Capsula Mundi
by Micah Clopton
www.capsulamundi.it/en/
Even at age 33, one can think about a burial.
As for me, I’ll be a pod for a tree to grow up into his grave.
Imagine a man, fetal in sac, to feed the world, not after.
But from among his visceral stuff;
Planted like a tree by a stream of Eden.
In due season, these leaves will yield
Familial fruit in the forested midst of my peers.
Ah, to be the buried red pulp of a green olive for the gods!
Seething dryad egg, a living seed, to be the branches
From which to hang a swing, or nest the sparrow:
Branches, to jettison the sunset’s energy.
Sic transit Gloria mundi! Glory container?
Withal desire to be shorn of life’s coverings,
And be born again as a sycamore tree, literally.
Nerites
by Chester Sellars
I have ruined, and been ruined by, many, many
I have and we have been skewered for and by desires, our own and one another’s
I have been had and have had desires and pains mingled, been both party and privy
To my own self-destruction, throwing blows he and he and he never intended
and I have thrown blows back, trust, both knowing and not
Both loving and not.
Seasons make little sense, make little trysts, make big times seem small—
bearable.
The state of a heart, ruined and not, knotted and what
I could tell you, in time, in time, in time.
I could tell all of you, but—
time.
It is the nature of the thing, itself,
that my words twist and reach, break surface and crash,
Zeno-esque, their goal never met, or, perhaps, never known.
The layers, pulled away from one another—
lips reveal teeth, reveal lips, reveal teeth, reveal—
amount to just more of the same, which is, I fear,
Nothing.
I fear, I fear, I—
Is it winter or spring or does it matter at all?
No. Of course it doesn’t.
Oh! Desire, lay still, be dead.
Tomorrows will never fulfill,
you or I or anyone.
Lay still, still—
there is more to come, though, what it amounts to is…
A letter, of color or character or…
A letter, sure, branded or sent, to you or I, or desire itself—
all skewered, all still, lay still, still, still, please,
Just… Still a word, or phrase, can’t rise above the sea, can’t crest beyond itself
Be more than just a word or phrase, be meant or, in time, resented.
My tongue, my hands, my body, detached all from me, I pray, but know better, still,
writhing.
Oh, desire.
Berlin
by John Powell
In Berlin, where you wore your beard long and your hair short, we did not talk easy. Often it was like this: a supplicant coming before some distant god, the Canaanite kind, black basalt watered with blood. I was older than I looked, and you seemed older than you were. You were our spokesman—your German was poor but mine was worse. The cranes stalked us like architectural vampires. It seemed impossible that the Reichstag was ever wrapped. The coffee was expensive but the cigarettes were cheap, and often we walked the night streets with no light but the red pinprick of yours, where silence was our anointed king. The beggars could smell the American on us, but turned away when they saw the calluses on your knuckles. The flaneurs could smell it too, pointedly turning up their noses at us, with their artfully knotted scarves, cultivated manners, and graceful carriage. This is the wrong place for that, you told them. Berlin is a city of rough beards, ironworks, stouts thick enough to chew, and black humors. It is no city for pretenses. They ignored you with careful Parisian dignity. The poets spat into crowded alleyways and the philosophers jumped from scaffolds.
The Things I Do (When Missing You)
by Madison Bremer
Sometime after
The last time I said goodbye,
I found your toothbrush
Standing, neglected, next to mine.
Pinched between my two thin (too thin) fingers,
I contemplated the fragile plastic, eyes widening.
I placed it between my lips, reminiscing,
Hoping the taste of you would linger there.
But, on my tongue,
Disappointment and longing.
Devil’s Den
by Sloan Davis
My father sat in the backseat as if I was his own private chauffeur. His White Sox ball cap sat on top of his head, covering his growing bald spot, and filling my rearview mirror. We pulled into Moscow, Idaho worn out from the weight of driving for hours in an August heat, and found ourselves stuck in a long stretch of stoplights behind RVs and semis. We were a couple of days out from the Oregon coast where we hoped to join other fathers and sons at the Iron John Jamboree. There, we would bond around campfires accompanied by acoustic guitars, and beat drums while talking about the frustrations and challenges of being a son or a father. An old man and his wife pulled out in front of us in their expansive RV, waving thank you, and pulling behind them an SUV with an “old people like it slow” bumper sticker.
The air conditioner whined against the black interior of our rental car and the dashboard radiated heat like a stove. I wiped sweat off my forehead. It didn’t help matters that at thirty I had recently failed another diet. Diet number sixteen, the radical Brussels Sprouts Diet, which involves eating little else than those leafy green bulbs. All I got was a severe case of gas.
My father studied me, turned to look out of the side window, and said, “For a grown man, you sure could use a bra.” His gray, two-inch ponytail stuck out from under his hat like the stunted ass of a raccoon, and I fought the urge to reach back and rip it out.
He was out to hurt, start a fight, convinced of tough-love therapy that I would somehow feel so demoralized I would lose weight through mere mortification. I exhaled and counted the way my psychiatrist had told me. I reached down and fiddled with my cell phone, remembering that Dr. Moore had advised me to call if the stress became too much, but I released it.
After some time fighting the tourist traffic, we pulled into a gas station to fill up and get a cold soda. My father got out and pumped the gas without a word. He was still sore at my choice of a rental car. I had picked a Hyundai Accent, your typical passenger sedan, albeit a bit small. The stunted hood and trunk curved to the ground, and gave the effect of a sad insecure car, but it was affordable. My father, taken aback when he first saw it, shook his head and said, “What’s wrong with you, Dumbnut? You want me to travel halfway across the country in a fricking tuna can?” I had refused to give in to his tantrum, and so for most of the drive down the Idaho panhandle we sat in silence.
I walked across the gas station parking lot, and opened the glass doors when I realized I’d forgotten my wallet. My father, finished with the gas, started walking towards me. I held the door open for a lady and her child and called to him. “Dad can you get my wallet out of the car?”
He stopped in middle of the parking lot and put his hand to his ear. “Out of the what?”
“The car,” I said, still holding the door open for people who came and went. It was a busy place.
My father put his other hand to his other ear. “The what?”
I smiled at a teenage kid whose arms were covered with tattoos. “The Hyundai, Dad, the Hyundai.”
My father shook his head with both hands still cupping each ear.
Many people stopped what they were doing to watch this banter. A tall pick-up pulled in behind my father and waited for him to do something because he blocked their access to the gas pumps. Two big fellas sat in the cab, and the passenger stared at me as if it was my fault.
I waved for my father to move. “Dad, come on, just get my wallet.”
My father threw up his hands in frustration. “What?”
“I need my wallet!” I ignored the old lady who stopped in front of me with two large drinks in her hands, watching my father in the parking lot.
“Where is it?” He spoke as if I had just asked him.
“In the car, Dad.” I jerked my head to the right to get the old lady to move on. She too gave me a strange look.
My father turned to the guys in the truck, shrugged his shoulders at them, and then turned back to me. “The what?”
Everybody had now stopped doing what they’d come to do. Even the cashiers looked over the candy racks at us. I ran a hand through my hair. “The fricking tuna can, okay. Are you happy? The fricking tuna can. The fricking tuna can!”
My father gave me the thumbs up. “Sure, no problema.” And he sauntered back to the car as if it was no big deal.
Soon after that embarrassing display, we made the deep descent to Lewiston and the Snake River. I had never been in that part of the country before, and it was strange to drop a thousand feet on a switchback road into a lonesome little community against a wide, slow-moving river.
The surrounding bald hills of dead grass reflected a gold hue from the setting sun. It was in that golden glow, driving west of Lewiston, that I first spotted them, a couple of dark specs up against the horizon, on a hill, with the western sky gradually melding from light blue to pinkish-orange. As I drove closer, they looked like two wraiths standing sentry over the road: one with a Mohawk, the other with long hair whipping in the dry wind. When we came up on them, I could tell they were young, at least a lot younger than me, and they were looking for a ride.
My father pushed his face to the window as we passed. “Pull over,” he said.
“What? No.” I gripped the steering wheel and shook my head.
He used my seat to pull himself up so he could speak directly into my ear. “Pull over,” he growled. “It’s about time we had some excitement on this trip, and those young ladies look like they need a ride.”
“What? Are you crazy? I’m not picking up hitchhikers. Do you know how dangerous that is?” I sounded every bit like the parent rather than the child.
My father slapped the back of my headrest causing me to jerk the car into the left lane. “Pull over, Dumbnut. Don’t be a pussy.”
I yanked the wheel toward the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. We were past the hitchhikers and halfway down the opposite side of the hill.
My father sighed. “Now, put it in reverse and back up slowly. Use your flashers. And for God’s sake stay to the right of the white line.”
I did this, weaving a little every time the tires caught on the edge of the blacktop, which caused him to grunt as he looked out of the back window. His tiny nub of a ponytail stared straight back at me while I bent around, my side pinching, trying to see through my father. A large, jacked-up 4x4 roared past us. Its driver blasted the horn, causing me to overreact and swerve into the highway.
My father grabbed my headrest for support. “For Christ’s sake! Watch what you’re doing.”
I slowed down to a crawl. The eastern horizon turned cobalt blue, and I couldn’t pick them out as we crested the hilltop.
“Stop.” My father peered out the back window. “Put it in park and honk the horn.”
“Dad, this isn’t a good idea.”
He waved his hand at me, blowing me off. “Honk.”
I tapped the horn with my index finger. It beeped like a toy penguin.
My father rubbed his face. “You got to be kidding me.” He reached over my shoulder and laid his thick hand into the horn. “That’s how you honk a horn, Dumbnut.”
We unrolled our windows and I prayed the hitchhikers hadn’t heard us or that they had been picked up by the 4x4 that almost ran us over. A hot breeze cut across the rugged ground. The land was silent and peaceful, but I felt a distinct unease creeping through the scrawny thin weeds that hugged the highway. They seemed to be lifeless, but small sharp leaves poked out here and there, and they whistled when the wind went through them, as if sharing a whisper.
My father, on the other hand, was all in a flutter. He could hardly sit still. As soon as we saw their silhouettes shuffling toward us, my father jumped out of the car and waved them over. They drifted to a stop a few feet from the car’s back bumper. I feared my father was going to hug them he was so excited. I leaned against the side pane, arms crossed over my belly.
They were attractive in a dirty sort of way and not as young as I first thought. My father bounced on the balls of his feet, standing way too close and actually sniffing the air. “You hipstas don’t happen to have any herb do ya?” my father asked lighting a cigarette.
Oh my god, I thought. Please stop right now. Do not bring back your Sixties swinging persona. When the one with the pink Mohawk answered, “We got a pipe, but no green,” my father said, “No problema.” He then proceeded to spin around in a circle snapping his fingers as if listening to some silent Miles Davis recording in his head. “Man, I dig a crazy day like today.”
I grinned at the long-haired hitchhiker who raised her eyebrows at me after witnessing my father’s inspired little jig. She had a pale face, with thin red lips and pretty, sad eyes. It horrified me that my father continued to think he was still hip and on the scene like some aged Jack Kerouac with gray, thinning hair and a round, overfed belly. I asked myself, when does it stop?
We stuffed Mohawk girl’s bag in the trunk. It might have been her dark eyes glaring at me, or the many facial piercings, or the fact she had distorted male figures and Asian symbols tattooed on her neck and pale arms, but she seemed angry at life. Her name was Roxy, and I trusted her not one bit.
When she saw our camping equipment in the trunk, she said, “Is Daddy taking his boy camping?”
My face flooded with heat. I would have told her to get her bag out of the car, but my father’s laugh cut me off. “Yeah, yeah, can you dig it? She’s got our number, doesn’t she? Man, crazy, crazy.”
He slapped his knees and retied his ponytail, hooting and hollering as if the world was one big comic strip. He walked over to Darla, the other hitchhiker, snapped up her pack and threw it in the backseat, so she would have to sit next to him. Darla didn’t seem to notice. She sat in the middle of the seat sandwiched between her pack and my father. Her pale, plump cheeks were baby-smooth and from what I could tell she had neither piercing nor tattoo. She might have passed for someone much younger except for the tiredness in her eyes.
Roxy sat up front with me, opened the glove compartment, snatched a pen and some matches, and stuffed them into her pocket. She gave me a funny look when I put my cell phone in my shirt pocket. As I got the car up to 75 mph I couldn’t help myself from staring at her, especially the piercings in her lower lip. And her clothes were soiled. I swear I caught the scent of fermented onions. I shuttered at the thought of germs.
“Where are you two young ladies headed?” my father asked, a dramatic look of concern in his eyes.
“West. We had business in Lewiston. Family stuff. We left ASAP.” Roxy’s voice shot out the words in a cold, none-of-your-business manner.
Above us, a grayish-purple cloud stretched from the south, surrounding the waning sun. The sun stretched into a flaming red stain behind the bizarre cloud. And it was strange, almost extraterrestrial: a Close Encounters of the Third Kind moment. It was in no way natural, and it added to my already heightened state of apprehension.
Roxy laid a hand on my arm. “So, what’s the occasion?”
I jumped at her touch. “What?”
Roxy leaned forward and looked me in the eye. “Don’t play coy. Why are you and hipsta daddy going camping? Is this an every-summer-since-you-were-old-enough-to-pee-standing-up event, or what?”
My father slapped my headrest. “She is something, isn’t she? Old enough to pee standing up, precious, man, precious.”
I shot my father an angry look through the rearview mirror. However, instead of giving him the seventh degree with a hateful glance, I instead watched him stretch and lay one arm around Darla’s shoulders. She didn’t object. She pulled out an emery board and started filing her nails.
I shook my head and watched the road. “No, for your information, we’ve never been camping together. We’re going to an important retreat.”
“A retreat? You mean like some kind of family get-together?” Roxy’s voice had a “oh no, you didn’t just say that” quality.
“I told you. She’s a dart, that one, quick as a chipmunk. Better watch yourself.” My father laughed and started playing with Darla’s hair. She giggled and held his hand.
I pointed through the windshield, hoping to change the subject. “Why is that cloud purple?”
“Smoke,” Roxy said.
“Smoke? From what?”
“A forest fire east of Walla Walla. It crosses into three states. It’s all over the local news. You need to pay closer attention.”
I fought the impulse to scream in Roxy’s face, and instead chanced a glance into the back seat. I couldn’t believe it. My father slobbered on Darla’s ear. No subtle nibbling, but actual devouring. Her entire ear vanished. Darla giggled and played with my father’s fingers. She pulled out her black nail polish and went to work on my father’s nails. I kept glancing back, especially when my father whispered, “groovy” or “far-out.” When she finished with his hand my father nodded his approval and offered his other.
Darla jerked her head back. “You’re missing digits—gross.”
My father laughed and wiggled his shortened fingers through her hair. Four fingers, from the index to the pinky, were cut off after the first or second joint, a drilling machine accident when he was in his twenties, so his stumpy fingers looked like Vienna sausages. Only the thumb remained intact.
He held them out for Darla. “Paint them.”
Outside, the sky darkened, and the rolling hills grew bigger and constant, but I couldn’t enjoy the view. I couldn’t keep my eyes on the road. I couldn’t help but watch this young woman paint little faces on my father’s fat bald digits while he slurped, licked and chewed on her ear. And all that time, out of the corner of my eye, I was aware of Roxy staring at me. I tried to ignore her, but as I did, she leaned closer, closer and closer until her face was centimeters from mine.
I smelled that fermented onion reek. “What? What?”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me about this retreat of yours.” Roxy sat back in her seat.
I wasn’t about to give Roxy one more bit of information on our trip, but my father was there to help. “Tell her about the Iron John Jamboree. She’ll dig it.”
I shot another hateful glare into the backseat, but immediately flipped up the rearview mirror when I saw my father’s fat tongue fill Darla’s mouth. “Your friend looks like she needs you.”
“She can take care of herself. What?” Roxy placed her hand on my arm again. “Are you jealous?”
I jerked my arm away. “No.”
“Tell her about the goddamn jamboree, will ya Dumbnut?” My father took a long breath before interlocking his tongue with Darla’s again.
That was it. I jerked the car, just a little, so they stopped and looked around. When they relocked their lips, I touched the brakes. Again, they stopped and looked for the reason. When they went at it a third time I pulled the car over the white line, so the passenger side bounced in the weeds. Just before my father opened his mouth to speak, I turned up the radio and steered the car back on the highway.
I drove with both hands clenched to the wheel as Highway 129 pulled away from the Snake River. An explosion simmered inside me. It took everything I had to keep it in my stomach, but before I knew what I was doing, I turned off the radio.
“Robert Bly wrote a book about men called Iron John, a very good book, which inspired the men’s movement. The men’s movement? Any of this ring a bell? Probably not.” I gulped down large breaths. “Men have been led astray for generations. Robert Bly is a genius. He changed my life. He's calling us back to follow the wild man. That’s why we’re going to this retreat, to help regain our masculinity that has been distorted by modern times.”
There was a long silence when even Darla and my father stopped eating each other’s faces. I had delivered my tirade like an auctioneer.
“Wow!” laughed Roxy. “Just holy bullcrap wow!”
“I know, I know.” My father laughed. “Crazy, crazy.”
All three of them laughed hysterically. It was several minutes before my father could speak again. He wiped a tear from his eye. “Yeah, somehow we have to learn to balance the insensitivities of Fifties-man with the over-feministic qualities of Sixties-man.”
I clammed up and turned on the radio. They teased and laughed at me, but I ignored them completely, and pretended to watch the trees on the distant hills.
The smoke cloud caused a premature nightfall. The sky turned dark gray. An acrid burnt smell permeated the interior of the car causing my eyes to sting and water.
“Hey wild man, how long are you going to ignore us?” Roxy poked my side. She did it once, but the softness must have surprised her because she did it several more times as if she was looking for a missing comb. “You can’t ignore us all night.”
I bit my lower lip, exhaled, and counted.
“Leave him be,” my father said. “He always was a pouter.”
I was pouting. I knew it, but I couldn’t stop. It’s hard to stop when you’re in the middle of a good pout. Still, this didn’t stop me from thinking up some way to retaliate, which Dr. Moore warned me not to do.
“Shut up Dad. I’m sure your fantastic fathering skills had nothing to do with it.”
My father threw up his hands. “See.”
I slapped the steering wheel. “All right, now you listen. Keep it up, and I’m pulling the fricking tuna can over and you and your hobo girlfriends can get out. You dig, Papa-Smurf-Hipsta?”
There was the expected uncomfortable silence, which I welcomed.
“Everybody just calm down.” Roxy’s voice turned motherly in tone. “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to insult you. Okay?”
I stared straight ahead.
“You are so right,” my father said. “I dig your sensitivity.”
I flashed him a hateful glance in the rearview mirror, but he went right back to playing with Darla. I felt betrayed by the situation. And the last one to be consolatory and deliver calm should have been odious Roxy. It was a brilliant maneuver. She was now the voice of reason on the USS Nutjob.
She patted my arm. “Okay?”
“Okay, fine. It’s over.”
We pulled into a small town just east of the Umatilla National Forest. I didn’t catch the town’s name, but it was a scratch on a map: a cluster of a few shops and houses clinging to the highway. Surrounding a large gravel parking lot, sat three faded white buildings: The Bait Shop, The Antique Flea Market, and Bill and Ruth’s Eats. In the middle was a Shell gas station, which seemed to be the newest addition to the little town. The four buildings created the town center. Some of the locals stood talking to forest firefighters who dominated the place. They kept their fire trucks running. The big engines rumbled in the dust, and the headlights shined through the smoke-filled air.
We stopped at the gas station to fill-up and get supplies. Men in yellow hard hats and thick fire shirts loaded trucks or leaned against fenders smoking. Black charcoal marks covered their faces.
My father and our lovely companions climbed out. “Need anything?” my father asked. I ignored him and pumped gas.
A Forest Service truck pulled up on the other side of the gas pump. Four dirty firefighters slowly stepped out of the truck. Three made their way into the store. They looked exhausted.
I watched the driver pump gas. “Long day?” I asked, stating the obvious. I was desperate to talk to a normal person.
“You could say that.” The man’s voice was deep and rusty. He stood tall and straight. He stared at the ground with no focus in his eyes.
I tried again. “So, how bad is it?”
He looked up and examined me for a second before topping off his tank. “The Umatilla is only thirty percent contained. And Hell’s Canyon is scorched. It’s a tinderbox. Damn drought. We might get a break from the wind tomorrow, but we’re a long way off.”
The weight of responsibility hung on each of his words and I thought, if he had kids, they were sure to be proud of him. Who wouldn’t be proud of a father like that?
“Hey,” I said, remembering our plan to camp. “We’re trying to get to the Oregon coast. Think we’ll be able to get through?”
He nodded. “Yeah, highway’s clear.”
“What about camping? We were hoping to camp at Devil’s Den.”
“I believe Devil’s Den is still open, but…”
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” blared out of my pocket. I reached for my cell. “Hello.”
“Hello…”
“Thanks,” I whispered to the fireman. He nodded and turned away.
“…how are you?”
I straightened up, and cleared my throat. “Hi, Dr. Moore, I’m fine.” I tried to keep my voice as steady as possible.
“Hmm, are you sure? You sound different to me. I was starting to worry. You haven’t called.”
“Well, I wanted to, trust me.”
“You know how I feel about this trip. It wasn’t my idea.”
“I know Dr. Moore. I should have listened to you.”
“Do you think you should continue with this? Think about the stress and possible irrevocable damage this trip could have on your relationship with your father.”
“I know, Dr. Moore. But what can I do? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
The fireman gave me a quizzical look before walking toward the store. As he approached the store’s entrance my father barged out of the door and almost knocked over the exhausted firefighter. My father didn’t notice. He had two big paper bags in his arms. The girls carried one each.
“I’ve got to go Dr. Moore, sorry.” I stuffed my phone into my pocket.
“We’re gonna have a good times,” my father shouted. “That store has it all, even ammunition. Load ‘em up girls. Let’s get this party started.”
The three of them piled into the car, their bags of groceries tucked between their knees. My father pulled a brown liquor bottle out of one of the bags and proceeded to make drinks in the backseat.
As I pulled onto the highway my father tried to hand me a drink. I declined, citing the impractical and silly law of drinking while driving. My father shrugged, pouring my drink into his, and then held up his drink for a toast. “Here’s to howling at the moon.” The girls cheered.
I drove silently, trying to figure out how our trip of masculinity had been so easily shanghaied. I thought of Dr. Moore, and how he had disapproved from the start. I should have listened, but it was too late. Way too late. We were too far along to stop. “Only thirty percent contained,” the firefighter had said. What would it take to contain three lunatics? I wished I could put Dr. Moore on speakerphone because I felt as exhausted as that poor firefighter walking into the store.
It took forty-five minutes to reach Devil’s Den, but the campsite was open. At the entrance a large wooden sign notified everyone that campfires were not allowed due to the fire danger. I didn’t care. I wasn’t planning on staying up for long.
Devil’s Den was a rustic place. Tall cedars and pines swayed in the wind and hid any fading light left. Each campsite had its own private, wooded lot and a picnic table near a fire pit with a filthy grill leaning over it. Pine needles littered the ground, but the expected, pungent smell of evergreen was camouflaged by smoke. It was coming in from the south. My eyes continued to water, and the back of my throat felt scratched.
Still, I couldn’t wait to get out of the car and get some sleep. With any luck, our drunken hobos would accidentally wander off. But sleep would have to wait because my father was no help in setting up the tent. He was too busy messing with Darla. They drifted into the dark woods.
I wasn’t much of an outdoorsman, and the tent’s instructions were confusing. I went to the Hyundai and turned on the headlights to see clearly. Roxy sat at the picnic table and watched. The wind shifted, coming from the west and gusting much harder than before. But I carried on, grappling with the tent poles, snapping smaller segments into a single long pole, and then vainly trying to hook each pole to a corner peg of the tent, but the poles would bend and snap free leaving me exactly where I was a moment before. The wind blew the canvas into a wadded ball. I threw down the poles and screamed. The woods instantly swallowed it up, making me feel completely alone.
“Here.” Roxy stood next to me. “Have a drink, Dumbnut, to calm your nerves.”
“Don’t call me that!” Spit flew out of my mouth.
She wiped a hand over her face. “Only Daddy, huh?”
“Shut up and leave me alone.”
“Listen, I don’t want to get caught up in some family quarrel. It’s obvious you could use a drink. If you can find a way to calm your oversensitive ass down, I’ll help you with the tent.”
Darla and my father’s laughter echoed in the woods. My stomach tightened. I grabbed the drink, and followed Roxy to the picnic table. Her pink Mohawk stood out like a neon sign under the car’s headlights and against the dark forest green.
“You’re unhappy,” she said.
“You’ve noticed? Wow, how insightful.”
“Look. I don’t want to be at war with you. Okay?”
Roxy reached out and placed her hand on mine. Her hand was small, her fingers slight and child-like, and her nails painted pink to match her hair. It was such a contrast to her armored exterior.
“Okay.” I took a long drink.
Roxy leaned back and looked at me. “So, you and your father like to get on each other’s nerves.”
I laughed and nodded. “You’ve seen us at our best. The funny thing is all I want to do now is go home and not look back. And to think this was all my idea.”
“What was?”
My father’s throaty growl of a laugh split the trees. I looked up into the dark, smoke-covered sky. “This, from the road trip, to camping, to the Iron John Jamboree, everything—but you two.”
Roxy laughed, a good belly laugh. I enjoyed it, especially since it was the first time it wasn’t pointed directly at me.
“I guess it’s not supposed to be easy,” I said, more to myself than her.
“What?”
I took another drink. “Iron John.”
“Yeah, so tell me, what’s with this Iron John?” Roxy lit a cigarette. A red halo gleamed around her face.
“Well, all right, but don’t laugh.”
She put up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
So I told her the story of Iron John: about the coming of age of a boy. I explained how the hairy, wild man embodied masculinity, how the boy’s golden ball rolls into the wild man’s cage, how Iron John offers the boy a deal: freedom from the cage for the golden ball. I told her the key was under the boy’s mother’s pillow, and for the boy to steal the key was in fact a way for him to cut the umbilical cord, and start the journey into manhood. “It’s supposed to be symbolic.”
I shook my head. “I’m a thirty-year-old man still looking for answers.”
Roxy had a funny look on her face. I thought she was going to burst out laughing, but she said, “I know how you feel: looking for answers, that is.” She got up, turned off the car’s lights, grabbed the bottles of bourbon and coke, and sat next to me. “Let’s get drunk.”
We drank two strong drinks in silence, listening to the night and blinking smoke from our eyes. My father and Darla were somewhere out there, but they too were quiet. I rested my arms on my belly, letting my elbow touch Roxy’s arm.
At last, Roxy broke the silence. “You know, you’re not the only one having a hard time connecting with someone.”
Roxy swirled her drink with her index finger and stuck it in her mouth. Darla’s giggle came floating out of the woods. Roxy looked up and caught me staring at her. She nodded her head.
I opened my eyes wide. “Does she know?”
“Oh, she knows. We’ve been together for quite awhile now, but mainly as friends. She’s experimenting. I want more.”
“Experimenting?” I pointed into the woods. “So, a guy who could be her grandfather qualifies?”
“You don’t know Darla. She finds beauty in everything. That’s what attracts me to her. And I guess, that’s what attracts Darla to your father.” She looked away.
I could feel the warmth coming from Roxy’s body. My mouth went dry and my throat closed. I sipped the bourbon to cover my nerves, but then I acted without filtering. I laid my right arm over her shoulder. She leaned into me. Who was this guy? A calming sensation ran through me. For the first time in my life, I felt a sense of masculinity coming from me.
We sat like that for several minutes until my bladder betrayed me. I went behind the nearest tree. After a moment, I stumbled back, feeling the bourbon.
Roxy stirred my drink with her finger. Her other hand tucked something into her shirt’s pocket. “Just refreshed your drink, you were getting low. I think I might have made it a bit too strong though.”
I sat down. My head felt very light. “That’s okay.”
I woke with the afternoon sun baking my back. I felt horrible, hungover. I opened one eye: nothing but woods. At first I thought my eyesight was cloudy from the night before because it looked as if a light fog pushed through the trees, but then a metallic, acrid smell burnt my nostrils. A loud gurgling growl sounded right behind me. I rolled my head over and found my father’s face centimeters from mine. His sour breath almost made me puke.
I rolled over and mumbled, “Dad, wake up.”
He didn’t move.
I forced myself onto one elbow and looked around: only the picnic table, the grill and the woods. I shot all the way up. The tent, our gear, even the Hyundai was gone.
“Dad!” I slapped his bare ass. “Wake up! They took everything!”
He grumbled in his sleep.
“Your girlfriends took all of our stuff, even the rental car.” I stood up. My naked body stung from pine needles sticking to my stomach and legs. They had dragged us to the farthest corner of the campsite where nobody would see us if they drove by.
“Oh no, not my phone, not Dr. Moore. Please tell me they didn’t steal my phone.” I ran around in circles. Pine needles, rocks, branches blurred before me.
My father sat up and stretched, rubbing his face. “Crazy.”
I stopped. “Crazy? You bet your bare ass it’s crazy!”
I ran and grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him hard. I wanted him to shove me. I wanted him to take a punch at me, but he didn’t do anything, so I pulled back and slapped him hard across the cheek. The sound echoed against the woods. “You son-of-a-bitch.” My voice was low, almost a growl. “You’ve fucked everything up.”
I slapped him again. The muscles in his neck flinched. I curled my fingers into a fist and swung right for his nose. He caught my arm. “Are you finished?”
I stopped struggling, and he let me go. I walked away, throwing up my arms in frustration, and shaking my head.
I picked up a rock, and threw it into the woods. I went for another when I heard a strange noise escape my father’s lips. At first, I couldn’t believe what I had heard, but then my father said it again: “I’m sorry.”
This was the moment. This was the moment I had been waiting for my entire life, the moment to finally connect with my father, but then Michael Jackson’s preteen voice blared in the silent woods.
I walked over to a trunk and found my phone sitting there. So, our hobo hitchhikers weren’t absolute evil. They’d left us a way to call for help. Dr. Moore’s name lit up with each high note. I let it go to voice mail. I turned, prepared to embrace my father, but it was then, staring at my stripped father, pine needles sticking to his body, that I noticed the message. How could I have missed it?
A shaved oval in my father’s chest hair revealed the word, HIPSTA. It was written in bright pink nailpolish and outlined in black. My father pointed at my chest. The word DUMB was written in the same fashion.
“Turn around,” I said.
On my father’s back, which was also shaved, giant letters spelled DADDY. “Hipsta Daddy,” I whispered.
My father faced me. I didn’t need to be told. I turned around. My father spelled NUT. I nodded. All of my heightened emotion left. Our moment to unite flitted away with the graffiti on our skin.
And then reality came rushing back with a thick wave of smoke. Branches popped in the distance. I looked into the woods and saw fire licking the base of a sapling.
We ran, naked as newborns, our manhood flapping in the wind. All of the campsites were abandoned. Devil’s Den was empty. They must have issued an order to evacuate first thing in the morning. Our hitchhiking buddies did well in hiding us.
The gravel bit our bare feet, and our ankles turned white with dust. The smoke grew intense as the rushing fire took over the campsite. We raced around a sharp bend, and down a small hill to put some distance between the fire and us. I heard trucks, deep rumbling engines: Forest Service trucks.
We stopped to catch our breath. In the gravel, I spotted a long piece of string. It looked like a string off our tent. I ripped large leaves from a nearby bush, bit the dusty string in two and attached a couple of leaves to one half. I wrapped the string around my waist: a crude loincloth to cover up.
I ran to catch up with my father. “Dad, here let me help you.”
“With what?”
I held out the string and leaves. “With this, to cover yourself.”
He pushed my hand away. “I’m not wearing that. Could be poison oak.”
“Dad, it’s not, come on. We’re almost to the highway. You need to cover your shame.”
“My shame? I’m not ashamed of my manhood.” My father laid his hand on my chest. “Son, it’s you that has shame. Embrace your manhood, son. We’re not perfect, but it’s who we are.”
He straightened himself up, lifted his chin proudly, and marched toward the highway. Dirty, naked, with hair sticking out everywhere, my father cut through the forest like a wild man. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Michael Jackson’s high-pitched voice sang from my phone again. I opened my hand and stared blankly at Dr. Moore’s name flashing at me.
I looked up at my father strolling casually, as if he and the woods were inseparable.
He waved his Vienna sausage fingers. “Come on, son.”
I glanced back and forth between my singing cell phone and my father, until he turned and walked toward the highway.
I ripped off my makeshift loincloth, dropped it in the white gravel at my feet, and threw my phone in the direction of the fire. Michael Jackson’s voice faded away as I ran after my father, the word “Daddy” glistening pink in the hot afternoon sun.
The Not-So-Gentle Giant
by Briann Piguet
Anxiety.
It is overwhelming and powerful and all-knowing. Omniscient. It is the fear of the unknown, that fear of judgment. Criticism. It is the knowing that they are looking at you. Staring at you. Knowing. Ready to pounce. Watching and waiting and wondering.
Watching to see what you do.
Waiting to see what you say; waiting to see if you mess up. Royally.
Wondering if you’re just going to stand there as your heart races and your cheeks flush and your pulse hammers and your hands shake. And shake. And shake.
Because you have to stand up in front of them. Say a few words. But they are not the type of crowd that you usually hang out with, talk to. They are not your friends. They are not your enemies. They are they—and that is that. And you are you. And anxiety is there enveloping you in its presence, bringing you into the dark and bringing you down away from “they.”
Who is “they,” you might ask?
“They” is them. Classmates. Employers. Co-workers. Acquaintances. Strangers—especially strangers, because that is who they become to you in your subconscious. When you are standing in front of them, whether it is for work or school, they become the unknown that you fear. You do not really know what is going on inside of their heads or what they are whispering about when they lean in toward each other as you open your mouth to speak. You do not really know how they are going to react to what you have to say or if they want to hear it or if they are actually paying attention to you; however, you might feel like you do. You might feel like you just know that they are going to say something to their neighbor and laugh; you might feel like you just know that one of them is going to point you out to someone even when you are already standing in the spotlight—the front of the room—and giggle.
Now, let me say something here about that. You might have asked yourself this, once upon a time: Why does it matter if they care what you say or if they want to hear it or if they are paying attention? The truth is, in your anxiety, it matters. A lot. And a lot is expecting too much because it is an obstacle you have to push past.
Just think of the obstacle like a giant. It is like this big giant that you never want to cross paths with. To cross paths with The Giant means that you will either a) run from it, or b) face it. Running away will not dissolve your fears—facing The Giant will. Because facing this beast means that you cannot hide. You cannot hide underneath it—it is not a rock. You cannot climb over it—it is not a mountain. You cannot go around it—it is not a river bend. But you can go through it by gathering your courage and following the light within you that has been imprisoned, hidden away deep down. The light within you that has always been there, the light that has for so long wanted to shine through, because you know that you can do it. You know that you can move on and push past the inability to persevere: the inability to persevere that anxiety has thrown at you that is false, because you do have the ability to carry on. Go the distance.
Go the distance and keep away from The Giant, your anxiety.
Just don’t step over the ledge. Don’t cross that threshold. You should not let your anxiety or fear overcome you. It is that obstacle you can get past, an obstacle that you can push away and more importantly, that you can defeat. To defeat this fear is to accept that it is there—and that is a scary thing. Once you have, it is no longer so frightening because you are halfway there to being the victor.
How does any of this relate to you? You might be asking yourself. It sounds like just another rant. What is the purpose of saying all of this? It seems like gibberish.
I, myself, have fallen to the feet of anxiety. The giant at the top of the beanstalk. As I write this—as I read this—my heart races and my cheeks flush and my pulse hammers and my hands shake. And shake. And shake. I know, though, that my own anxiety can relate to yours, because anxiety is just that: anxiety. It is the monster that lives under the bed. It is the monster that hides in the closet. It is the giant at the top of that beanstalk.
And I know that just as I have done myself, many times, that you, too, can climb up that beanstalk. I know that you, too, can gather your bravery and your wits and your courage and your faith. Use these as your weapons against the giant and defeat it. Chop down the beanstalk so that the giant can never again be free and you will find just as I have, that, once you have taken down the giant, you yourself will be freed.
So listen to your mind and your heart. Lift your chin high. Look out into the crowd. Look them in the eyes and smile.
Defeat the not-so-gentle giant.
And begin.
The Death of the Statue of David
by John David Ira
Adonis is the only other name I would take at this point. At the hands of Michelangelo, I was born an exaggerated man. My namesake, David from the bible—the boy who killed the giant—bore only my name in conjunction. Rather than a teenager cowering under the shadow of a massive being, my artist had fashioned me bold in muscle and hand. My feet as giant as raw stone and my features harsh in their off white pallor, I stretched higher than David’s original brutish foe. As if purposefully, the threat of David’s giant had been subverted in one large block of art. All that was intimidating and overpowering about the giant was now recreated in me so as to show the power of man to conquer and then embody its own enemy. Pensive, yet astute, my face stared deeply and penetrated even the darkness. I stared so blankly yet so fiercely towards the same horizon for so long that I sometimes forgot what people look like.
My creator first gave me sight shortly after the year 1500 and I rested in my own hall for many centuries with onlookers flooding in from India, South America, and the like. They would come to gawk in wonder at my perfection. I could never turn to face them, but I felt their hard stare. I heard their words and their thoughts. As if screaming from within their ribcages, they affixed their impressions to me. They saw beauty in my cold surfaces—in the muscles that seemed lifelike, yet still and surreal. Every slow step they took as they paced around me with their eyes glued to my Carrara flesh was filled with wonder at what kind of man I could have truly been. So many theories drifted through their minds about what I was thinking for so many years—what I would have said given part in my lips.
I heard their sweat drip from their noses and hit the ground. Thinking of things they would do to my godlike figure given the chance to be as naked as I in an empty hall with me—perverse thoughts that had women grinding their thighs and men shifting awkwardly from side to side, thoughts about touching and carnal bodies, thoughts that had their cheeks swelling with blood in embarrassment. They objectified me and brutalized me in their minds. They’d slap me and chain me up, and then toss me like a beaten animal. I could hear them snicker at how small my member was. Students would laugh and point at it. They pondered it and considered why I was carved that way. They asked if it was meant to humble me. They asked if it was from the cold. They asked, as if I would answer.
I bathed in their words. My marble was washed clean with each silken string of compliments. I wore them like a crown and held them fast like the stone I perpetually rested upon my shoulder.
I wanted them to fill me full of praise and to adore me. I wanted them to treat me like their god and let no others stand more handsomely before them. I willed that they would ogle with drool dripping. I wanted them to hang jewels from my limbs and lay naked in pain at my feet as if raked through hell by simply looking at me. I wanted them to suffer and bleed beneath me so that they felt the truth of devotion to their muse. I wanted them to write stories of my magnificence and to sin for me. I wanted them to grovel as I stood, unmoving in my years.
I wanted immortality.
At least that was until a small woman came flying through the night into my hall.
I couldn’t see her because she came from the shadows after they had locked the doors, but I heard how lightly she flew across the slick floor—dress licking the ground and snapping softly. I could hear her mind racing as if trying to beat her body to my feet.
“Leave no god behind” is what ticked through her mind repeatedly.
What a curious thing for such a young woman to be thinking. No god behind? Was I this god? I had not heard the whisper of her subconscious before, so I wasn’t sure if she was a visitor from the day. Had she come to see me in the moonlight or perhaps to speak to me about her secrets? Many had broken in at night to unburden themselves to me like the collared clergy, but this felt different.
As she abruptly landed on the ground, knees bent, in front of me, her ginger hand stretched out towards my enormous pedestal. In her hands, she bore a white cloth drenched in water and oils. As if washing them, her hands and towel met my white feet and I was immediately enveloped in torture. A whirling pain like fire leapt inside my solid body. It twisted and clawed at my core so as to empty it fistful of rubble at a time. I could hear shrieking in my head and my façade began to crumble. First, my shoulders and arms cracked. Then my fingers, hands, muscles, torso, ears, hair—they all disintegrated as I deconstructed and scattered across the floor. The largest piece of me left recognizable, a fraction of my head, spun loosely as it settled by the woman still kneeling on the floor.
As the sounds of falling rock and clatter faded from roars back to nightly silence, she leaned over her lap and placed her gentle hand on my cheek, whispering lightly as she rose to stand.
“My dear child, David. You have stood before man and watched as he turned to beast. You have heard his darkest demons bantering and cawing from within the breasts of leaders. You have been slandered and praised, watched and ignored, glorified, vandalized, and murdered in their minds. Through all, you have been stalwart and poised. You have maintained your grandeur and stamina while their thoughts cut and bruised even your stone. All of these things are the markings of a god to be recognized. There was but one thing you had yet to experience before your ascension: the touch of a soul. It was when I stepped toward you, placed my hands upon you, and shared my soul with you that you shattered beneath its weight.”
As she finished, she turned to depart with only a few final words escaping as she evaporated.
“It will forever be your curse to peer from the ground towards the pedestal on which you stood and asked for godliness, constantly reminded of your downfall at the hand of the beast’s soul.”
And with that, the witch was gone.
No Fear
by Jessica Hulsey
The wailing of sirens is etched into my brain, throbbing and gnawing away. I feel like I’ve been sitting at my kitchen table for years, though it’s only been a couple of hours. Time acts differently when your mind is at a standstill. Paramedics and police officers come in and out of my house, breezing by me, while I stare at the chipping floral wallpaper I never cared to replace. The house was built in the heart of Ann Arbor in the 1970s and it has some serious flair. Wood-paneled walls lead up to arched entries and lead down to thick, wooly carpet—a mixture of brown and burnt orange. When Jackson and I picked this place out three years ago, it was perfect for me, perfect for us, and perfect for our supposed future family. Now it feels hollow and haunted. I’m sitting here getting lost in delicate floral designs, stirring my cold coffee, trying to listen to the detective and respond accordingly. His name is something very Italian, like Candolini or Tortellini, but I can’t remember what he said. It all feels like so long ago. My mind won’t stop ticking and running around inside my skull. I didn’t tell the emergency dispatcher much, and I’m at a loss for words now. I told them what they needed: My name is Elizabeth Carter and I killed my husband.
The dispatcher received my call at 7:13 on a Wednesday night. I shot my husband. Twice, for good measure. I should have shot him thirty-four times; one bullet for each time he hit me. I didn’t know he had a temper. He didn’t know I had a gun. The officers who showed up took one look at my battered body and swollen eye and ordered the paramedics to usher Jackson’s body out of our house. It’s been four hours of routine questions and my same answers. It was self-defense. I told him, “I’m pregnant. We’re having a baby.” He didn’t believe me, said I cheated, and got angry. He threatened me, punched me in my face, and as I lay unconscious, he left. He came back reeking of booze, slurring and angrier, if possible. I was pretending to be asleep in the bedroom, and he dragged me by my ankle out of the bed, onto the floor, ready for another fight. I already had the gun, a small, matte black pistol, loaded and I shot him once in the chest, and when he lunged at me, once more in the neck. It’s been five hours since they took his body and I can still smell his blood, thick in the carpet.
Nausea bubbles up in my stomach and I look at Detective Pasta. He is wearing some form of sympathy on his face. It makes me feel even sicker. I excuse myself and walk down the hallway into the bathroom. The pregnancy test is still sitting on the counter, its little pink lines staring at me. I haven’t looked in the mirror since this morning. I splash water on my bruised face and try to find the green in my eyes. Who are you? My red hair, once full and long, is tangled with streaks of gray. Premature aging due to extensive stress, or some other bullshit medical reason.
Jackson wasn’t always so angry. At one point, I believe he truly loved me. When we met, he said I was mesmerizing and too good to resist. He said he had to marry me, had to have me forever. He lifted me high off the ground and placed me on a pedestal. God, he was so beautiful. Jackson is—was—sculpted to perfection. His broad, tan shoulders held up a head full of blond, tousled hair. His full lips framed his icy blue eyes. He was the man of my dreams, but he was broken. For years, I blamed his anger on clichéd things like work stress, or his absent father and wearisome mother. It was just like the battered wives I watched in movies and pitied. The first time he hit me, we were both so shocked, we cried. We were arguing about some forgettable thing on TV. And when I disagreed with his opinion, in my own anger, I called him stupid. In his own anger, he slapped me right across the left side of my face. Hard. He held me for hours after and swore he would never harm me again. Cue the make-up-and-I-forgive-you scene.
From there, the fights progressed too quickly. I stayed out too late visiting with my dad and didn’t prepare any dinner. Swift kick to the ribs. Easily hidden. I went to a concert in downtown Detroit with my friend, Shannon, and I didn’t call him. He slammed me up against the wall and punched me in the chest. He didn’t let me explain that my cell phone had lost all its charge before the opening act. Then Jackson got sloppy. He gave me my first black eye when I bought the wrong kind of milk. He bruised a rib when dinner was once again “the shittiest thing I’ve put in my mouth.” I started seeing my parents less, coming up with excuses even I didn’t believe.
I tell myself over and over again that I did what I had to. I protected myself and if he weren’t dead, then I would be. I tell myself that I’m not at fault, but I start to cry. I’m sobbing and thinking of him, and I feel lost and empty. I contemplate how long I can hide in the bathroom, away from probing eyes and never-ending questions, when there is a knock on the door.
“Mrs. Carter, we have a couple more questions for you, then we’ll leave you be for the night and the paramedics will take you to the hospital,” Detective Rotini gently promises.
I splash my face again, avoid the mirror, and open the door. I walk through what feels like a sea of people and sit back down in the kitchen, eyes fixed on the peeling petals on the wall. A younger officer—Officer Bryson, I think—brings in a small, black duffel bag and sets it on the table. Her sad, brown eyes are full of pity, and she reminds me of a basset hound. She looks at me solemnly, wondering, I’m sure, how I got to this place, where I would let a man do this to me. She had packed a long-sleeved white top, a pair of jeans with a hole in the knee, all the essential undergarments, my toothbrush and toothpaste, and my hair brush. Detective Linguine helps me stand up and kindly leads me by my arm to two paramedics.
“I know you say you are fine, and we had your basic vitals checked, but you should still stay in the hospital tonight so they can keep an eye on you and the baby. And we can, uh…finish up here. This is Jake.” He gestures toward the tall one. “And this is Joe.” Short and stout Joe looks at me with the same basset hound eyes as Bryson.
I nod, exhausted, and follow Jake and Joe to the ambulance. This all feels so surreal that I have almost forgotten about the little burst of energy growing in my stomach. We’re having a baby. I’m terrified and excited, sad and elated, and I realize I am going to be a mother. What will I tell them about their father? How will I raise the baby alone?
When I was thirteen, my dad took me out to the forest behind our old house and taught me how to shoot. He told me that someday, I may need to know how. It was December and I still remember how badly my hands shook from the fear and the cold, snowy air. The sky was as gray as the trampled snow beneath our feet. As we inched deeper into the forest, the blue shutters on our home grew smaller in the distance. I recall feeling like I was running away, except for my dad walking right beside me. We reached our mark and my dad lined up four aluminum beer cans as targets. Stomach full of anxious butterflies, my dad handed me the rifle and stood behind me to line up my shot. He told me then something I would remember for the rest of my life:
“Liz, you may be scared now, but you won’t always be. Ground yourself, take in your surroundings, and inhale deeply. Exhale all of your fears, and pull the trigger. Breathe, Liz, and shoot.”
The Rut
by Trent Gleason
“I love you so much, Cal,” Donna said, leaning in closer to me. “I always have...and I always will.”
I loosened my collar a bit, the sweat of romantic anxiety ruining the vibe.
“Wow. I mean, thanks. This is going a lot better than I expected. I refrained from asking you out for, like, eight years.”
“Make love to me, Cal.”
“This is going a lot better than I expected.”
I awoke, covered in sweat. The dull afternoon light poured into my mess of a room. Not this again, I thought as I sat up and massaged my brow. I can’t even get laid in my dreams. I could hear my mother yelling from downstairs. She always yelled a lot.
“Cal! Wake up! It’s one thirty in the friggin’ afternoon! You were up all night playing your games again, weren’t you?”
Well, someone has to save all those helpless raccoon children from the merciless alien onslaught, I thought as I groaned in misery and looked at the time to verify that it was, indeed, one thirty in the afternoon, and that, yes, I did have work in less than three hours. I collapsed back into bed, realizing the time I’d lost, but wanting so badly to return to the land of sweet, bodacious merrymaking that was my mind. Maybe if I fall back asleep I can continue the dream. I closed my eyes and thought hard, harder, harder…
“…harder, Cal.”
“Cal, I swear to sweet Jesus if you’re still in that bed!”
1:52 p.m.
I strolled down the stairs and into the kitchen, feeling sleep deprived—stomach growling from a fast eager to be broken. Guess I should eat breakfast. Er, lunch.
“Mom, what do we have?” I asked.
She popped her head into the kitchen and grumbled, “Look for yourself.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I replied.
“Don’t you know that I have errands of my own to carry out? I don’t have time to baby you anymore. You’re twenty-two now, it’s about time you—”
“Mhm,” I intercepted as she continued.
I pulled open the freezer: frozen burgers, frozen burritos, frozen pizzas. Processed, processed, processed. Which one would make me feel the least amount of self-hatred? People put veggies on a burger. That’s healthy, right?
“. . . I just think you have a lot of sorting out to do, Cal,” she nagged on. “I just don’t know what to do with you. You hardly work, you stay up all night playing games that you burn all of your finances on. I mean, how are you gonna move out if you don’t save any of your money? And Christ, your room is a mess—”
“Yes, you do make sure to remind me every waking minute,” I grumbled.
Burgers it was. I grabbed a skillet from a nearby cupboard, lit the stove, and plopped the frozen meat puck down. I glanced at the clock.
2:12 p.m.
Ugh. This is taking too long. I’ll put it on high. I turned the knob and the burger responded by sizzling.
“I understand that maybe life has been…hard. Ever since Dylan died.”
I stopped what I was doing to look her in the eyes for the first time in the entire conversation, if you could even call it that.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “I suppose you could say that.”
I didn’t think about Dylan much anymore. I wasn’t sure if it was due to moving on or some other form of denial. Perhaps I’d passively convinced myself that he’d simply ceased to exist.
“It was a tragic thing, but it’s been four years, Cal. Don’t you want to move on with your life? Work toward something? Anything?”
I turned away from her to continue prepping my lunch.
“I mean, you like music, right? That’s a thing you do? Why don’t you pursue that? Ooh, and you’re such a handsome boy, you’d look just great on the stage. Oh! What if you made it on MTV? That would be just…”
Her voice faded from my attention. I suppose I could kick off this meal with an appetizer or two. I fished around the kitchen and settled on some week-old pasta salad, a fresh bag of Doritos, six pieces of turkey lunchmeat, and a Little Debbie’s Zebra Cake, when I noticed my burger had caught on fire. I rushed to turn off the gas.
“Jesus, Cal! Now you’re trying to burn the house down? I mean, good god, child! Why can’t you be more like Lisa’s son down the street? I heard he’s already half way through to getting his Doctorate’s, now that’s—”
“Great, that’s great,” I murmured. I prepared my charred sandwich and dug in. Every bite tasted of self-pity, with a foul aftertaste of lost hopes and dreams.
2:43 p.m.
Face and hair greasy, stomach bloated, and a look on my face that communicated I feel like utter garbage. The only possible cure would be a hot, refreshing shower. I grabbed a towel and my Bluetooth speaker—the essentials. If there was one thing I was sure of in life, it was that jazz music was a true form of spiritual healing. I appreciated other genres of music, but there was something euphoric about the quiet tsk, tet-tet, tsk of the drums, and the wailing of the sax, and the dance of the piano. As such, I turned on my favorite jazz station, started the water, and stepped in.
“You’re listening to Jazz24, broadcasting twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week,” the host crooned. “Until today. Unfortunately, I have some bad news. Nobody gives a damn about jazz anymore, and we’re totally friggin’ broke. We’re being bought out by, let’s see here…”
I could hear the host shuffling through his notes.
“Ahem, 96.9 The Wub, Today’s Wubbiest Wubstep. Sad news, I’m afraid, but life’s a bitch. Meet your new host, Toby Bernstein. See ya on the flip side, folks.”
I felt one solitary tear exit the corner of my eye, lost in the ever-flowing stream of the shower water. A masculine voice appeared on the radio, followed by testosterone-fueled explosion effects.
“Hello world! You’re listening to 96.9 The W-w-w-w-”
Whoever was operating the soundboard was having way too much fun.
“-w-w-w-wub! We’ll be playing the wubbiest wubstep, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, four weeks a month, twelve months a year, forever!”
I felt an uncomfortable chill travel down my spine.
“Well, let’s cut the chit-chat and get straight to the bangers, brah! ‘Amphetamines In The Afternoon’ from DJ Williks, blasting through your stereo. Right now. Right here. Forever.”
The following sounds that combusted out of my miniature Bluetooth speaker were so atrocious that in a desperate effort to destroy said speaker I slipped and busted my nose. The stress of the situation made my bloated stomach churn, triggering a violent rush of vomit all over my person. I laid in a pool of blood, puke, and tears, as the bass dropped to an ungodly low-end.
“Cal, you clumsy oaf! Did you fall in the shower again?” My mother called from downstairs. “For God’s sake, child, turn off that garbage!”
3:36 p.m.
Nose heavily bandaged and skin irritated from the hot water, I crawled into my junky Mazda and turned the keys into the ignition. No response. I turned the keys again. No response. “No…no…God!” I whispered as I desperately tried to start the car. I punched the wheel and forfeited my body to fate.
“That’s it,” I moaned. “I give up! Happy now? You win, you cruel, cruel world.”
I drooped my head onto the steering wheel and rested my eyes. Mom wasn’t wrong. I had stayed up all night playing games again, and I had stopped believing in a “better tomorrow.” I could no longer look in the mirror and see a person who could achieve anything as long as he set his mind to it.
I was a husk: a man lacking any drive who clearly missed the train to adulthood, leaving him all alone as a result. It was just that my nagging mother and my co-workers so often disregarded my existence.
I was curious. Would the world really be any different without me? My mom might grow bored with no one to hound. But I was sure she could move on to achieve greater things without me holding her back from making a new life, after being abandoned by my Dad. And, obviously, I wouldn’t be missed at work; they hardly noticed me when I was there. And any friends I once had in the past had either long moved on or passed.
Passed. That’s when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Lying neglected in the corner of the garage was the bike I used to love to ride. Back when Dylan was still around, before the cancer. Memories danced through my mind.
A ding at the door. Opening it to find him standing there.
“Well,” he’d ask. “We going?”
I could never say “no,” of course. Riding into the forest, never looking back. Sitting by the river and talking about life. Something I never felt comfortable doing with anyone else. I knew what it meant to feel true happiness.
I rested my head on the steering wheel and stared at the old bicycle. I forgot I still had that thing. Ugh, you know what? Screw you, universe. Trying to fool me with your nostalgic trickery. I give up. Nothing is going to motivate me to get out of this vehicle.
I continued to stare, reminiscing. Such a little thing, that bike. Seems like just yesterday.
I sighed and looked at the time.
3:43 p.m.
I only had seventeen minutes until my shift would start. Well, looks like I don’t have much of a choice.
I hadn’t ridden a bike in years, so it took a second to get adjusted as I pedaled along the road. Some jazz would be perfect right about now, if all culture and class hadn’t been wiped off the air by brainless, intoxicated noise. I smirked, aware of how pretentious I was. I stared into the clouds as I rode, the autumn breeze blowing through my hair. Wait a second. Ah hell, I forgot to wear a helmet. That’s like the number one thing not to do when riding a bike.
“Helmets are for pussies,” Dylan’s voice echoed through my head.
Oh yeah, I recalled. I rode until I arrived at Philly’s Fried Filets.
4:03 p.m.
Swipe. Clocked in.
“I need a headset,” I announced.
“Sorry, all taken,” Bobby, my overweight, former high school teacher-coach, replied. “We’ve got a trainee in today. Looks like you’ll just have to manage without.”
Well, great, gonna be an interesting day in the Hole.
I headed to the back of the building and entered my lair, my space, my hole, as they called it.
“The Hole’s open!” I yelled to my co-workers.
I would have typically whispered that into a headset. Such luxuries were not afforded to the Hole Master today. I stood by my window, kiosk activated, ready to take the money of many a hungry customer. A car rushed by. Seconds later, after feeling a surge of neglect, another car passed.
“Jesus Christ,” I groaned as I sprinted up to the second window, where two of my co-workers were gleefully serving our gluttonous customers.
“Hey, are you sending ‘em to the first window?” I asked.
One glanced at me. “Oh, yeah,” he muttered. “Sorry.”
The “Hole” was only open during peak hours, which equated to about four hours per day, two hours per shift. This threw everyone off, with the crew consistently forgetting to send customers to the “first window” and not the second, and the customers themselves completely unaware of its ever being open.
I sprinted back to Hole, having missed two more cars already.
“Ok, no more of this garbage.”
I noticed a car coming around the corner and I opened the window to signal them to me. “Hey there,” I drawled as the driver slammed on her brakes.
It was a sweet old lady. She rolled down her window.
“Yoinks. I almost passed ya.”
“Yeah, people are known to do that,” I chuckled mournfully. “I’m basically the troll under the bridge, stopping you in your tracks and ruining your day as well as emptying your pockets, all in one fell swoop.”
The lady stared at me blankly, with a smile so sweet it gave me cavities.
“Anyway,” I broke the silence. “You owe me $7.84.”
“What about my senior discount?”
“Oh, heh, well I’ll have to go grab my manager,” I said. Then I muttered to myself, “At the other end of the restaurant. To save you a measly ten percent.”
Her stare and smile grew in intensity.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
I sprinted up to the lobby.
“I need a manager! Senior discount in the Hole!” I yelled.
No reply.
“Anybody?”
A crewmember tapped me on the shoulder. “Bobby’s takin’ his—” She looked around awkwardly before continuing. “Poop break.”
“Well, I need his manager’s card or else this old lady is going to literally kill me with kindness,” I said.
The crewmember shook her head.
“Can’t help you there, Cal. You know how Bobby’s bowels are.”
“I’d rather not know about his bowels, thank you,” I said frantically.
I sprinted back to the Hole, where the sweet, smiling lady awaited me.
“Sorry, my manager is . . .” I paused to consider how best to phrase it, “. . . preoccupied at the moment. I couldn’t get his card.”
Her malicious friendliness grew tenfold, never breaking eye contact. A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead.
9:06 p.m.
“Get outta here,” Bobby growled.
I glared at him with my swollen eye, where the lady had whacked me with her unnaturally weighty purse.
“With pleasure.”
Swipe. Clocked out. I walked out into the lobby, which was mostly empty with the exception of two families and a noticeably attractive girl with a laptop.
“Donna?” I said out loud, entirely by mistake.
She was typing as she ate when she heard me. She immediately looked up at me.
“Cal?”
I stood there, frozen in my tracks, speaking gibberish in the hopes of alakazaming my way out of the building.
“Wow,” she chuckled. “Long time no see. I didn’t know you worked here!”
My face turned a crimson shade of red.
“Heh heh, yup. This,” I swung my arms in a violent arc, “this is my place of employment. And this guy is my boss.”
I turned to gesture to Bobby.
“Ma’am, is this boy harassing you?” he asked politely.
“Piss off, Bobby.”
Donna crinkled her brow in confusion, but decided to move on.
“So, what’ve you been up to?” she asked.
“Um, I’m not up to much. Just got off. Work. I got off work. Just now. Like a minute ago. I got off about a minute ago. Work, I mean.”
I stuttered in between gasps for air.
“Oh, cool,” Donna said. “So, are you just gonna stand there like an idiot, or are you gonna take a seat?”
“Oh. Um, yes.” I sheepishly took the seat across from her.
She closed her laptop and put her elbows up on the table. “It’s been forever! Have you been doing ok? I see something happened to your nose . . . and your eye.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m doing ok. Kind of had an off day. Old lady slugging me in the face included.”
“Mm. Go on.”
“Well, I had a…weird dream,” I coughed. “Not important.”
“Fair enough.” She nodded. “And?”
“And, my mom was being a nag, you know how she is.”
“She just loves you, man.”
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, let’s see, I had a bad lunch, got sick, fell in the shower, lost my favorite jazz station…” I paused to clarify. “The fall happened after I lost my favorite jazz station, just to be clear.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, it really hurt. Losing the station, I mean. My nose is okay.”
“Mm.”
“Also, I couldn’t get my car to start, and—” I stopped, debating whether I should even bring it up. “That’s really the least of it. I was reminded of Dylan. Kind of put a wet towel on an already soggy day.”
She raised an eyebrow in concern. “You know, it’s OK to think about him. You guys were close. We were all close, I know. And it sucks. These past few years have really sucked. And to be frank, I’m worried that you’re still not done grieving, Cal.”
“Yeah,” I sighed.
“Not that I’m totally OK yet, either. I dunno, man. I just wish you wouldn’t have pushed me away.”
I looked away from her in embarrassment.
She waved in assurance. “Hey, it’s OK. I didn’t take it personally. I mean, I get it, personal space and all that. But, Cal, are you doing OK—”
“I’m fine,” I spouted, before she could even get the words out.
“Cal—”
“I’m fine. I’m,” I stuttered, “I’m tired. I think I should head home. It’s late.”
I got up out of my chair and began walking towards the exit.
“Cal, please.”
I couldn’t handle the intensity of the situation. I left without looking back.
9:27 p.m.
I stared into the night sky as I cycled home, soaking in the beauty: the dark clouds floating by, stars poking through, visible if you looked hard enough. I closed my eyes, allowing myself to hear the world around me. The evening breeze, cars passing, the cricket’s chirp, distant but ever-present. The memories flooded back.
“Cal, I have a…Uh, there’s something. . .”
I remember him struggling to find the right words.
“What is it? Wait, lemme guess. You have a crush on Donna and you’ll ignore these feelings of desire out of respect for yours truly?” I laughed.
But he gave me this look. I couldn’t pin it down at the time. Now, however, I know exactly what it was. Fear.
I started to get nervous at his response… or lack thereof.
“Uh, well, I mean. If you really do like her I won’t—”
“No, Cal. I’m sick.” His voice was shaky.
My eyes widened and my mouth was left agape in fearful curiosity.
“Oh. Um, w-what’s the issue?”
He took a deep breath and stared at the ground.
“It’s cancer, Cal. Leukemia. They caught it late, it’s. . .” His voice shook as he began to break down. “It doesn’t look good, Cal. They’re starting treatment next week.”
He looked up at me, face wet with tears.
“Cal?”
My vision was fixated on a soda can floating down the river.
Dylan grabbed me by the shoulders and shouted, “Cal?! Talk to me…”
I slowly turned away from the can until my eyes met his. I couldn’t speak. I tried, but nothing formed.
“Cal,” Dylan started, “if I don’t make it—”
“No!” I interrupted.
“Cal. If I don’t get past this, if this is it. . .”
I couldn’t look him in the eyes anymore.
“You have to keep living. You must live on,” Dylan said, shaking me gently. “If not for yourself, for me.”
“You’ll make it,” I argued. “Don’t talk like this.”
“Cal, denying the very real shit that I’m in right now is not gonna fix anything. I won’t give up, I’ll keep fighting. But, if, if I don’t make it. Promise me. Can you promise me that? Cal?”
Before long, I had lost control of the bike, falling onto the sidewalk pavement and hitting my unprotected head. I gasped in pain from the wound. I could feel it beginning to bleed. I tried to stand up, but between the dizziness and the crippling sadness, I failed to do so. I lay on my back and stared into the night sky as the dim stars went in and out of focus.
He didn’t make it. And I didn’t keep my promise. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I felt a sense of peace ease me.
9:52 p.m.
The sensation of being shaken brought me back to consciousness.
“Cal? Cal?!”
I slowly opened my eyes and saw Donna leaning over me.
“What the hell happened,” she shouted, mid-sob.
I groaned and leaned up on an elbow before answering.
“I just decided to take a nap on the side of the road, I suppose.”
She stared at me, wide-eyed. My mouth cut into a grin and she started to laugh.
“Damn it, Cal,” she said, wiping her eyes. “You had me scared shitless.”
I felt my scalp for the wound. It wasn’t bad, and it had stopped bleeding. “I always did have a hard head.” She told me to shut up before she stood and extended a hand to help me to my feet. I took it.
We threw the bike in the back of her car and got in.
“Still living at the same place?” she asked as she buckled her seatbelt.
“You think I’m good enough to move out of that shit hole?” I laughed.
She glanced at me with a grin and started the car.
“Fair enough. How’s your mom doing?”
I looked out the window. Light raindrops dripped down the glass.
“She’s happy, I think. Ashamed of me, though. For good reason.”
Donna shot a glance of disapproval. “Don’t say that. You’ve always been talented.”
I sighed. “Thanks. But it’s true, I’ve accomplished jack-all in the past four years. I think I just gave up. Y’know?”
“Yeah, I do. University has helped keep my head above water, as of late. I just like working toward a goal. A future. Are you going to school?”
“Ha,” I mocked as I continued to stare out the window. “I think we both know that ‘school’ isn’t my strong suit.”
“You,” Donna said as she gave me a little shove, “don’t give yourself enough credit. You’ve been beating yourself up for way too long. I think it’s time you start acknowledging how awesome you actually are. And you are, Cal. Both Dylan and I always looked up to you.”
I was flattered, but I tried to hide it. I loved her. And she clearly cared about me. Why I had pushed her out of my life all these years continued to make less and less sense as I reconnected with her.
We stopped at a red light. I turned my gaze away from the window and met her eyes. I opened my mouth as to say something, and eventually words spilled out.
“I’ve missed you, I’m sor—”
That’s when she kissed me.
10:16 p.m.
We pulled up at my place and she turned off the car. I didn’t want to get out.
“It’s been really nice catching up.” She looked at me with a smile and quickly looked away.
“I promise to wear a helmet next time,” I joked. I took off my seatbelt and opened the door.
“Hey,” Donna said softly as I stepped out of the vehicle. “Don’t be a stranger.”
I blushed and nodded slightly. “You know where to find me.”
We stared longingly at each other for a good minute or two. She reminded me about my bike, helped me get it into the garage, got back in her car, and drove away.
I entered the house slowly as I looked around nervously. No sight of mom. Thank God, I thought as a light flicked on behind me.
“Where have you been?” my mother scoffed. “Your curfew is ten.” She stood there in her bathrobe, arms crossed.
“I ran into an old friend,” I said with a soft smile.
My mom eased up a bit, and chuckled, “Well, that’s nice. Was it a girl? Oh my God, was it Donna?!”
I shrugged.
She gasped. “You two were so cute back then! Wait, Cal.” Her voice became stern again, “Is that dried blood in your hair? And oh my, your eye!”
I started sprinting up the stairs. “Goodnight, love you!”
10:33 p.m.
I collapsed on my bed and closed my eyes. I soaked in the silence. The soft pitter-patter of the rain against my window eased me into sleep. But I woke with a smile and grabbed my phone. Donna had texted me goodnight. I replied and fell back onto my pillow, staring at the ceiling. You know, I thought as I raised my phone to my face and looked at the time, I think I’m gonna set my alarm from now on.
Hard-boiled Choices
by Devin Evans
The light reflected off the glossy exterior of the large menu. His eyes scanned over the choices in front of him. He had been here before many times in his life, but his experience in ordering food had yet to make this predicament any easier for him. His choices were already limited because Mary had chosen to order them each a cup of coffee. Her ordering his drink confined his choices for a meal. Now he had to get breakfast food. It was half past ten—an acceptable time to order something for lunch—but now that the waitress was bringing two steaming cups of coffee to their table he had to abandon the possibility of having lunch food.
“Do you need a few more minutes to look over the menu?” the smiling waitress asked the pair.
Mary looked at him and then looked back to the waitress.
“Yeah, we’re going to need a little longer,” she said, raising her voice to a higher pitch like she always did when she talked to waitresses or store employees. The waitress smiled politely and left the couple alone. “What do you want?” Mary looked at him.
He looked back down at the menu. He had only just decided if he was going to be eating breakfast or lunch. And now that he was eating breakfast, he had to decide if he wanted to eat a large meal so he wouldn’t have to eat again until dinner tonight, or if he should have a small meal so he could have a pastrami-on-rye sandwich for lunch, like he had been craving.
“I’m not sure,” he said, deepening his stare. He turned the page back from the lunch options to the breakfast options. Did he want eggs or an omelet? If he got eggs he would have to decide if he wanted his eggs cooked over-easy or over-hard. He only ordered eggs over-easy if he was getting hash browns as well. That way, he could mix the yolk with the hash browns. If he got hash browns he would have to get sausage to eat with them, and he had just eaten sausage for breakfast the day before, when Mary had left for work early. He hadn’t even really wanted to eat sausage that day, but he felt like it was his only chance. Mary hated the smell of sausage. And when she was not at home the other day, he was able to have sausage without upsetting her because he filled the house with the smell of sausage. Today he did want sausage, but it was probably best not to upset Mary. He pondered ordering an egg cooked over-hard with toast and three slices of bacon, but why order something he could easily make himself at home? He looked over to Mary who had closed her menu and was composing a message on her phone.
“Do you guys still need a moment?” The waitress had appeared again with her notebook and pen in hand.
“I’m ready.” Mary looked at him.
“I’m sorry,” he replied, causing Mary to sigh through a forced smile. “I’m still deciding.” The waitress nodded and left the two alone again.
“We need to be done with this by quarter after eleven,” Mary told him while swiping though messages on her phone. “Just get the fried chicken like you got last time.”
“I can’t get the fried chicken,” he reasoned aloud. “I’m drinking coffee.”
Mary sank into her seat. He looked back at the menu. He could get an omelet, but if it was too much to finish in one sitting, he would have to get a box to take home the leftovers. And egg never tastes as good once it has been microwaved. He supposed he didn’t have to eat the leftovers. But he would have to take them home so Mary wouldn’t remind him of the starving children in Africa who would be full of his breakfast leftovers for the rest of their lives. Even though he had to take the leftover omelet, he could just throw it away while Mary was out. But if he threw out the omelet and then got hungry later he would regret it.
“I think I want an omelet,” he said to Mary.
“Great!” she said in relief. “What side are you going to get?”
He had forgotten that he had to choose a side with his omelet. He could get hash browns, but he wouldn’t like them as much without over-easy eggs. He couldn’t get sausage because Mary hated sausage. He only really liked bacon if he could dip it in maple syrup. But he didn’t like the way egg tasted after he had just eaten syrup. If he ordered pancakes for the side, he would most definitely have leftovers that he would have to take home to throw away before Mary came home from work. But since Mary had been working late recently, he would have plenty of time to throw away the leftovers without feeling guilty for wasting food that starving children would like.
“Are we ready?”
The waitress was back.
“Yes, we are,” said Mary. Her voice was very high-pitched. “I want scrambled eggs with toast.”
“And you?”
The waitress scribbled down Mary’s order while she waited for him to tell her his order.
He froze.
“He wants an omelet,” Mary said.
Mary’s forced grin faltered for just a moment.
“With what side?” asked the waitress.
The waitress looked back and forth between the two waiting for one of them to answer her.
“Uh…”
He rubbed his temple. Mary stared at him. Her fake smile grew less and less friendly with every second that he hesitated to answer the waitress.
“Just pick a side.”
Mary’s voice rang even higher than it had before.
“I… will… have… sau-bac-pa-sausage! I will have the sausage.” He told the waitress proudly while she took the menus from them.
“I hate the smell of sausage. You know that.” Mary rolled her eyes. “Honestly, could you be more considerate?”
“I could change my order?”
“Please don’t!” Mary pushed his raised hand down from waving the waitress over.
“I have something I need to tell you, but I’ll wait till we get our food,” Mary told him and then returned to her phone.
He should ask her a question. He could ask about work. She had been working a lot more recently. He could ask her about the “big project” that she had been working on with her boss, Clayton. Clayton had been friendly when he talked to him at Mary’s company barbeque in the summer about football, even though he really didn’t know much about football. Clayton said that Mary was very good at what she did. He was happy that Mary and her boss got along so well. He spent so much time considering what to talk to Mary about that neither of them said anything to the other while they waited for their food to be brought to them.
Mary turned her nose away from the plate of sausage that the waitress sat down in front of him on the table.
“Can I get you guys anything else?”
The waitress looked at Mary when she said this.
“No, we’re fine, thank you.” Mary answered for both of them.
But he was going to ask for ketchup since there was none at the table and he wanted some to go with his omelet.
“I need to tell you something,” Mary said. She sprinkled pepper onto her scrambled eggs. “I am sure you know that…”
Mary kept talking, but he focused on his omelet. It would taste fine without ketchup, but he would much rather have eaten his omelet with ketchup than without. He couldn’t call the waitress over while Mary was talking to him, but he wasn’t sure how long she was going to be talking, and his omelet might get cold.
“I’m moving out.” Mary said snapping her fingers in front of him. “Did you hear me? I have been seeing Clayton. I am moving in with him.”
He couldn’t decide what to say. He had never suspected that Mary had been cheating on him. He had just thought that she was doing well at work. He could ask her to say, but he wasn’t sure if he would like her as much now that he knew she had cheated on him. He reached for his coffee to postpone replying to Mary for just a moment longer, but his coffee was cold and he wondered if it was wrong to ask for a fresh cup while Mary was waiting for him to say something.
“Forget this,” Mary said and stood up from the table. “This is exactly why I’m leaving. You never listen to me!”
Mary left the restaurant.
The waitress hurried over. She looked worried and embarrassed.
“Is everything alright?” She asked.
He wondered if he should make an excuse and say that Mary was just stressed from work, or if he should be honest and say that he had just been dumped.
“Can I get some ketchup for my omelet?” He asked, and took a bite of his sausage.