LOVE IS THE PLAYGROUND OF THE THING by Michael Mungiello

This love story has nothing to do with me. I’m not involved. Even the small parts—the earrings, the dog, the money—I only care a little bit about. What’s actually important is how it ends. It ends on a boat.I started following Lorenzo because he lived next door and he looked exactly like me. It was an added advantage that he was ignorant of almost everything. For example, he never noticed I was following him. I followed in my car and on foot, I took buses I didn’t have to and sat in the row behind him. Lorenzo always wore headphones.I was amazed at the emptiness of his life: how much of it he spent at work. There was a coffee place across the street from the BMW dealership. I read some good books there when spying got boring. Mostly self-help books. How to Find a Job. How to Find a Job Part 2. How to Find Another Job. Etc. Lorenzo biked to work.I saw him sell. He made my hand gestures. His teeth were whiter, he seemed more at ease than me but I saw him clench his jaw after customers walked away. I followed him back by car, relying on mild traffic to make my otherwise menacing creeping speed look accidental.I’d watch and wonder, is that what my back looks like? Do my shirts also get detucked during the day? I guess I hoped some other stranger (maybe another neighbor) was following me. (He could answer my questions.)The whole time I lived next door, I never heard Lorenzo play music. Which means he wore headphones inside his own house. Do you see Lorenzo? As tall as a refrigerator, pale, blue eyes, prematurely grey hair; long pants even when it’s hot outside, button-ups. I never saw the inside of his apartment, I can only imagine it perfectly. Delivery people rarely came so he cooked his own food. Then came Sheila. Sheila ruined everything. One day Sheila thought, “Well, why don’t I buy a car?”On that day I did what I’d never done before: cross the street, cross the lot, come inside and look around. BMW 1 vs BMW 2 and so on. Made a thinking face. Fixed my posture like I’m a regional manager with kids.Lorenzo looked up and saw me. I saw his face go, “What? No way. What?” And he got up to come talk to me like I was a normal customer and cancel out the uncanniness. But he failed. The door opened and he was distracted.It was Sheila.Short as an oven, artificially white hair, very small nose.And Lorenzo forgot I exist. Seeing Lorenzo see Sheila, for a second I forgot I exist too. Sheila broke through his big ignorance. I felt him change.I assumed they became boyfriend and girlfriend because I heard him say, “I’m Lorenzo” and I heard her say, “I’m Sheila.” My face was velvet drapes. I didn’t belong there anymore. I dashed out and never followed Lorenzo again. I went home and fed no pets, watered no plants, watched no TV. I didn’t read anything. I didn’t have plants or pets or a TV, although I did have books.Next day, a knock at my door, a note slid under. 

Dear Weirdo,

I know you’ve been stalking me. Stop. Get help. Or I’ll call the cops.

 I thought about telling him I’d already decided to stop, but no. I didn’t want to stoop to his level.I did want to explain myself, though. “Hey buddy” or “Dude” or “My man” or “Uh excuse me?” My fingers went numb with excitement as I contemplated the first words I’d say to Lorenzo.I opened the front door in time to see a shiny BMW pull out of the parking lot. Sheila driving, Lorenzo in the passenger seat. I felt whatever song they were playing, the car’s bass hurt. I thought, “BMW must stand for ‘Blasting Music, WOO!’” I thought, “Ha.” Then I thought, “Blasting music? Lorenzo, you’ve changed.”I was going to go back in but I saw something glint in Lorenzo’s bristly welcome mat. I bent down and saw two earrings. 

. .

 Modest but elegant. The kind of restrained jewelry that says, “I’m actually rich.”I picked them up and put them in my jacket. They clinked together with spare change. I walked to the beach. It was 7 on a Wednesday night. Lorenzo and Sheila were probably on a mid-week date night date. They were probably eating dinner at a place where the napkins were linen and on a table, not paper that came from a cube.I got a dollar slice and took it to the beach. I sat on the sand and munched. I chomped. I scharfed. I was some kind of gavone I kept my mouth open because the slice was so hot.A lady was walking a dog. Both of them were tiny and white with frizzy hair. I love dogs so I trained my eyes on some adjacent cloud so I could watch the dog out of my peripheral vision without making the lady suspect I was staring at her. I didn’t want to stare like a “weirdo.” But soon enough I was staring because the dog saw something and started barking. But not a normal bark, a bark like it was begging for its life, crazy. The lady said the dog’s name four times: confused; cloying; stern; scared. She pulled on the leash but the dog pulled harder and the lady fell forward and let go of the leash. The dog looked left and darted left then looked right and darted right then stared straight ahead past the horizon and ran into the water.“Oh my god,” I said.“My dog,” the lady said.Then the crazy thing. The dog doggy paddled maybe five feet out. Retrieval’s no problem, right? Except a dolphin slid by and swam under the dog, essentially acting as a self-steering surfboard for the dog, who was shuttled far away before our eyes. I imagined doggy legs quivering.“Wow,” I said.The lady looked upset.“Don’t worry,” I said. “He’ll probably come back when he’s hungry.”She nodded at me solemnly like I was right. Or like she wanted to tell me to go fuck myself.A long whistle insinuated itself. It was Lifeguard Joe, huge arms, with his paddleboat.“Let’s go,” he said. This was the day he’d been preparing for his whole life.The lady started to walk over but fainted.“Shit,” Joe said.“Wait,” I said. “Sir, that dog is my wife’s pride and joy. She’d never forgive me if I didn’t try to save him myself and besides the dog is very anxious and only responds to me or my wife.”We rowed hard for a long time. I teared up when it was clear the dog was gone.“Dolphins move fast,” Joe said. “I’m sorry I got your hopes up.”We got back but the lady was gone now too. Or maybe we’d just rowed away from her by accident and she was still waiting. I never saw her or Joe again, after I helped Joe put away the rowboat.I lay on the beach. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t sleep, probably because I was outside. My jacket wasn’t actually warm. But I bet Lorenzo and Sheila were snug near a blazing candelabra at their fancy restaurant. BMW’s had seat warmers. I left the beach and took a Lyft home. The driver’s name was Fred. I said nothing.When I got back my key didn’t work. I tried four more times before I for some reason knocked. Of course nobody answered.I used the flashlight on my phone to look at the lock. I also saw an envelope taped to my door. 

Dear Tenant,

We are alarmed to hear of your behavior which has affected another tenant. We have changed the lock on your door using your security deposit. Your possessions will be returning in due course.

Regards,

Management

I fidgeted with the earrings, turning them around in my fist like they were stress release balls but they weren’t stress release balls so one I wasn’t less stressed and two the earrings stabbed my palm. My bleeding hand.“Fuck.”I didn’t want to stain the jacket pocket so I slapped my hand onto Lorenzo’s door and smeared. I smeared until the tiny hand holes stopped.On the boardwalk I saw flyers. “See This Dog? Call 1-800-LORENZO, it belongs to (my gf) Sheila’s sister, $5,000 reward.”Who was the dog? The dog on the dolphin. I was touched by Lorenzo’s generosity. And if he could be so selfless, I could too. Why not? We looked just like each other. This flyer told me something about myself, some soft bright thing.I remembered where Joe left the boat.I picked it up.I ran to the ocean while carrying the boat.The whole time I was thinking how meaningful Lorenzo’s flyers must’ve been to Sheila.Imagine, some guy loves you and proves it.Tries to find your sister’s dog.The water was too cold but I ran further, slowly.I threw the boat on the water and got on.Sheila was opening Lorenzo’s door, probably, returning from a visit with her sister.I paddled.Lorenzo finished cleaning the kitchen. He got a glass of water for each of them.I was looking left and looking right and paddling forward.Lorenzo showed her dogs up for adoption on Craigslist. He showed her pictures of a dog on the beach. She smiled. She said, “Our own family.” She said, “Alaska.” She lay her legs on his lap. She knew he wanted to quit his job. His life before her—creepo neighbor, shitty job. His life with her—“it would be amazing,” he said. She put her hands on her stomach.I didn’t dress for this; it was cold. I thought salt from the water was being blown into the holes in my hand. I had nowhere to live. I didn’t even know what dolphins do at night.For all I knew Lorenzo was proposing to Sheila that night, on the couch, on their way to Alaska. They were sharing his headphones. They were on Craigslist selling his bike. Lorenzo was reading a book about Alaska, learning everything, stroking Sheila’s hair. Attentive.The moon was big. No stars or clouds. And I saw a tiny white dog gliding toward me on the back of a dolphin. The dog was making its long way from far off and I realized that in my fantasy Lorenzo had cleaned my blood off the door before Sheila came home so she wouldn’t get scared.The dog telepathically asked me, “Are you scared?”The moon telepathically answered, “He is.”The dog was zooming now, closer, and I tried to paddle backwards but couldn’t. I was excited like I’d been playing a game with someone better at the game than me. He was about to make the winning move and out of admiration I took pleasure in my own defeat because it was his victory.The dolphin zipped past me and into the horizon forever.I paddled.

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MILK by Michael Mungiello

I’m on my way to mom’s apartment.

*

I’m at mom’s apartment.

Wow, nice. She’s really spruced up the place.

Mom?

I’m in here!

Down the hallway, wood floor, wood walls, wood doors, wood frames around photos (of me as a baby, me at my wedding, none in between); plants.

Mom?

Kitchen. Mom’s cluttered kitchen, Tchotchke salt shakers, detergent blue water sitting in the sink, a mini-TV in the corner and a little man saying in the Voice of Concern

A Storm Is Coming.

I look at the whole scene through the linty light coming through mom’s drawn translucent curtains.

Hey, Mom! Came to check up on you before the big storm. Do you need anything?

Oh, how neglected I am!

No one takes care of me!

For all you care, I could die!

Woah woah woah—what?

And she does the aftercry sigh and shiver and explains: last night she fell; couldn’t get up; called me but I didn’t answer (my phone was dead and I was out and she calls me once a day so sometimes, you know what, maybe I’m entitled to ignore a call, maybe it feels good); she called dad; he picked up; came over; helped her up; left; mom fell again; and couldn’t get up until early this morning, she had to move around on the floor and leverage several equidistant pieces of furniture.

Jesus, that sounds terrible, mom! Why didn’t you call dad again?

She doesn’t say, exactly, but talks about pride, pride, pride. Dignity; couldn’t I have called back? And dad, she didn’t want to steal him away again from whatever he’d been doing at that hour

Yikes, mom.

But it’s nice to be with her. Why? She asks about my job (I’m a pharmacist) and roasts me about the stupid things I say and she roasts me in a way that confirms that those things are stupid but that I’m not. Critiquing is how she connects. She has long grey thick hair like she could be a famous poet with a black-and-white headshot but she’s not a poet.

She points to my belly.

I’m pregnant, by the way, 4 months.

You look fat.

Yeah, mom, I just found out it’s twins.

(This is a lie. It’s not twins.)

I’m worried though. What will the baby’s life be like, Lorenzo is on another business trip, left with no notice. Things between us? Not good. And I know he’d always provide for the kid with money but as Lorenzo would say in business-talk:

I’m afraid I’ve written a check I can’t cash, emotionally.

The phone rings.

Mom answers.

Hello…Completely?...Okay.

Yes. Soon. Thank you.

I decide not to ask, it’d just give her an excuse to talk about how nobody cares about her, again. Mom’s quiet. She gets a tall glass and fills it with water and drinks it in a swig. Then she gets a gallon of milk from the fridge (I spot her like she's lifting weights, which is ridiculous because someone should be spotting me! I'm lifting weights) and she has a tall glass of milk.

Ah, milk. I have milk memories, like how in college I used to put vodka in my half-full gallon of milk so I could drink during the day without roommates noticing. (Milk gets rid of the smell.)

Ah, memories.

Mom makes the ahhh sound and puts down her glass.

Wow, what thirst!

She turns to me, panting with slaked satisfaction.

That was Cheryl. Dad’s dead.

*

Dad and I once went to a baseball game. He bought me a pretzel and looked very tall, very strong. I told mom the truth, he and I had a good time. Later she hurt her back and I connected the dots and didn’t speak highly of dad ever again. Her back didn’t improve, and hasn’t.

*

Outside birds and worms, pedestrians and rats, everybody scurries to a place where they’ll be safe. Meanwhile I’m on my way to dad’s, alone. Big clouds darkly hover over me. I feel ashamed. Was it something I did that made dad die? Or is this some kind of joke?

*

I take a cab and despite myself relish the opportunity to spend money like that. If not now, when?

*

Hi Cheryl.

She opens the door and is sad. Paramedics already there have given up and logged time place cause.

Hi Karen. Is your mother…?

Mom isn’t feeling well, she needed to go lie down after the shock. (That’s what mom told me to tell Cheryl.)

To me it all feels autocompleted. Of course dad died. Of course I’m here. Of course I’m consoling Cheryl, perfectly adequate stepmother. Of course of course.

You sure you’re okay?

You’re not even crying!

Yes, Cheryl. Thank you, Cheryl.

You have to feel your feelings!

Yes, Cheryl. Thank you, Cheryl.

I sincerely try to earnestly sniffle.

Cheryl grew up on a farm in Vermont and is into energies.

The difference between mom’s place and dad’s place is that dad’s place has an upstairs and a basement: three levels total. Mom? Just one floor. I guess that’s just the difference between a house and an apartment.

Photos here too, above granite countertops and under mini-chandeliers. Dad and Cheryl on their honeymoon and on fun vacations to Greece (I like these). Me and mom and dad—my communion, graduation, wedding. I wear a version of the same dress in all three.

Dad won’t meet his grandkid.

That’s sad.

It makes me angry.

Their cat is on the ground. He shows me his belly.

Cheryl, what did they say? Oh I see. Heart attack.

The phone rings. Cheryl goes but the person hangs up as soon as Cheryl says hi.

So difficult to believe.

I know, Cheryl.

He was the best man I knew.

And it’s stupid but I agree. He was actually nice. When he asked if I liked a movie or a book or a song on the radio that played while we were in the car (he’d ask after every song when it was just the two of us in the car)—he cared about my answer.

He was curious about me, fascinated. When he was around.

He’d also do this thing where he didn’t visit for a long time, even though he was a subway away.

(Dad: Park Slope. Mom: Upper East Side.)

Oh.

He’s dead.

Actually dead.

The paramedics are leaving with the body. Cheryl follows and I’m going to get mom.

The storm speaks!

Rumble Rumble

I look out the wide windows in dad’s study. Little rain sounds on the windowpane, steady then faster like—sorry—heartbeats.

I’m feeling sensitive.

I want to be with mom.

I clutch a photo of us all and take it with me when I leave, I don’t really look at it.

I’m in a cab to mom’s and now I look at it. It’s us at the Grand Canyon, the trip we all took, even Cheryl.

Mom looks pissed.

Dad doesn’t seem to notice she’s pissed.

I realize, if I was mom, that would only make me more pissed.

(Cheryl, nervously cheery.)

Thunder Rumble

Lorenzo calls but I decline.

I get to mom’s.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Freak out, get the landlord to let me in.

Mom’s dead.

On the ground, on her back, hand on her belly.

She looks vulnerable but she’s not vulnerable she’s just dead.

The landlord says

Oh no.

Your mom’s dead.

*

The rain is coming down not in sheets nor in blankets but in beds, California Queen. Like the weather is furious at the windows.

I don’t call Cheryl because I know mom would kill me. The landlord calls an ambulance but the streets are already flooding.

The other tenants are calling him—leaks!—and he has to check on his own room.

They’ll be here soon.

Everything’ll be handled.

I have to leave.

It’s okay, thanks for unlocking the door.

Well mom, you and me.

I hear a beeping sound over the rain brigade. What the hell?

The smoke alarm in the living room is going. I glance up and get a whopping drop of water right in my eye. Then a bunch of other drops on the back of my head when I turn away to wipe my eye. Then a torrent, a pillar, a fire hydrant’s worth of water. It’s like a whale is upside down on the roof and its blowhole is lined up exactly with the alarm. The alarm is blown right off, I’m drenched, I put a bucket under the hole and it doesn’t do much.

Crrrrack

I look outside and a tree comes down at one end of mom’s street. The tree blocks the road.

Crrrrrack

Another tree! Blocks off the other end of mom’s road.

Then ambulance sounds. But they can’t get past the trees. I see them pull up to the first one and then back out and swing around the block and try the other end of the street. It’s pathetic, futile. They know mom’s dead. No rush, guys. No worries.

I’m suddenly starving. I go into the kitchen and make a cold cut sandwich with Italian bread, mortadella, and mozzarella. A wayward branch bandied about by the wind smashes through mom’s window. Some glass comes dangerously close to getting in her hair. For propriety’s sake I drag mom into the kitchen with me, which I know I’m not supposed to do with the baby, and draw the curtain that was functionally the kitchen door, so nothing will mess up mom’s face, no broken glass or whatever.

Her eyes are still kind of open.

I want to close her eyes but I don’t want to touch her so I put the family photo from dad’s house over her face. It helps. It feels respectful.

I think I hear her try to talk. Garble. She’s not dead.

Mom?

But she doesn’t answer.

*

The storm is hard to describe.

Like, “I look at the storm and see myself.”

Like, “I feel I’ll die due to storm-related head trauma.”

Like, “And what about the people who aren’t me? What’s the storm like for them, where are they? It’s useless to wonder this but do nothing. I think I’m bad.”

Like, “I actually make a dark and stormy. In my mind I raise a toast with mom’s ghost.”

Like, “The thunder is dad, the lightning mom, the raindrops Cheryl. The baby?”

Like, “Thinking of my baby as the storm rages, I feel badly about the environment: specifically, climate change.”

Like, “I don’t hear the knocks at the door over the storm sounds so the paramedics have to break mom’s wood door.”

Like, “The paramedics’ ponchos seem used up and the paramedics themselves are still soaked all the way through. I’m swept into my old bedroom like dust while they work on mom. No windows in my old room. Safe.”

Like, “The paramedics come in to tell me that mom’s not dead but that she has overdosed on her back pain meds. They are taking her to the hospital now. They will try to brave the storm conditions. They ask if I will be riding in the ambulance—they understand if I don’t want to risk it.”

Like, “I decline another call from Lorenzo. I text and tell him I’m okay, just bad reception because of the storm. He responds with a thumbs up emoji.”

Like, “The back doors of the ambulance close and the rain’s hit me so hard even the baby feels wet. The ambulance wades in our race against time.”

Like, “There should never be a season for things like this.”

Like, “The storm is just a device. Like mom or dad or Cheryl or Lorenzo or the baby.”

Like, “I look at the storm and ask, Why can’t you be other, better weather?”

The storm stops.

The storm starts.

The storm says, What storm?

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A BOLD NEW KIND OF STORY by Michael Mungiello

Something new…

Something new…

I need to do something new…

Something new…

Something new…

I need to do something new…

It will be new…

It will come now…

Somehow…

Somewhere…

I know…

It will start on the next page…

One time I was reading important books…

It was very important that I read them…

They addressed concerns…of the people…of the elites…history…art…religion…politics…

I was interested in those things…

People I admired were interested in those things…

So I read in pursuit of these people’s interest…

In the hopes that one day…a book would be written…about me…by all those I admired…

When we are young we believe such things…

We feel born to be admired…

Books feel like they can go on forever…and we can keep riding the train…along with these writers, their writing, their voices, their faces waiting for us at the station of arrival…

I was on a train…

I saw a sign…a train sign…

A sign for the train…

To tell it what was coming…

How fast to go…

How far away it was from somewhere…

What it was leaving behind…

I don’t know…

It was in another language…

I was travelling by train, to see a woman I was in love with…

No I wasn’t…

I was there to visit my Dad…

He was on a business trip…

I was abroad…

But I was reading a book about a love affair…

And I thought to myself…

My, what splendor…

The romance…

What it must be like to be young and travel in a train in Europe to the woman you love, whose role in your life is…mysterious…

Yeah…

Hey…

Give me a break…

I was young…

Books made an impression on me…

But this sign distracted me from this book…

Which I thought meant so much to me…

And which I thought would continue to mean very much to me my entire life…

But I looked up from the book…

To contemplate a line I’d read in it…

To look out the window and think…

Oh, wow…

What a good line…

So true to life and my heart…

Look, the landscape…

It almost reflects what that line means…to me…

But I saw the sign…

And the font…was so much bigger…

And I thought to myself, That…

That contains more meaning…

Than anything I’ve ever seen before…

I couldn’t read it…but it was telling me something…

Not just me…but the whole train…

The letters were so big that even people who couldn’t read would be interested…

The letters were so big…God would be interested…

This…

This was something new…

This was something I would never forget…

I forgot the exact letters…

But I have never forgotten the sign…

The feeling…

To perceive something I knew was important but also knew nothing about…

I have tried all my life to capture that feeling once again…

I had the feeling that I could recapture this feeling by…

By…

By…

Doing something new…

Getting back there…

But how…

Become…rich…

No…

Become…good…

No…

Become…strong…

No…

Become…pure…

No, haha…

I could do it one way and one way only…

By writing a book of my own…

To make my own letters…

My own signs…

Charting the course of my own voyage…

That was the ticket…

But how could I write a book…I had nothing to say…no argument…no expertise…no polemic…no religion…no politics…no art…only the desire for people to never forget something that didn’t mean anything to them, beyond being unforgettable…

But that still had something to do with Dad…

With love…

With journeys…

Was that enough to make a book for… with…towards…against…

Well…

Well…

Well…

I don’t know…

But then I thought…

Well…

Well…

Well…

If I just…make the font…really big…then…

Then the book will write itself…

All I need to do is provide the…elementary materials…

A narrator…(me)…

A setting…(Europe)…

A character…(my dad)…

A plot…(the quest to recapture a feeling)…

A point of view…(mine, the correct one)…

A theme…(literarture)…

And it’s all there…

And everyone will root for my demise…

The end of the book…

The return back to life…

Which you didn’t like while you were there…

But now that it’s been interrupted…by this story about me and my Dad…and my imaginary lover…and Europe…

Now that you’ve come this far…

You’re back in your life…and you can regard your life…the same way you would home…after a trip…the pleasure of return…

Thank you for reading this…

It is a mystery, is it not…

The ways we deserve each other…

How we see each other across the tracks…

Books are like trains…books are like tickets…books are like stations…

But reading is boring…

We just do it for…some other reason…

 

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