Adelaide Literary Magazine No. 54, October 2022

REVISTA LITERÁRIA ADELAIDE

The order, her order, hung between them like a noose. His eyes
widened in shock; it was a bit hilarious. Had he been expecting her to
smile and cook him dinner? Her lips twitched at the thought. His mouth
opened only to snap shut when she turned away from him. Walking
to her couch, she grabbed her phone. Hopefully, the storm would pass
quickly and then he’d leave again. Only this time, she didn’t want him
to ever come home.

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HIS LOVE MAKES ME BEAUTIFUL

by Jake Epstine

I moved to Los Angeles when I was twenty-nine years old because I
was funny. Everyone said so. It was simply a matter of being in the
right place before Johnny Carson called me over to the couch on “The
Tonight Show.”

I rented an apartment, situated a street below the dead still center of
the world, the corner of Sunset and La Brea in Hollywood. For years
stretching beyond transitional, I lived in a tiny studio, whose previous
tenant had nailed the windows shut. I painted the walls forest green,
to compliment my room’s darkly stained hardwood floor, comforting
and silent in summer, cold and squeaking in winter. During the
dreamy summer weeks after my arrival in the City of Angels, I watched
a provocative selection of movies on the Z Channel, “Return of the
Secaucus Seven,” “The Stunt Man” and “Myra Breckinridge,” mixed
in with reruns of the 60s television series “Peyton Place” on the USA
Network. In the evenings, I hit the happy hour at the judiciously named
I Don’t Know Bar, nestled in a strip mall above Sunset, drinking until
I felt like I was floating above the stage of my poignant, yet hilarious,
one-man show. On the nights I returned home from the bar alone, I
sank into an iron claw-foot tub, before pulling the Murphy bed out of
the wall.

I placed my neatly folded jeans on the bed’s footboard, then dozed on
and off in white jockey shorts, while a rusted metal fan silently moved
hot air over me. The helicopters of the Los Angeles Police Department
sliced through the black and blue sky above Hollywood, their whirling

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blades interrupting my sleep, their spotlights dumping a harsh white
glow on the fleeing neighborhood prostitutes and drunk patrons of
the strip club a block away on La Brea, across the street from A and M
Records, housed on what was once the Charlie Chaplin Studios, built
by the Little Tramp in 1917, his twinkling eyes never imagining the
punishing light which nightly assaulted the Angels. The Santa Ana
winds blew until dawn, joining with the helicopters in keeping me
awake, the winds drying out my skin and hair, plunging me into the
refuge of the tub’s silky white foam. The itch on my skin forced me to
pry the long thin nails out of the window frames, opening up my tiny
room to a narrow courtyard, whose thick green succulents moistened
the air, as they burst out along the brick walkway and hung down from
cracked terra-cotta pots lashed to overhead beams. The clear light of
the City of Angels held me in its arms, caressing me, as it whispered
into my ear the truth about all I saw in front of me, speaking to me as
no man had ever done.

In the fall, my green walls moved in on me, demanding to know when
was I going to stand up. To quell the rebellion in my gut against my
happy hour dinners of peanuts and tortilla chips, I got a nursing job at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. I was assigned to the VIP Unit, where
my patients reclined on beds whose linens were changed twice daily,
their fingers wielded sterling silverware, to cut into steaks served on
Mikasa plates, they drank wine out of Baccarat glasses, they bathed in
bathrooms twice the size of my studio apartment. I was certain these
people, whom I had studied on my black and white television screen
that summer, would immediately recognize how funny I was.

A year into my run at Cedars, I entered a patient’s room and spotted
the nurse from “The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.,” Thordis Brandt, her snow
white uniform still unwrinkled fifteen years after her guest-shot on my
favorite teenage television program.

“Wow,” I whispered. “You were one of the Ziegfeld Girls in ‘Funny
Girl.’”

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“That was long-ago, the Sixties,” Thordis said, nodding her head
toward her sleeping patient. “I do private duty now, darling.”

The softness of Thordis’ voice, the concentrated focus of her green
eyes into mine, and the relaxed manner with which she took my arm
and walked me into the hall were not like her Germanic, empty-eyed
Ziegfeld Girl, whose hourglass curves prompted Barbra Streisand’s
Fanny Brice to stuff a pillow under her wedding dress in the “His Love
Makes Me Beautiful” number, understanding, as I did, that the only
time a man would notice either of us was when we made them laugh.

“I just saw you again…on the Z channel in ‘Myra Breckinridge.’ You
were whipping John Houston.”

“That one was ahead of its time. Can you do me a favor? This is
Cedars, let’s say I’m Swedish.”

As Thordis had drawn blood from John Houston, I kept her secret.
I had one of my own. What would happen if my patients discovered
that their nurse’s first comedy gig was as the MC of a male strip show
at the I Don’t Know Bar?

§
An hour before I stood up for the first time at the mic stand, I had
found refuge from the motionless heat of the City of Angels in the air-
conditioned backroom of the I Don’t Know Bar, where I attended to
the strippers I would soon be introducing to a crowd hungry for what
my voice and body could not feed them. The Phenobarbital from
my pillbox had denied me the simplest comfort, leaving my insides
rumbling for sustenance, desperate for something solid to soak up the
frenzied hydrochloric acid swirling amidst the years of fear I held in
my gut. A round muscular butt stood two feet from my tongue, the
whiteness of its Speedo outline blanching against the tanned body of
Cowboy Carl.
“You’re gonna rock,” Cowboy said. “You’re frigging hilarious.”

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My numb fingertips rubbed Johnson’s Baby Oil into the precisely
defined abs and curiously oversized pecs of Derek, the show’s opening
act.

“Ice them up, do it, guy,” Derek pleaded through clenched teeth.
My dead fingers could not feel the coldness of the ice cubes I held
against Derek’s nipples, the tightness in my muscles refusing to give my
body the faintest hint of the masculine definition surrounding me, all
doing push-ups, sit-ups, squats and chin-ups, their thickly veined hands
throwing the leaky bottle of Johnson’s around the room, laughing as my
slippery fingers made their musculature shine.
“Pinch ’em. Lick ’em. Make those babies hard,” Derek chanted.
“You’re on in ten minutes,” Cowboy said to me. “Get your boots on.”
My eyes looked at one of the many mirrors in the room, seeing a
tan deprived dark-haired nurse to the stars, the only man in the room
whose nipples were not interested in ice. After moving his bone white
feet out of blue Zorrie sandals, the nurse stood stiffly in red satin shorts
and a blue and black stripped Fioricci tank top. The nurse pulled tight
the red laces of his army boots, as he knelt a few feet from Rocco, the
Italian Stallion, who sat next to Derek on the yellow couch. Rocco’s
pink tongue, as hot as the afternoon’s air, circled Derek’s chest for a
few teasing seconds before biting into his tiny cold nipples. The nurse
knew his jokes, which, having worked their way up out of his throbbing
throat, waited patiently to escape from his dry lips. Trashing Linda
Evans and Joan Collins was easy. Simpler still was explaining how Jewish
Michele Lee could never live in harmony on a cul-de-sac with Joan Van
Ark and Donna Mills, the Aryan blondes of “Knots Landing.” Ratting
out Cowboy as a whimpering bottom would be the real challenge of
the afternoon.
“I hit the Nautilus machines this morning,” Cowboy said.
My fingertips made Cowboy’s lats glisten.

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As my body moved closer to the couch the strippers sat on, the
Phenobarbital I had taken an hour earlier at last let my feet float above
the ground, their need to flee stronger than the call of my muscles for
alcohol.

“What’s wrong?” Disco Danny asked me. “So quiet on your big day.”
I found my apathetic left hand holding a black plastic tray, as my
right placed Fire Island Ices Teas in front of the shining muscles, as they
languidly covered themselves with the uniforms of a fireman, a cowpoke,
a stockbroker and a policeman. Disco got served first, as he was the low
maintenance stripper, the hair on his chest and arms precluding him
from my baby oil treatment.
“He’s scared,” Cowboy said.
“Are you going to puke?” Stallion asked.
My hands could not feel the heaviness of the Tea I lifted to my chapped
lips, my muscles yearning for the cold alcohol to break through the
numbness which had infected my body from the moment I stepped onto
the sticky red carpet in the bar’s backroom, whose moldy black walls I
had covered with Fourth of July themed paper tablecloths and a stained
American flag, in anticipation of the strippers’ arrival. My backstage
nerves as tattered as Blanche duBois’s on an outing to the Moon Lake
Casino, I had hung Chinese paper lanterns over the hostile naked bulbs,
which swung from thick black cables erupting out of the room’s ceiling.
“No, no, no little man,” Disco said.
Disco took the cold glass out of my hand.
“Check it out,” Derek said. “If you perform high your first time out
you’ll never do it any other way.”
“Do it straight if you want to be in the game,” Stallion said.
My fingertips could not instinctively tap my keys, money, wallet or
pillbox, all of which I had placed in a brown paper bag and hid behind

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the cases of Cutty Sark next to the ripped up yellow couch. The clear
plastic oval, in the center of the square face of the digital chrome watch
my father had given me on my bar mitzvah, was all I could touch, the
white numbers on the black plastic dials tapped into my wrist, as they
lined up to spell out 3 PM.

Showtime.
Cowboy’s hands held his boxer shorts over my head, my eyes seeing
white clouds, as they sought out a friendly palm tree to find refuge
under, my nose breathing in the scent of Tide detergent mixed with
Clorox.
“Kill the people,” Cowboy whispered into my ear.
The spotlight summoned me to the stage, the pumping of muscles
and rhythmic sit-ups stopped. Freed from the blinding boxers, I walked
to the mic stand, my feet trying to determine the last time the gooey
parquet floor beneath them had been cleaned. I thought my friend the
wind was touching my back, but it was the air-conditioning pummeling
me from a vent above the stage, making me shiver in the seconds before
the heat beating off of the packed house devoured me. I stood at the
mic, my fingertips seeking the warmth of the bodies I had oiled up.
My eyes looked over the heads of the audience to the bar’s front door,
as it slowly closed, a sliver of the City of Angels’ clear light made me
squint, before growing thinner and disappearing for the day. I looked
down into the eyes of the audience waiting in front of me, the men
whom my words wanted to touch, to kiss, to lie next to. The men sat in
circles in the dark, on mismatched chairs surrounding tiny round tables
overwhelmed with tall sweating glasses of orange and red cocktails and
long-necked bottles of beer. The faces of the audience moved in closer,
their shoulders hunched in my direction, their wet lips motionless, as
their eyes pitched the first ball and waited for me to hit it with my bat,
the smoothness of whose polished wood never once felt like it belonged
in my hands.
The blood beat in my throat, but no words came out.

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The eyes of the audience threw the second ball. My shoulders flinched
and my hands reached out for the mic as if it was a fresh Tequila Sunrise.
I looked out to the field of clear skinned faces, hair turned wet and
shining from the heat of the room, eyes gleaming under long thick
lashes, tight tee shirts and white wife beaters twisting in anticipation,
fingers wrapped defiantly around cold glass, hard forearms and defined
biceps drawn taut to catch the ball I could not hit.

My lips could not form the words.
The audience’s silence hit me hard, but my cheekbones lacked the
sculpted edges Thordis’ possessed, sharp enough to keep at bay the eyes
staring at me, the eyes which wanted me to make them laugh loud and
deep, freeing them to fly above the cramped sweaty room we found
ourselves in. I stood frozen at the mic stand, the spotlight hammering
at my face and pulling on my balls, its bright fists burning into my eyes
the threats of a different kind of laughter, whose menace bounced off of
the ceramic walls of my junior high school bathroom, where the boys,
who every morning kicked me to the floor, had left me on the wet green
tiles alone, like the men who lit out of my tiny studio, after I had fallen
asleep in their arms.
The moment the third pitch left the audience’s eyes, I swung my bat,
hitting a foul ball into the flood of words which my muscles knew would
be shouted out at me so forcefully that my mother back home on Long
Island could hear them, as she sipped from a glass of Canadian Club and
read “The Hotel New Hampshire,” lying on her chaise lounge, unaware
that her son, who was always the last to be picked for any team, had
somehow been chosen to lead off a Sunday afternoon of musclebound
worship. Everyone, everywhere would hear the words punched into the
flesh of the first batter up.
Queen, pretty boy, fageleh, girly boy.
With the words would come the questions, which no man waiting to
see a cowpoke strip off his chaps wants to answer.
“Why do you talk like a girl?”

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“Why do you act like a girl?”
Before the eyes in front of me could aim their words and questions at
me, I spoke, “Give an I Don’t Know Bar welcome to our first dancer,
Derek.”
Ignoring the heat of the room pleading with me to make it laugh, I
headed back to the dugout. I could have done it, it was right there, my
fingertips touched it. All I had to do was step into the light, surrender
to the blood pounding in my veins and sing out the words which hid
in my aching muscles and twisted gut. I would fly with my audience
above this dank room, the smiles and laughs demanding that I tell more
stories. I would not have to touch my keys, money, wallet and pillbox
to make the jokes sing.
“You’re still the man,” Derek said, pinching my nipple before making
his way to the light waiting for him.
I watched Derek stare the audience down to a silence so deep that only
the neon lights humming behind the bar could be heard, the audience
forgetting about my strikeout, as they roared rapturously when Derek
touched his crotch. The words throbbed in my blood, embedding
themselves into the tips of my fingers, but the fluttering of my hands
was all that the men saw when I stood before them.
I could not say the words. Not ever.

§
I bit into Cowboy’s body with a fierceness that frightened both of
us, the ice of my lips making the muscles beneath his smooth skin
harder, his eyes questioning mine before submitting to the strokes of my
tongue against the thick blue veins of his feet. The fan in the corner of
my apartment moved silently back and forth, laughing as it alternated
between blowing hot air on us and teasing open my curtains to the dim
yellow light of the courtyard.
“I don’t know what happened,” I said to Cowboy. “I knew what I
was going to say.”

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Neither of us could smell the Tide or Clorox, our noses inhaling our
sweat, his head lay on my chest, my fingers untangling a knot in his hair.

“That hurts, pal,” Cowboy said.
“You like it.”
I could have told Cowboy that the dull pain I carried in my gut had
become a friend who opened the doors to the words and questions
pitched at me in every room I entered.
“Do your act like you had it in your head,” Cowboy said.
“OK…I came out and the AC made me shake and the audience
laughs...which of course they didn’t, but I should have done an
exaggerated shiver...and then hold my hands out like I’m falling from
the ceiling onto the yellow couch backstage...”
“You don’t have to do anything, pal. You walk out and it’s yours. Just
talk.”
I could not speak.
“Stand in front of me and do your act… do it the way you licked me.”
I looked down at Cowboy, his downturned thumbs circling his recently
devoured nipples, his grey eyes staring at me as I pulled my red satin
shorts up, my eyes wanting to make him laugh in the silence of the
room. The words did not come out of my mouth. Cowboy moved up
off of the bed and stood behind me, his pink palms covered my eyes,
until all I could see was the white clouds of his boxers.
“Open your eyes. Talk to a spot on the wall. Come on, do it, pal.”
Cowboy pulled my shorts off and kicked them across the room.
“Who did I piss off? Backstage, I oiled up the Gods you’ll soon see,
but my fingers were so numb with stage fright I couldn’t feel a thing...
not a bulging bicep...not a melon shaped butt...nothing. Who did I
mess with in a previous lifetime?”

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“Finally…you made it into the room, now move a little.”
“Why to Polish people make bad pharmacists?” I asked.
I walked into the audience, stopping in front of a crew cut, apple-
cheeked young man. “You better answer cutie or I won’t bring out a
single dancer.”
“They can’t read?” his frightened voice answered.
“Disco Danny can’t read, but when you have a forty inch chest and a
twenty-eight inch waist do we really care if he can’t do ‘The New York
Times’ crossword puzzle?”
I focused in on an overweight man whose underarms were damper
than mine.
“OK, Princess, why do Polish people make bad pharmacists?”
“Karma for Auschwitz?”
“I like that, baby. I’m seeing a free sleepover with the gorgeously goyish
Italian Stallion in your future.”
“My gay brothers, my straight sisters out for an afternoon with gay...I
mean bisexual....I mean straight muscle men...the reason Polish people
make bad pharmacists is...”
I sat on a body builders’s lap and licked his ear.
“The reason is because they break too many bottles in the typewriter.”
Cowboy laughed and pulled me onto the bed, covering us with a sheet
damp from our sweat.
“Why didn’t you guys let me have a drink?” I asked. “I might have
done better.”
“You didn’t need it. Talk like that onstage, don’t waste it on me. I
know what you can do.”

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I licked Cowboy’s enticing bicep vein, starting from where it rose
above the deltoid muscle of his right shoulder, hesitating for a moment
at the point where it broke into two paths above his inner elbow, my
tongue obediently following the blood pulsing beneath the tanned skin
of his forearm, its salty sweat tasting better than any Margarita I had
ever drunk.

“What makes you so sad?” Cowboy asked. “I think you’re the saddest
boy I ever met.”

My lips were moist from the sweat they had drunk from Cowboy’s
body, but I could not speak, not even to say “Thank-you” for his
kindness. It was simply a matter of being in the right place. When I
made it to Johnny’s couch, I would tell him about being locked in a
room with the words and questions. I kissed the pale blonde hairs on
Cowboy’s hands as he fell asleep, the veins of his finger beat quietly in
my mouth as I lay awake for another hour, or maybe two. The breeze
from the fan washed over us, I stared at my forrest green walls, hoping
that Cowboy would leave before I woke up.

Jake Epstine is a Queer writer and monologist, his work has been published in “34th
Parallel Magazine” and “The Seattle Examiner.” Jake’s monologue, “I Was Saved By The
Ladies Of The Night,” was featured in “Coping: An Evening of LGBTQ Shorts” at
Georgia State University. An exiled Hollywood denizen, Jake lives in the desert, a barren
place in every sense of the word. Plus, it's hot…he sits in front of the fan and writes.

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A CHANGE IN THE TIDE

by Katalina Bryant

Salt tickled my nose from the ocean spray. Coarse sand rubbed against
my palms as I leaned back. In the distance, Emelie smiled at me, her
wet hair whipping in the wind. I raised my hand, flicking my fingers
in a blasé gesture.

Emelie and I had met a couple months ago. She intrigued me. I had
no answers to the questions she asked. My body pulled itself to her
regardless of what my brain said. Her beauty sparkled like the sea. Also
like it, she could unnerve you, make you feel things that you weren’t
supposed to feel about something beautiful.

Water dripped off her long legs as she strode out of the water. Many
men had bowed to those legs. I often wondered if I would become one
of them.

“Come on, why won’t you join me?” she asked, wringing out her hair.
I shrugged. “Ocean’s not really my thing.” I shook off some sand in
disgust.
She laughed and I paused to fully embrace it.
“Don’t be such a soursport, Percy.” She bumped her shoulder into
mine.

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My hand slipped in the sand, and I toppled into it. I grumbled under
my breath and sat back up. She tugged on my arm and pulled me to
my feet.

“Em, I don’t want to go in the water.”
“Too bad!”
Her feet splashed into the water. The water seeped into my shoes,
soaking into my socks. I grimaced at the squelching feeling. Emelie
grabbed my face, squishing my cheeks together.
Her eyes shined and crinkled with her smile. She pressed against me.
“I know work has been really hard on you, Percy. Michael’s been giving
you hit after hit —”
I started to pull away from her, but her arms tightened around me.
“I don’t want to talk about work. Or Michael.”
She forced my face toward her again.
“Talk to me,” she whispered. “I want to help.”
“You can’t help, Emelie. I’m stuck in this job for life.”
The sun cast an orange glow across the sea. Emelie draped her arms
around my neck, resting her head in the crook of my shoulders.
“Let’s run away, then. We have the money between the two of us. You
have the weapons to protect us. We could do it.”
I scoffed. “They’re the ones that taught me all of it. You think they
wouldn’t be able to track me through all of that? Emelie, don’t be
ridiculous. The only way I’m getting out is in a body bag.”
She stroked the hair on my nape, twirling her perfectly manicured
fingers.

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“Please, Percy. We can figure something else out. I don’t want this for
you. For us.”

The water rose to my shins. I needed a shower after this.
“Michael gave me my next hit.”
Emelie froze. “He did? Is… is it someone we know?”
“...no. I don’t think so.”
We stood there until Emelie started to pull away.
“The tide is coming in. We should probably get out.”
I held her tighter. “Stay a little longer?”
She tensed before loosening once more. “Okay.”
The tide was at my knees now.
“Emelie…”
“Wait. Before you tell me anything. I have to tell you something.”
I released a breath. “Alright, go ahead.”
“I think… I think I love you.”
“Oh, Emelie…” I stepped away from her.
“Percy?”
“Emelie… you make this harder than it has to be!”
“Percy, why? What do you mean?!”
I spun around, grabbing her by the shoulders.
Tears streamed down her face. “Percy?”
I stroked her face, wiping away her tears.

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“You’re so beautiful, Emelie. So, so beautiful.” I went to my knees,
pulling Emelie with me.

Her eyes held mine, glossy from tears.
“Percy, I love you.”
“Emelie…”
I shoved her under the water. It splashed up, soaking me more. Her
hand shot up, grabbing at my face. Her feet thrashed and the water
bubbled where she tried to take in air.
After a few moments, the water stopped. Only the tide brushed against
my leg.
I pulled her out of the water and drug her ashore. I kissed her forehead.
“I’m sorry, Emelie.”
I ran up and down the beach, calling for help.

Starting as a military brat traveling Europe, Katalina Bryant made her way to Florida
where she graduated Full Sail University with her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.
Since then she has been studying to receive her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at
Southern New Hampshire University. She has three published works: "A Sunset of Blue
Smoke" in Literally Stories, "Burning the Mistake" in Shotgun Honey, and "Satisfied"
in Scarlet Leaf Review. Visit her at www.katalinabryant.com for more.

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AXEL ‘N’ LULU

by Gene Goldfarb

By the time he was four, Axel knew the most important verbs in six
languages. Be, make, do, go, have, want, say, know and think. He also
knew the six basic words of inquiry. What, where, when, how, who
and why. He also knew yes, no, please, thanks, your welcome (and its
equivalents). Finally, “where ‘s the bathroom? In all of these. By the time
he was five, his knowledge and ability to use language had expanded
to using language in various tenses. Present, past, future, conditional,
subjunctive and several others used in foreign languages. Granted,
his vocabulary was not terribly impressive, he didn't know too much
about technology and life, but languages and conversation, even about
wheather and foods you liked were something, and you had to start
somewhere.

He was close to his father, Émile. They had migrated to America when
Axel was two and his mother, always in delicate health, had passed
away, having suffered a serious bout of pneumonia. Émile first gave
Axel blocks to play with. But after several days of building towers and
knocking them down, he went on to pyramids, which held a special
fascination for him. Axel’s father had feared his little son would find the
glue in the cupboard, and glue the blocks together when Axel was in
his architectural tower stage. So, he hid the glue deep into the pantry.
He was greatly relieved when Axel had moved on to classic Egyptian
structures.


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Émile, Axel’s father, worked at a university library as a reference
librarian. He had been widowed for several years, but now struck up
a relationship with Sophie, another librarian at his place of work. He
knew anything he did in formalizing his attachment to her would have
to pass the Axel test. And Axel could be a tough judge. Émile had
prepared Sophie for Axel as he saw his girlfriend becoming someone he
was going to spend a lot of his private time with, and Axel would be
jealous of this. That was certain, Emile knew. Sophie’s introduction and
promotion would have to be gradual.

Meanwhile, Axel made a new friend. Her name was Lulu, at least
that is what Axel called her. He met her in the playground when on
a cloudy day he was pre-occupied with getting a ball stuck in a fence.
She approached him fearlessly, tapped him on the shoulder and simply
told him to follow her, that she needed help with something. That was
all he needed. There was something about her self-possession he had
never seen before. Émile noticed this and watched without saying a
word. Whatever Lulu wanted Axel did. He was a blind slave to her and
that was that. He never complained, although sometimes he shrugged
his shoulders upon being drafted by Lulu into one of her projects, as if
automatic compliance was the understood cost of being with her.

Lulu's house was the first place Axel went in the morning when he
didn't have school. If Lulu wasn't home, he was immediately defeated.
Not that Lulu was dismissive of Axel's friendship, but she seemed to
travel in a wider social circle, which meant sometimes she just wasn't
around. Her mother sometimes took the family up to Westchester where
they had other family, and Lulu could play with cousins.

"Daddy, do you think Lulu likes me?" Axel once asked.
"I think so." His father replied, a bit surprised by the question, then
added, "Why?"
"I think so too, but I'm just not so sure," Axel went on.
"Don't worry about it, son."

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But Axel wasn't assured, not entirely. So, a certain amount of
uncertainty, anxiety really, was something he would have to live with.

When Axel and Lulu were together, life was complete for Axel. It
seemed the same for Lulu. They didn't need anyone else, and could play
together for the whole day, not missing a thing. They often ended up
eating at each other's house and finally one of them had to be chased
home. Their parents were stumped by the fact this was a boy and a girl
instead of two children of the same sex.

§
One day Lulu came outside and looked very serious, in fact worried.
As she approached Axel, she said, "I have something important to
tell you."
Axel sensed something bad was up, and he'd be helpless to stop it.
He steeled himself for what he didn't want to hear. It was a question
of how bad.
All he could utter was, "So?" His throat felt thick, and he still didn't
feel ready to accept this announcement, whatever it would be.
"We're moving in two weeks." She said with equanimity of a girl years
older than six, the same age Axel had reached.
He felt like a heavy bag of bricks had fallen on him. Hurt and helpless.
What was going to happen? He had no idea where she was moving to.
"So where are you going?" It was all he could say.
"We're moving to Briarcliff Manor. It's in Westchester, I have no idea
how far away it is, but it's far."
"Oh boy! So, will you be able to visit?"
"I don't know."
She then bid Axel a dispirited farewell, turned and left.

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§

Axel ran home to find his father. He told him that Lulu was going away
to live in Bearcliff, something like that, and that it was far away. Emile
tried to soothe Axel, telling him this was the way things were, that he'd
soon find new friends and he'd get over this. Axel was not comforted.

Emile realized that for Axel personal attachments were few, but strong.
He would have to watch Axel a bit more closely for a while.

Axel thought his father was probably right. In a week or so, he figured,
he'd be over this episode. The gloom would lift and he'd find something
else to occupy himself. But it didn't. Actually, it morphed into a painful
preoccupation with where Lulu was and what might she be doing.

This mood he'd sunk into was painful and Axel wasn't six yet. It made
no sense to him. He had gown perilously listless by the day. He finally
decided he'd visit the building where she used to live. Oddly, there was
a piece of advertising mail that was torn on the floor by the mailboxes.
It had her last name on the envelope that had a street address on it,
which read Briarcliff Manor with a zip code. It wasn't Bearcliff, but
Axel figured he must have misremembered it, because he was so upset.

He decided he had to visit Lulu no matter what.

§

A week later Axel snuck onto a bus, saying to the driver he was with
his aunt, a lady just ahead of him who didn't hear him. Axel took it to
a large bus terminal. He brought the torn envelope with him just in
case. He was then able to get off the bus and found a large bus schedule
board with towns listed. He went out to the numbered bus that showed
its destination. The driver had left the door open as he'd gone for a
bathroom break. Axel deftly snuck on and went all the way to the back
and hid down under the seat, so no one would see him.

It was a long wait. But the bus left about twenty minutes later. The ride
seemed to take forever. Finally, the driver announced they were arriving

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in White Plains. Axel suddenly got nervous, that he'd gotten on the
wrong bus. There was one old man near him on the bus. As he asked
him about where the bus was going, the driver announced that the last
stop would be next, and that would be Briarcliff Manor. Just as the old
man asked him where he wanted go and where were his parents were,
Axel heard the bus driver's call as to what the final destination would be.

Axel piped up abruptly, "Thank you, sir. Briarcliff Manor, that's it,
thank you."

The old man looked surprised. Then Axel asked about 10 Elgin Court.
The old man replied that he knew the street, it was at the end of Locust,
straight ahead about half a mile, and to the right. Axel couldn't believe
his luck. The bus got there in about fifteen minutes.

Axel and the old man got off together, as Alex was to begin his trek to
10 Elgin Court. The old man gave a chuckle, " Now you know where
it is," as he pointed ahead. "Take care, son."

The old man went the other way. Axel began walking, and found it
wasn't such a short walk. He finally got to Elgin Court and sensed the
anticipation bubbling up inside him. He quickly found number 10. The
excitement had drained him. He was able to reach he bell and pushed
it. It sounded with a deep ding-dong, as if he were royalty.

The door opened. Lulu's mother looked down at Axel. She was smiling
as she said, "Axel, young man, we've been waiting for you. Your father
called. He's going out of his mind with worry. I have to call him back.
Don't go anywhere."

Axel didn't say a word. Standing there with her hands to her mouth,
Lulu just stood there, staring at him, stunned. Then she found her
tongue, a breathy low voice emanated, "Axel, how did you get here?"

He was overcome hearing her and couldn't speak for a minute as he
watched her. "By bus and luck." It was all he could verbalize.

"Hmph. That had to be something."

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"It was." Axel was thrilled. He did not know for sure if he would ever
see Lulu again.

Lulu's mom returned in a couple of minutes and told both of them
that Axel's dad was greatly relieved, but he had called a while back under
the impression that this was where he suspected Axel would show up.

"Was he angry?" Axel inquired.
"Actually, no. He seemed to understand. Anyway, we agreed. He'll pick
you up tomorrow and take you home. You'll have supper here tonight.
And you'll spend the night here. We have a room set up for you."
Axel was hoping he could at least sleep over at Lulu's. He and Lulu
had not taken their eyes off each other since the door had opened to
her home.
"I have a new game. It's neat. We could play that until we have to go
to sleep." Lulu looked at him," happily suppressing her joy. "Now follow
me. I want to show you my room."
Axel straightened up as if he was taking a salute posture. But you could
easily tell he was silently saying, "Lead on, my queen." As for his dad,
tomorrow was another day, thankfully. And Axel now realized the most
important verbs were to know and to be and he now felt he knew their
conjugations in every language. They were the gateway to everything.

Gene Goldfarb now lives in New York City. He writes poetry and prose. His short stories
have appeared in Adelaide, CafeLit, Inwood Indiana, Open Door, Short Story Town
and elsewhere.

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TWIN SISTERS

by Tom Revitt

As the two old widows were starting up South Pearl Street a sharp sudden
wind hit them full in the face. It had decided to gust on cue just as they
were turning. They were bundled in overcoats and scarfs, and their feet
were warmed by dirty white socks. Their hands were painfully gnarred,
their faces pinched and withered. One stood up straight in the pall of
the bluster but the second was more naturally stooped and haggard.
Neither was steady on her feet but the one forward was more assertive,
more obviously determined.

“God damn it you,” Gretchen standing up straight said to the other;
she had caught sight of her sister Mable’s face for the first time since
turning. “Sweet Jesus of Nazareth” She continued and pinched her sister
behind the ear. Mable, in the middle of a mumble, shuffled a little.

“Put that tongue back in your mouth,” Gretchen’s voice fluttered.
“You silly old fool.” But these words were softer. She patted her sister
on the cheek and laughed. “No one wants to see that thing wandering
all over your face.” She laughed again. “Someone might jump out and
take a picture.

Obediently Mable pulled her tongue back in. There was no resentment.
Actually she liked the attention; it was an amusement. She popped her
tongue back in her mouth like a reverse jack-in-the-box or a lizard
who had just caught a fly. From her mind’s eye this was … nothing in
particular. Imagination had made her an eight year old girl again and

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she was eating ice cream; instinctively the tip of her tongue had been
rooting out the cherries in the cherry vanilla.

“Row row row your boat gently down the stream,” Mable was
humming. “Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily,” Here she was actually
singing; then she paused as if to listen. “Merrily merrily merrily merrily”.

Gretchen girded herself. These “merrilies” might run on forever. Both
sisters had sung this song at Corpus Christy Catholic Grade school. That
was beginning in…1st Grade. Sister Theresa had instructed them to line
up their chairs side by side in rows, like in row boats, two columns to a
boat; then they rowed the boat with imaginary ores; and this was done
while they were singing.

Now the straight one, Gretchen, muttered under her breath and
pressed forward. Her task here was to re-certify them for Medicaid,
Food Stamps….and all that jazz. Aggravation, like a wrung out wash
cloth, wheezed in her chest; she could feel the wringing.

Food still had to be cooked. Sponge bathing her sister Mable was
necessary. And the bed had to be made. God there was plenty of reason
for hurry.

The door to the Albany County Offices was only a few feet in front of
them. Gretchen wondered if they might arrive without any further songs
or fantasies. She doubted it. A crawling smile pushed across her lips.
Mental images quickly formed…a silent movie film of past scoldings
flickered.

But before Mabel could start skipping down the silent summer lane
now in front of her, before she could start picking the beautiful blue
flowers by the road waving slowly, both sisters fell in the door of the
Government County Offices as if through the gulp of an open manhole
cover. It certainly was a relief -at least as far as the wind was concerned-
to be inside of this building.

At the front desk a young woman wearing a polyester pants suit spoke
with them. There was some unavoidable confusion.

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“Is that your married name on the card?”
“Yes ma’am”.
“And her card?”
Gretchen produced Mable’s card. Grape jelly had stained the edge of
it and Mable’s wallet was sticky and twisted.
“Rossi…but that’s your widowed sister’s name too?’
“We were both called Rossi before and after we married a Rossi.”
Gretchen smiled. She had left out the brothers they had married.
This woman now gave them both a long knowing look. She, the critic,
knew sleazy,.She knew the smell of it; she felt the ease of its failure.
“Have you completed the questions?”
“Sure”. Gretchen handed her some forms.
The woman squinted like Gretchen’s writing was somehow inferior.
“Rent receipt?”
“Yes”. Gretchen slid it forward.
The woman got up and left without notice. A long dark thread trailed
from the seam in the back of her jacket; a gray sheen flashed from the
material covering her elbows. The wrinkled fabric behind her knees
winked alternately. Lumbering away with unsteady effort she appeared
in some private struggle. Gretchen exhaled slowly …just like the rest of
us, she thought, marooned and desolate. Life in this place, for everyone,
was running out of power.
“You’ll hear in the mail,” the woman said with practiced finality. She
had long since anticipated and was in fact now staring out the window.
Coming down the stairs it was dark and Gretchen couldn’t see Mable’s
face, arms, legs, or body even. The scraping sound of her descending
progress was all that existed. When Mable reached the lobby though,

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and started out the door, the scraping continued. Gretchen listen and
thought for a moment. She smiled. Her mind focused on the feel and the
direction of the noise. It was her own feet that were doing the scraping.
What a caution.

Well, Gretchen decided, at least for the moment she didn’t have to put
up with the flowers and the ice cream; she could avoid the talk about
imaginary friends, and their dead -supposedly living- relatives. They were
all dead weren’t they? But any way, at night, of course there would be
the bedtime stories; Mable told herself bedtime stories -they got mixed
up with her prayers occasionally- and, really you would think she was
Pooh seeking advise from Christopher Robin.

Back at their apartment Mable sat down in front of her mirror and
started combing her hair. She had deep red mahogany hair that flowed
down to the small of her back. Gretchen was always putting it up for
her but Mable was constantly letting it down; it had become an item
between them. Humming as she brushed Mable was also watching
Gretchen behind her in the mirror.

Gretchen sat down herself and looked out the window. She was quite
tired; it had been a harrowing morning. It would be nice to remain
untouched by all of these concerns. She was exhausted and didn’t want
to solve any more problems.

Mable had now moved on to some familiar humming. It was the same
favorite rhyme from before: “Row Row Row your boat”….Between
the stories, songs, characters and places, there were many offerings. But
today this was the chosen obsession.

“Gently…gently down the stream”.
Gretchen wondered what it would be like to hum songs, eat ice cream
and wander down silent summer lanes. Being surrounded by meadows
and fields, twisting past brooks and giant trees, intrigued her. She could
hear the buzzing of bees, smell flowers in the fields…blue violets and
blue chicory (she had also collected flowers in Girl Scouts). And now,
as she was enjoying the heat on her face and the breeze in her hair, she

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wanted to pick one of those flowers and smell it; she felt like twirling
the stem between her thumb and forefinger, and just holding…

There in front of her as she opened her eyes, her hand was stretched
forward in the act of picking. She froze at first but then relaxed as she
heard Mable humming…”Gently down the stream. Merrily merilly…”
And so. Of course. it was no problem. The next time she was just going
to go ahead and let her hand float on out there. Yes sir, she was going
to go ahead and pick that flower.

Tom Revitt has been a teacher, a USAF First Lieutenant on a B52 flight line during the
Vietnam War and is now retired after more than 30 years as a field Rep for the Federal
Social Security Admin. He had a veterans poem "Staging Area" published in The Deadly
Writers Patrol Magazine #17

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NOW YOU NEVER CALL ME ANYMORE

by David Swan

Tina’s watch said 5:45 a.m. Central time. Though it was an hour later at
home, and Bill’s rigid morning routine would have him in the shower
with his phone out of reach, she dialed his number.

“Hey,” she said wearily to his voicemail. “They extended the meeting
another day. I can’t believe this.” She hoped her exasperated sigh sounded
real. “I’ll be there as early as I can but I don’t know when, I’ve got to
rebook my flight. I’m sorry. I’ll talk to you later. I love you.”

Arms folded, she looked out the hotel window at a crowded freeway
and a low, murky sky. A few minutes earlier she’d felt sure of herself
and her intentions. Now that she’d spoken the words, nothing seemed
cut and dried.

The truth was that her meeting was over and she’d already rebooked. But
instead of flying from Dallas-Fort Worth to Atlanta, her itinerary began
with a 7:30 departure to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International,
with an afternoon connection to Hartsfield-Jackson.

She could give Bill a fake update and go straight back but would be
sorry, probably forever, if she didn’t make the detour. He’d never know
the New Orleans leg and the rental car she’d drive in the city would be
paid for out of her own pocket instead of her company’s pocket. She
was already in Texas, and her destination lay between her and home.

§
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Just yesterday she’d seen the Facebook post from Sally, a friend from
undergrad school at Tulane: For all who know Matthew Doucet and his
music, I have the sad news that his condition is grave. He is at home among
family and friends and is at peace. Please send prayers his way. From the
comments, Tina learned Matt had been fighting testicular cancer. She
almost didn’t recognize his picture, which showed a deeply lined face
and a beard he hadn’t had when they said goodbye.

Quickly checking her own face in the mirror, she didn’t see any new
wrinkles, or any trace of grey in the copper-brown hair that fell just
above her shoulders. She applied lipstick, checked her mascara for
smudges, then sadly reminded herself this wasn’t a date.

On the shuttle bus, she sat checking her watch as rain spattered the
windows and slowed traffic to a crawl. The airport people-mover wasn’t
much faster, lurching between terminals while she tried to lean away
from the hulking, clearly unshowered man next to her. She ran to the
gate with her wheeled bag in tow and made it with minutes to spare.
Luckily, the plane landed on time in New Orleans, where the Hertz
counter wasn’t busy.

Tina had just pulled onto I-10 when Bill texted What’s going on?
Gripping the wheel with one hand, she managed to type still in mtg
with the other. She felt ashamed about both lying and texting at 65
miles an hour but couldn’t let her husband think anything was amiss.
A visit to an old boyfriend, even one who was dying, could send their
marriage back into the tailspin she’d been trying to pull it out of for the
better part of a year.

She switched the radio to WWOZ and her worries dissolved as her
fingers tapped along with the funky groove of the Neville Brothers on
“Voodoo.” Images came rushing back as clear and bright as a summer
constellation: the long, narrow bar in the Quarter where Matt had
played for tourists on a postage-stamp stage; devouring beignets under
the awning at the Café Du Monde; drinking at Tipitina’s all Saturday
night and going back Sunday afternoon for the Cajun dance party;
and their apartment in the Marigny, packed wall-to-wall in sweltering

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heat, music and laughter ringing down the alley. When the party guests
had gone, their sweat-slick bodies rolled and tumbled in perfect time,
collapsing in the morning light.

The Exit sign for the Lake Pontchartrain causeway pulled her back
to the present. She headed north on the long bridge as the sun pushed
through the clouds, its white-gold trail rippling across the flat blue water.
The dashboard clock read 10:31, which meant she’d have plenty of time
as long as she didn’t get lost looking for Matt’s house. Eyes on the road,
she tried to think of all the things she wanted to say to him and could
only imagine what she might hear in return.

§
They had met during her sophomore year at Tulane and split up when
she returned to Atlanta for a business degree. When she left, she felt
certain nothing remained unfinished between them, no wounds to heal
or torches to carry. Now she and Bill had a great kid, a nice home, and
until recently a happy partnership, which she was laboring to repair.
Yet the thought of Matt being gone forever had tripped an emotional
breaker, making her long for the closure that she’d never before thought
she needed.
A whirl of misgivings trailed her to a bumpy street where sweetgums
and tall pines towered over the homes. Like many of them, Matt’s place
rested on blocks and wasn’t much wider than a shotgun house. The paint
on the gabled porch was cracking and chipped, with a faded couch
sitting under the front window. In the driveway was a red Ford pickup
with a Certified Cajun bumper sticker.
Parked behind the truck, Tina feverishly debated whether to race back
across the causeway and home. She’d messaged Sally that she was coming
but didn’t know if Sally had told Matt. The last thing she wanted was to
upset him. She didn’t know who else might be there, and if Bill found
out…no, she’d come this far.
After switching off her phone so there’d be no interruptions, she
walked slowly up the steps and rang the bell, the floorboards creaking

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as she shifted her feet. The door swung open, revealing a woman in a
flowered housedress with long iron-grey hair. She stared uncertainly
at Tina, who recognized her right away as Matt’s mother. “Dorothy, I
don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Tina, Tina Benton. Matt and
I were together years ago.”

The older woman’s face softened. “I sure do remember you,” she said.
“It’s been, Lord, I don’t know how long. How’d you find out?”

“On Facebook. It’s been about sixteen years.”
Dorothy nodded. “That’s right, you went home for more school. Well,
that’s not here nor there. Come on in.” She led Tina past the living
room, where an LSU banner hung above the mantel and a battered
acoustic guitar rested on a stand. “It’s good you came now,” Dorothy
said. “Mornins he’s okay talkin’ and bein’ around people but it takes all
his strength and pretty soon he’s wore out. And afternoons are when
Lucy comes after she gets off work. She might not understand.”
“Is Lucy his wife?”
“Girlfriend. Real sweet to him but got a temper too.” They stopped
at a half-open door with music playing inside. “Just so you understand,
he’s in good spirits, considerin,’ but I can’t tell you how he’s gonna feel
about this,” Dorothy said. “Wait a sec while I tell him.” Tina heard her
say, “Matty? You got a visitor,” and after a short, muffled conversation
she reappeared. “You can go in. I’ll leave you alone.”
Bracing herself, she slipped inside the small bedroom. Matt was sitting
up in bed, an oxygen tube in his nose. His beard was gone, which made
him look like his old self, but his skin was chalky, his deep brown hair
ragged and sparse. The music, an unfamiliar zydeco-rock band, was
coming from a tablet by the bed. The air smelled of the bayou, medicine,
and sweat.
Their eyes met and Tina’s heart lit up, just like in the old days. “Hi,
Matt,” she said hesitantly.

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“Hey, girl. Wow, it’s been a while,” he replied hoarsely, raising himself
off the pillows. When they embraced, the feel of his bony frame unnerved
her and she eased him gently back down. “It’s great to see you,” he said.
“How’d you happen to be here?”

“I was in Dallas for work and I’m on my way home. I would’ve come
sooner but I didn’t know until yesterday,” she said, pulling a wicker chair
next to the bed. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

Matt still had his big smile. “No problem. I’m happy you’re here now,”
he said. “Some people won’t get close and I have to tell ‘em I’m not
catchin.’” That made Tina smile too.

“So how you been, anyway?” he asked. “I heard you got married.”
She wondered where he heard it. “I did. We met in the MBA program
at Georgia Tech. I’m in financial services and we live in Alpharetta.”
Though she knew it shouldn’t after all these years, talking about her
marriage with Matt seemed unnatural.
Matt nodded. “I was in Alpharetta for a gig once. You have any kids?”
“One. Her name’s Jenny and she’s in middle school.”
Matt beamed. “Probably beautiful like her mama.” Tina blushed and
felt guilty about it.
“How about you?” she said, softly. “Did you get married?”
Matt looked down. “Yeah, and I shouldn’t have. We thought we had
somethin’ special and what it turned out to be was trouble. Thank God
no babies.” He looked up at her with a little smile. “Hey, we had us a
time.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Tina said. “You took me to my first
Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. And my second and third.”
Matt chuckled. “You were my number one fan. Probably the whole
fan club.”

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“We met when you were playing at Marge’s Lounge.” Tina was enjoying
herself now. “A real dive.”

“Kinda like our apartment,” Matt said. “Remember those parties
where the whole neighborhood came?”

She chuckled. “I can still feel the hangovers. I don’t know how I
graduated.”

“And when we didn’t have the rent, I set my guitar case on the sidewalk
down at Rampart and Dumaine and started singing. That case got full
of money fast.” Matt fell silent for a moment, then added wryly, “It
hasn’t been full since.”

“What do you mean?”
“Well, I had a little record deal but didn’t exactly light up the charts.
Then the pandemic shut down a lot of joints I used to play. Before I
got sick, I was mostly painting houses and driving a school bus. Still
had some gigs, though. One time I even auditioned for American Idol.”
“No way!”
“Hell yeah!” he said, his voice revived by the memory. “They had this
big cattle call at the convention center, thousands of people. I told ‘em
it was time they had a Cajun winner. I sang “You Used To Call Me,”
and looked the woman judge, that dancer, right in the eye.” He fixed his
neon blues on Tina and she couldn’t keep from melting again. “Man, I
had her but the two dudes didn’t like me. One said I sounded like some
bar singer.” He laughed. “Well, duh!”
Tina laughed too, but a sudden fit of coughing shook Matt’s body.
He propped himself up on an elbow, trying to clear his lungs, while
Tina watched, alarmed and unsure what to do. Dorothy came in as the
hacking stopped and Matt began taking shallow breaths. “You all right,
Matty? You need water?”
“That’d be nice,” he said, struggling to get the words out. Dorothy
took the pitcher from the nightstand as Tina thought guiltily that she

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should’ve gotten it herself. “Sorry ‘bout that,” Matt said. “Some days
are worse than others.”

“That’s all right,” Tina said, and quickly added, “I know it’s not all
right. I’m so sorry this had to happen, Matt.” Dorothy returned and
filled a glass, which Matt took with a shaky hand. “Thanks, Mama,” he
said as she walked out, shooting Tina a disapproving look on the way.

The silence made her heart sound like a bass drum. She knew it was
time to leave him again. She just wasn’t sure she could trust her knees to
lift her off the chair and her feet to carry her through the door. “I don’t
want you to overdo it,” she said. “I guess I’d better get going.”

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll be all right.” As she leaned over the bed,
their foreheads touching, he reached out and lightly stroked her hair.
She hugged him fiercely, then looked deep into his blue eyes one last
time. As she stepped away, he said, “Hey, you see those discs on the top
shelf?” gesturing at a bookcase overflowing with CDs and vinyl. “That’s
me and the band. Take one.”

§
Ready to collapse and knowing she couldn’t, Tina found her way to
the porch where Dorothy was sitting with a cigarette. “I hope you had
a good visit,” she said. “I see you got a souvenir,” pointing at the CD
and smiling.
“I did. I haven’t heard him play in a long time.”
“It’s really good. It just didn’t sell. He worked so hard on it, too.”
“Who was his wife?”
“Her name was Lynn,” Dorothy said in disgust. “Didn’t last but a
couple years. Said she got tired of havin’ no money and him bein’ in
bars around other women. She knew all that when she married him.”
Dorothy stubbed out her smoke. “Haven’t heard a peep out of her. I
have to say, I didn’t expect you comin’ but I appreciate it.”

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“I’m glad I got the chance,” Tina replied, a little uneasily. “It seemed
like he was glad to see me.”

“Well, he was sorry to see you leave when you went back to school,”
Dorothy said. Seeing the shock on her face, she took Tina’s hand. “I’m
not tryin’ to make you feel bad, hon, ‘cause you shouldn’t. He knew
you weren’t gonna stick around forever. He just took it hard.” Dorothy
lowered her voice. “He’s never told me in so many words but I think
there’s a song on that disc that’s about you. Track number four.”

Tina was thunderstruck. “Are you sure? I-I mean, was it me and not
Lynn, or Lucy, or someone else?”

“Listen to it and make your own judgement,” Dorothy said. “I’d best
get back in. You have a safe trip now.”

§
As she hurried to the airport, Tina thought about everything she’d
told Bill, afraid she might’ve left clues or loose ends that would raise
fresh suspicions. For perhaps the thousandth time, she told herself her
transgression hadn’t been planned, that she’d harbored no intention of
cheating on him that evening months ago. She and Rick, the former
college basketball star who’d recently joined her team, were working late
in hotel rooms far apart, Tina with a glass of room-service merlot on her
desk. After a video call Rick texted Wish I had some of that wine! And
without thinking, she answered Wish you were here to drink it with me.
The conversation quickly turned to “HOT!!!!,” “Ohhhhhh,” and
much more. The next day they promised to never do it again, nor even
think about taking things further. When they were back in the office a
few weeks later, she mentioned—just casually, she thought—that her
husband was out of town. That night her phone buzzed u up? In the
morning, she left it on the bed while she showered and came out to find
Bill, home early, glaring down at the screen.

§

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“Ma’am? Ma’am, we’re not quite done.” Tina saw the rental-car clerk
looking at her and realized she had drifted back in time to a crumbling
apartment on Chartres Street. “I’m sorry,” she said as she signed the
paperwork.

While she usually hated security lines, the rituals involving her purse,
shoes, and jewelry gave her a welcome feeling of familiarity, a sense that
this was just another trip. By the time she reached the gate and sank into
a seat, she’d begun to breathe easy for the first time all day. She just had
to commit one more deception by telling Bill she was finally on her way.

Her heart nearly stopped when she turned the phone on and saw a
blizzard of messages and missed calls. Trembling, she dialed his cell.
“Where’ve you been?” he yelled. “Jenny broke her wrist. I must’ve called
forty times!”

“Oh my God oh God I’m so sorry. What happened? Is she all right?”
“She fell on the track in gym. It’s what they call a greenstick fracture,
it’s not completely broken. The doctor put on a splint and it’ll be fine,
but she’s pretty upset. Where were you?”
In the car she’d rehearsed every word. Now she couldn’t sound like
it. “I just got to the airport. Did you get my message this morning?”
“Yeah,” Bill growled. He never used that tone. “So what happened
after that?”
“I got tied up and didn’t have a chance to call. And forgot to charge
my phone.” Don’t panic, she thought. “I didn’t know it was dead til a
little while ago.”
A pause. Then, each word heavy and Arctic-cold, “Do you expect me
to believe that crap?”
Say something. “Bill, it’s not crap. I had a really hectic day and just
forgot. I—”

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“Where have you been? While Jenny was in pain and I was going crazy.
WHERE…WERE… YOU?”

As Tina recalled later, she could have shouted, “I was in a room with a
bunch of idiots!” but she wasn’t built that way, didn’t have the strength
to repeat the story forever. Her voice shaking, she began, “I went to see
a sick friend.”

She had to talk uncomfortably loud to be heard over the crowd and
the constant announcements from the airline. Again and again, she
apologized for being out of touch, shuddering as she pictured Jenny’s
fall. Bill listened without interrupting, which she hoped was a good
sign, but when she finished, he snapped, “I don’t believe this. As if Rick
wasn’t enough, now I find you’ve been wanting this loser all these years.”

“I did not want him!” she said, more heatedly than she’d intended.
“I left him—I left, do you understand?—before I met you. It was over.
It is over.”

“But you ran back there as soon as you got a chance. Who else have
you been sneaking around with on these trips?”

“Darling, he was someone I was close to and he’s on his deathbed,” she
said, doing her best to stay calm and contrite. “It wasn’t a rendezvous.
Believe me, there was nothing romantic about it. Not at all.”

“Then why couldn’t you just tell me? Jesus, I’d have understood.” As
furious as Bill was, he also sounded hurt. “You never mentioned this
guy. I thought I knew everything.”

“I told you I’d been involved with someone while I was at Tulane. This
ended a long time —” but he cut her off again. “Don’t you understand
what this looks like, goddamn it?”

“Bill, please. I know I was stupid before and again today but I love
you, you. No one else.”

“You swore you’d never lie to me, remember?” he screamed. “You
fucking swore!” The line went dead and Tina covered her face with her

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hands just as the speaker crackled, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready
to begin our boarding process.”

§

Tina closed the spreadsheet she was working on, then glanced around
to be sure she was alone before beginning her new 5:30 ritual. Though
the office was empty and quiet except for the rumble of traffic outside,
the harsh lights made her feel like the world was watching when she
slipped Matt’s CD into her computer. Like “You Used To Call Me,” the
fourth track was a waltz with a melancholy fiddle and accordion, the
kind of music that’d been heard in Louisiana for generations. Earbuds in,
eyes closed, she listened to Matt’s gritty yet tender voice, and his words.

Oh, we danced all the days and we loved through the nights
I never believed we would part
I could fly like the eagles with you in my arms
But my wings are as broken as my heart

Tina had betrayed no grief or emotion when she learned soon after
her trip that Matt had died. All she cared about was finding forgiveness
from Jenny and especially Bill, whose anger had nearly driven her out
of the house. By the time a fragile reconciliation took hold, she felt that
she’d been through eons of relentless guilt and anxiety. It helped that
Jenny’s arm healed fast and Rick was out of the picture for good, leaving
without a word for a job in another city.

When she and Bill began sharing a bed again, the pieces of her well-
crafted life were back in place. But there was Matt on the CD cover,
waiting under an ancient, mossy tree, holding his old guitar and singing
straight into her heart.

Oh mon chere, you were pretty, you were young, free and wild
I wonder where you’ve gone today
Are you loved, are you happy, do you still think of me?
Won’t you please come back home, come and stay?

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Dave Swan is a former journalist and a lifelong writer. His stories have appeared in the
Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Close To The Bone, the Red Fez, Flora
Fiction and elsewhere. He’s a member of the Atlanta Writers Club and helps manage their
social media.

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THE PHOTOGRAPHER

by Peter Farrar

It’s difficult to say when it started. Perhaps between the third and
fourth coffee during that Friday morning. It could’ve been as I rasped
the broom around ceiling corners where cobwebs swirled and bent in
draughts. I may have felt it lying bare backed on floorboards trying to
cool down. I started counting the seconds between. Lightly touched
the tip of each finger in time with whispering numbers. It was four.
Sometimes it seemed longer and I became nervous, as if waiting for a
heartbeat that wouldn’t come. I went out into heat, blistering like I’d
brushed a hot surface. Around me the streets remained still except for
the twitching in my corner vision every four seconds.

“I had these...I don’t know how to describe it. Ticks I suppose. Like a
nerve jumping,” I said to Lindy. She looked up from dinner. She asked
what I meant. I shrugged. Her gaze stayed on me briefly. She turned
pasta through her fork. Lindy said it was probably nothing.

“Could we take down some of those photographs?” she said. Lindy
looked past me towards where they hung. “It’s not that I don’t like them.
It’d be nice to have a few different pictures. Paintings even.”

I left the meal half finished. I might return to it later when the food
was cold and clammy. For months every meal was like that anyway. I
stood from the table.

“You know how important those pictures are to me. They reveal more
of me than if you put up my x-rays.”

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Down our hallway the pictures hung in a straight line even though
some tilted at times. I often tucked a finger to a corner, straightening
them. Lately they seemed to become uneven every couple of days,
perhaps shifted by the moon’s gravity the way tides are. In the narrow
space I passed the pictures in close up. Windows blown out in a shop
front. Ambulances queued outside a mosque. Burnt tarpaulin in a
market after a fire. It was sanitized now, no smells, no screams, no heat
or panic.

“I stood there,” I sometimes said to Lindy, nodding towards one of
the pictures. “Off to the side. You can’t see the spot. But that’s where I
took it from. I used to worry people would hate me for photographing
them at a time like that but I realised during all the destruction they
didn’t even notice me.”

How often had I walked past those pictures? Sometimes oblivious,
biting out the corners of marmalade on toast on my way to morning
television. At other times passing slowly, reliving tornados of billowing
smoke from one, shrieking heat from another. There were places where I
was cut by fragments of stones from the dull thump of a falling mortar,
left deafened in a doorway, head bowed down and camera tucked into
the hollow of my stomach to protect it. People ran past, hysterical,
reaching back to each other while I pushed my spine into the wall,
sighting them in through a lens, taking photo after photo, cutting off
legs, heads, arms, front half of faces until I could only hope there was
one image in there good enough. I never checked the pictures until I
was back in my room. Never looked at them until my hands stopped
shaking. When I returned home from Afghanistan Lindy brought me
back to life with curries. Thai Green, Penang, Madras and Moroccan.
Spice odours stood in rooms like apparitions. Brine ran off my skin
leaving trails as if the pigment had washed away. At night I perspired
chilli and cumin.

I arrived at the last picture on our wall. It was the only one peaceful.
Men sat around sipping coffee, heads back, laughing.

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“That one,” Lindy said from behind me. I hadn’t noticed her trail me
but now we stood shoulder to shoulder. “I want to change that one.”
She pointed to the picture hanging next to the men drinking coffee.
I stepped back to examine it, even though I’d gazed at it hundreds of
times. I went to ask her why, even had the first syllable out so that she
looked sideways at me, waiting for me to finish. But I knew she’d say it
was too upsetting, none of them fitted with creating a happy home but
that one especially. I said let’s take it down. Before she had a chance to
respond I lifted the photograph off, wire twanging behind it.

“Not yet! It can stay for now!” Lindy said. Her arm jerked out, hand
gripping above my elbow, fingers not quite joining all the way around.
I pulled away, telling her it was fine. Swung towards the door to a
cupboard under the stairs, yanking it open and sliding the picture into
a space.

“What will you replace it with?” I said sarcastically. “A print of a bowl
of fruit? Water color of a cat chasing a ball of wool? A crucifix?”

Lindy went to touch me again but her arm fell away. She often retreated
from my voice like that.

After returning I was lost. Sometimes I saw an image from Afghanistan
in a newspaper that made me want to go back so I could photograph
it, except better. Otherwise I mooched around, taking aimless walks
down streets. Everything reminded me of Afghanistan. Heavy traffic,
exhaust fumes sputtering, storms ghosting in, the still air before their
arrival amplifying every sound until the thunder moved through me
like blood clots. In my front yard I lay on the dirt after walking. Crew
cut grass sawed into my ear, that slight seismic movement regularly
twitching in my eye.

More photographs were taken down. My past removed, picture frame
by picture frame. They formed a rickety pile, rattling if the cupboard
door was closed too hard. Slowly other pictures replaced them. Lindy
came home from artists markets, shopping bags clattering slightly as
she hauled them up onto the kitchen bench. A black and white of

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the Eifel Tower, picture of orange skies over a city, a restored wedding
day photograph of Lindy’s parents and two lost looking water buffalo
standing in a rice paddy in Thailand.

It’d been hot. Told Lindy tap water was like warm packet soup. The
doctor took my blood pressure and said I’d better give up everything
except breathing. He shrugged when I asked about the eye movements.
He asked if I noticed them now. I shook my head.

One night Lindy came home as I lay shirtless on the couch. She
rubbed my back damp from perspiration, her hands pushing rolls of skin
towards my neck until she said my skin was coming off in tiny scrolls
like unbaked loaves. She said her hands were tired and I listened to her
flex them. Then she leaned over me, her voice heated and whispery next
to my face. Her breath touched my skin, reminding me of the tickle of
that pen nib when I wrote her telephone number inside my arm years
ago. Lindy asked if there was anything wrong. She realised it was going
to take awhile to adjust to life back here. That it couldn’t be easy to
come home and do everyday things again, like lighting barbecues and
raking leaves.

“Do you mean that feeling I sometimes have every four seconds?
Maybe it’s the clicking of the photographs I haven’t taken.

Lindy was silent. She moved on the cushions.
“Give it time,” she finally said, so quietly the words were fading before
I understood them.
That afternoon I pulled on a t-shirt and we drove up mountains
to escape the heat. Cool shade fell across us like rain. We found an
enclosure and lay on the grass. Lindy sprawled with her head in my lap.
I told her we should move up there. It might be the last frontier of our
city that wasn’t ruined. Always stepping over syringes in our local park.
Graffiti swirling and cramped over walls. Glass in bus shelters kicked
out, glittering over pavements. Let’s get out of the rut we live in I told
her. Lindy smiled up at me before pushing herself up. She looked out
at plains stretching until they ended in heat haze and glare.

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“You just need time to relax again,” she said quietly.
During nights in Afghanistan Lindy and I spoke on Zoom. I balanced
the laptop on tops of legs. Sometimes I adjusted my position, pins and
needles numbing muscles like chilled rain soaking into skin. When I
moved, lamps at the back of her room tilted and swayed like boat lights
on a heaving sea. Lindy asked when I was coming home, her voice gentle
as if afraid of my answer. Did I still want to start a family with her? She
said I’d be a great dad. Told me I’d never forget the smell of a newborn,
breastmilk and swaddling. Come home to our bed, our table and our
walks she begged.
When I returned I left the camera behind when attending weddings. I
didn’t take pictures of beaches or puppies. I instead took photographs of
people arguing in a shop, screaming at children or unhappy on their way
to work. I’d become attracted to anger and misery, as if I’d picked it up
in Afghanistan like illness. Once I went to a boxing match, paying too
much to sit in the front row to be brought a cardboard plate of mixed
sandwiches. I photographed the cut face of one of the men in close up,
capturing him reeling against ropes and his face cowering behind gloves.
When I came home I was proud of the images, calling Lindy in when
they flicked up on a computer screen.
“He’s bleeding,” she said. “Such a disgusting sport. People lose
memories and end up with Parkinson’s disease because of being hit like
that. Why’d you take those pictures? They’re repulsive.”
I’d watched Lindy’s neck as she spoke. Her neck was what first attracted
me to her. People tell you it’s eyes you first notice or perhaps the mouth.
Or it could be the sound of a voice or a person’s choice of words. For
me it was her neck. I could see the slight tendons running down like
strings in a harp. I never told Lindy I loved her but whenever I wanted
her to know, I kissed her there, gently amongst the warm crevasses or
on the down faintly over skin that I only noticed when the sun angled
past her a particular way.

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I bubble wrapped the old camera. Drew the wrap around as lovingly as
dressing a baby. Lindy cried softly from the bedroom. Her sobs pushed
wetly into the pillowslip. It was better this way. Better that I stayed
strong against her crying for twenty minutes now, rather than for an
hour on the way to the airport plus during the farewell outside Customs.
I nearly broke down when I went in to kiss her goodbye, her arms so
powerfully around my neck I thought she might cut blood flow off in
my arteries. But I knew it was what I had to do. Nothing had changed,
yet everything had. I shuddered awake in darkness nightly, ran to the
television when a few seconds of Kabul footage screened and hated the
blandness of the suburb where I lived. The part of me who held down a
steady job, washed the car and planted a vegetable patch was as dead as
my mother and father. I’d given up trying to understand the movements
in my eyes. During my last visit the doctor suggested it could be early
stages of PTSD and did I want to see someone? I shook my head,
surprised he hadn’t prescribed antibiotics and sent me away.

Slowly Lindy’s arms weakened and she left me, shoulders first, the cleft
down her chest next and her hands last.

“You have to be embedded,” they announced at a briefing in Kabul. I
sat with other journalists who looked as bored as me. “You can only be
given a media permit that way. We’ll have you chaperoned around. Keep
you away from danger.” I barely listened, able to recite their instructions
from last time. “You’ll still be able to take pictures. We have school kids
you can photograph. There’s also a bridge almost finished construction.
You can photograph women going to university for the first time. No
one has ever done wedding photography until they’ve photographed
nuptials here. We’ll have you back in your motel with the palm trees
outside bouncing around in the wind like belly dancers in a seven courses
for fifty dollars Turkish restaurant. You’ll be in your room in time to lie
in warm waters and bath salts. There’s even a few mysterious oils they
pour in that leave your skin as young as a twelve year olds. Can arrange
to have a bottle of port smuggled into your room too. Just don’t tell
anyone. A lot of money will have to change hands if you’re caught with
alcohol. Although we understand you need it in your line of work. Oh

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and one other thing. Don’t take any pictures that aren’t authorised. We
don’t want any images that harm morale. Or jeopardise security.”

I shrugged in agreement and sat through more briefings where we were
told victory was near and help yourself to coffee.

I didn’t lie in baths to recover from a day in the desert. Changed my
shirt and scrubbed dust out of folds behind ears with motel oatmeal
soap. Then I went out into the evening coming in as abruptly as darkness
thirty seconds into one of those sand storms blowing in from the Arabian
Desert. Was always trying to photograph that time when daylight bleeds
into dusk, when the light is like smoke haze, where cold travels through
bones like borer trails in tree trunks. But I never captured it. Every day
I closed eyes and recalled it perfectly but never once did I photograph
that time of day the way I wanted.
Peter Farrar recently left the corporate world in Australia along with the
long hours, endless to do lists and fall on the couch exhausted Friday nights.
He'd like to be a writer but at his age can't remember where he left the pen.

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INVENTING LAUGHTER

by Shari Lane

The pineapple sat on the counter, contemplating suicide.
Wait! Don’t go! I know what you’re thinking: This is ridiculous—

pineapples don’t contemplate.
I agree wholeheartedly. Why do you think I’m considering ending it

all? As far as I can tell, I am the only sentient pineapple in the world.
Possibly the entire cosmos. But how would I know? I’ve never been any
further than this blue countertop.

Across from where I sit, there’s a window that looks out over a tidy
garden and a less-than-tidy fence. From this vantage point, I’ve watched
the changing of the sky and the changing of the guard. I catch snippets
of news as people walk or ride or drive past my window. I’ve observed
it all, but I’ve never participated in the raucous circus that is life.

The list of things I haven’t done is long, longer than this pineapple
cares to admit. But what the hell, what else have I got to do? It’s not like
I have to run to the store for a carton of milk. (I’m lactose intolerant, as
you might imagine, so that wouldn’t be an option anyway.)

No more excuses, I’m putting it all out there. Humiliation, thy name
is TMI.

Here’s the list of things I’ve never done:
Talked back to a teacher, and had my knuckles rapped.

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Argued with my mother, and had to listen to her sigh over all the
sacrifices she’s made for me, only to be treated so cruelly by her offspring,
the fruit of her loins, the light of her life.

Had sex.
I do have sex in my dreams. Panting, multiple-orgasm sex. In my
fantasies there is sand, and warm, tropical air. (I am a pineapple, after
all—it isn’t likely I’d fantasize about orgies in an igloo). It’s always
nighttime, with the pale light of an interested moon looking down.
Sometimes my partner is male, sometimes female. It shouldn’t surprise
you that I am an hermaphrodite. If push comes to shove (slightly
prurient pun intended), I’d have to say I subscribe to the Platonic theory
of love. We’re all looking for the original other half, and for some of us
the missing part is feminine, for others, masculine, and still others once
belonged to a tripartite form. Lacking genitalia, I’m free to imagine love
and lust in any configuration.
Which leads me to another thing I’ve never done: I’ve never been in
love.
I can’t recall when I realized I was sentient, or when I realized I was
alone. But I can recall when I decided death might be preferable to life
or, Nietzsche-like, decided there was very little difference between the
two.
In my long and lonely existence, there has been a seemingly-endless
parade of Buffoons in Chief, who strut and puff but have no Magic
Dragon about them. There was the German menace, of course, and
the Cambodian with a name like a children’s story, and the Ugandan
dictator who was accused of cannibalism—say what you will about
pineapples, at least we don’t eat each other. I have endured everything
without losing my natural optimism (it’s hard to be cynical when you
smell like paradise). And as we emerged into the twenty-first century I
really thought we were on the upward trajectory of that long moral arc
your Dr. King talked about. But then, one by one, democracies began to
fail. Don’t misunderstand me, democracy isn’t perfect, and every society
is doomed to fail, eventually, just like every living body is doomed to

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die. But seeing so many people stepping backward, out of the light of
knowledge and compassion, re-crawling, if you will, into the shadows
of ignorance and bigotry and selfishness . . . . Honestly, it’s made me
doubt that humanity is something to be aspired to.

That’s the impetus on my loftier days.
Other days, it’s more mundane. Like the moment I had to come to
terms with the fact that I am really good at telling jokes, but I have no
one to share them with. (Correction: I have no one with whom to share
them. Even in these, my last moments, I must endeavor to be correct.)
Here, let me try this one on you:
Last night, a Chinese guy came to my favorite pub, and sat right next to
me at the bar, and started drinking a beer. I asked him if he knew Kung Fu.
(Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a racist joke, I promise.)
Suspicious (I mean, of course he’s suspicious—how does he know this
isn’t heading toward something offensive, you know?), the guy says,
“Why the hell would you ask me if I know Kung Fu? Is it because I’m
Chinese?”
(Yeah, that’s what I would have thought, too.)
And I said, “No, but you better hope you know some kind of martial arts,
because you’re drinking my beer!”
It’s a crying shame, it is. I could have been on SNL. But here I sit, on
this godawful blue countertop, looking out over bedraggled petunias
and marigolds. Even my garden is bourgeois. Why don’t I have blood
lilies, a flower that sounds like a monument to massacre but appears to
have been invented by Dr. Seuss? Or sophronitis, a flower that looks
like a crimson angel holding its intimates open for business?
No opposable thumbs, for one thing.
And anyway, who’s to say I’d be happy—or at least willing to forgo
suicide—if I had exotic flowers to brighten the view outside my window,

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or an audience to roar with appreciative laughter at my stand-up routine?
(Made you think, didn’t I? You pictured me in front of a microphone,
and wondered oh-so-briefly whether I’d have prosthetic legs, toothpicks,
maybe, or whether I’d sit in an armchair, like a prime minister giving
a fireside chat, the marquee out front reading Tonight Only Pineapple
Puns, Ananas Antics, Comosus Comedy!)

I am aware that many throughout the ages have survived horrors.
Some are fighting fascism as we speak, battling for freedom on their
very doorsteps. You may well ask: what right have I to whine that death
is preferable to the political vagaries of the day?

Nietzsche said, “Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs;
he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.” Maybe
that’s the real reason I’m ready to chuck it all, and go quietly into that
good night: I’ve never suffered. I sit here, day after day, year after year,
watching a world ravaged by disease, war, arrogance, murder, extremism,
and apathy. Coronavirus and climate change, wildfires and hurricanes,
earthquakes and locusts—apocalypse, anyone? I see children abused
and neglected, and I weep for them. I see opportunities missed and lost
forever, and ache for what might have been. But no rot has ever touched
my prickly exterior, no one has ever taken a knife to my sweet flesh.

What’s that you say? I ought to count my lucky stars, and quit
threatening to end it all because my journey thus far has been too . . .
nice? I hear you loud and clear, in spite of the lack of ears. Since when
has a pleasant existence been a valid basis for despair, for rejecting the
gift of life? “Joy is the business of heaven,” C. S. Lewis said. (That’s right,
I read both nihilists and Christian apologists). We mere mortals (of the
bromeliaceae family as well as homo sapiens) must be content to be,
at most, content; the loftier emotions are not ours to seek or to have.

Perhaps the real problem is boredom. Did you know there are at least
twenty-seven synonyms for boredom in the English language, but only
twelve words that truly approximate joy? Ennui, taedium vitae, lassitude.
Attractive, interesting words, they roll off the tongue more easily than

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