FICTION Archives

JUST OUTSIDE THE TUNNEL OF LOVE by Francine Witte

August 7, 2020 · Fiction

And Benny Jones telling me about Darlene. In other words, he pulled me through to unlove me.

Something about how love is a crispy pepper one minute, but then it goes wilty and soft. I told him I’m not a goddam pepper and get to the goddam point.

Problem is, I gave Benny Jones my heart too fast. My heart is a bristle I keep in my pocket and I can never wait to give it away.

Benny Jones sat in the boat in the Tunnel of Love, all squirm and tangle of words. Friends, he was saying, and didn’t mean to.

Then he pointed to a pin’s worth of light right there in front of us. “That’s the future,” he said. “It gets bigger and brighter the closer we get. All beautiful and warm.” I told Benny to shut the hell up. If we’re not a thing, we’re not a thing, but don’t go making a movie out of it.

When we did get outside the Tunnel of Love, into the future Benny Jones had promised would be warm and bright, I didn’t see anything. I didn’t feel anything. Just thought back to that summer at my grandma’s house, when her old dog, Punch, got a fever and she was going to shoot him. How I stroked Punch’s tan fur, telling him, it’s okay boy, when I knew damn well it wasn’t. My heart wriggling around in my pocket even then with no damn place for it to go.

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BLACK CANYON CITY by Chloe Lauter

August 6, 2020 · Fiction

It is October in Arizona and the desert is dark and merciless when we drive into Black Canyon City. Perhaps it would be safer to keep driving, perhaps it would be safer to drive all night, but your face is shadowy with fatigue. It’s only for the night, you say.

We see the rows of neat trailers as we turn off the highway, surrounded by dust-soaked single-family homes and dirt roads thin like sidewinder tracks. At the end of the main road, the night erupts into screaming fluorescence, the dollar store that is a drugstore and party décor and office supply store all rolled into one, and we are the only car in the parking lot.

You go first, you say.

I walk inside feeling dazzled by the smooth whoosh of the automatic doors and the sterile certainty of buzzing white light bouncing off the white pearlized floor. The store is stripped clean of the desert outside but still smells like wasteland. You follow me, rush up behind me, and my shriek of laughter ricochets off the bright bags of party balloons and skeins of wrapping paper left chalky and untouched. You’re so cute, you whisper in my ear. I buy a box of tampons. You buy a Red Bull. The clerk eyes us suspiciously.

I go to the bathroom, and you promise to wait outside. The bathroom lights flicker and hum like crickets at dusk. Above the sink is blank whitewashed wall. There is no mirror. Maybe there never was one.

We brush our teeth in the parking lot, spitting toothpaste out of the driver’s side door so the clerk won’t see us, and then drive in circles searching in the dark for a safe place to park for the night. We finally rest in the shelter of a tall fence. Crying carries up from the mobile homes on the other side for hours, but we are tired. We sleep curled up in the back of your van.

In the middle of the night, you jerk awake and, still half-dreaming, reach for the handgun hidden in the D pillar. Shh, I whisper, holding you, it’s okay. There is no one outside but coyotes, and they do not speak our language. No one will see us here.

In the morning, you stand coiled in the shade of the open passenger door and pour a bottle of water over your hands and your eyes. There is only one coffee shop in town, and when we walk inside, your arm around my shoulder, the unwelcome hits me like the smell of rot. A man in a leather vest and steel-toed boots hangs over the counter, and a shade of a woman stands in the corner holding a baby carrier, her face is hungry but not for food. We are the only real things in this place.

We take our coffees and emerge blinking into the sun. The air shimmering off the hood of the van smells like bitter almonds. We are the only people breathing for miles.

Don’t worry, you say, you’ll get used to it. I have.

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SELF-LOATHING WALKS THE TOWN by Amy L. Freeman

August 1, 2020 · Fiction

Despite the early morning’s scorching heat, Self-Loathing strides down the street in Anytown, USA, slapping mosquitoes from his neck. He reaches his first house, the leaves of its magnificent oak tree motionless in the heavy air. With a quick sidelong glance to ensure no one is watching, Self-Loathing shimmies up the tree and leans forward to peek into a second-story window.

Wearing just boxer shorts, fourteen-year-old Richie is leaning over his bed, scrubbing at his sheets with a damp green hand-towel. He’s using his other fist to pound his thigh as he tries to also scrub away the image of the new boy's lazy smile while he swings his lacrosse stick back and forth, a metronome. Self-Loathing decides he doesn’t need to intervene further, today. He smiles and drops lightly to the ground, then circles around to the back of the house.

Self-Loathing looks through the window at Richie’s father sitting at an old wooden desk, a spinning bamboo ceiling fan rustling the pages of a yellow legal pad. Every few moments, he reaches toward a Bible, flicks through pages, then returns to writing. Standing on tiptoes, Self-Loathing sends a gentle breath toward the Bible, fluttering its pages until it lands open on Leviticus 18:22. Richie’s father peers at the page, taps his pen against his teeth, and nods.

He resumes writing. The Bible tells us, “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination.” His pen flies across the page. The sins of the flesh can bring down even the most righteous person. He knows that all too well.

He’ll have Sunday’s sermon ready. He always does. And after last week’s little round of hooky, he’d better see Richie scrubbed clean and sitting in the front pew.

Self-Loathing has a spring in his step as he heads to his next house. Sixteen-year-old Dillon’s room is on the ground floor in the back, and she never closes her drapes. Self-Loathing only has to hide behind a tool shed to watch her.

Even though she hasn’t even brushed her teeth, Dillon’s on her iPad. Self-Loathing’s eagle eyes can see that she’s surfing a wellness website, bookmarking pages touting the benefits of burpees and lean protein. Self-Loathing frowns. This won’t do.

He’d long ago hacked into her Wi-Fi, installing a nifty little program that lets him feed ads and other content of his choosing to her screen. He taps a few buttons, then folds his arms and stands back, waiting.

It’s only minutes, really, before he sees her poke a finger into her soft belly. She swipes at the screen again. Then she pinches a roll of her flesh between her thumb and pointer. Self-loathing sends her a few more images. Dillon abruptly shoves her iPad aside, stands, and walks out of the room.

When she returns, she’s cradling something wrapped in a navy towel. She shoves a chair under her doorknob and goes to her bathroom to pour a glass of water. Then she unfurls the towel, tears open the loaf of white bread, and starts to stuff slices into her mouth, guzzling water to force the food down her throat.

Self-Loathing debates sticking around to hear her puking, but he’s already running late on his rounds. Another day.

A woman pushing a stroller is on the sidewalk, maybe fifty feet away, coming toward him. She’s cooing into the stroller. Babies are tricky because they can’t yet absorb what he offers.

The mothers are another story; so easy to plant those seeds. “I’ve read that not all beautiful chubby babies grow up to be fat kids.” Or, “I wouldn’t worry about the size of her ears. Most babies’ proportions even out over time.” He’s been at this long enough to witness the mothers transplant those seedlings into their children.

The baby gurgles, a pure, joyous sound. Something about the laughter’s timbre jars loose a distant childhood memory, one Self-Loathing can’t quite bring into focus.

When was the last time he felt pure joy?

Easier to remember its opposite. Like on the school playground, when the bullies came for him. Or at the dinners, when his mother stayed silent while his father shamed him. Or the dates he never went on, the job interviews he flubbed, and the endless nights alone.

The woman blows kisses at the baby. Self-Loathing straightens and walks toward her. He scans her face, body, and demeanor, weighing her split ends, baby-weight, and acne scars. He splays his hands wide as if he means no harm.

“Morning! Can I have a peek at your baby?”

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LIKE HUMMINGBIRDS by Shome Dasgupta

July 31, 2020 · Fiction

Like when we sat on the sun and watched the world simmer in our heads, brother—remember that time? And how you were so furious and the words from your mouth smoldered, drifting towards every star, making sure there was no void. The pain. The pain you felt became ashes in my own body, and I’m so sorry, brother. I was helpless. And as much as I felt your pain, there was nothing I could do to take it away from you. Your skull vibrated as the smoke left through every pore of your body, and I just wanted to hold you, even if it meant I’d burn, but you wouldn’t let. You knew. You recognized, despite all that was happening, that you loved me and didn’t want to hurt me. Remember in that brief gleam of light, before you or I left, how the sun diminished and we floated in space no longer knowing if the world existed or cared if it did or not, and we hovered around like the hummingbirds in our backyard, trying not to bump into stars. We had so much fun and for that endless second you found peace as you took my hand and guided me around, much like you did in life. You loved those hummingbirds.

Brother, I fucked up so much, I’m so sorry.

And like before it all happened, when you were there we would be on our hands and knees, crawling in the ditch, pretending to be raccoons because there were no more raccoons left to feed. They went away just like you or me. But when we were playing, I cut my leg and cried so loud. You picked me up to take me home but I flailed so much we tumbled over, and the world was before us as we were on our backs. My pain went away as we tried to count all the birds in the sky.

And brother, I don’t know—I don’t know if I had the chance to do it all over again if I would change any of it. Including all the times I fucked up and all the times you had to pull on my arm while I was sinking. I don’t know if I would change it all up because look at who we became—I honestly think our parents would be so proud of us. How we made it through even though we weren’t meant to—I know who we are now, but if I could go back and change all the ways I needed to change, I don’t know who we would become.

You’d be so proud of me now, brother. I’m sorry. I’m glad you no longer feel any pain. I feel it every now and then but then it all goes away when it’s just us, floating around in space, drifting this way and that, toward every star, and every now and then a hummingbird appears, glowing and holy, fluttering its wings to let us know that we’re here. How you loved those hummingbirds, brother, I will never forget, even with closed eyes, I will never forget.

And this might be the last time we can speak—I don’t know if you can hear me—I’m not sure how all of this goes, but I love you, brother. Thanks for always being there.

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APEX PREDATORS by Nicole VanderLinden

July 30, 2020 · Fiction

Jessa hears a bear. Only it’s not a bear. It’s the wind nudging against the nylon of our tent, but my new wife has never camped on a grassy bald in the Smoky Mountains. So when she elbows me, whispers, is that a snout? where the fabric pushes in against her sleeping bag, I say, probably. I say, you didn’t bring in a candy bar, did you? She knows this story, that tent walls aren’t really walls and that a bear can slice right through them, drag you away for a bit of chocolate.

Next to me, I feel her go still so as not to provoke the bear-that-isn’t-there. She steadies her breathing, in and out, and soon she’s as calm as a corpse, also afraid and very alive.

I’ve told her other things, some true and mostly not. Bears smell fear, I say. You’re not bleeding, are you? Imagine, I tell her, if our tent was invisible, what we’d look like to them—other animals, too. Lonely pink babies under the cold Tennessee sky.

We don’t pass many thru-hikers, and the ones we do have trail names: Rock-n-Roll, Jumpy Cat. Men whose necks have furred and, once, an old woman with two filthy Pomeranians. Bear snacks, I whisper. We share tortillas and pouches of peanut butter. We muse on the weather, what it might become—I predict lightning and gusts that will blow over trees. When we ask for the hikers’ real names, they laugh and say, those names don’t count out here.

See? I say to her later. We sit alone on a fallen yellow birch. I breathe in the musk of her unwashed clothes—fires put out and canvas grown damp—her botanical smells long gone and scrubbed clean. In a nearby tree, a rat snake catches an errant ray of sun. Your name doesn’t count out here.

She carries a green backpack. She likes to blend in, and she packs it each morning, the sleeping bag then the tent poles then the bear canister then the snacks, in order of what she most wants to keep dry. I’m an apex predator, she says, big with her backpack. Maybe that’s my name, she says, and I say, you sure about that?

And then, on the last day, we do see a bear.

It’s foraging along the French Broad River. It’s midday, and the river’s swollen with rain; the rush of it leaves me dizzy. The bear. She shrinks into that green backpack, rigid as the hills. The bear, the bear. For a moment I think we’ve conjured it. It’s a few yards away and can smell us, I know, the memory of cooked meat still clinging to our hair, whiskey on our breath. Somewhere, a dead branch cracks to the ground.

The bear sniffs and then huffs, its mouth a cave. Her fingers curl around my fingers, and I feel her pulse, or maybe it’s mine, a heartbeat between our hands. We are small and we are nobody. But then the bear turns away and ambles on, no reason why or why not.

He’ll be back for you, I say, though she knows this isn’t true. We’re spending the night in Hot Springs, in a cabin, in a place where bears can’t go, and she will be Jessa once more.

Next year, we’ll visit the sea. We’ll rent a kayak, and it will be her turn to lay me low, to make me forget my name.

Shark, she’ll whisper from behind as we paddle into the blue, our boat like a toy bobbing in the swells. I see a fin, she’ll say, over there, on the horizon. I’ll get the shiver; my nerves will bloom. That means he’s hunting, she’ll say.

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PLEASE FORGIVE ME, MIDNIGHT ANGEL by Timothy Boudreau

July 30, 2020 · Fiction

That morning Cristina’s husband Charley brings her breakfast from the Diner, gray hair tufting from under his ball cap as he hands her the bag with an egg and cheese sandwich.

“Why aren’t you coming again?” she asks as she unwraps it.

“Off to provide another goddamn eight hours of superior customer service,” he says. That's been his life: jobs with name tags and aprons, jobs where the dickhead customer’s always right.

“Make sure you eat before you leave,” he goes on. “Give my best to her family.”

“Not sure who’s even left.”

“Wasn’t for staffing issues, I’d be there.” He hands her napkins from his jacket pocket.

“With everything she went through, I guess it all makes sense.” Cristina’s sigh holds him beside the door. “I’d just like to see her again, you know?”

He kisses her forehead. “See you tonight Babe.”

Cristina bites the sandwich, tastes her breath, rinses her mouth with OJ. “Holy fuck Sammi,” she says.

Sammi: freckles and tomato hair, her curls like spaghetti tinsel. “Speckled Sammi,” the mean girls called her. All curves and softness, like a pillow, but when she hugged you, she meant it, she squeezed. Back then it was Cristina and Sammi, hip to hip through the halls of Daleborough High. Nicotine hair and Newports tucked in their jean jackets.

Cristina brings her phone outside where they have reception. The tire swing in the neighbor’s yard is like the one they rode at Sammi’s while they waited for the bus: overjoyed, legs splayed, after wine coolers for breakfast; their moms absent, September sky like a musty blanket.

Her hands tremble as she makes the call.

“Yes, one PM,” Mr. Herman says. “Light refreshments after. The information’s on the website.”

“Will there be a viewing? Can you tell me that?”

“There will not. The family chose cremation.”

While Cristina pulls on her best blouse and jeans, slicks back her hair, Pandora plays Quarterflash, Heart, The Pretenders. She arranges her nips on the bureau, hums along, punches the air to punctuate the choruses. Imagines Sammi’s ashes crossing the country in a jet, limo transporting the urn from Logan with a police escort. Blue lights, music blasting.

Music was Sammi’s wine cooler buzz, pink fog fizz. They rode with “Shadows of the Night” on the radio, Sammi’s voice cracking at the top of her range, stubby arms waving as if commanding a back seat band; Cristina, the better drunk driver, behind the wheel. “Midnight angel, won’t you say you will?” All night Sammi was thinking of Matty Cryans, her cheeks red, forehead glistening, everything in her mind with a heart scrawled across it, “Sammi loves Matty.”

Matty was skinny, long eyelashes over moist blue eyes. Gawky, shy, thick shag of blond.

“He's my number-two pencil," Sammi told everyone, “long and straight. Girls think he's dumb because he’s quiet, but he’s always observing. He saves his thoughts for nighttime and brings them home to me.”

Were they twenty-three when it started? One Friday Cristina invited Matty over for supper, while Sammi worked a double and Charley was away. When Cristina pulled him onto the bed Matty’s wet eyes filled with questions, but he hardened as soon as she unzipped him.

“But what about Sammi?” he said, as she mouthed his dick. “What about Sammi?” as she climbed on top, settled onto him, “But Sammi,” wincing first until she bounced, bounced, and shoot made sure he came inside before she fell off (he was crying now) and went to wash his mess out of her.

Cristina’s jacket smells like cigarettes, its inside pockets packed with nips. While she waits for the taxi she slips into her neighbor’s garden and breaks off four lilies, wraps them in tissue.

The taxi drops her at the corner of Crawford and Elm, next to the building where Sammi lived after everything blew up. Cristina slides the lilies in her pocket, pats her hair, remembers visiting before Sammi ditched them all and moved out West.

“Just listen Sammi,” Cristina told her.In the doorway Sammi blew cigarette smoke in Cristina’s face, her fist on her hip. “Why.”

“We need to talk.”

“Matty’s not here anymore.” She turned, flipped the butt off Cristina’s shoulder. “Leave me alone you greasy bitch.”

In the back row at Herman’s Funeral Home Cristina looks at the program, Sammi Cryans, 1967-2018, with a Psalm printed inside.

There’s a lectern, flowers and two big pictures up front: Sammi in lopsided pigtails, riding a tricycle; forty-something Sammi with some guy beside a Christmas tree, flannel shirt, curls chopped, pupils pinned, high as fuck.

After the hometown bridges have been neglected, burned, bombed, what’s left are aunties, a lonely cousin, a drunk former friend in the back corner. Three speakers: the pastor; Aunt Ellen, trembling; a former coworker. Stories about kid Sammi gobbling graham crackers; smoke breaks at her old job.

Finally Cristina can’t stand anymore. She stumbles out, lilies in her fist, past a lady in a hairnet beside the door crying into a napkin.

She walks outside, head swimming. She already knows how it’ll end. Read The Lord is my shepherd, hallowed art thy name. Claim it was Sammi’s favorite scripture, as if she fucking had a favorite. Talk about her “troubles,” say something about God’s wisdom; describe a peaceful rest, free of pain. No mention of tire swings or Matty Cryans or her fierce, ragged heart.

How long has it taken her to walk home? Her face is flushed, jacket loose, thistle sticking to her jeans after she plunges through the brush into the driveway to find Charley standing outside with his phone, ball cap pulled low.

“It was a mistake,” she says, “the whole day was a farce,” she says, “it’s not fair, we’re too young,” shivering as Charley wraps his arm around her and Sammi’s lilies and helps her inside.

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THE SURPRISE by Aisha Hassan

July 28, 2020 · Fiction

The funeral prayer was almost over but I didn’t care, and Safia needed me here, and since she’s the one who did the dying, her word is as good as God’s. I stood at the back so the rows of hunched women would ignore me for now. The mosque was bloated with hot air and I could smell sweat blooming beneath white prayer robes. Rotting hearts, too. I imagined Syed’s heart, fleshy and dark, emitting the stench of a hammered mouse, thumping inside his hairy chest. He was on the other side of the partition where an Imam’s voice sang for all the men to see and all the women to listen.

Everyone lifted their hands in a holy salute and bent down in prostration. I followed instinctively but was, as always, a beat too late. When I sank to my knees and touched my head to the ground, I pressed my face to the heel of God’s boot and said a little prayer: “Forgive me, sister.”

The women wouldn’t come near me as we walked to the cemetery. Still, I could hear the low hum of their voices and tried to hold my head high. Up ahead in the ant trail of people trudging behind the coffin, Mother kept bumping into those around her, stepping aimlessly, blinded by grief. She didn't know I was here yet. But Mother has always been unseeing about her daughters no matter what happened to them. Even when the village and its birds seemed to know. Like her, they turned away.

Mother didn’t even look at me the day I tried to say goodbye. Didn’t even twitch when Syed, only thirteen then, stumbled in, took stock, and hissed, “Father was right about you,” before bolting out the door.

That day, Safia took my hands the way she did on those deep mornings when rising from bed made me feel more dead than alive. She promised never to abandon me while clutching my fingers tight.

“Don’t,” she had said.

“Sister, please,” I begged. “You can come.” We could have survived together.

Safia looked at me with moon-wide eyes that caught the light just as her head shook the quietest No. She glanced at Mother then turned back to keep her gaze on me. “You need to leave before Father gets home,” Safia had said. “Syed is already running to get him.”

Last Spring, exactly five years to the day I left, Safia finally called and told me Father died. We cried because he was gone at last and we had missed each other deeply and often. I cried because the fear of Father dragging me home fell out of my bruised insides and Safia’s voice sounded like forgiveness. I let myself imagine, for the first time since I ran out of the dusty village, the bougainvilleas in full bloom, our rickety house unloved and pathetic behind me—I let myself imagine Safia and I could be together again.

Just last week she told me that Syed, who carried Father’s shadow inside him like a ghost, was joining the military this month.

"I’ll come visit you when he leaves,” Safia said. “Mother won’t stop me.”

"I can’t wait to see you,” I told her.

“Me neither,” she had said. Her voice was pregnant with hope.

And here we were, together again, as they lay her down beside our Father.

I grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it into the newly dug grave. The others were already leaving. I stood my ground and thought of Safia’s fresh body. In Islam, the funeral must happen as soon as possible. It spares the soul the pain of being trapped in a vessel that is no longer home.

“It’s her fault,” Syed’s voice chimed as the crowd moved past me. “But Safia was a silly girl to take a road she’s never travelled before, especially in the dark.”

A memory curdled in my brain of Syed’s small head staring from the doorway when Father beat Safia and I, and all the different ways his eyeballs said: Silly, Stupid, Girls.

I looked up and Syed sneered at me with a face sickeningly like mine, both our soul skins roasted to the same shade of ochre beneath the punishing sun. Syed nudged the old uncle he was speaking to and both men looked at me with narrowed eyes.

"God will discipline the person responsible,” Syed said loudly.

I wanted to strangle Syed’s slimy voice. It was the same voice that told me two days ago Safia was gone and if I didn’t come home, he would leave Mother to fend for herself. “Safia was going to see you,” Syed said when he called. “Didn’t you know?”

The police unlocked Safia’s phone after the collision and my number was the only one she ever dialled. Syed guessed it was me, but wanted to make sure I knew the details.

“Farah,” Mother said, just as I was about to act. I felt Syed watching as I turned to the frail woman who pulled up beside me. Mother gently took my hands. “I didn’t think you would come,” she whispered, glassy eyes melting. She ogled me as if unearthing something precious.

“I’m sorry.” It was all I could say.

Mother nodded absentmindedly and started walking towards our house. “You are not the reason,” she said with her back to me. “You and Safia are the same, always blaming yourself.” Mother’s brittle fingers tightened around mine.

I pictured Safia staring into the darkness as Mother led me back home.

“Yes,” I said. “We’re the same after all.”

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HE FINDS AN ACORN WEARING A BONNET by Katie Piper

July 28, 2020 · Fiction

Leaves look like they were almost autumn for a moment. Most are pocked with black scars, as if cigarettes have been stubbed out and the ash has coagulated in their papery veins.

My fingers feel gritty–that’s what they said to me last time, ‘your placenta is gritty’ –and so I felt the shame of geriatric pregnancy, as if I had a rheumatoid uterus, or bulbous eggs at 40.

My own brutality has come out of season, and , I keep searching, even though I won’t find what I’m looking for. It’s one of those days, and I can only see the ordinaries, so I know this acorn won’t turn up for me, and I do nothing in rhythm on these days. An off- kilter state has to be accepted, or ridden on until sleep comes.

I sit on the bench in the main street. I’ve forgotten where I am in my scavenging. He is still in the coffee shop queue. I can just make him out through the foggy door. I look up and down the street for a clue of something better, but there’s nothing or at least nothing my eyes are willing to see. Then I realize I’m cold, mostly my peripheries–my pelvis is hot, though. My pad feels like an iron that’s cooling with elements of hot and cold. It will be heavy and sodden when we walk back because it will be past capacity, unable to catch all from the split seam. I haven’t told him yet.

We will walk back up the street, arms linked, and he will have a lift in his step because he sees the season of preparation. Preparing to nest, to go inwards with our bundle, to be rid of what we don’t need so we can nurture our newborn. He doesn’t see the ordinaries yet, and I want to stave them off, for him, for a little longer.

Until he trudges back down the street toward me, with an acorn wearing a bonnet. I know you love these, he says.

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HAP’S by Wilson Koewing

July 26, 2020 · Fiction

Harry and Al were at the bar when I showed for my six o’clock at Hap’s. A young couple smoked in the back booth; a bluish cloud hovered over them. Four roughs fresh off a rig huddled around bottles at a tall table. Decent crowd all told.

I prefer showing at six instead of four. It’s hard on Huck since I’m here until two, but the four to twelve loses late-night tips and four to six isn’t money anyway.

That time of evening the sun cuts sharp angles across the bar so bad you can’t sit some places. I ducked and moved around bullet trails of sunlight staying busy.

“Claire, what’s Huck up to?” Al asked.

“Watching the baby and his shows.”

“Whatever happened to that college boy used to come in carrying on about you?” Harry said. “Seemed awfully smitten.”

“Just another barking at the tree, Harry.”

“You didn’t seem to mind.”

“Anyone can look and say what they think about what they see,” I said. “Free country, still.”

“I’m not so sure,” Harry said.

Harry wasn’t long divorced. Al was long since. Can’t imagine the friendship helped either. Those two aren’t all bad, but the women they get in with all are.

I remembered the college boy. Corn fed, blonde mop. Somewhere Midwest raised. Football player at UT Permian Basin, so not much good at it. I was flattered, but Huck and I been together ages, plus the youngin’.

I set sights on wiping glasses clear and Harry and Al hunkered down to discuss things that had been and could of.

The sun settled and the night crept calm until Kenneth showed up the same time the young couple was leaving. He watched them go with their hands in each other’s back pockets, buzzed, and making no attempt to hide what they’d be embarking upon next.

“Always the same sad fucks in here,” Kenneth said, dropping a duffel bag on the bar with a clank.

Kenneth lost work at the refinery about six months now. Each time in it’s worse.

“How you making out, Kenneth?” Harry asked.

“Hell is it to you, old man?”

“You little piss ant—,” Al said.

Harry grabbed Al’s arm.

“Fuck’d you say, old man river?”

“Let it go, Kenneth,” Harry said. “He’s a drunk.”

Kenneth and Al stared each other down.

“Double whiskey, beer, Claire,” Kenneth said.

I slid a double whiskey and a Lone Star. Kenneth killed the whiskey then hurt the Lone Star.

Around the same time, a fella wandered in who appeared lost. Noticed the emblem on his jacket—West Texas Wind—and hoped Kenneth didn’t.

“You ain’t even gotta say it, fella,” Kenneth said, noticing.

“What’ll it be, hon’?” I asked the wind man.

“Tequila and a beer, ma’am.”

“You here about the wind?” Kenneth asked.

“Ah hell, Kenneth,” Al said. “Leave him alone.”

“I said you here about the wind, boy?”

Kenneth got close enough to kiss him and poked a stiff finger into the wind emblem.

“Yeah, you are.”

“Kenneth, don’t you have anything better to do than harass people just trying to take a load off?” Harry asked.

“No, Harry, I don’t,” Kenneth returned to staring at the wind man.

“We still putting this on grandma Margie’s tab, Kenneth?” I asked.

A hush fell over the bar and it felt awfully like I shouldn’t have said it. But I can’t very well let Kenneth make everyone uncomfortable because he’s on the low and has been.

“Huck know you got stones to talk to men that way?” Kenneth said. “Out here making money for a baby he can’t support?”

Harry held Al back.

“What are you going to do, old man?” Kenneth said. “Besides make me mad?”

“Kenneth, you never heard of a man staying at home with a baby, and a woman making the money to support it?” I said. “Attitude like that might be the reason you’ve got woman troubles.”

“You’re right, Claire, I’m sorry.” Kenneth said after a moment. “That was out of line.”

“He ain’t sorry,” Al grumbled.

I poured Kenneth another double hoping to make peace.

“Best get control of this old son of a bitch,” Kenneth said.

I pushed a tequila and a frothy draft in front of the wind man. The others watched like I was the momma and him the favorite. He sipped the tequila. I knew he was in for it.

“Jesus, you fuck that way, too, boy?” Kenneth said. “You drink like a damn baby. You probably spew in a second.”

Kenneth killed his whiskey in a gulp.

“Miss, I believe I’ll settle up,” the wind man said.

“He ain’t paying yet,” Kenneth said, slamming his fist on the bar.

“He can pay if he wants,” I said.

“He ain’t fuckin’ leavin’.”

Kenneth watched me slide the bill over, watched him sign and slide it back.

“Leave, I’ll shoot you dead, wind man,” Kenneth said.

The wind man fell blank as a simple one. All the air in my lungs rushed out at once and I couldn’t figure out how to let any more in. Harry and Al stared at their bottles.

Kenneth finished his Lone Star and addressed his terrified audience.

“I’m sure ya’ll know Carrie left don’t ya?”

“I’d heard,” Harry said.

“Who could blame her?” Al said.

Harry stared at Al with eyes big as a couple planets.

“You’re lucky I like you, Al,” Kenneth said.

“I like you, too, Kenneth,” Al said.

I witnessed something bad click in Kenneth as Two Tickets to Paradise by Eddie Money came on the jukebox. He and Carrie danced to it in Hap’s one night must have been eight months. Only two dancing at first. By the second time the chorus hit, whole bar was dancing.

“Ya’ll know what happened?” Kenneth asked.

No one seemed hot to answer.

“Give me another,” he yelled in no particular direction.

“He’s had enough, Claire,” Harry said.

The wind man remained still.

I poured Kenneth another and promised myself it’d be the last.

“Carrie’s staying at the Royal Inn with a new fella,” Kenneth said. “A Mexican.”

“Maybe it’s time to move on, Kenneth,” Harry said.

“No, Harry, I don’t believe it is,” Kenneth said.

“Seems clear she doesn’t want you around,” Al said. “Ought to respect a woman’s wishes.”

“Yeah, well maybe her new fella isn’t supposed to be in America at all,” Kenneth said.

Kenneth dug in his duffel and pulled out a pistol.

Until then, I hadn’t a clue what I believed Kenneth capable of. In the moment, I couldn’t be sure of what I believed him not.

“Now, Kenneth, listen–,” Al said.

“Al, I do like you,” Kenneth said, “But you need to learn when to shut up.”

Kenneth pushed Harry aside and pistol-whipped Al. He crumbled to the floor. The wind man blew right out the door running.

I wrapped ice in a towel and hustled around the bar.

The oil men stood at the commotion. A bar chair crashed to the floor.

Then Kenneth pulled out an AR-15 and spun it to sit the oil men down.

“I’m going to that fucking motel,” Kenneth said. “Who wants to stop me?”

No heroes among us.

Kenneth lowered the rifle, tossed the duffel over his shoulder and pushed open the door. The darkness outside consumed him.

I dialed 911 and said what happened.

“He’s going to get himself killed,” Harry said.

“I hope he does,” Al said. “Tired of him ruining my drinking.”

***

When I got home, the news was on every channel. Huck scooped me up and squeezed so tight I remembered feeling. You see love when someone’s face betrays that they’ve been thinking how much they’d miss you.

Kenneth was dead. Shot by police. Killed Carrie, her lover and six others. Stalked the second-floor balcony executing whoever came out. I wouldn’t have believed it if you told me.

I went in the nursery. The youngin’ was sleeping sound. I kissed her tiny head. It still felt fuzzy and smelled new. She rustled just a touch. I sensed Huck watching from the doorway.

“Let’s go to bed,” Huck said.

We spooned in the silent darkness of our little bedroom in our little house. He ain’t nothing but sweet. I turned over and we got to kissing. Then my clothes were sliding off just like perfection. I figure if we’re living in a world this confusing and full of hate, nothing I can witness will stop me from making love.

x-r-a-y magazine

COME HERE, I WANT TO TELL YOU SOMETHING by Jamy Bond

July 24, 2020 · Fiction

Sometimes, I would catch her peering through a crack in my bedroom door as I changed, watching me with those blue dagger eyes. “Do you think you need some new bras?” she might say later, “those no longer seem to fit.” A way of letting me know what she’d seen.

Locks were not allowed in our house, not even in the bathroom, and sometimes she would stand outside of the door while I bathed, chatting away like we were friends. She’d rattle the doorknob, just to let me know she could come in if she wanted to.

Come here, I want to tell you something, she’d say. It always made my stomach drop, my throat freeze, a strong metallic taste creep into mouth. “Your dad has some disease. But he wants me to touch it anyway. He wants me to put it in my mouth.”

I was 12 and had kissed a boy once under the strobe lights at the roller rink. He pressed his tongue between my lips. He tasted like root beer and ripe bananas.

Sometimes she would press up close to my friend, Rick, when he came to see me. “You’re too young for boyfriends,” she’d say. One time she gave Rick a Coke and sat on the porch in her black miniskirt, talking nonstop while he watched her crossing and uncrossing her legs.

Come here, I want to tell you something. “My father used to beat my mother. But I was always on his side. She complained too much. She whined all the time. She deserved it.”

Sometimes, she’d call me into the bathroom to keep her company while she bathed, the shower curtain wide open so I could see her rubbing her breasts with soap. “Don’t forget our secret,” she’d say. “A girl stays loyal to her mother. Always.”

Once, I took a knife from the kitchen and crawled under my bed, pressed the sharp blade against my arm until the skin split, bloody and warm. If I were to cut her open what would I find inside? No pulsing organs. No human meat. A yellow, waxy slime.

Sometimes I hid in the closet, beneath a pile of old blankets that smelled like mold, and tried to merge with the quiet and the darkness. I tried to melt into nothing, into non-matter, into liquid that evaporates, into dust that scatters, into rising ash.

Come here, I want to tell you something. “Lie down with me. Hold me close. Consider yourself lucky. You have me to take care of you,” she’d say. “When I was a little girl, I had no one.”

x-r-a-y magazine

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