy. Mixing up a batch. He sez Eric will be
ready next Saturday night.”

70

Travis looked grave at first, before his lips wid- soul dry. He looked irritated and anxious, like he
ened and an ornery grin waded across his face. had a lot of pent up energy he was dying to un-
“Andy says he’ll have him here in about an hour, leash. He never could grow a full beard and it was
dead or alive.” obvious he hadn’t shaved in a long time. Patches
of hair grew haphazardly across his face. He’d lost
Travis sat down by the fire while his brother lots of weight. Justin hadn’t seen him in months,
dropped a log into the pit. They both watched the and was shocked by his waif-like appearance.
embers float up and zig-zag into the firmament When Eric walked up to the fire, Justin noticed his
until the night swallowed them whole. Eventually, pale-yellow skin.
Justin sat down too, on the other side of the pit.
The music stopped, and the crickets fell silent. “How you been Justin?” Eric said. “Haven’t
seen you in a coon’s age.”
Justin wondered if he as was ready to tell his
brother what he thought needed to be said. “I don’t hang out in bars much anymore. I pre-
fer the fresh air, and the open sky.”
Finally, he said it.
“I hear that. I hear that. I’m outside a lot these
“You know Travis life is like a series of threads. days. Going here and there, to and thro, I’m a
Strands that stretch out until they break, like rub- busy guy.”
ber bands.”
“So I hear.”
“You are drunk.”
“Everybody always hears lots of things. Wheth-
“No, it happens to everybody. Look at us. Our er their true or not, that’s another thing all to-
grandparents are dead, our mother and father. gether. I get around, I do my thing. Mainly I mind
Somebody else is living in the house we grew up my own business.” He spoke rapidly, anxiously,
in. That whole life we led is dust. It might as well desperately.
be a million years away. And Shawn, he’s been
dead for twenty years now. He’ll always be eight- “So do I, and tonight I got business with you.
een. Until there’s nobody left to mourn him, then We can get this over real quick, and be on our
he’ll be forgotten, completely. way. You been telling people you killed Shawn.
Pushed him off the cliff.”
Travis’s phone broke out in song: Kenny
Chesney’s “When the Sun goes Down.” As Justin spoke, Eric’s eyes opened wide and
darted back and forth, one to the other of his old
“It’s Andy.” Travis stood up and started pacing friends. His eyes met theirs, one at a time, while
around the fire. “Sure, okay, all right, we’ll be they all seemed to be trying to find out what
here.” might be going on in their hearts and minds.

Travis played with his phone for a while before “No, wait a minute, I … I.” Eric stopped talking.
telling his brother: “They’re on their way.” Andy and the brothers couldn’t tell whether he
failed to find the words, or just couldn’t speak
They didn’t talk for a long time after that. them.

About a half hour later, the brothers heard “I loved Shawn,” he said, finally, “…I loved
slow crackling gravel before they saw any head- Shawn. I love him to this very day. I would never
lights. have hurt him. He was like a brother. We were all
like brothers, back then. (tears welled in his eyes).
The headlights were out long before they heard We were all brothers, a band of brothers. I would
footsteps, or noticed any faces in the firelight. have took a bullet for any of ya.”

Andy had always been a popular fellow. He had The other three men around the fire knew
a cheery glow that affected people, pulled them those words were true once, but they were un-
in and made them feel safe. He was handsome certain if Eric could even understand love and
and kind. Everybody liked Andy, especially wom- loyalty anymore.
en.
As for Andy, he wasn’t his gregarious self this
And it wasn’t always true, but Eric had become
the opposite of Andy. The drugs had sucked his

71

night. He was somber, seemingly intent on listen- “Sometimes I think so, and sometimes I know I
ing. couldn’t have. And other times …well … I just
don’t know.”
“I’m going to ask you again!” Justin yelled like
the wrath of God resided in his Soul. Did you push “This is bullshit,” Travis said as he pulled his
Shawn off this cliff?” switchblade. “He knows, he fuckin’ knows!”

Eric’s face distorted, overcome with pain and an- Andy jumped between Travis and Eric. “This is
guish. He was struggling with his emotions, dig- useless. Are we going to be judge and jury with
ging deep inside his heart, grappling to find the him all fucked up on drugs and booze? You can’t
right words. do this Justin, it’s wrong.”

But Justin wondered: Was he trying to find the “Maybe we should have some law?” Justin
truth, or just trying to save his skin? said.

“No, no, no!” “Maybe we should throw him over this cliff
and rid the county of this plague before he ruins a
“You told me you did,” Travis said. “And you lot of young lives,” Travis said.
told Andy too. And God knows how many others.”
“What do you say to that Eric?” Justin asked.
“Hey, I got a substance abuse problem. I say
shit that ain’t true. I do things I wish I didn’t. I “I need help. I can’t do it on my own. Maybe I
think things I wish I wouldn’t. I’m a drug addict get sober and figure things out, maybe I’ll remem-
and pusher but I am not a killer. And I as sure as ber what’s real again.”
shit did not hurt Shawn in any way.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Andy said. “He’s a
Eric fell to his knees before the fire, and wreck. You’ll never get anything out of him in this
pounded the ground with his fist. state. Why don’t you tell them Eric, tell them
what you told me? Remember?”
“But you get confused sometimes,” Justin
continued, “and you’re not sure what’s real and “I can’t recall,” Eric said as Andy helped him
what’s not.” back on his feet.

“Hey, can I get a beer. It’s been a day from hell, “About the mosquito.”
and this fire’s hot.”
Eric looked around at his old pals with darting
Travis opened the cooler and handed him a eyes and a desperate countenance, searching the
beer. Eric jerked the bottle out of Travis’s hand recesses of his mind for answers, for the truth,
and twisted the cap off and threw it in the fire. He and, perhaps, for forgiveness.
poured it over his face and drank the rest and
threw the bottle over the cliff. Before he spoke “He told me it was all just an accident,” Andy
again, his face contorted as if his heart had said. “Shawn was at the cliff edge, and a mosquito
shattered. Justin could almost see Eric’s heart buzzed passed his head. He tried to swat it away
breaking. But what exactly had broken his heart: and he lost his balance.”
drugs? The guilt of killing Shawn? Or was there
something even more devastating crushing his “The problem is he’s got too many versions,”
soul? Justin said. “And his brain’s fried.”

“Sometimes I want to jump off this cliff and “Let’s just do him now,” Travis said, “God
flap my wings all the way to Heaven, to the Prom- knows he deserves it. Who knows what more
ise Land, and Shawn will greet me there.” damage he’s going to do before he sobers up, and
likely he never will.”
“Did you kill him or not?” Travis demanded.
“You’re not God,” Andy said with contempt,
Eric peered into the stars for an answer, then “he’s so fucked up he can’t tell the truth from the
after about a minute, he considered the eyes of lies. Let’s turn him in. Take him down to the sher-
each of his old friends, his sad, worn eyes implor- iff and have him confess. I mean confess to deal-
ing them for help, only Andy’s eyes offered any ing drugs. You up for doing that Eric? You agree
sympathy. with that and I’ll help you all the way.”

72

As he spoke, Andy pulled Eric up off the About the Author:
ground. Eric hugged Andy like he was his mother.
Kevin Wiggins was born in Coshocton, Ohio and
“Wait a minute, hold on,” Travis said. “I say we graduated from Kent State University in 1989
try to beat the truth out of him first.” with a major in Journalism and a minor in English.
He was a political reporter for several daily news-
Justin looked at his brother like he didn’t rec- papers in Ohio and won several reporting awards
ognize him anymore. “When did you turn into a before dedicating himself to writing novels and
sadistic fuck?” short stories.

“You know how these druggies are, they’ll do
anything to keep on using.”

“Go ahead, do me,” Eric sighed, “you’ll be do-
ing me a favor. You can’t hurt me anymore than
I’ve already hurt myself.” As he spoke, he pulled
away from Andy and tripped over a rock fell face
first into dusty dirt.

As Justin watched Eric fall, he also noticed
clouds were smothering the stars. And he could
feel soft warm raindrops hitting his bare arms.
Soon after he heard tires on gravel, saw head-
lights that soon stopped and disappeared. The
sound of a car door shut. The sound of boots on
hard dry dirt.

“It’s probably a fucking deputy,” Travis said
with disgust, but they soon found out it was
worse than that: it was Mad Dog, otherwise
known as Cole, Shawn’s father.

“Motherfucker,” Justin muttered.

Cole wore a red flannel shirt that covered his
arms, blue jeans that covered his legs, long black
boots that covered his feet, and a wide floppy
straw hat that covered most of his face. All the
men around the fire knew it wasn’t Cole they
were dealing with, this was Mad Dog.

73

STARR: A LOVE STORY

A.R. Bender

Once again, the 7a.m. steam whistle blew over was more or less at ninety-degree angles from
Seattle’s Todd Pacific Shipyards in the Harbor Is- the floor and ceiling and between the two bulk-
land industrial area and the workers slowly heads. He then notified the welders lead that it
emerged out of the locker rooms toward their was ready for them to work. They’d be busy at it
work locations in the shops and on the ships un- the rest of the morning, so rather than start lining
der construction on the dry docks. up another frame he decided to take a little nap.
He didn’t get much sleep the night before be-
Arlo trudged up a gangway amongst a line of oth- cause of all the drinking and partying in the house
er workers with a tool bag slung over his shoul- he shared with three other roommates.
der. About halfway up, he caught a sharply dis-
tinct whiff of patchouli oil, which immediately First, he told one of the other fitters that he was
triggered some very pleasant memories of his going to the main tool room for a new torch head
carefree college days when living in those off- and would be back “soon”, in case anyone asked
campus hippie communes. The scent seemed to – i.e. his lead. He then crawled through another
be coming from one of the workers directly ahead series of darkened, narrow openings, using his
of him who was walking slower the rest. Despite flashlight as a guide, found a good spot far away
the bulky overalls, he could see that it was a from the other workers, plopped his tool bag
woman. She wore a red scarf underneath her against a frame – which he used as a pillow – and
hardhat, which covered most of her hair. He curled up on the floor to start his nap.
slowed down and discreetly maneuvered just
behind her so that he could take in more of the He was about a half-hour into it when he woke up
aroma. with a jolt to the screeching hi-pitch sound of a
grinder in the next compartment. Warily, he
When they reach the top of the gangway, she peeked over the edge of an opening and saw a
headed towards another area of the ship from his lone worker grinding away on the floor amid a
workstation, but he continued to watch her shower of sparks. He slowly crawled through the
smooth and graceful walk until she disappeared opening, stood up, and tried to walk away unde-
from view behind an elevated structure. tected, but passed in front of a temporary light
strung up from the ceiling and cast a large shad-
He stood with the rest of his crew in a temporary ow across the work area. The worker quickly
office on the main deck of the half-built frigate turned off the grinder, whirled around, and lifted
listening to the shipfitter lead announcing the up their face shield.
work assignments. After receiving his, he and two
other fitters clambered down a series of ladders Right away, Arlo saw that it was a woman and
and crawled through a maze of bulkheads in the judging by the red scarf, the same one he noticed
lower decks to the work location. Once there, on the gangway.
they spread out within the compartments in the
area to start their work. “Oh, I didn’t know anyone was here,” she said in
surprise.
After two hours or so of measuring and hammer-
ing and burning, he lined up the frame so that it “Ah, I’m a shipfitter,” he said, “and was told to
check the area out before I start working on it.”

74

“When’s that going to be?” “Oh yeah, Starr, the Indian gal. Everyone’s trying
to get in her shorts. Pete asked her out last week
“In a day or two I think.” but she claimed to have a boyfriend. Who knows
if that’s true or not. Maybe she has a girlfriend.”
“Okay. Is there anything special I can do to get it
ready for you?” “Indian huh. Like from India? Or a Native?”

Arlo paused before answering, while gazing at her “I hear she’s Native.”
cute, exotic features. “It’d be great if you can
grind away most of the burrs, just like you’re do- “I wonder what tribe.”
ing.”
“Hell, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her your-
“I sure will. And thanks.” self?”

“I’ll come by tomorrow and check the area again. “Maybe I will.”
My name’s Arlo, by the way”
The next day Arlo worked in the same location as
“Hi Ar-lo, I’m Starr,” she said, with a wondrous before, and then drifted off to the area where
gaze. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” Starr was working as soon as he could. He’d been
thinking about her a lot since the talk with Gar,
“I’ll be here, for sure.” especially the fact that she was of Native herit-
age. Ever since he read the writings of Black Elk,
She then adjusted her kneepads, bent over, and Fools Crow, and the myth of the White Buffalo
started grinding away. On his way out of the Calf Woman in a college class, he realized that
compartment, he glanced back a moment to there was something about Native American spir-
watch her work. Her hips and body swayed ituality and the lifestyle that resonated in him. He
rhythmically back and forth with each sweep she even began to fantasize that his encounter with
made along the floor beam, and suddenly he felt Starr was fated in some way.
a strong romantic urge taking form. Coming off
hangovers often did that to him, but now it He saw her there again, but this time with anoth-
seemed even more acute. On his way up the lad- er fitter and a welder.
der to the main deck to get a drink of water, her
mellifluous voice floated erotically in his mind. “Hi Arlo,” Starr said. “Are you going to be work-
ing here too?”
At the fountain, he saw Garland, one of his room-
mates, talking to some other workers on the oth- “I thought I was.”
er side of the deck.
“Huh? I was assigned here today,” the other fitter
“Hey Gar. Helluva night huh,” Arlo said. said.

“Yeah helluva night. Almost took the day off. But “We’ll get it straightened out,” Arlo said.
figured I could get through one day before the
weekend starts.” Briefly, their eyes met and she gave him what he
surmised was a hopeful little smile.
“Yeah, I pushed myself out of bed too. You were
still crashed when I left and I didn’t think you’d At the end of the shift, Arlo tracked down that
make it. One good thing about work though is fitter, named Earl, and they agreed to swap work
that it sobers you up pretty fast.” locations since they were so close.

“For sure, I’m feeling better now at least,” Gar- The next workday – a Monday – Arlo headed to
land said his job full of hope and enthusiasm. He’d been
thinking about Starr all weekend. He was more
“Me too. As a matter of fact I’m feeling a lot than disappointed, however, when he got there
better. Just met a hot little grinder down on the and saw that she was gone. Evidently, she was
second deck and I think I’m in love.” assigned to a different location. All that week
Arlo spent his free time looking for her, to no
“Really? What’s his name?” avail. None of the other fitters he asked had seen

“Her name is Starr. And she’s damn cute.”

75

her either. Despite all his efforts, the next two directly across the aisle from her. Briefly, he
weeks went by without any sign of her. glanced over to her and saw that she was still
looking out the window. Trying to be nonchalant,
The next month, Arlo got transferred to one of he stretched and let out a little sigh, hoping that
the main shops that built the subassemblies for might get her attention. As he let out his stretch,
the ships. The good news for him was that the he casually glanced over to her again and saw her
condition in the shops were cleaner and the work looking at him. He gave her a little nod. She nod-
generally not as hard as they were on the ships. ded back, followed by a little smile.
The bad news was that there were fewer places
to hide and take naps, especially since the shops That was all he needed.
were closer to the supervisory and management
offices. “I think I remember you,” he said, “on the ship a
couple of months ago.”
About a week into the job, he walked along the
shop floor and paused to watch the work being “Oh yeah,” she said, “when I was I grinding. I
done on the Bumper machine, which straightened think I remember you too.”
out the warps on the long 40-foot T-bars and I-
beams. When he glanced up to the cab, he no- “Let’s see, your name is…Starr – right?”
ticed the operator working the controls was wear-
ing a familiar looking red headscarf. When he “Yes, and you have a funny name that started
moved a little closer, he saw that it was Starr. with an ‘A’, or a ‘R’. I forget what it was though.”

Almost every day the following week, he made his “It’s Arlo. A-R-L-O.”
way to the Bumper to watch Starr, from a dis-
creet distance, at work. It was an impressive “That’s right,” she answered with a little laugh. “I
sight. She looked like a real pro the way she was haven’t seen you on the bus before.”
working the controls and levers in that cab on top
of the machine. In fact, he began to imagine that “Ah, my car’s is in the shop today. I’m taking the
the big chair she sat on was kind of like a throne, bus downtown and then transferring to Capitol
since it was in such an elevated position above Hill. Where do you live?”
the fray of all the activity on the shop floor; so
distant and detached from all the other workers – “I’m going downtown too, and then transferring
and to him as well. up to the Lake City area.”

After the shift one day, he followed Starr to the “Are you working on the ships now, Starr?”
women’s dressing room and waited for her, be-
hind a stack of pallet boards, to emerge. His plan “No I got transferred to the Main Shop about a
was to follow her to the parking lot and find out month ago.”
what car she drove. Knowing that, he could then
park his car next to hers in the morning, so that “Really?” he responded, trying to feign surprise.
they could “bump into each other” in the lot after “I got transferred there last week. Whereabouts
the shift. When she came out of the dressing you work?”
room, he followed her past the gate and then,
much to his surprise and disappointment, saw her “On the Bumper machine.”
board a bus - so much for that plan. However,
almost immediately, he devised another one. “Wow. You mean you operate the Bumper?”

A few days later, he again followed her out the “That’s right.”
gate after the shift and watched her board the
bus. A minute late, he boarded the same bus. As “I walk by there all the time and sometimes watch
he paid and got a transfer, he glanced down the how it works. You have to know what you’re do-
aisle and saw her sitting by herself in the middle ing there, that’s for sure. How did you get that
of the bus looking out the window. The bus was job?”
less than half-full, and he plopped down on a seat
“About a month ago, they called me into the Per-
sonnel Office and I thought I was going to get laid
off, but then they told me I could start training on
it. I guess they saw that I had a little college
and worked some farm machinery in the past.

76

Anyway, I got the hang of it pretty fast and I really so I’ll probably take more of those classes. Plus,
like it. they’re a little more practical than History.”

“Good for you. So you’ve had some college?” “I think you should definitely make plans to go
back to school then,” she said, firmly and with
“Just two years. I’m saving so I can go back and conviction.
get a degree. What about you?”
“You’re right, like you are.”
“Yeah, I have a B.A. in History, and took a lot of
Journalism courses but I couldn’t find a job with it He glanced out the window again and saw that
so I’m working here until something comes up. they were almost at their stop.
I’m thinking that maybe I need an advanced de-
gree to get the work I’m looking for.” “It looks like we’re almost there,” he said. “My
car will be in the shop another day so I’ll be on
“You should then, because I don’t think there’s the bus tomorrow too.”
much of a future working here.”
“Oh, but I won’t be on it because I have to take
“It pays the bills in the meantime though. What my daughter to the doctors. She’s had a bad ear
degree do you want to get?” infection. My sister’s living with me and takes
care of her during the days.”
“Social Work. My goal is to go back to the reser-
vation?” He tried to disguise his disappointment. “That’s
too bad. I hope she feels better.”
“The reservation? So you’re Native American?”
The bus arrived at the transfer stop and they both
“Yes. Mostly Lakota Sioux. I grew up in South got off.
Dakota.”
“It’s been good talking you, Starr. I guess I’ll see
“You know, I took a Comparative Religion course you in the shop then.”
in college and there was a whole section on Na-
tive American spirituality. It showed how some of “Good talking to you too, Arlo.” She paused a
the Native ceremonies like the Vision Quest, and moment before continuing. “Maybe we can meet
Sweat Lodge and the Sun Dance tie in with some again for lunch, and go outside when the weath-
ancient Pagan traditions. I thought all of that was er’s good.”
really interesting.”
“Sounds great. I’ll give you a little wave when I
“That is so amazing that you know that! I’ve tak- walk by the Bumper.”
en part in Sweat Lodge ceremonies myself. It’s
definitely such a cleansing experience; for the As he was riding home on the other bus, Arlo
mind, body, and spirit.” thought more about her daughter and specifically
when she said that her sister is living “with me”,
As Starr talked, he briefly glanced out the win- not us. That seemed to indicate that the baby-
dow and saw that they already approaching the daddy was not in the picture, at least not now. In
downtown area. He wanted this magic bus ride addition to that, he glanced at her left hand a few
to last forever. times when they talked and didn’t see a ring of
any finger. Moreover, she left the door open to
“I thought the same thing when I read about it. him with that lunch invitation.
Maybe I’ll take part in it one day too.”
He decided not to rush it and wait until the next
“You should. Especially if some inner voice tells week before making his move. He walked by the
you to do so.” Bumper every day, and when the chance oc-
curred, he gave her that promised wave. The first
“Yes, so true,” he answered with a thoughtful day, she didn’t see him, but on the second day
nod. she gave him a wave back.

“Do you want to take more History classes when On the Wednesday of the following week, it was a
go back?” she asked. nice day and so his plan was to wait for her to get
off the Bumper for the lunch break and ask her if
“Maybe, but I also like writing and journalism too

77

she wanted to join him outside. As soon as he got “Can’t even hold a job in the shipyards,” Ben, an-
there, he saw an older man in the cab. The next other roommate, added. “That’s really fucked.”
day the man was there again and so Arlo waited
for him to descend the ladder after the shift and “I bet what he misses most about the yards is that
asked him if he knew where she was. He was Indian chick he had the hots for,” Gar said to the
relieved to find out that she just called in sick others. “Right, Arlo old buddy?”
both days.
“Fuck you, Gar.” Arlo snarled. “I bet she’s not
At the end of that Thursday shift, Arlo and a slug even working there anymore.”
of other fitters got their pink-slip layoff notices.
He didn’t care so much about losing the job mon- “Oh yeah, she is,” Gar sneered. “I saw her last
eywise, because now he could collect max unem- week in the shop. I mean, they’ll always be a job
ployment and easily live off that. What hit him in the yards for a woman who can both bump and
hardest about it was the fact that he was now out grind.”
of touch with Starr.
Their collective laughter only made Arlo angrier,
The next week, he tried to figure out a way to especially since the joke involved Starr. He
contact her since he didn’t have her phone num- stepped off his stool at the bar and took a swing
ber or know where she lived. His plan was to find at Gar, but missed badly and stumbled to his
all that out during their lunches together and knees.
then maybe ask her out on a date. He even con-
sidered waiting for her as she boarded the bus, “Someone’s had tee many martunis,” Ben said,
but dashed that idea as being too intrusive and trying to stifle a laugh.
desperate, and something that could backfire.
“Whoa there, old buddy,” Gar said, as he helped
As the weeks progressed, he tried to forget about Arlo up. “Didn’t mean to trash your gal.”
her, but found himself thinking about her even
more. There was something about her that really “Fuck you, and all of you,” Arlo said, as he tried to
touched him, and in a way he’d never felt with focus on the double-image of Gar. “And she’s not
other women. He couldn’t quite grasp what that my gal.”
‘way’ was, and began to think that he’d never
would. “Sure buddy,” Gar said. “What do you say we
head home now?”
At first, he made a few faint efforts at looking for
other work but gave up after a week. After that, Slowly, they walked out of the bar, propping up
he spent most of is extra time partying with his Arlo along the way.
roommates and going to the racetrack. The next
month went by in a blur; he drank every day, first The next morning, Arlo sat alone in the kitchen
just at nights, and then starting in early after- nursing a cup of coffee, and with a nasty hango-
noons, often augmented with pot. ver. Everyone else had left for work, which
seemed to accentuate his mood of angst and woe
He hit the bottom after yet another losing day at even more. Slowly, he realized - upon a not-so-
the track. Afterwards, he went out drinking with sober reflection – that he was mostly pissed off at
Gar and his other roommates, and his mood himself because the way his life was going, and
turned progressively nasty. He began to dwell on that the little insult about Starr was all it took to
the fact that they all had jobs except for him, de- trigger the outburst.
spite the fact that he was the only one with a col-
lege degree. As he continued to slosh down gin Once again, he thought about Starr and the last
and tonics, his frustration grew and soon he start- time he saw her; it was when he looked up at her
ed insulting them, calling them ‘bums’ and in the Bumper cab and gave her a little wave,
‘rednecks.’ which she returned with a wave of her own.
Turned out, he thought bitterly, that it was a
“Yeah, well it least we have jobs,” Roger, one of wave goodbye. He also fondly recalled the talk
his roommates, said. they had on the Magic Bus Ride. What impressed
him even more about her was that she had given
herself some direction in her life by making plans
to go back to school. He then recalled one of the

78

last things she said to him; the advice for him to passed Berkeley and saw the San Francisco sky-
go back to school. line in the distance he made a vow never to lose
the memory of Starr and the path that she had
Just then, something happened; like a little spark shown him, however he may stray and whatever
of hope or glint of light which seemed to dispel twisted circumstances would occur in his life.
his gloomy mood. He poured himself another cup
of coffee, turned the radio on to the jazz station, About the Author:
plopped down on the couch and began formu- A.R. Bender is an emergent writer living in Taco-
lating plans in his mind about going back to ma, Washington. He graduated at the University
school. It seemed so simple. He thought about of Washington in English Literature and Journal-
that a little before, but not seriously, until now. ism and have held a variety of odd jobs over the
years, including one on a newspaper. He complet-
During the next week, he decided to take ad- ed two short story collections, a few of which
vanced classes in Journalism and narrowed it have been published individually, multiple flash
down to a local school and one in the San Francis- fiction pieces, and a smattering of poetry.
co Bay Area. He then formally applied for ac-
ceptance at both schools, with the goal starting
classes the next quarter. It was the perfect time
for him to do so, since he could still live off unem-
ployment for almost a year.

Instead of drinking or going to the track, he now
felt inspired to read more about Native American
spirituality and their connections to other forms
pagan worship in ancient and medieval Europe
and Asia. Soon, his research lead him to study
more about the times of the European witchcraft
persecutions, particularly the form they took in
Germany, since he was of mostly German herit-
age. During this time, a nascent idea of a book
began to form based on his research.

In less than a month since the rock-bottom day at
the bar, he felt that he had turned his life around;
he had made plans to go back to school and even
had ambitions to write a book. That faint spark of
hope he felt earlier in the month had now turned
into a shining beacon. It all began when he start-
ed thinking about Starr, and the advice she had
given him. It was as if, in effect, she had showed
him The Way.

Two months later, Arlo merged onto the I-5 free-
way in his trusty, reliable ’64 Dodge Dart and
headed toward the San Francisco Bay Area. All
his worldly possessions were packed in the back
seat and trunk. As he drove out of Seattle, the
snow-capped spectre of Mount Rainer floated
above a thin layer of clouds in the southeast.

All during the drive – through Washington and
Oregon, over the Siskiyou Mountains and into
northern California – he was imbued with
sense that he was on his way to a new life. As he

79

REPARATIONS

Veronica Ordway

Jacqueline could feel the eyes of the other people into her eyes. She’d studied, she’d researched,
in the waiting room boring into her. She bowed she’d shadowed every superior in the building to
her head and focused instead on the celebrities make sure she would get the job. And then, out of
splashed across the gossip magazines that were hundreds of applicants, she’d actually done it. She
spread before her on the coffee table. She placed remembered the warmth that filled her belly
her finger on the corner of Us Weekly and careful- when she got the phone call offering her the posi-
ly slid it off the edge of the table and into her lap. tion. But now that warmth was replaced with a
The faces of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt smiled up cold, heavy dread, like a stone was sitting on the
at her, a bold cartoon zigzag emblazoned be- bottom of her stomach, pulling her down towards
tween them. How sad, Jacqueline thought. She the floor.
had no idea they had split up. Highly aware of the
loud crinkling sound that echoed from its glossy She closed the magazine and hastily slid it back
pages, Jacqueline thumbed through the magazine onto the table. She tried to unstick her thighs
hoping to distract herself. from the leather cushion and noticed that sweat
was starting to seep into the back of her skirt.
She had spent the whole week thinking about this Jacqueline closed her eyes and focused on the
meeting, carefully planning what she wanted to song trickling through the radio; it was Bob Dyl-
say, how she wanted to sit, to smile, what she an’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” Jacqueline allowed
was going to wear. Jacqueline had been eating herself a small smile and tilted her chin towards
lunch in her cubicle when she got the call, ripped the ceiling, letting the sound of soft guitar plucks
from a daydream about the handsome barista float down like snowflakes onto her cheeks. She
who worked at the coffee shop across the street. wasn’t in the waiting room anymore, she thought.
The man she spoke with couldn’t give her very She was back home in Augusta, dancing with her
much information; all she knew was that she was father around the kitchen table, and her mom
needed for something serious, something that was making pancakes and laughing and--
she would most definitely be fired for screwing
up. What was making her the most nervous was “Jacqueline Lee?”
going into this meeting with so little preparation;
if only they’d been able to give her any idea of She blinked open her eyes and was met by the
what she was needed for, maybe she could’ve cold stare of the receptionist, a burly woman with
done some research, Jacquline thought. Then she two pencils stuck through her bun and a mole like
wouldn’t feel so flustered, and she could maintain a housefly resting on her upper lip. Jacqueline
the reputation of a highly successful business pro- couldn’t help but think of Mrs. Trunchbull as she
fessional, a reputation that she’d worked almost struggled to tear her eyes away from the mole.
twenty years to maintain. She’d been lucky to She raised her hand.
even get this position in the first place, and she
didn’t know what she would do if she lost it. So “That’s me,” she said.
much time spent slaving over paperwork and
hours with her neck craned down in a book or “This way, please.” The receptionist spun on her
with blue light from a computer screen burning heel and marched off down the hall, and Jacquel-
ine rushed to gather herself as she trotted off
behind her. As they walked, Jacqueline smoothed

80

the wrinkles out of her skirt and blotted at the least someone was finally going to be clear with
sweat on her hairline with the sleeve of her her.
sweater.
“You know Jesus Christ, yes?” Mr. Moore
“I’m warning you, he’s not in a good mood this asked.
week,” the receptionist said. “He got some weird
call on Monday and he’s been acting grumpy ever “I do know of him,” Jacqueline responded.
since.”
“And you remember what happened to
“How...unfortunate,” Jacqueline replied. She fig- him? The whole nailed to the cross incident?”
ured she knew why Mr. Moore was angry. That
was why she was here, after all. “I-uh-yes, I remember,” she said hesitant-
ly.
“You know, right after he got that upsetting call
he told me to phone you,” the receptionist con- “Well, that wasn’t really what was sup-
tinued. “I hope you’re here to deliver some good posed to happen. It wasn’t ideal, I might say. It’s
news or else me and the whole office are about to only been a few dozen years since we even dis-
go through a beast of a day.” covered that God was real and started talking to
him, and this has been an awkward point of con-
“Yeah, well, I’ll do my best,” Jacqueline sighed. tention right from the beginning.”

The receptionist stopped in front of the last door Jacqueline did remember finding God. She
in the hall, a dark wooden thing with a golden was young, but it was probably the biggest news,
plaque that read “Timothy Moore: Lead Consult- well, ever. His coming was broadcast on every
ant to God.” television, and she thought back to the way he
looked as he descended slowly from the sky on
“Good luck, honey,” the receptionist said as she that long, beautiful staircase, surrounded by
turned and started away. “You’re really going to crooning angels and pearly white doves. All that,
need it.” plus the fact that he decided to land right in the
middle of Times Square. God really knew how to
Mr. Moore barely gave Jacqueline time to settle make an entrance, Jacqueline thought. She was
into her seat before he started drilling her with too young to be angry or confused by it; she re-
questions, his face already flushed when she membered leaning in towards the TV, fascinated,
opened the door. as God spread his arms and declared himself re-
turned. Sure, people fought over it for a little
“Do you know why I called you here today, while, but most everyone learned to accept God
Ms. Lee?” Mr. Moore asked, bits of spittle spray- pretty quickly. After all, what other choice did
ing from his mouth and landing on the many en- they have? He was right there, surrounded by
velopes and file folders that were scattered microphones and cameras, delivering a sermon to
across his desk. reporters and befuddled tourists.

“Um, you can call me Jacqueline, sir, if “I figured that someone would have, uh, maybe
you’d like.” Mr. Moore simply glared at her. made a formal apology to God by now?” Jacquel-
Jacqueline took a deep breath. “Yes, I think I ine proposed. “Oh, is that what you want me to
know why you called me here. But this is all still do?”
kind of unclear to me,” she ventured. “A brief
explanation would be helpful, if you don’t mind. “Not exactly,” Mr. Moore objected. “We
Sir.” just recently found out that God provided a Jesus
Christ-like figure to every planet with life.” He
“You know what? Fine,” Mr. Moore retort- sighed, and ran his fingers through his thin hair.
ed. He stood up and began to pace back and forth He looked tired. “Turns out we were the only
across the small floorspace of the office. “Seeing ones who murdered him! Can you believe that?
as this is such a sensitive matter, you deserve to Billions of other living species and humans are the
have at least some idea of what you’re getting only ones who kill their Jesus.”
into.” Jacqueline let her shoulders relax a bit. At

81

Jacqueline was not aware of this. It seemed bad. You never know what’s going to convince him,
It seemed really bad, actually. “So, um, what do and, if I’m being honest, we want to minimize the
you need me to do, exactly?” she asked, already damage if something bad were to happen.”
afraid of the answer.
Realization dawned on Jacqueline. She
Mr. Moore turned to face her. His breath wasn’t sure if she should feel flattered or offend-
smelled like stale coffee. ed. “So you want me because if God isn’t happy,
and he decides to, say, kill me, it’ll be less damage
“We need you to go explain to God what to clean up?”
happened. You need to tell him why we killed
Jesus. And you need to convince him that we’re “That is the unfortunate truth,” Mr. Moore re-
not bad, we just made a mistake.” plied. “I wish I could deliver it in a more sensitive
way, but frankly we’re running out of time. It’s
Jacqueline rocked back in her seat. She now or never, and if we bungle this job who
took a deep breath. knows what kind of chaos might ensue. I mean,
you know what he did with the plagues! Frogs!
“That...seems like a lot to ask,” she stated Locusts! Disaster! It simply cannot happen again.”
pointedly. “Is this really something you think I
should be doing?” Jacqueline paused for a second to let the
idea sink in. Sure it seemed like a pretty insur-
“Look, I didn’t want to put this on you. You know mountable issue, but she was a hard worker, and
my title, I’m supposed to be Head Consultant, but she was good at her job. Plus, if she could nail
I’m not up for a task like this. Conversing with down this whole Jesus thing it would look amaz-
God is extremely stressful and my heart is already ing on her resume. Maybe “nail down” isn’t the
going bad. I talked to one of the higher-ups about best way to put it, she thought.
it and he recommended you because you’re in
human resources or what have you. They thought “I can do it,” Jacqueline said, the confi-
you would be persuasive. People have a hard dence returning to her voice. “If you give me just,
time empathizing with me, I get it. I’m a big guy say, a week I can go through all the paperwork we
with a loud mouth and this is a job for someone have on God, I can study his interviews, I’ll figure
more...relatable.” out exactly what to say.”

Mr. Moore stared at Jacqueline and she Mr. Moore’s eyes shifted away from hers.
could see that his pupils had shrunk to pinpricks, He wrung his hands nervously.
and puddles of perspiration were starting to
gather in the folds of his neck. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible,”
he said. “God requested this meeting immediate-
“So all you needed was someone relata- ly. I’ve already taken longer than I should have.
ble?” she asked. “That seems pretty broad. I know You’re going to have to see him today. Right now,
a lot of my coworkers are very charismatic, so actually.”
pardon me for asking, but why exactly do you
want me for this job?” “Wait, what?” Jacqueline sputtered.
“There’s absolutely no way I’m going now. I
Mr. Moore hastily broke away from mean, I really need some time to think about it
Jacqueline’s gaze. He tugged awkwardly at the beforehand, I, uh, I just really need some time,
collar of his shirt, and Jacqueline could tell she sir.” She scrambled for her jacket and began to
had stepped into uncomfortable territory. But she tug it on.
really was curious about why he thought she was
so special. While she was distracted, Mr. Moore had walked
calmly over to the phone and dialed. He cradled
“Well, you see,” Mr. Moore started. “A lot the phone next to his ear and spoke in a slow, soft
of the other people in your department voice.
are...older. They have husbands and wives and
kids. You, you’re single, you’re young, you’re fair- “This is Tim, yes, I have her here. She’s ready
ly attractive…” Mr. Moore swallowed audibly. when you are, my Lord.”
“We’re just trying to pull out all the stops for God.

82

Jacqueline jumped out of her seat and pointed “Hello!” she said when she got close enough for
menacingly at Mr. Moore, her hand shaking. “I him to hear. Rather than sitting up, the man stuck
am not ready!” she bellowed. “You can’t just one hand in the air and beckoned her forwards. It
throw me in front of God! I don’t have anything all seemed so casual that Jacqueline felt out of
prepared! What am I supposed to say?” place in her nice skirt and blazer. She sidled up
next to the lawn chair and cleared her throat.
Mr. Moore set the phone down and stepped
back, away from Jacqueline. He looked deter- “I’m Jacqueline,” she said. “I’m supposed to be
mined, but Jacqueline could see the fear budding meeting God here.”
in his eyes.
“Speaking,” replied the man.
“I don’t know what you’re supposed to say, dear.
But you’d better figure it out.” “Oh!” Jacqueline blurted. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t
realize it was you from far away.”
The room suddenly filled with light, white and all-
consuming. Jacqueline felt it wrap around her like She really hadn’t any clue what God was going to
a cloak, and with a flash, she was gone. look like. She knew a little bit about him from the
papers, and from what she’d seen on TV when
When she opened her eyes, Jacqueline found she was a kid, but he rarely made public appear-
herself lying on her back. The air smelled like ances anymore. She certainly didn’t expect to see
flowers and fresh dirt and clean air, and the sun him shirtless on a lawn chair. It felt indecent.
felt like a kiss on her cheek. She flexed her hands
and felt the sharp blades of grass pass under her “Tim sent you,” said God. “That’s good. I was hop-
fingers. She sat up and blinked in the light, taking ing you could tell me what happened with my
in the lush green expanse that was laid out before son, Jesus? I sent him down there a little while
her. Rolling hills of meadows and patches of wild- ago and it seems to have...caused quite a stir.”
flowers stretched on for miles, all sprouting in full
bloom amidst the thickest, richest, most perfect Jacqueline paused, thinking of how best to an-
green grass she’d ever seen. She put her hand swer. She didn’t want to offend God, of all peo-
over her eyes and peered around, looking for ple, but she knew she had to tell him the truth.
some sign of which direction she had to go or She was positive he had ways of spotting liars.
what she was supposed to do next.
“Well, I’m sure he was a great guy,” Jacqueline
A short ways away, a man with long shining black started. Not a very strong opening, she thought to
hair and chestnut brown skin was lounging in a herself. “But he did some controversial stuff, if I
lawn chair. He was tilted as far back as the chair remember correctly. And a lot of people liked it!
would allow, and he was wearing sunglasses, as if Some people were so into it.” She wrung her
he was sitting by the pool. In loose beige shorts hands nervously. “But some people weren’t as
and sandals, he looked like he should be surfing happy about it, and they, uh, they killed him, I
or traversing the desert. Yet he seemed very com- guess.”
fortable here, wherever here was.
Jacqueline cringed. That wasn’t how she wanted
Jacqueline stood up and brushed the bits of grass the story to come out. It was true, but it wasn’t
from her skirt. Thinking that it would be hard to eloquent at all. Not the kind of presentation you’d
walk through a meadow in high heels, she kicked want to give to God, that’s for sure. She waited
them off. Then she took her jacket off too. She for God to respond, but he just lay there. She
didn’t need it; the temperature was absolutely couldn’t even tell if he was looking at her because
perfect. of the sunglasses. What if he fell asleep?

She strode towards the man in the lawn chair, God slowly turned his head to face her. “You
hoping that she wasn’t going to disturb whatever said...some people weren’t happy about it,” he
he was up to. She waved cheerfully as she ap- muttered. “If you ask me, Jesus didn’t do anything
proached him. wrong, per se. Controversial isn’t wrong. But you
humans. You decided to kill him! That’s pretty
messed up, don’t you think?”

83

Jacqueline just stared at him. “I guess it is, yeah.” about what you did to Jesus. I really am. Because
he was my son, and I don’t think he deserved
“You know,” God continued, “I’ve given humans a what you guys put him through. And keep in mind
lot of chances. Sure, you guys have done some that nobody else did that. I give everyone a Jesus
good stuff. Like the wheel, that was really good. and you’re the only ones that killed him. Classic
And the printing press! Both good inventions. I humans. I should have known better.”
thought it was great when you cured polio. Also
the Mona Lisa, have you seen it? Very impressive. Jacqueline looked at the ground. She felt bad
Was really pleased with that one.” about what humans had done to Jesus. She just
didn’t want God to take it out on her, as if she
Jacqueline didn’t know what to say. God sat up even asked to be here.
before going on.
“All I can do is apologize, on behalf of all hu-
“You know what always gets me?” he chuckled. mans,” she said, struggling to keep her voice
“When humans can say words while they’re burp- steady. “You’re right, we do do a lot of bad stuff. I
ing! That’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever think about that all the time. I wish there was a
seen. And I’ve seen a lot of stuff, trust me.” way I could stop bad stuff from happening, espe-
cially to innocent guys like Jesus. But I’m just not
“I’m, uh, really glad to know you liked our stuff, sure it’s possible.”
God,” Jacqueline said. Then she noticed that God
had started to scowl. He cracked his knuckles. Jacqueline looked at God, but he seemed to be
deep in thought. She tried to appear as sympa-
“You know what, though? You guys have done a thetic as possible, but God’s words were really
lot of bad stuff too. You keep making these crazy having an effect on her. God has every reason to
mistakes over and over again. You fight an entire be mad at us, she thought.
world war, you call it “the war to end all wars,”
and then you go ahead and have another one “I’m not sure it’s possible either, Jacqueline,” said
twenty years later! You kill the planet, you kill God. “I think I screwed something up when I was
each other, you invent stupid things like fork- making humans in the first place.” God sighed.
chops and thumb wrestling. I’ve given humans so “You might not like this idea, but what if we just
many chances to be better and it seems like all start over? I can trash the whole thing and we can
they ever care about is themselves and their make them better the second time around. How
money. You all run around with your little heads about it?”
in the sand like nothing else is important besides
what’s right in front of your own feet. I don’t Jacqueline closed her eyes and thought for a long
mean to hurt your feelings, and I don’t know you time. She thought about all the good things she’d
very well, but all humans seem to act the same to seen humans do, and all the bad things too. She
me. Tim said they would send someone from hu- thought about times people had loved her and
man resources, probably because if Tim came times people had been mean and rude to her. She
down here he’d just putter around and drool all imagined her parents, their beautiful little cabin
over himself. Look, you seem nice and all, but you overlooking the lake, the way her mother smiled,
haven’t done a great job convincing me to trust her dog, the sound of birds in the morning. She
you. You think a blazer and some sensible heels remembered the kids in high school who pushed
give you the credibility to come into my meadow her and teased her, the men on the street who
and ask me for something?” grabbed at her, the bombs and the famine and
the sickness and war and--hold on a minute, she
Suddenly embarrassed, Jacqueline cringed and thought to herself. You’re literally talking to God
looked away. God was right. How could she have right now. Just do what he wants to do. It’s God.
assumed she could just stroll in here and ask God He’s got this.
to forgive humans for murdering his only son?
She should never have even considered taking “Who cares, let’s do it,” Jacqueline said.
this job, she thought. Jacqueline glanced over at “Whatever you say.”
God, who pursed his lips.
God smiled at her. He shifted over and offered
“I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I’m pissed her one side of the lawn chair. Jacqueline climbed

84

on and stretched out next to God, their arms
touching ever so slightly. God pointed to a tiny
dot in the sky.
“That’s Earth, he said. “Keep your eyes right
there. Now watch this.”
God snapped his fingers, and the dot exploded.
Jacqueline and God lay above the grass, watching
as one world ended.
God turned to face Jacqueline and lifted his sun-
glasses, revealing beautiful green eyes speckled
with bits of blue and gold. He smiled.
“So,” said God. “What should we make next?”

About the Author:
Veronica Ordway is a student at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. She is a Writing, Literature,
and Publishing major with a concentration in Fiction Writing and a minor in Comedic Arts. Veronica lives
and works in the greater Boston area alongside her parents Barbara and Kevin, her brother Jack, and her
cat Walter.

85

YOUNG ENOUGH

TO BE AFRAID

Charlotte Freccia

Zooey came up with the sun, her head in Franny’s sweatshirt, widening his eyes until they adjusted
lap, her tongue between her teeth, and the taste to the light.
of blood in her mouth. She blinked, and shook the
sleep from her eyes, and moved her tongue “Hey,” she said. “How’d you sleep?”
around in a circle, and then she sat up. Franny
was sleeping, still, his head against the dirty glass Franny laughed a dismissive laugh. “Great,” he
of the car window, his baseball cap slightly askew. said. “I slept great, freezing, sitting up in the
A rush of affection moved through her, followed backseat of a car parked in front of a fucking drug
by a wave of exasperation. She wondered when dealer’s house. How’d you sleep?”
she’d stop forgetting that she wasn’t supposed to
be in love with him anymore. Zoe didn’t laugh. “Terribly,” she said. “I practically
demolished the inside of my mouth. Woke up
She looked through the window at the narrow, tasting like blood.”
ramshackle duplex across the street. In the night,
the wind had moved the empty recycling bins and “Yeah, I could hear you chewing away as you
some dead leaves and loose litter around the slept. I thought that that stopped, Zo.”
yard, but within the house, there were still no
signs of life. She looked away. Her stomach was “It did,” she said. “But sometimes it comes back.”
churning with dread. She could feel the threads of
a headache beginning to unspool across her fore- She tumbled clumsily over the glovebox and into
head––the kind of headache only induced by a the backseat, sliding her legs over Franny’s and
night slept in a shitty Sedan––and still there was a resting her head on his shoulder. He didn’t en-
ragged soreness in her mouth. She crawled into courage or initiate them, but Franny still occa-
the front seat and angled the rearview to get a sionally allowed these little moments of intimacy.
good look at the inside of her mouth. Her back
teeth were brown with blood, and the inside of “Sometimes it comes back when I’m feeling really
her cheek was tattered, its slick, shiny surface anxious, or scared.”
flaking, loose flaps of skin rough-edged and raw.
“You’re scared,” he repeated, slightly dubious.
“Ugh,” she muttered, under her breath. “You’re scared? The whole come-here-and-
She reached under the seat for the half-full plastic demand-our-stolen-money-back thing was your
bottle of water. It stung with cold when she idea, and now you’re scared?”
sipped it, and she winced as she moved it around
her mouth, trying to rinse away the taste of “Yes,” she said. “I’m scared. I know it was my
blood. idea. But I’m scared.”

In the backseat, Franny was stirring. “Hey,” he “Well, don’t be,” he said. “It’s going to be fine.
said, in his small, frankly adorable waking-up We’re going to get it back, and we’re going to be
voice. She looked back at him, slumped down fine.” He didn’t sound like he believed it. Zooey
in the seat, his hands in the front pocket of his certainly didn’t believe it.

“Okay,” she said. “But, Fran. We’ve waited all
night. And they’re still not here. What are we go-
ing to do when they actually get back? Like, what
are we going to say?”

86

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice too impatient to her hastily and messily right before the end of last
actually sound comforting. “We’ll do something, semester. They’d kept their distance that sum-
say something. It’ll be fine. We’re Franny and mer, but when they’d returned to their small
Zooey, right? We’re fine. We’re gonna be fine.” campus in the fall, they rejoined the same small
circle of the same small people they considered
They’d come up with the name the first semester their closest friends, and he asked her if she
of their freshman year, sitting around Franny’s wanted to continue dealing. Sure, she said. Sure.
older brother Charlie’s apartment on the edge of In her mind, it was a way to stay close to him.
campus after their Adolescence in Literature sem- After all, when they dealt, they were still an insti-
inar, passing a shoddily-rolled joint back and tution; still Franny and Zooey, still hardly them-
forth. It didn’t take them long to make the refer- selves without the other by their side.
ence––it couldn’t have, really. On paper, he was
Francis John Henry Fitzpatrick, and she was Zoe- “Franny and Zooey,” people would say,
lane Petrina Sakellarios, but together, they were when they made deals. “Like the book?”
Franny and Zooey.
“Like the book,” they’d say.
“My grandma calls me Franny,” he’d said.
“In that way, it’s, like, already my name. And you “Funny. But you know in the book Franny
just have to chop your name in half and add, like, was the girl, and Zooey was the boy.”
two and a half more vowels, and you’re Zooey.
We’re Franny and Zooey!” “Yes, we know,” Zooey would say. “But I
don’t suppose we give a shit. Do we give a shit,
Before too long, the name was institutionalized, Franny?”
something their other, less important friends
could use to refer to them as a collective unit, “We don’t, Zooey,” he would respond. “Gender is
which was what they’d started to become. They a social construct, you fuck.”
hadn’t even started hooking up yet, but it had
only been a matter of time. She remembered be- That was how it went. It became almost routine.
ing so captivated by Franny that it felt like every- For awhile, Zooey had almost been disappointed
thing he said was either the profoundest or the by the distinct lack of danger she’d encountered
funniest thing that had ever been thought. She since they’d partnered up.
remembered the way he waited around for her
after class, and the way he narrowed his eyes and “We’re dealing weed on a liberal-arts cam-
nodded philosophically when she said something pus, Zo, Jesus. It’s not like we’re pushing meth,”
smart, and how she knew he felt the same. By Franny reminded her once.
November, they were inseparable.
“I realize,” she said. “I guess when we got
In the spring, they started dealing. It was his idea– into all of this, I imagined that I’d be engaged in
–a pair of brothers he knew from growing up lived more high-speed chases or run-ins with cops.”
twenty minutes away in Holyoke and could keep
them in good supply. Their names were Benji and “We’re two white kids. This is Western
Alex, but Zooey had suggested they call them Massachusetts, not the streets of Oakland.”
Buddy and Seymour, in keeping with their Salin-
ger theme. It only got worse when they broke up.
Weed deals became all but boring when you did-
“Whatever,” Franny had said. “Call them what n’t even have anyone to make out with once
you want, I guess.” But before too long, he’d they’d gone down. Zooey only stopped craving
started calling them Buddy and Seymour instead danger when they were robbed by Buddy and
of Benji and Alex too. Seymour. It had happened two nights ago in what
seemed like moments, although, Zooey knew, the
That was how it went with them. Where she led, brothers must have been planning it for months.
he followed. That was why, Zooey had a sneaking
suspicion, their business partnership lasted longer They’d planned on meeting Buddy in the parking
than their romantic one, why Franny had dumped lot of an Old Navy in Hadley. When they pulled in,
he was standing in the light of a lamppost, smok-
ing a cigarette. He gave them the indicative nod,

87

put out his cigarette on the asphalt, and let him- On her way back into Holyoke, she almost rear-
self into the backseat, the giant Ziploc of marijua- ended the beat-up Ford Taurus with the fake-
na in his backpack smelling up the inside of the wood siding and chipping maroon paint because
car. the driver had swerved so recklessly into her lane.
Instinctively, she moved a hand to the horn, but
“Hey, man” he said. stopped. Didn’t that car have a patchouli-scented
pine tree and a miniature of Wallace from the
“Hey, man,” Franny repeated, holding up the roll Wallace and Gromit films on a string hanging
of hundreds bound by a cracked rubber band. from the dashboard? Didn’t it smell like Friendly’s
“Two thousand, for the eighteen.” french fries and weed? Hadn’t she sat in its
scuffed backseat on a drug pickup? Wasn’t it Bud-
“Can I count it?” Buddy said. dy and Seymour’s car?

“Sure,” Franny said, passing Buddy the roll She reduced her speed and followed the beat-up
and watching as he unwound the band. Then, as if Ford Taurus with fake-wood siding and chipping
it was all one movement, Buddy stuffed the cash maroon paint to a field of concrete deposits that
down the front of his pants, heaved open the car stretched out along an abandoned railroad track.
door, grabbed his backpack containing their near- When it stopped, she stopped too, clattering to a
ly eighteen ounces of mid-grade weed, and ran sudden halt along the white rock. She parked at
across the parking lot, towards the road. Before an inconspicuous distance and turned her brights
either of them could say anything, Franny took off on, shooting wavering pillars of white light into
after him, leaving Zooey alone in the car. the darkness. She could see everything.

She started to panic. Call the cops, she thought. There they were. Buddy and Franny. Franny
She couldn’t call the cops. What would she say? prone, Buddy standing over Franny. Buddy kicking
Get help, she thought. She couldn’t get help. Help Franny’s hands away from his face. There was so
from whom? She was in a desolate strip-mall much blood. Buddy stepping on Franny’s fore-
parking lot. Follow them, she thought. She got out head, grinding it into the rock’s sawtooth surface.
of the passenger seat and walked the perimeter So much blood, tinting the rock pink. Buddy
of the car. I can’t do this, she thought. She got bending over to punch Franny in the stomach.
into the driver’s seat. I have to do this. She couldn’t move. Buddy spitting in Franny’s face
as he wracked against the rock. She couldn’t
She drove for what felt like forever, the move, and couldn’t help him.
highbeams of the shitty Sedan illuminating every
shitty Friendly’s diner and liquor store of the bar- “Franny!” she screamed, inside the shitty
ren suburban streets. She listened to the same Sedan.
song on the Youth Lagoon CD in the disk drive––
Franny was the only person Zooey knew who still “Benji!” Seymour screamed, outside the
bought CDs––because it was the only track she beat-up Ford Taurus with the fake-wood siding
recognized, from a mixtape Franny had made her and chipping maroon paint.
right before they got together. Roaming the
campground out by the lake where we swam, We Buddy kicked Franny in the side one more
were hunting for snakes, but we couldn't find time and took off across the field. Zooey turned
them. She swerved in and out of parking lots in off her lights and ducked beneath the drive panel
front of shopping centers and office buildings that as he got closer. She stayed like that, with her
looked particularly desolate. She bit the finger- breath held and her face pressed to the tops of
nails on one hand. She decided to change course, her thighs, until she heard Buddy scream, “Drive,
and drove all the way down the riverfront, into man!” and the beat-up Ford Taurus with fake-
Chicopee, almost. Minutes tripped over them- wood siding and chipping maroon paint hurtle
selves. If I don’t find him in thirty minutes, she away. Then, she got out of the car and walked
thought, I’ll call the cops. I don’t care what I’ll across the rock. She called out when she was feet
have to say. I’ll tell them everything, if it’ll help away from Franny, so she wouldn’t scare him.
me find Franny.

88

“Franny,” she said, softly, in a voice she hoped fake-wood siding and chipping maroon paint ap-
was comforting. “Fran, it’s me.” peared, and that he had heard Seymour yell Bud-
dy’s name, and that then Buddy took off and
“Zooey,” he said. “Zo. Oh.” His voice was jumped into the car which disappeared into the
faint, like a flame about to be extinguished. night, taking their two thousand dollars and their
drug supply with it and that there he had laid un-
“Can you move, Fran? Try it. Try and move. til Zooey came. When he was finished telling, and
Gently, at first.” she was finished listening, she asked him how he
felt.
“I can move,” he said. “I can get up.”
“Sore,” he said. “Sure. And pissed off. But fine, I
She guided him back to the car and laid think. Fine.”
him out in the backseat, taking off her sweatshirt
and sliding it under his head for support. She got “Okay,” Zooey said, measuring her words.
behind the wheel again, hands shaking, and drove “So what do you want to, like, do about this?”
to an all-night, sodium-light convenience store
with a peeling advertisement for Lowest Cigarette “What do I want to do about it? Nothing,”
Prices in the State! on its dirty, caged glass door. he said. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do.
Maybe I’ll go to their house later and slash their
Bells tinkled perversely when she opened and tires.”
then closed the door. She bought a bag of frozen
peas without exchanging a word with the red- “Franny,” Zooey said. “I know you’re hurt. I
eyed, underarm-stained kid behind the counter. know you’re scared. But––are you sure you want
She ran across the sodium-light parking lot and to just let it go? That was, like, a lot of money. A
opened the back door, looking at all of Franny’s lot.”
length, scrunched up across the backseat. In the
car light, the bruises on his face and jaw were soft Franny exhaled, then slid off the bed and
purple and murky gray. went over to the sink, looking intently in the mir-
ror, examining his face from every angle. He
“Hey,” she said. He didn’t respond. She turned the faucet, and bowed his head into the
wrapped the frozen peas tightly in their plastic noisy stream of cold water, rubbing at his neck to
bag, and slid it gently onto Franny’s jaw. Then, wash away the dried blood. Then, he took her
she got into the front seat. “Almost home, Fran,” towel from the bar next to the sink and buried his
she said, even though it was a lie. “Almost home.” face in it. When he was done, he walked back
She drove. On the way out of Holyoke, the head- over to the bed and stood in front of her. Beads
lights lit up the “Birthplace of Volleyball” sign. of water still pooled in the hollow of his throat,
Zooey laughed sardonically at the sign, the way and she had to suppress her desire to wipe them
she always did. Franny groaned in the backseat. away with the tips of her fingers.

When they got back to campus, Zooey parked “Okay,” he said. “I am willing to try to get our
outside her building and led Franny slowly up the money back. I am willing to go to Buddy and Sey-
stairs to her dark room. She laid him down in her mour’s house tonight and negotiate a return.
bed and unrolled her yoga mat onto the floor Maybe if I talk at them long enough, they’ll get
next to him so that she could be close to him in confused enough to just hand the cash over. But
case he remembered fear in the night. the second it turns violent, we’re leaving.”

In the morning, he told her everything, “So you’ll go?”
sitting up in bed, with rivulets of dried blood
coursing down the tendons in his neck. He told “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
her that he’d chased Buddy through those same
streets she’d desperately driven, and that he’d That night, when Franny pulled up outside
been led to that field, and that Buddy basically her building in the shitty Sedan, Zooey went out
jumped him, spilling him onto the rock, and that to meet him in jeans and a sweatshirt, carrying
the beating started essentially immediately and nothing but her wallet and phone and a plastic
only stopped when the beat-up Ford Taurus with bottle of water. Franny slung one arm over the
wheel and looked sidelong at her.

89

“What?” she said. Zooey remembered a warm afternoon in the
spring of their freshman year, when they’d
“Ready to go?” Franny asked. He sounded like he skipped their afternoon classes and gone to the
was waiting for her to say no. place in the meager woods behind the freshman
dorms where there was an incredible view of the
“Guess so,” she said. They crept out of town in campus and the town receding into the moun-
silence. Franny played the Youth Lagoon CD from tains beyond. They’d rested on a long, square
the night before, and hummed along. When I was rock, and Franny had produced the bottles of Roll-
seventeen, my mother said to me. Don’t stop ing Rock that he’d lifted from his brother’s fridge
imagining, the day that you do’s the day that you from his ratty backpack, and Zooey had sipped at
die. hers while, unprompted, he’d told her almost
everything he could remember about his early
When they got to the house, they parked on the childhood. He’d told her about his mother, Sarah,
other side of the street. The Ford Taurus with the and his two chunky older brothers, Charlie and
fake wood siding and chipped maroon paint was Johnny, and about his little twin sisters, Megan
gone from the driveway, and all the lights were and Margaret, and the rickety six-room house
off in the house. They waited. They waited so long they all shared on Southern Artery in Quincy.
they fell asleep in the car. Now, more than twelve Then, he’d told her about his father, Seamus, a
hours later, they were still waiting. It was making moving-truck driver with a soft face who had the
Zooey anxious. nasty weekend habit of getting drunk, coming
home, putting on Dave Matthews Band, and
“Zo, I swear,” Franny said. “We’re going to beating the shit out of his wife and whichever kids
be safe. Nothing bad is going to happen.” were unlucky enough to be around.

“But how can you be sure?” “One night,” he’d said, “when I was eight, I was in
the kitchen sorting out my Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and
“Okay,” he said. “Don’t freak out. But look what I my parents were fighting in the living room, and it
brought.” From his backpack, he produced a was something that I had, I don’t know, natural-
kitchen knife, which glinted dully in the mid- ized, in a pretty fucked-up way, so I wasn’t paying
morning light. He held it out to her, like an offer- attention, but it started to get louder than I’d ever
ing, and she took it in her hands, turning it over. heard it get before, and, I don’t know, I was eight,
and I started to get really scared, so I took a kitch-
“I thought that the whole point of this stakeout en knife from the block next to the cookie jar,
was to avoid violence,” she said, watching the which was, like, stupidly shaped like a fucking cat,
distorted movement of her mouth in the silvery or something, totally unrelated to cookies. Any-
surface of the knife. Franny only shrugged. way, I went into the living room, and I saw my
parents, and my mom was on the floor, and my
“This...this scares me, Fran. This is a kitchen knife. dad was on top of her, like, kneeling over her, but
The most damage you’re gonna do with this is he had his fist raised, and I came up behind him,
you’re gonna stab Buddy or Seymour in the hand, and I drove the knife into his hand, right between
whatever, and they’re gonna be hurt and pissed his knuckles.”
off but not, like, immobilized, and then it’s gonna
be their next move, and the next thing you know “You stabbed your father in the hand,”
there’s a horse head in my bed or a pizza on your Zooey had repeated, almost disbelieving.
roof.”
“I stabbed my father in the hand,” Franny
His eyes glinted. “You said you were scared. Did it had said back, seriously. “He had to get stitches.
occur to you that I’m scared, too?” Until the day he died, he had serious neuropathy
in that hand, and could not feel pain on its sur-
“Of course,” she said. “But, like, how is a kitchen face, even when he burned his skin with his own
knife going to protect us from Buddy and Sey- cigarette. His hand was so badly mangled that it
mour? They’re stringy, but they’re, like, Holyoke was no longer effective in beating the shit out of
white-guy tough.” my mother and my brothers and sisters and me.

“It wouldn’t be the first time I stabbed someone
with a kitchen knife, would it?”

90

He tried to use his left hand, but he wasn’t any about the Franny she knew and loved now, and
good at throwing a punch with his left hand, so the Franny that was, who’d stabbed his own fa-
sooner or later he just...gave up. I was young ther with a kitchen knife, and she’d wondered
enough to be afraid of everything––I was a really how one could have possibly grown into the oth-
soft little kid, afraid of my brothers, afraid of the er.
bigger kids at school, afraid of the dark, afraid of
the high-dive at the public pool, afraid of our The next morning, Zooey woke up with Franny’s
neighbor’s dogs. But somehow I wasn’t afraid of hair was in her mouth and his legs tangled in her
my father, or so young to not have known, some- legs, and her feet were cold, because he’d stolen
how, that the only person I ever really had to pro- all her covers in his sleep, and she’d watched the
tect myself from was him. But anyway. What early sunlight wash him in a pale, cautious light
about you? What was it like for you, growing up?” that made her reconcile the then-Franny and the
he’d said, his face and voice unserious again as he now-Franny in a way that made her sure that this
took a long pull of his beer. was what it was to love someone: to see and
know all of them, and still want more.
Zooey had wanted to tell him about West Pea-
body, and her perfect older sister, Andrina, with She looked out at the empty house and
her shiny hair and straight teeth, and her re- not at him. “Okay,” she said. “You’re right. I’m
pressed and passive mother, Phoebe, and her sorry. I just…” she started, and then thought
anxious, absent father, Salazar, and his affair with better of it. “Nothing.”
Mrs. Anastas from the St. John’s School PTA, and
her mother finding out about the affair because “No,” he said. “Tell me.”
when they went to a dinner party at the Anastas’
house her father had known where to find the She breathed. “I just wish that this all had
bathroom and the drinking glasses without having happened while we were still together, and I
to ask and how after the divorce her mother re- guess...I guess I just still don’t understand why we
fused to see her father, and so when Zooey went aren’t.”
to spend Wednesday nights and alternating week-
ends at her father’s her grandmother had to “Don’t do this, Zo, Franny said. Zooey just
come pick her up at her mother’s and take her looked at him.
there, and how her grandmother always smelled
like garlic and played ABBA and sang along, loud, “You asked,” she said. “You asked me to
and how ever since Zooey was unable to watch tell you what I was thinking. Now I’m asking you.
Mamma Mia! without feeling both nauseated and To explain.”
tearful.
“Fine,” he said. “We broke up because two nights
She hadn’t told him any of this, though. She’d just ago I was the one who jumped out of the car and
looked at him, in the dappled light. She’d looked chased this fucker to a fucking creepy-ass railroad
at him, and catalogued all that she had come to track in the dark and got the shit kicked out of
love looking at when she looked at him––the me, but you’re the one who’s scared, and I’m the
overgrown lengths of sand-colored hair licking his one who has to comfort you.”
chin, the freckles over his nose, the fingernail-
shaped scar on his jaw that hadn’t seemed fore- “We broke up last spring because of something
boding until now. She’d remembered when that happened the other night?”
they’d first met, making fleeting eye contact over
the big, intimidating seminar table in Adolescence Franny looked at her. “No,” he said. “We broke up
in Literature. She remembered all those hazy, sun because the other night was just like every night,
-baked, stoned September afternoons in his the whole time we were together: me, putting
brother’s apartment, becoming friends, getting myself out there for you, and you sitting back and
their names. She’d remembered when they’d first watching, and then acting like I still hadn’t done
kissed over The Life Aquatic and the way she’d enough.”
said, after, we’re going to be together now, and
he’d smiled and kissed her again. She’d thought “So you’re saying I’m self-involved, and demand-
ing.”

“I guess I am.”

91

“You’re saying that you were putting in more than About the Author:
you were getting out.”
Charlotte Freccia is a third-year student of Eng-
“I guess I am.” lish, Creative Writing, and Women's and Gender
Studies at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio,
“The relationship was so draining, so unreward- where she also enjoys an associateship with the
ing, that you had to just get out.” Kenyon Review. She is a 2016 winner of the Philip
Wolcott Timberlake Writing Award has recently
“I guess.” published poetry in Zaum Magazine, short fiction
in Potluck Magazine, and creative nonfiction in
“Then why are we still doing this, Fran?” Newfound.

“What?”

“I said, why are we still doing this? Why are we
still dealing?”

“I don’t know,” Franny said, finally, quietly. “The
money.” He sounded pitifully unsure.

“Bullshit,” Zooey said. “It’s not about the money.
It never was. It was about us. You know it was.
Still is. But you know what? I think this is it, Fran.”

“You think what is it, Zo?”

She gestured around, to the inside of the car and
the whole gray-skied, leaf-strewn, cash-poor,
shitty world around them. “I think this is the last
of our adventures. The last of our deals. It was
stupid to imagine that we could continue being
partners without being….You know. Partners.
That we could still be Franny and Zooey without
being Franny and Zooey.”

The beat-up Ford Taurus with fake-wood siding
and chipping maroon paint was making its way
down the block. They didn’t notice it until it
turned into the driveway, and Buddy and Sey-
mour got out of the car and leaned against their
back fender, lighting up cigarettes. Franny and
Zooey looked out at the brothers, and then at
each other, and nodded solemnly.

“Zoelane,” Franny said, and thumbed idly the
darkening bruise on his chin.

“Francis,” Zooey responded, and moved her
tongue gently over the battered inside of her
tattered cheek.

They kept their eyes together until the last sec-
ond. Then, they got out of the car.

92

SIGHTSEEING

Read Trammel

The moment she saw the inflatable pink rabbit “You haven’t been around,” Samantha said, her
drunkenly folded over in decreasing tumescence, own hand drink free as she’d just arrived from a
Samantha longed to kick it. More, she wanted to solo dinner in Kathryn’s small apartment where
beat it, to feel that smack slap of hands against she’d slept the afternoon away with sweat in hair
plastic. She wanted to make it bob and then top- from warm day and walking to take in sights that
ple. But it was too big. She would look ridiculous Kathryn had suggested. Kathryn always knew the
and small against it. Like a young girl. best sights.

“What’s with the rabbit?” she asked her older “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy with work.”
sister, Kathryn.
“It’s okay.”
“Milan likes levity.”
“I’m here now,” Kathryn said. She had a frown.
Music buzzed as a low hum, floor throbbing with Maybe it was squinting to see through the murky
the bass beat, subwoofer. The volume was low, room. Two years she’d lived here and only one
but that bass shook. A high-ceiling room overseen visit home the first Christmas. She’d given Saman-
by the sagging rabbit. It wore a cartoonish grin tha a Czech beer mug that year, and small wood-
pressed almost to its chest. There were people en bird with pegs for legs. It was a private thing
gathered, sitting on sagging couches or standing between them, giving birds. Whenever one sister
in groups, shadows on the wall. Dim light made it found one, especially silly, they bought it to give
hard to see. to the other.

The sisters were in Prague, where Kathryn had “How does it feel to be done with college?”
been living for the past two years. The room was Kathryn asked, not for the first time.
part of a converted warehouse owned by Milan
Hornik, a Czech artist, known mostly for slightly “It’s good. Really.”
vulgar sculptures that stirred controversy. One of
his pieces—a naked statue of Winston Churchill “No more homework.”
straddling a pole sticking out from a building—
had even caused some panic when pedestrians “A relief,” Samantha yawned and wondered
mistook it for a suicidal man. Or so Samantha’s where this was going. She’d showered, but not
quick Google search informed her. Kathryn just washed her hair, so it was pulled back into a slop-
said he was “brilliant.” The warehouse func- py bun. It felt gross.
tioned as a communal space that offered young
artists a place to work and in some cases live. “It’s good to take a break. Mom and dad aren’t
Kathryn worked there as a publicist, while also giving you a hard time living at home, are they?”
having time to produce her own art—she said.
“No. It’s fine,” Samantha said. That past summer
“I’m glad you came,” Kathryn said, sipping her was sleeping in her old bed that now felt so small,
drink. The shadows were drinking too. “You have- waking to find parents at work and the big house
n’t said much since you got here—to Prague.” quiet, empty. She went to the neighborhood pool
until she got tired of the high school boys staring
at her and then she stayed home and read and

93

napped and watched Netflix. College friends were gig. That’s what she did, it seemed. Arrange
dispersed, high school friends were forgotten. things. What would that class be like? Probably
just Milan telling stories and making rude com-
“You were smart to wait until after the summer to ments, judging by what she’d seen of him so far.
come here. God, I swear all of Europe fills up with But study abroad classes were supposed to be
fat Americans. I don’t know what’s worse, the easy anyway, right? She’d studied in Spain a cou-
tour groups blocking everything or the families ple of years ago and couldn’t remember any of
waddling around aimlessly,” Kathryn said. the coursework. Instead, she remembered the
plazas with numbered windows filled with people
“I’m just glad I could come. I haven’t seen you in at night, the tapas places with floors covered in
so long,” Samantha said. She’d saved up that last discarded napkins and toothpicks. She remem-
year of college, but her parents had to give her bered the Mediterranean’s green-blue. The kids
some money to cover it all in the end. here looked amused for the most part. Amused
and drunk. Funny to think of them as kids when
“I’m glad you came too,” Kathryn said. She put she was only a few months out of college herself.
her arm around Samantha’s shoulders. “You need
a drink.” Muggy. Crowded room—even with the high ceil-
ing it was muggy. That was a word her mom
“Sure.” Samantha let herself be led to the im- would use fanning hand in front of face and
promptu bar, a table littered with bottles of wine, Kathryn would roll her eyes at Samantha as if to
beer, and liquor, plastic cups with smudged lip say, “Can you believe her?” and if mom saw that,
marks and finger prints. She found a clean cup they might get into it, about attitude and give me
and poured herself some wine. It looked dark, a break. The fuse was always short between
deep red going to black, in that dimness. those two. Dad silent, long tired of trying to make
peace. But muggy was the right word.
Kathryn had told her that this was the room
where the artists relaxed. It was filled with a Now there was this guy wrapped in a typical Euro-
hodge-podge of sagging couches and creaking pean scarf, unwashed and unshaved, edging clos-
chairs. There was an old piano, the dented keys’ er and looking at her with blood-rimmed eyes. An
wooden cores permanently exposed, but no one artist interested only in getting laid. Samantha
played. Everyone seemed to be watching Milan, grabbed her cup and brushed past him to join
even if they were involved in other conversations. Kathryn at the couches.
Even the rabbit seemed to watch him. He lounged
on one of the couches with legs crossed. His “Ah, Katerine’s sister,” Milan said when she
voice, at the end of some story, carried across the slumped down next on a couch. He called her
room. that. “I like sisters,” he added and his teeth were
small beneath thick lips.
“So I told the asshole he could give it back. Same
thing to me,” Milan said through grinning teeth. “Having fun?” Kathryn asked her and Samantha
“He still owed me $10,000 either way.” The young managed a nod. She shared the couch with a frag-
people around him laughed. ile blonde with a pixie cut. The girl swayed with
eyes closed. Kathryn prodded Milan.
Kathryn went over to join Milan, but Samantha
hesitated. She drank her wine in hard swallows “Katerine tells me you are done with university?”
that brought out the burn from the cheap bottle. he said.
A girl came to the bar to get a drink and Saman-
tha recognized her as Misha, Kathryn’s room- “Yes.”
mate. She smiled to her, but Misha gave a blank
look and left with beer in hand. Alone in the “Me too. Though I never started really.” The
crowded room, Samantha poured more wine for young people again laughed in the automatic way
company. of an entourage. “And what do you do now?”

There were other Americans here. Milan taught “I’m—between things,” Samantha said. Always
at a local study abroad program run for college that question, even here.
kids from the States. Kathryn had arranged the
“Ah, that is my favorite position. Between things.”

94

Kathryn giggled with the others, but she touched The fluorescent bulbs were jarring after the semi-
his shoulder and shook her head. His eyes darkness of the hall. Samantha squinted at can-
dropped. He kissed her hand. vases on easels or propped up against walls. They
were all abstracts with slashes of color and white.
“Tell me, sister,” he said, eyes on Kathryn, “how The paint was thick on some, wrinkled and cut as
do you like Prague? My city?” if by a blade. Vibrant red blooming.

“It’s very beautiful.” “Are these all yours?” Samantha said—was all she
could think to say at first.
“Samantha enjoyed the Kafka museum,” Kathryn
added. “It’s a shared space. That’s where I work,”
Kathryn said and pointed to a stand where a can-
“Oh yes, we have many museums. Kafka, Holo- vas sat ready and blank. Samantha walked over to
caust—the whole town is a fucking museum. All it.
of them nice—except for the DOX.”
“I haven’t started that—obviously,” Kathryn said.
“That’s the modern art museum,” Kathryn told “The others, behind it.”
Samantha.
Samantha saw the paintings now. She saw earth
“Modern? How can it be modern when they have tones with swirls of purple, stabs of yellow going
Svodoba? It is garbage—really. He paints on rec- up and curving. They were blurs of color.
ords so they won’t play and then they play them
and it’s horrible. Svodoba is a relic anyway. May- “They’re interesting,” Samantha said. “When did
be he was interesting in the sixties, but now? He you start doing abstracts?”
still fights against Communism,” Milan concluded
with a smirk. The students all smirked too. “The last month really. You like them?”

“No, here, we are modern. Here we make art. We “I do. They’re just different than I was expecting
challenge, we destroy. Yes?” Milan spoke with his because—” because Kathryn never painted like
hands, rising gestures. Slender hands. Long. He this before. She remembered Kathryn’s senior art
rocked and bobbed. The faces around him show. University gallery with clean white walls
agreed. and pale wood floors. Light focused on the art-
work. Kathryn’s drawings of playful animals,
“Kathryn, you destroy?” Samantha said. something in a kid’s book and she said she could
be a children’s book author or just illustrate.
“Katerine, she is not destroying, not yet,” Milan Kathryn in a nice dress and drinking wine with
said. other students and Samantha dressed up and
leaving her parents to say congratulations, I love
“I’ve been painting,” Kathryn said. these, so good. Because they reminded her of
“Experimenting with paint at least.” when Kathryn would babysit and together they
would tell a story and in the morning there would
“Experimenting with many things,” Milan said, be a drawing, something from that story, sitting at
rubbing her shoulder. her place as if by magic. Hard to find any bedtime
stories in these splashes of color.
“Can I see? I’m not sure I follow,” Samantha said.
The paintings, she wanted to add. “It’s good to change.” Kathryn said. “My other
stuff was so—immature. Milan says I need to for-
“I can—yeah. If you want to,” Kathryn stood. “We get what I learned.”
won’t be long,” she said to Milan.
“In four years of college?”
Samantha followed her through clumps of peo-
ple, in front of the pink rabbit, and down a hall. “Well, yeah. College isn’t the end all, be all.”
The hallway was even darker than the main room,
lit only by a green sign for the bathrooms in the “Yeah, look at me,” Samantha muttered.
distance. Walls, partitions separated what would
have once been part of the same large, ware- “Abstraction is more about emotion. Conveying it,
house room. They entered one of these smaller but also making people feel,” Kathryn went on.
rooms and Kathryn flipped a light switch.

95

“You can’t teach emotion. You have to feel it, She drank and found herself talking to some
deeply, and put it in the piece.” American named Dillon. He was here visiting a
friend and Samantha saw he had a thing for this
“What emotion was the naked Churchill?” girl, but she was off somewhere, so now Saman-
tha and he were talking and she was trying to
“Huh? Oh, well, Milan is doing something differ- keep an eye on Kathryn because maybe she
ent there. It’s a critique of imperialism. It’s show- would get tired soon and they could leave.
ing a famous man—an imperialist really—as what
he is: vulgar.” Kathryn kept talking, but Samantha “Berlin?” she had to yell.
wasn’t listening. Could feel the buzz of wine now
in face, in the way her cheeks blushed hot. She “Yeah, have you been there?”
wasn’t used to drinking.
“No.”
“He does more abstract stuff too. His newest
piece is just—stunning. It’s in another room if you Samantha wasn’t sure why he was talking about
want to see it.” Berlin. He was describing its merits. She lost every
other word to the music. She drank and nodded.
“Maybe later,” Samantha said. Or never. Never
would be better. It would be better to be some- “It sounds nice,” she said.
where else, the two of them alone and they could
talk, really talk, like they used to. They used to say “I’ll be there three more months. It’ll be hard to
everything. Kathryn, two years older, had done go home.”
everything first, leading the way. This is high
school. These are boys and these are things they Oh, another study abroad expat. Good for you,
do. Kathryn had told her when Chris McWilliams kid. Soak up that European culture and kill some
put his hand in her bikini bottom in his parents’ brain cells, all for college credit.
hot tub and Samantha had wondered how that
felt. Wanted it. She didn’t want to know about “Cheers,” Samantha said and raised her cup. Dil-
Milan’s hands now. She wanted to talk, to tell lon was confused, but he complied.
Kathryn how these last months it had felt like—
like she was suspended, hanging, and not free to “Where are you studying?” he asked.
move.
“I’m done,” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just—we better get back to the par-
ty.” “With college. I graduated.” Samantha shouted as
the beat built. She couldn’t tell if he heard, but
“Sure,” Kathryn said and they walked out of the she saw Kathryn get up and go toward the bath-
room, Kathryn switching the light off behind her. room. Samantha held up a finger.

“I liked your paintings,” Samantha said and tried “Be right back,” she mouthed and wheeled away
to make it sound genuine. from Dillon.

Big room. Crowd of people. More people now, it She bumped into Milan, who was standing for the
seemed. Someone had turned the music up. Mu- first time all night. He had been gesticulating to
sic that pulsed a techno beat, driving people in some girls and the collision caused him to spill
groups and alone to move. Samantha moved to beer from the cup he held. He laughed it off and
the bar and drank more and tried to keep an eye shook the liquid from his hand.
on Kathryn, who sat with Milan. Like silhouettes,
the artists moved around her. Artists. They were “Ah, Katerine’s sister. We dance?” Milan said.
like any other group at a club. Drinking quick to
numb the throb of this music that was, really, too “No, we—I’m sorry.”
loud. Posing for each other in tight clothes to
show bulge and breast and butt, better be tight “It’s nothing. Plenty of beer. Have you tried it?
but round. Better get close and fuck without fuck- The Czechs, we make very good beer.”
ing. It was really too loud.
“I will.”

“You must try as many things as possible,” Milan
said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Traveling is

96

so—liberating. You can push outside yourself, the “What’s going on is I live here now and am with a
box. And open—you must be open to—new famous artist who cares about my work and ex-
things.” poses me to this whole world. I’m happy, Sam.”

Open my legs, you mean. Samantha shrugged his “The guy’s a creep. He flirts with everybody, even
hand off and made to walk past him. me.”

“I have to find my sister,” she said. “That’s not true. Besides, he’s not flirting. That’s
just—it’s European.”
Dim hallway, green light. The bathroom had two
stalls, one closed. Samantha set her wine on the Samantha laughed. “European? Really?”
sink and looked into the mirror. Her eyes were
red, her hair frizzy. “Everyone who’s here wants to be. Milan is so
talented and smart. Everyone wants to work with
“Kathryn?” she said into the mirror. him.”

“Yeah? Hey, Sam. Do you like the party?” “Under him,” Samantha couldn’t help but mutter.

“How long are you going to stay here?” “What?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. A few more hours. You can “How long have you been fucking your boss?”
go whenever you want. It’s not far of a walk and
you have a key, right?” The toilet flushed and she “Shut up.”
came out of the stall.
“No, really. Did you get the job before or after
“Though you really should stay a while longer. Try you blew him?”
to loosen up. You’re in Europe after all,” Kathryn
said as she edged around Samantha and washed “Fuck you, Samantha.”
her hands. She dried her hands and then inspect-
ed herself in the mirror. Kathryn pulled paper towels violently out of the
dispenser. She wiped her face and crumpled them
“I mean, you should really talk to Milan more. in her hands. Samantha felt pinned between the
He’s got so much to say about art and—much sink and wall. Her face was hot.
more than that, really. I’d like you to get to know
him.” Kathryn was picking at her hair. She “It’s just, I don’t know what you see in him,” Sa-
reached into her bag for some chapstick. mantha said.

“I meant, how long are you going to stay here, as “I don’t have to justify who I sleep with to you—
in Prague? Europe,” Samantha said. or mom. Did she put you up to this?”

“What do you mean? I live here.” The sisters “No.”
watched each other in the mirror.
“Well I don’t,” Kathryn threw the paper towels
“It’s just—couldn’t you work on your art some- into a trashcan on her way out the door.
place closer? New York even?”
Samantha stood in the confined space. Her wine
“I couldn’t afford New York. Prague is cheap was still on the sink. She picked it up and drank it
and—older, more romantic. The narrow streets, down quickly. The cup broke between her fingers.
all the sculptures and art on every corner. Be- She looked at the jagged edges and tossed it into
sides, I have my community here.” the trash. She splashed some cool water on her
face and listened to the muffled music coming
“You mean Milan?” through the door. The door opened, revealing a
disinterested looking girl, who moved into one of
“Other people too. He—attracts people. You’ve the stalls. Samantha grabbed the door as it swung
seen them.” shut and went outside.

“Young women. Lots of them.” In the front room, more people were standing
and dancing. Milan stood in the same place, a
Kathryn turned to her with narrowed eyes. fresh beer in his hand. He was talking with ani-
mated gestures to the always-willing listeners.
“You know what’s going on,” Samantha said.

97

Kathryn sulked at his side. Samantha walked over jeans, stretched on the concrete embankment
to Dillon, who was still against a wall. She fol- and ate a sandwich. An old man with a white-
lowed his gaze to where a girl was talking to an- faced dog leaned against a tree. Both man and
other guy. The guy had his arm around her. dog watched the river that was silent and slick,
moving by with speed. Samantha looked up at the
“Drink?” Samantha said. Charles Bridge and wondered if anyone had ever
jumped off.
“Sure,” he shouted back.
Jump off. Slap of water and water in lungs. Sa-
They walked over to the bar where Samantha mantha choked on her wine and felt it drip on her
grabbed a fresh cup. Someone had opened a chin. She wiped at her mouth with a shaking
bottle of vodka and she could smell the faint hand. She needed to not think for a bit.
fumes of alcohol. She poured some into her cup,
eyeballed it, and poured some more. “Dance with me,” she said to Dillon. He hadn’t
been watching her. Samantha tried to say it low,
“Want some?” she asked Dillon. wanted to be seductive, but he couldn’t hear. So
she shouted. Commanded.
“I’ll do a shot—or two,” he said.
Someone killed the droning European techno and
They touched cups and drank. Samantha had switched it over to American hip-hop. Dillon fol-
poured enough that she couldn’t take it all in one lowed her into the knot of dancers and they be-
go. She coughed and then drank again. Dillon re- gan to move to whatever beat stuck out beneath
filled his cup and pointed the bottle at her. the torrent of words. She was usually self-
conscious when dancing, too aware of her feet on
“Why not?” she said. the floor, her hands and her elbows. Now she
forgot and moved. Lose yourself. Drink. Lose the
Lights had taken on a fuzzy halo. The music heat and push. Drink. Lose the stagnant air and
throbbed on. Dillon opened a beer and held it out words, what could she say when Kathryn was
to her. Samantha shook her head and poured so—drink. Samantha realized her glass was emp-
wine into the vodka cup. He wasn’t bad looking. ty, so she dropped it. She could see Kathryn with
Hair a bit shaggy, but good smile. None of that Milan and Kathryn was looking at her. See? I can
latter-day stubble so many guys her age cultivat- do it to. I can be free.
ed. They walked back toward the wall and she
was careful to keep her feet against the ground, Dillon was close behind her, his chest against her
sliding on the dusty, concrete floor. There was a back, moving. She turned to face him and ground
girl in college who always shouted how her face against him, their faces pressed together. She
was numb when she was drunk and would even whispered “so close, so alone,” but if he heard, he
slap herself to demonstrate. Samantha felt her made no sign of it. The air was warm and she was
own face with a hand. She was sweating. sweating again. She could feel it in her hair, run-
ning down the sides of her face. Samantha looked
Dillon was sweating, too, because it was fucking up and she could see wires hanging down from
hot and close in here. Like the bridge today, the the dark warehouse ceiling, wires that did not
Charles Bridge, with its mid-day crowds and move or sway. And now all she could see were
bronze saints with judging eyes. Christ on the the wires and she panicked. She tried to push
crucifix in pain, but still judging with his eyes. She away from Dillon, but he grabbed her, a hand on
bought butterfly earrings for her mother, but the her ass that was grinding, still grinding for some
crowd was close with tourists and vendors, an reason. She tore her gaze from the wires and his
organ grinder with a stuffed monkey (not real) eyes were half-closed. He still held the beer and it
playing the Lara theme from Dr. Zhivago. What was dripping on her neck. Who was he? Why
the fuck did that have to do with Prague? It was him?
hot and smothering and she had to get out, so
she crossed the bridge and looked for a place to “I have to sit,” she shouted in his ear over the
sit. music. She couldn’t tell if he heard. His eyes were
closed.
There was a place by the river with rocks and
trees. She sat on a rock and watched the after-
noon light turn to gold. A kid, scrawny legs in tight

98