blink of an eye
by William Cass
Glen had mixed feelings about having his last phone appointment with Dr. Bey. On the one hand, he finally felt pretty much like himself again and strong enough to face whatever might lie ahead on his own. On the other, he’d been having those weekly counseling sessions for going on two years since shortly after his wife moved out without warning; she’d simply left her wedding and engagement rings on their bureau on top of a note that said: “I can’t do this anymore.” He was served divorce papers outside the elementary school where he was assistant principal a week later.
All Glen’s immediate phone messages, texts, and emails to her went unanswered. She quickly closed each of those accounts, and he had no idea where she’d gone, so any chance of communication with her quickly became impossible. In those early days, he just wandered around in a kind of numb fog, hardly sleeping, stumbling his way through work, a feeling ever-present like he was falling in a bottomless well. He often found himself gazing with disbelief at the framed photograph from their honeymoon, the one where their tanned faces smiled into the camera with a white-sand beach and blue waves behind them. When he hazarded glances in the mirror, hollowed eyes in a pale face stared back, and he found himself crying often and at odd moments. He finally realized he had to do something to regain some sort of functionality. He was too embarrassed, too proud he supposed, to seek face-to-face help, but found online counseling services that offered sessions by video, chat, or phone. Glen chose the phone option and Dr. Bey after scrolling through the counselors’ profiles on the site because it was the only one that didn’t include a personal photo, furthering the sense of anonymity he sought.
On that first counseling call, Glen was surprised to hear a woman answer.
“You’re Dr. Bey?” he asked after she’d already said so.
“That’s right.” She sounded about his age, fortyish, and there was a distinct accent to her voice.
“Are you British?”
“I was raised in Australia,” she said. “But I became an American citizen while I was still married.”
“You’re divorced then?”
She paused. “I am, yes.”
Glen squeezed his eyes shut. “Well, I’ll be going through that soon myself, so I hope you can help. I’m really struggling with things right now. Badly.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Her voice was calm, steady, reassuring. “Tell me what’s happened.”
So, he did. And, he continued to do so every Friday afternoon at five o’clock from that point forward. Over time, she did help him understand the roots that were likely at hand in his wife leaving and his own role in that, helped him separate and dissipate blame and anger, helped him navigate the divorce itself and its aftermath. In short, in her even-handed, honest, and gently direct way, she helped him slowly but gradually put the pieces of his life back together.
It was a journey that for the first six months at least Glen frankly never thought would be possible. And even though she’d now also helped him see that he’d arrived at a place where her assistance was no longer needed, he was hesitant to end it. Although their weekly discussions had for a while become more like conversations between friends about increasingly routine and mundane daily life topics, both his and ones they shared, he was sorry to see them stop. An intimacy of sorts had somehow developed, one that she also, it seemed to Glen, had come to appreciate and enjoy. It might have just been his hopeful imagination, but he thought he heard the tiniest bit of reluctance creep into her own voice when they agreed to make this session their last. Perhaps that’s why, in hindsight, there appeared to be insistence in it, too.
As the conclusion of that last hour together approached, Glen sighed and said, “So, I guess this is it, then. The end of the road for us.”
“You can always get in touch through the website and set up a new appointment if you need it.” She paused. “But I don’t think you will. You’re doing really well now.”
“Thanks to you.”
He waited and listened to the soft static on the line. “So, listen, since we’re signing off for the last time in a minute, can you tell me where you live?”
A moment passed before she said, “Here. The same city.”
He felt his eyes widen. “But your area code…”
“It’s a cell number I got a long time ago. Before I moved after my divorce.”
“Wow. All this time, I thought you were in another part of the country, but you’ve been right down the block.”
“So to speak.”
A longer moment of silence passed, then Glen said, “How about a first name, do you have one of those?”
“I do.” Another pause. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to share it with you.”
He nodded, pinched the bridge of his nose, and watched the minute hand on the clock above his desk move into a new hour. He supposed she was looking at the same thing.
Glen could hear the slow, familiar breathing on the other end of the line. His own, he realized, had quickened. Finally, she said, “Well, then…”
“Thanks again.”
“You take care.”
“You, too.”
He heard a click on her end, and the line went silent. He lowered his phone onto the desk and stared at her number on it. The light in his study had fallen, the evening’s gloaming begun.
Glen waited a few days before doing an internet search for Dr. Bey along with their city’s name. He was surprised to only get one possible hit: just an address for a “Dr. R. Bey” with the word “Psychologist” after it. No website, images, reviews, or any other entries, which he found curious. That Friday, as five o’clock came and went, he found himself repeatedly fingering and checking his cell phone, a feeling of anxious emptiness enveloping him. He went for a run, turning up the music in his earbuds, but the feeling remained. And it persisted into the next week. He realized that Dr. Bey had become a talisman for him, a mooring. Glen felt untethered without her. He missed her voice. He missed their connection. He wondered if she felt similarly.
As time went on, the feeling only intensified, so two weeks later, he decided to bring flowers to her office to thank her personally for all she’d done for him. He chased away whatever other motives or hopes may have been involved in that decision. A simple expression of gratitude, he told himself. Nothing more.
Glen waited until that first Monday of his school district’s Spring Break to stop at a florist for a mixed bouquet and make the drive across town. He felt himself frowning as he pulled to the curb and turned off his car’s engine in front of the door that led to her office. It was in a rundown, multi-ethnic section of the city. Her nameplate was on the door of a smoke-stained brick building, and through the smudged glass above it, he could see a staircase leading to what appeared to be a small second floor apartment over an auto parts store. On the other side of the door, an old man of Middle Eastern decent sat on a stool in front of a newsstand, a burning cigarette between his lips. With the morning unseasonably warm, Glen’s windows were rolled down, and the acrid smoke from it drifted his way on the small breeze.
Glen moved the flowers from the passenger seat onto his lap, and the door leading to the staircase opened. A woman came through it onto the sidewalk, leaving it ajar behind her. She was also of Middle Eastern decent and wore a black hijab. The rest of her clothing was black, too, and she pushed up large oval-shaped glasses that had slid to the tip of her nose. More distinctive was her size: she was less than four feet tall with the short arms and torso associated with dwarfism. The old man on the stool looked at her and smiled as she came to his side, took a newspaper off the pile by his cash box, and handed him money. They began talking together about the fine weather, and at the sound of her first spoken words, Glen immediately recognized that she was Dr. Bey. Something inside of him dropped. He felt his eyebrows knit.
She and the old man exchanged pleasantries for another minute or so before Dr. Bey returned through the door with the newspaper, closed it behind her, and climbed the stairs. Glen watched the back of her until she’d disappeared. He felt frozen, unable to move. He found himself blinking and shaking his head. He remained motionless there until the old man had finished his cigarette and dropped it with a hiss in a coffee can at his feet. Glen blew out a long breath, got out of the car, crossed the sidewalk, and leaned the bouquet against the door leading to the staircase.
He turned when he heard the old man clear his throat. He was staring at Glen and said, “Are those for Rahima?”
“Who?”
“Dr. Bey.”
Glen nodded.
“Well, you can bring them to her yourself. She’s just at the top of the stairs there.”
“I don’t think so, no.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Glen was overcome with shame and self-loathing. She’d guided him through the darkest part of his life. What did it matter who she turned out to be? But he just shook his head and walked back to his car.
As he was getting into it, the old man asked, “Who should I tell her the flowers are from?”
“Nobody special,” Glen told him. “Nobody she’d care to meet. Just an admirer.”
He slid into the seat, closed the door, and started the engine. He was aware of the old man’s eyes still on him. Glen met his even gaze a last time before putting the car in gear. As he pulled away, the old man raised his hand, and Glen returned the gesture. It was the closest thing to human decency he could muster. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t do better, but at that moment, he wasn’t capable of it.
AUTHOR
William Cass has had a little over 190 short stories accepted for publication in a variety of literary magazines such as december, Briar Cliff Review, and Zone 3. Recently, he was a finalist in short fiction and novella competitions at Glimmer Train and Black Hill Press, received a couple of Pushcart nominations, and won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. He lives in San Diego, California.
Glen had mixed feelings about having his last phone appointment with Dr. Bey. On the one hand, he finally felt pretty much like himself again and strong enough to face whatever might lie ahead on his own. On the other, he’d been having those weekly counseling sessions for going on two years since shortly after his wife moved out without warning; she’d simply left her wedding and engagement rings on their bureau on top of a note that said: “I can’t do this anymore.” He was served divorce papers outside the elementary school where he was assistant principal a week later.
All Glen’s immediate phone messages, texts, and emails to her went unanswered. She quickly closed each of those accounts, and he had no idea where she’d gone, so any chance of communication with her quickly became impossible. In those early days, he just wandered around in a kind of numb fog, hardly sleeping, stumbling his way through work, a feeling ever-present like he was falling in a bottomless well. He often found himself gazing with disbelief at the framed photograph from their honeymoon, the one where their tanned faces smiled into the camera with a white-sand beach and blue waves behind them. When he hazarded glances in the mirror, hollowed eyes in a pale face stared back, and he found himself crying often and at odd moments. He finally realized he had to do something to regain some sort of functionality. He was too embarrassed, too proud he supposed, to seek face-to-face help, but found online counseling services that offered sessions by video, chat, or phone. Glen chose the phone option and Dr. Bey after scrolling through the counselors’ profiles on the site because it was the only one that didn’t include a personal photo, furthering the sense of anonymity he sought.
On that first counseling call, Glen was surprised to hear a woman answer.
“You’re Dr. Bey?” he asked after she’d already said so.
“That’s right.” She sounded about his age, fortyish, and there was a distinct accent to her voice.
“Are you British?”
“I was raised in Australia,” she said. “But I became an American citizen while I was still married.”
“You’re divorced then?”
She paused. “I am, yes.”
Glen squeezed his eyes shut. “Well, I’ll be going through that soon myself, so I hope you can help. I’m really struggling with things right now. Badly.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Her voice was calm, steady, reassuring. “Tell me what’s happened.”
So, he did. And, he continued to do so every Friday afternoon at five o’clock from that point forward. Over time, she did help him understand the roots that were likely at hand in his wife leaving and his own role in that, helped him separate and dissipate blame and anger, helped him navigate the divorce itself and its aftermath. In short, in her even-handed, honest, and gently direct way, she helped him slowly but gradually put the pieces of his life back together.
It was a journey that for the first six months at least Glen frankly never thought would be possible. And even though she’d now also helped him see that he’d arrived at a place where her assistance was no longer needed, he was hesitant to end it. Although their weekly discussions had for a while become more like conversations between friends about increasingly routine and mundane daily life topics, both his and ones they shared, he was sorry to see them stop. An intimacy of sorts had somehow developed, one that she also, it seemed to Glen, had come to appreciate and enjoy. It might have just been his hopeful imagination, but he thought he heard the tiniest bit of reluctance creep into her own voice when they agreed to make this session their last. Perhaps that’s why, in hindsight, there appeared to be insistence in it, too.
As the conclusion of that last hour together approached, Glen sighed and said, “So, I guess this is it, then. The end of the road for us.”
“You can always get in touch through the website and set up a new appointment if you need it.” She paused. “But I don’t think you will. You’re doing really well now.”
“Thanks to you.”
He waited and listened to the soft static on the line. “So, listen, since we’re signing off for the last time in a minute, can you tell me where you live?”
A moment passed before she said, “Here. The same city.”
He felt his eyes widen. “But your area code…”
“It’s a cell number I got a long time ago. Before I moved after my divorce.”
“Wow. All this time, I thought you were in another part of the country, but you’ve been right down the block.”
“So to speak.”
A longer moment of silence passed, then Glen said, “How about a first name, do you have one of those?”
“I do.” Another pause. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to share it with you.”
He nodded, pinched the bridge of his nose, and watched the minute hand on the clock above his desk move into a new hour. He supposed she was looking at the same thing.
Glen could hear the slow, familiar breathing on the other end of the line. His own, he realized, had quickened. Finally, she said, “Well, then…”
“Thanks again.”
“You take care.”
“You, too.”
He heard a click on her end, and the line went silent. He lowered his phone onto the desk and stared at her number on it. The light in his study had fallen, the evening’s gloaming begun.
Glen waited a few days before doing an internet search for Dr. Bey along with their city’s name. He was surprised to only get one possible hit: just an address for a “Dr. R. Bey” with the word “Psychologist” after it. No website, images, reviews, or any other entries, which he found curious. That Friday, as five o’clock came and went, he found himself repeatedly fingering and checking his cell phone, a feeling of anxious emptiness enveloping him. He went for a run, turning up the music in his earbuds, but the feeling remained. And it persisted into the next week. He realized that Dr. Bey had become a talisman for him, a mooring. Glen felt untethered without her. He missed her voice. He missed their connection. He wondered if she felt similarly.
As time went on, the feeling only intensified, so two weeks later, he decided to bring flowers to her office to thank her personally for all she’d done for him. He chased away whatever other motives or hopes may have been involved in that decision. A simple expression of gratitude, he told himself. Nothing more.
Glen waited until that first Monday of his school district’s Spring Break to stop at a florist for a mixed bouquet and make the drive across town. He felt himself frowning as he pulled to the curb and turned off his car’s engine in front of the door that led to her office. It was in a rundown, multi-ethnic section of the city. Her nameplate was on the door of a smoke-stained brick building, and through the smudged glass above it, he could see a staircase leading to what appeared to be a small second floor apartment over an auto parts store. On the other side of the door, an old man of Middle Eastern decent sat on a stool in front of a newsstand, a burning cigarette between his lips. With the morning unseasonably warm, Glen’s windows were rolled down, and the acrid smoke from it drifted his way on the small breeze.
Glen moved the flowers from the passenger seat onto his lap, and the door leading to the staircase opened. A woman came through it onto the sidewalk, leaving it ajar behind her. She was also of Middle Eastern decent and wore a black hijab. The rest of her clothing was black, too, and she pushed up large oval-shaped glasses that had slid to the tip of her nose. More distinctive was her size: she was less than four feet tall with the short arms and torso associated with dwarfism. The old man on the stool looked at her and smiled as she came to his side, took a newspaper off the pile by his cash box, and handed him money. They began talking together about the fine weather, and at the sound of her first spoken words, Glen immediately recognized that she was Dr. Bey. Something inside of him dropped. He felt his eyebrows knit.
She and the old man exchanged pleasantries for another minute or so before Dr. Bey returned through the door with the newspaper, closed it behind her, and climbed the stairs. Glen watched the back of her until she’d disappeared. He felt frozen, unable to move. He found himself blinking and shaking his head. He remained motionless there until the old man had finished his cigarette and dropped it with a hiss in a coffee can at his feet. Glen blew out a long breath, got out of the car, crossed the sidewalk, and leaned the bouquet against the door leading to the staircase.
He turned when he heard the old man clear his throat. He was staring at Glen and said, “Are those for Rahima?”
“Who?”
“Dr. Bey.”
Glen nodded.
“Well, you can bring them to her yourself. She’s just at the top of the stairs there.”
“I don’t think so, no.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Glen was overcome with shame and self-loathing. She’d guided him through the darkest part of his life. What did it matter who she turned out to be? But he just shook his head and walked back to his car.
As he was getting into it, the old man asked, “Who should I tell her the flowers are from?”
“Nobody special,” Glen told him. “Nobody she’d care to meet. Just an admirer.”
He slid into the seat, closed the door, and started the engine. He was aware of the old man’s eyes still on him. Glen met his even gaze a last time before putting the car in gear. As he pulled away, the old man raised his hand, and Glen returned the gesture. It was the closest thing to human decency he could muster. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t do better, but at that moment, he wasn’t capable of it.
AUTHOR
William Cass has had a little over 190 short stories accepted for publication in a variety of literary magazines such as december, Briar Cliff Review, and Zone 3. Recently, he was a finalist in short fiction and novella competitions at Glimmer Train and Black Hill Press, received a couple of Pushcart nominations, and won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. He lives in San Diego, California.
everyday augury
by Eric Aldrich
Veronica and Mother are in Wal-Mart. Veronica is perusing the kitty food in the pet section while Mother stocks up on paper plates in a different aisle. Veronica fusses her way past Friskies and Whiskers and 9 Lives. At the end of the aisle, she confronts a daunting omen: a wall of fish tanks, each one an aquatic mortuary for goldfish, angel fish, and guppies. Belly up they hover, suspended in murky green water. Veronica makes the sign of the Cross, thanks God for the warning. She selects only chicken kitty food, avoids tuna or salmon.
When they go to Walmart, Veronica tries to keep away from Mother as much as possible until it’s time to check out. Much to her frustration, Veronica looks just like Mother, though she’s 34 and Mother is 55. Like Mother, her six-foot frame bears only 127 pounds of woman. Her anxious metabolism incinerates calories, but Mother would never stop pointing it out of Veronica gained weight, so she staves off hunger mostly with rice cakes. Today the women have worn nearly identical outfits – blue jeans and kitty-cat sweaters and white Keds. Mother’s sweater shows kitties and yarn; Veronica’s sweater depicts kitties in a basket. Both Veronica and Mother have waist-length hair. Mother’s hair is red; Veronica’s, auburn.
Laden with kitty food, Veronica must return to the cart. As she passes the McDonalds, the smell of burgers makes her mouth water. A small boy at a yellow plastic table dips Mcnuggets into bbq sauce, sips a soft drink. The scene is lit like a manger display. What does it mean? As a girl, she and Grandmother would go to the Micky-D’s drive-thru and Veronica would always order a double cheeseburger and a large Sprite. Veronica considers sneaking in and cramming down a double cheeseburger, but if Mother smells onions on her breath she will know and endlessly repeat the grams of trans fat and sodium. Grandmother diabetes cost her two toe amputations and Mother would harp on that. Mother will have Wheat Thins in the cart. Veronica will eat some of those. She abandons the uninterpreted omen.
Veronica checks the paperback aisle in case Mother is there. She spots a priest holding a romance novel. The cover depicts Fabio cradling a swooning southern belle, his bare chest bursting through a blue Union uniform. Mother loves Fabio novels. To see a priest holding one is a sign of judgement, but Veronica won’t warn Mother. Veronica hides her oracular literacy. She fears that if people knew, they would exploit her. In particular, she worries about Mother demanding foreknowledge of soap opera plots and upcoming sales.
Veronica comes upon Mother in the personal care department, peering over her glasses at a cornered employee. His nametag says Stan, he looks in his twenties and about 5’4.” Goatee hairs sprout sparsely on his chin. Stocky in his blue employee vest, he cowers in Mother’s lanky shadow as she interrogates him: “Do you have the big squirt bottles of oatmeal lotion? Healing amino oatmeal lotion? My heels get so dry…”
“They’re right next to you, ma’am,” he points to a lower shelf.
Veronica moves closer to the cart and bumps into Stan. He looks over his shoulder at her, then back to Mother, then back to Veronica. His pupils expand. He moves aside and stutters, “Can I help you?”
Veronica replies, “Yes.”She’s not really in need of assistance, but he helped Mother, so he must help Veronica also. She orders the young man, “Take these cans and put them in the cart.” Stan awkwardly plucks cans from her elbows and transfers them into the cart alongside country apple potpourri, prune juice, Diet Pepsi, Metamucil, and paper plates. Mother, crouching like a resting mosquito to examine lotions, notices. Veronica sees Mother move the lavender bottles behind the peach ones.
“Excuse me, young man. Do you have any more of the lavender oatmeal lotion?” Mother interrupts. Veronica shakes her head; the aisle reeks of lavender.
Mother lies. For example, every Tuesday two Jehovah’s Witnesses stop by and try to convert them. One week, Veronica came downstairs from watching Rachel Ray just in time to see them drive off. “They weren’t here very long,” Mother said. Veronica wanted to tell the Jehovah’s Witnesses to be extra cautious on their evangelizing rounds. Someone had turned two religious greeting cards upside down at CVS, inverting the golden crosses on their covers, which was a clear warning. Luckily, the pair were naturally careful people and they were OK, but she had been worried about them. On their next visit, when Mother lured the Jehovah’s Witness man into the kitchen with coffee, the lady asked if Veronica’s yeast infection was better. “What yeast infection?” Veronica had asked at the outset of an awkward silence.
“I see some lavender behind the peach bottles, ma’am,” Stan points to the disorganized flasks of lotion. “Oh, I’m going blind,” Mother overemphasizes her chuckle.
Veronica suspects what Mother might pull next. Mother’s greatest joy is when they’re mistaken for sisters. Conversely, this is Veronica’s profoundest misery. Mother will try to get checkout clerks, mechanics, dentists, or anyone else to make that mistake. Sure enough, she stands up holding a lavender lotion and playfully asks Stan, “How do you think we are related?”
Stan goes red. He replies, softly, “She’s your daughter?”
Veronica, grinning, points at Mother with her knot-jointed finger. Mother lets out a venomous hiss, followed by a guffaw. She stands to her full height, pushes her chest out. Veronica does the same. Standing toe to toe, they look like a kitty attacking her own image in a mirror.
“I…I’m…sorry…” Stan stammers and shakes his head. “Are you her aunt?”
“No!” Mother throws the lotion into the cart and snarls. “You’re right. I’m her mother.”
For a moment, triumph smells like lavender. Veronica could hug the employee, but he is backing away. If he could read omens, identical women would be an sign to him. He flees the aisle, but Veronica suspects he doesn’t comprehend what the universe was trying to tell him. What was the message to Stan?
As she hurries away from Mother to go get Lean Cuisines, Veronica considers following Stan, questioning him about what she and Mother signify. But when she gets to the frozen section and sees her gaunt image in the glass door, she realizes the warning wasn’t for him. Veronica is the soothsayer, so the omen of identical women is meant for her. It has been staring her in the face her whole life, warning her, directing her to action. She selects seven Lean Cuisines for Mother and buys herself seven Hungry Man Dinners. They’re a thousand calories a piece. Veronica will have hips where Mother has bones, she will have smooth fingers with proportionate knuckles, her breasts will fill out, her inner thighs will grow together, she will dye her hair blond, she will wear glasses instead of contact lenses. Maybe she will adopt a puppy. She closes the freezer door and sees her smile reflected. It’s the harbinger of a new Veronica.
AUTHOR
Eric Aldrich lives in Tucson, Arizona where he teaches writing and literature at Pima Community College. You can find his most recent fiction in Manifest West, The Worcester Review, Weber: The Contemporary West, and Hobart. He reviews books for Heavy Feather Review, Full Stop, Terrain.org, and Rain Taxi Review of Books. Follow @ericjamesaldrich on Instagram for new stories, reviews, sunsets, and coyotes.
Veronica and Mother are in Wal-Mart. Veronica is perusing the kitty food in the pet section while Mother stocks up on paper plates in a different aisle. Veronica fusses her way past Friskies and Whiskers and 9 Lives. At the end of the aisle, she confronts a daunting omen: a wall of fish tanks, each one an aquatic mortuary for goldfish, angel fish, and guppies. Belly up they hover, suspended in murky green water. Veronica makes the sign of the Cross, thanks God for the warning. She selects only chicken kitty food, avoids tuna or salmon.
When they go to Walmart, Veronica tries to keep away from Mother as much as possible until it’s time to check out. Much to her frustration, Veronica looks just like Mother, though she’s 34 and Mother is 55. Like Mother, her six-foot frame bears only 127 pounds of woman. Her anxious metabolism incinerates calories, but Mother would never stop pointing it out of Veronica gained weight, so she staves off hunger mostly with rice cakes. Today the women have worn nearly identical outfits – blue jeans and kitty-cat sweaters and white Keds. Mother’s sweater shows kitties and yarn; Veronica’s sweater depicts kitties in a basket. Both Veronica and Mother have waist-length hair. Mother’s hair is red; Veronica’s, auburn.
Laden with kitty food, Veronica must return to the cart. As she passes the McDonalds, the smell of burgers makes her mouth water. A small boy at a yellow plastic table dips Mcnuggets into bbq sauce, sips a soft drink. The scene is lit like a manger display. What does it mean? As a girl, she and Grandmother would go to the Micky-D’s drive-thru and Veronica would always order a double cheeseburger and a large Sprite. Veronica considers sneaking in and cramming down a double cheeseburger, but if Mother smells onions on her breath she will know and endlessly repeat the grams of trans fat and sodium. Grandmother diabetes cost her two toe amputations and Mother would harp on that. Mother will have Wheat Thins in the cart. Veronica will eat some of those. She abandons the uninterpreted omen.
Veronica checks the paperback aisle in case Mother is there. She spots a priest holding a romance novel. The cover depicts Fabio cradling a swooning southern belle, his bare chest bursting through a blue Union uniform. Mother loves Fabio novels. To see a priest holding one is a sign of judgement, but Veronica won’t warn Mother. Veronica hides her oracular literacy. She fears that if people knew, they would exploit her. In particular, she worries about Mother demanding foreknowledge of soap opera plots and upcoming sales.
Veronica comes upon Mother in the personal care department, peering over her glasses at a cornered employee. His nametag says Stan, he looks in his twenties and about 5’4.” Goatee hairs sprout sparsely on his chin. Stocky in his blue employee vest, he cowers in Mother’s lanky shadow as she interrogates him: “Do you have the big squirt bottles of oatmeal lotion? Healing amino oatmeal lotion? My heels get so dry…”
“They’re right next to you, ma’am,” he points to a lower shelf.
Veronica moves closer to the cart and bumps into Stan. He looks over his shoulder at her, then back to Mother, then back to Veronica. His pupils expand. He moves aside and stutters, “Can I help you?”
Veronica replies, “Yes.”She’s not really in need of assistance, but he helped Mother, so he must help Veronica also. She orders the young man, “Take these cans and put them in the cart.” Stan awkwardly plucks cans from her elbows and transfers them into the cart alongside country apple potpourri, prune juice, Diet Pepsi, Metamucil, and paper plates. Mother, crouching like a resting mosquito to examine lotions, notices. Veronica sees Mother move the lavender bottles behind the peach ones.
“Excuse me, young man. Do you have any more of the lavender oatmeal lotion?” Mother interrupts. Veronica shakes her head; the aisle reeks of lavender.
Mother lies. For example, every Tuesday two Jehovah’s Witnesses stop by and try to convert them. One week, Veronica came downstairs from watching Rachel Ray just in time to see them drive off. “They weren’t here very long,” Mother said. Veronica wanted to tell the Jehovah’s Witnesses to be extra cautious on their evangelizing rounds. Someone had turned two religious greeting cards upside down at CVS, inverting the golden crosses on their covers, which was a clear warning. Luckily, the pair were naturally careful people and they were OK, but she had been worried about them. On their next visit, when Mother lured the Jehovah’s Witness man into the kitchen with coffee, the lady asked if Veronica’s yeast infection was better. “What yeast infection?” Veronica had asked at the outset of an awkward silence.
“I see some lavender behind the peach bottles, ma’am,” Stan points to the disorganized flasks of lotion. “Oh, I’m going blind,” Mother overemphasizes her chuckle.
Veronica suspects what Mother might pull next. Mother’s greatest joy is when they’re mistaken for sisters. Conversely, this is Veronica’s profoundest misery. Mother will try to get checkout clerks, mechanics, dentists, or anyone else to make that mistake. Sure enough, she stands up holding a lavender lotion and playfully asks Stan, “How do you think we are related?”
Stan goes red. He replies, softly, “She’s your daughter?”
Veronica, grinning, points at Mother with her knot-jointed finger. Mother lets out a venomous hiss, followed by a guffaw. She stands to her full height, pushes her chest out. Veronica does the same. Standing toe to toe, they look like a kitty attacking her own image in a mirror.
“I…I’m…sorry…” Stan stammers and shakes his head. “Are you her aunt?”
“No!” Mother throws the lotion into the cart and snarls. “You’re right. I’m her mother.”
For a moment, triumph smells like lavender. Veronica could hug the employee, but he is backing away. If he could read omens, identical women would be an sign to him. He flees the aisle, but Veronica suspects he doesn’t comprehend what the universe was trying to tell him. What was the message to Stan?
As she hurries away from Mother to go get Lean Cuisines, Veronica considers following Stan, questioning him about what she and Mother signify. But when she gets to the frozen section and sees her gaunt image in the glass door, she realizes the warning wasn’t for him. Veronica is the soothsayer, so the omen of identical women is meant for her. It has been staring her in the face her whole life, warning her, directing her to action. She selects seven Lean Cuisines for Mother and buys herself seven Hungry Man Dinners. They’re a thousand calories a piece. Veronica will have hips where Mother has bones, she will have smooth fingers with proportionate knuckles, her breasts will fill out, her inner thighs will grow together, she will dye her hair blond, she will wear glasses instead of contact lenses. Maybe she will adopt a puppy. She closes the freezer door and sees her smile reflected. It’s the harbinger of a new Veronica.
AUTHOR
Eric Aldrich lives in Tucson, Arizona where he teaches writing and literature at Pima Community College. You can find his most recent fiction in Manifest West, The Worcester Review, Weber: The Contemporary West, and Hobart. He reviews books for Heavy Feather Review, Full Stop, Terrain.org, and Rain Taxi Review of Books. Follow @ericjamesaldrich on Instagram for new stories, reviews, sunsets, and coyotes.
THe forever cemetery
by Michael L. Woodruff
I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed.
-Charles Baudelaire
This is the moment when lights dim. A faint mummer, a creak in the aluminum and a light cry escape from an old section of the football bleacher at the edge of the cemetery located under a walnut tree. The ground is littered with small green balls. The bleacher is used for funerals. The sounds are a plea in a place that sleeps. It softens the morning. But it doesn't help.
You should have kept your mouth shut.
~
The grounds are immaculate, manicured, surrounded by low wrought iron fencing that goes on for seeming miles along highway 69. There are acres of gravestones, all precise and carefully etched. The grass is cut so clean you can have a Sunday picnic on it, and often, people do, spreading blankets atop the lime colored grass, complete with coolers and food baskets and folding chairs; they come to visit their deceased loved ones. Children run through the maze of gravestones like they do through the hallways of the houses they live in. The adults freshen up the final homes of lives that no longer care. American flags and plastic flowers dot the granite memorials. A wooden sign with listed rules exhort visitors to keep their endearments current by taking the old flowers away. Please do not leave anything over 30 days. Show community pride. The place looks more like a fourth of July festival than the home of the dead.
~
Her mother's right arm drapes across the body. The girl's clothes are wrinkled, awkwardly pulled back up her legs, her socks and shoes are off, inches from her feet. Her small tangled panties are rolled into the dirt, twisted when they were pulled off. Her cell phone is cracked and placed carefully on the bleachers, just above the girl’s head. Her mother scratches at her daughter's naked stomach. It's a soft scratching, intended to sooth. And for the first time, she sees how small and innocent her daughter really is. Her skin is vulnerable. She's a silent flower, weak and wilted. She tried to grow up too fast. The mother reaches for understanding in her head. Why? Things like this don’t happen in our town.Her daughter left the evening before with friends. She didn't ask who. It's a small town. Everyone knows each other. It shouldn't have mattered.
~
Mama, I'm sorry. It's the whisper of her last gasp. I should have been more careful.Her eyes close, sweet, like a baby's self-awareness and her escaping words are a final witness, creating a fiction her mother will never hear. Her hair smells like shampoo and dirt. She's a beaten animal.
This never had to happen. Her greatest sin was not cooperating.
A pick-up truck missing a wheel is propped up by a 2 by 6 wedge, the identified culprit--the diversion. It looks desperately abandoned. It's at the edge of the road to the back of the cemetery. It's out of place in this pristine landscape: guilt by misfortune. Out of place, like her mother with a dead girl's head in her lap, out of place like the mother's crying, out of place like her presence in the cemetery so early in the morning; the world is still asleep. Her mother didn’t make it in time. She doesn't have a car. She had to walk.
~
Ag City is a maze of silos and box shaped buildings and houses, business buildings, agricultural buildings. Everything about the town hinges around these businesses. And in Ag City, local business is a hobby, a purse that never empties. There's an endless well to draw from--the poor and the passer-bys along highway 69. And of course, exports. Businesses blend with the local houses. It's the shuffle of the deck. They are one. It gives the town its polished image: a pristine high school with cheerleaders, white like Sunday lilies--intellectually fragile. Old men in overalls, with thick wallets, ancient and bewildered, stagger into the cafes with walls lined with sport clippings. They sip weak coffee and talk proudly about the local football heroes who are without blemish. They stand confident in their knowledge of the past. They are the stewards of all things sacred. And the young boys: they are as strong as tree trunks, and they swim thoughtlessly through the town like unfettered bulls. The town’s main church, meek on Jesus, with the American flag flying high and dignified next to the Queen Anne structure, the only architecture of antiquity left in the community, is painted heaven white and is the center of anything new and appropriate, polished people with polished cars. Each member invites the minister to lunch once a year to remind him how wonderful they are.
New enameled tractors, Massey-Ferguson, reflecting the sun, line along highway 69 as unassuming as the fast food restaurants that garnish its banks. There’s a small shack with a sign: Guns and Tiresand a graveled parking lot filled with camouflage hunting blinds. Proud new buildings overtake the rusted tangle of the past, the powdered crumble of concrete walls with faded paint--Wonderbread and Pharmacy, along with other old buildings, sink, undetected, into the earth. They are replaced by galvanized and vinyl pre-fabbed structures. They are absent from the blemish and the stain of original sin. They gleam. Perfectly bound bales of hay sleep in fields along the Blackland prairies like huge nuggets of shredded wheat. They are sweet grass, the warm smell of summer, the hint of rural passion. Every parade and every town picnic is designed to showcase a community in bliss, the substance of the celebration, excess, reduced to paper cups and plates, trash, and left for cleaning the next day—it has a smidgen of charity, the reminder of a good time. It provides jobs to those with little money.
~
Wood planking lie on a flatbed trailer, unused, having sat there four years forgotten by the white trash who own it. They never learn. They leave their better intentions in splintered piles. They lose their drive and money. They are never quite able to bring a task to its conclusion. They take what is free with little inspiration concerning its use. They are blank slates. The town is a place where white propane tanks of the past still heat many of the houses, the broken houses that nest in the weaker lots like sad reminders. Cottonwood trees hang heavy, splayed out, over the concrete sidewalks, an umbrella over these same older houses.
Hedge posts skin the sides of highway 69 while yellow and light green brome, the grass not baled, fill the ditches and spike into the wind. Houses along the highway sport custom mailboxes supported by western plows and milk containers. This morning, the sky is different than it was in the days past; it's now a confused blanket of light blue, lacking mid-day clarity. The angels in the clouds have disappeared leaving feathered streams of white. There are holes in the air where the rays of light penetrate and the sun spots the landscape below.
The freshly painted water tower with solid legs wears the pride of the city-Class B champions 1962. It's the promise of future victories without consequence. These fast food restaurants, Taco Bell and Subway, the whole lot of them, have invaded the city long ago, one by one, forever cemeteries, numb of any personality. The poor you have with you always, a conflicting message at best. They populate our town like a plague. And as a result, there are needs for jobs. But, these poor are expendable. They are here for the convenience of others. They are eaten daily. These fast food restaurants are a concession without any real economic impact, the illusion of growth and success. Being a shift manager is still not going to cut it.
~
Her mother gets the call about 15 minutes before...there are noises from the phone falling, the girl's voice screaming,no, and then, mama, I'm at the cemetery. The phone call is abruptly ended, the drone of her ringtone. Her voice sounded like a plea for the mercy of god--a flawed redemption. It's in these times that the eyes of god are plucked from their sockets, his presence ineffectual. Absentes Vero. Prayer is always an act of desperation, a salvation poorly planned, and the early morning air is mute.
~
People drip out of their houses surrounding the cemetery. They hear a weak cry in the morning rime. And they start to gather, blinking out the morning dew. Their mouths drop and somehow in their minds they're thinking something about the girl's lifestyle, careless thoughts that make its way to a conclusion, what they think they know, what they imagine it to be, late night bars with wild music, dances; their perception is that she parties nightly, using a fake ID, people talk, it’s how news spreads in Ag City, and her reputation is somehow responsible for her death. And her mother---what does she know, she allowed it all to happen.
-What a tragedy. But if you play with fire expect to get burned. The community is already preparing its lie.
One of the young girl's breasts poke out of her threadbare blouse, and men, with pink faces, as guilty as candy-stealing children stare. Her mother pushes it as best as she can back into the blouse, but the blouse is torn and weak and her daughter isn't wearing a bra.
-We called the police, one of the men says flatly.
She just shakes her head; she's buried in her daughter's face. She’s going to miss work today at the convenience store, and it’s something she can’t afford. She has a mortgage on a house that disappears daily into the landscape. She can’t afford the repairs. Its roof is chaffed and the siding scraped to the naked wood, gray and cracked. The yard is full of abandoned junk. The inside of the house has the thick scent of unwashed blankets. There’s no air-conditioning.
-These people are used to this kind of thing, another man concedes. They suffer daily. Most of their children die in birth. All Okies, with weak values, it’s no wonder bad things happen to them. That’s life.
The others agree.
-Just white trash--very sad. We’ve never had this shit before. It’s a recent thing. It happened when those damned fast food places started coming to town, creating bad jobs for people to buy once perfectly good houses, letting them go to hell, property that will never be repaired. And tattoos: How do these people afford their tattoos? The town is disappearing into the Blackland plains. This used to be a good place to live.
The woman whips her hair behind her shoulder and looks in the direction of the men and glares.
-And I’m fat and stupid, too.
They back up with a steely guilt.
-Come on guys, let's go. The police are here.
The police cruiser pulls, quietly, up to the bleachers, the crunch of gravel under the wheels. The lights on the cruiser spin chaotically: red, white and blue. The siren is silent. There are beer cans, murdered birds, sprinkled around the bleachers.
She already knows what’s going to happen. She knows it's those boys, the rich ones with the cars that sparkle. They drive around town every night like vultures. They hunt, stalk and never go home until something is broken or destroyed, a victory over the night. She can't do anything about it. They own all the respectability in town. She warned her daughter: Hon, never try to be like them, they will hurt you. You are not like them. You are less in their eyes; you will always be less in their eyes. And here she is...below her arm. She’s pale and limp; the wave of her soft brown hair, thin like a small child, blows over her knees. Just dig a grave now, put her into the cold ground, we’re already here, there’s no reason to move her body, and why pretend there’s anything else important to do? She’s been abused enough. No one cares. All that’s left is the sprinkle of a little charity, the brown dirt of the earth.
In this small town she knows who she is--her place. And we keep her down on purpose. Her life is like this cemetery, absent the words involving conscience, forever void. Let my daughter down in her grave, softly, in peace, she whispers, please, let the earth comfort her;it’s a soft begging sound. These people can’t afford to bury their death. But her whisper accompanies the hundreds, the thousands of others, the community of the forgotten, among the big mausoleums filled with the immortals, forever in their place. There is a line drawn between worlds. It’s always there. But it’s more visible in Ag City. It's intended to insure order, maintain the stability of the community. It’s there to create a sense of place, identity, and each person is assured their measure of decorum. It's solidified in the paint and mortar, in the glass and the asphalt that criss-crosses the town. It’s visible in the homes people occupy, the degree of comfort; it tells the world who you are and some of the houses are very ornate. It’s displayed in their ignorance of architecture, in their hunger for all things practical. Our community is a museum for the culturally untrained.
We designed and built the house ourselves.
~
At this point, you have to understand our town to understand what happened, and to understand these desperate people who pack themselves in the unseen corners of our community—the convenience store and fast food restaurant workers. I know my picture is vague and mean. But something is slipping away. My eyes are no longer blind. Yes, I killed the girl. I watched and I imagined, as it all unfolded, moving branches as I spied her mother sitting on the bleachers with her dead daughter's head in her lap. I watched the neighbors mock. I guessed their thoughts. I assigned a reality to it. I know everything. And these white trash people who clutter up our community, whose intentions never slip past my thoughts, they think they are entitled to something that we have, things they will never get. The poor you have with you always. Again, Jesus was right. Pour the perfume on my feet where it belongs. Let its sweet fragrance save my day. The whole thing was set in history, long ago. Who can argue with that?
I'll find a way to clean up this mess. She's a small person in a larger world. The girl's life had imagined value, as unnoticed as the dirt I walk on. How dare she reject me: the little slut. I gave her things—trinkets—things that shine. She never turned them away. And her mother: she’s a confused woman. She's a couple months behind on her mortgage. I know. My father owns the bank. He's been patient, too patient, and I suspect she will soon disappear, moved to a different town, forgotten. The Mexican whose truck broke down at the edge of the cemetery has no idea what is about to happen to him when he comes back to claim his property. They, too, are starting to fill our town. Our town suffers scourge after scourge. The whole thing is planned out in my head. Yes, I had to kill the girl. It was necessary. She would have ruined everything. This is a good place to live, filled with good people and good families. I have many friends here. I plan to stay. This cemetery is filled with monuments to our past, of the people who truly belong here and have a promise of a future—our eternity. These gravestones are precious gems, lessons to the community on the value of our history, the cornerstone of our beliefs—the substance of our God. She wanted to put a stain on everything. I shook her to get her to understand. She swore she was going to tell everyone that I forced myself on her. I didn’t force anything. It was just sex; it was done before each of us even blinked. Why did it matter? But, no, she spit in my face and tried to tear herself away. She struggled. But my grip was a vise. She's not going to do it. She's not going to say a word. Not if I can help it. No, definitely not.
It's time for me to get to my car, drive around the block, come back, and pull into the cemetery disheveled and distraught. After all, I just lost my girlfriend and I’m deeply pained.
AUTHOR
Michael L. Woodruff is a graduate of the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. While at the Workshop he received the Reikes Scholarship for Writing.
His stories have appeared in Summerset Review and the Main Street Rag.
His poems have appeared in Live Poets’ Society Vol. V 2018
He is a 2019 Nominee for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.
He was born in Los Angeles, California, and currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In addition to writing and reading, he spends his time hiking the deserts of New Mexico.
I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed.
-Charles Baudelaire
This is the moment when lights dim. A faint mummer, a creak in the aluminum and a light cry escape from an old section of the football bleacher at the edge of the cemetery located under a walnut tree. The ground is littered with small green balls. The bleacher is used for funerals. The sounds are a plea in a place that sleeps. It softens the morning. But it doesn't help.
You should have kept your mouth shut.
~
The grounds are immaculate, manicured, surrounded by low wrought iron fencing that goes on for seeming miles along highway 69. There are acres of gravestones, all precise and carefully etched. The grass is cut so clean you can have a Sunday picnic on it, and often, people do, spreading blankets atop the lime colored grass, complete with coolers and food baskets and folding chairs; they come to visit their deceased loved ones. Children run through the maze of gravestones like they do through the hallways of the houses they live in. The adults freshen up the final homes of lives that no longer care. American flags and plastic flowers dot the granite memorials. A wooden sign with listed rules exhort visitors to keep their endearments current by taking the old flowers away. Please do not leave anything over 30 days. Show community pride. The place looks more like a fourth of July festival than the home of the dead.
~
Her mother's right arm drapes across the body. The girl's clothes are wrinkled, awkwardly pulled back up her legs, her socks and shoes are off, inches from her feet. Her small tangled panties are rolled into the dirt, twisted when they were pulled off. Her cell phone is cracked and placed carefully on the bleachers, just above the girl’s head. Her mother scratches at her daughter's naked stomach. It's a soft scratching, intended to sooth. And for the first time, she sees how small and innocent her daughter really is. Her skin is vulnerable. She's a silent flower, weak and wilted. She tried to grow up too fast. The mother reaches for understanding in her head. Why? Things like this don’t happen in our town.Her daughter left the evening before with friends. She didn't ask who. It's a small town. Everyone knows each other. It shouldn't have mattered.
~
Mama, I'm sorry. It's the whisper of her last gasp. I should have been more careful.Her eyes close, sweet, like a baby's self-awareness and her escaping words are a final witness, creating a fiction her mother will never hear. Her hair smells like shampoo and dirt. She's a beaten animal.
This never had to happen. Her greatest sin was not cooperating.
A pick-up truck missing a wheel is propped up by a 2 by 6 wedge, the identified culprit--the diversion. It looks desperately abandoned. It's at the edge of the road to the back of the cemetery. It's out of place in this pristine landscape: guilt by misfortune. Out of place, like her mother with a dead girl's head in her lap, out of place like the mother's crying, out of place like her presence in the cemetery so early in the morning; the world is still asleep. Her mother didn’t make it in time. She doesn't have a car. She had to walk.
~
Ag City is a maze of silos and box shaped buildings and houses, business buildings, agricultural buildings. Everything about the town hinges around these businesses. And in Ag City, local business is a hobby, a purse that never empties. There's an endless well to draw from--the poor and the passer-bys along highway 69. And of course, exports. Businesses blend with the local houses. It's the shuffle of the deck. They are one. It gives the town its polished image: a pristine high school with cheerleaders, white like Sunday lilies--intellectually fragile. Old men in overalls, with thick wallets, ancient and bewildered, stagger into the cafes with walls lined with sport clippings. They sip weak coffee and talk proudly about the local football heroes who are without blemish. They stand confident in their knowledge of the past. They are the stewards of all things sacred. And the young boys: they are as strong as tree trunks, and they swim thoughtlessly through the town like unfettered bulls. The town’s main church, meek on Jesus, with the American flag flying high and dignified next to the Queen Anne structure, the only architecture of antiquity left in the community, is painted heaven white and is the center of anything new and appropriate, polished people with polished cars. Each member invites the minister to lunch once a year to remind him how wonderful they are.
New enameled tractors, Massey-Ferguson, reflecting the sun, line along highway 69 as unassuming as the fast food restaurants that garnish its banks. There’s a small shack with a sign: Guns and Tiresand a graveled parking lot filled with camouflage hunting blinds. Proud new buildings overtake the rusted tangle of the past, the powdered crumble of concrete walls with faded paint--Wonderbread and Pharmacy, along with other old buildings, sink, undetected, into the earth. They are replaced by galvanized and vinyl pre-fabbed structures. They are absent from the blemish and the stain of original sin. They gleam. Perfectly bound bales of hay sleep in fields along the Blackland prairies like huge nuggets of shredded wheat. They are sweet grass, the warm smell of summer, the hint of rural passion. Every parade and every town picnic is designed to showcase a community in bliss, the substance of the celebration, excess, reduced to paper cups and plates, trash, and left for cleaning the next day—it has a smidgen of charity, the reminder of a good time. It provides jobs to those with little money.
~
Wood planking lie on a flatbed trailer, unused, having sat there four years forgotten by the white trash who own it. They never learn. They leave their better intentions in splintered piles. They lose their drive and money. They are never quite able to bring a task to its conclusion. They take what is free with little inspiration concerning its use. They are blank slates. The town is a place where white propane tanks of the past still heat many of the houses, the broken houses that nest in the weaker lots like sad reminders. Cottonwood trees hang heavy, splayed out, over the concrete sidewalks, an umbrella over these same older houses.
Hedge posts skin the sides of highway 69 while yellow and light green brome, the grass not baled, fill the ditches and spike into the wind. Houses along the highway sport custom mailboxes supported by western plows and milk containers. This morning, the sky is different than it was in the days past; it's now a confused blanket of light blue, lacking mid-day clarity. The angels in the clouds have disappeared leaving feathered streams of white. There are holes in the air where the rays of light penetrate and the sun spots the landscape below.
The freshly painted water tower with solid legs wears the pride of the city-Class B champions 1962. It's the promise of future victories without consequence. These fast food restaurants, Taco Bell and Subway, the whole lot of them, have invaded the city long ago, one by one, forever cemeteries, numb of any personality. The poor you have with you always, a conflicting message at best. They populate our town like a plague. And as a result, there are needs for jobs. But, these poor are expendable. They are here for the convenience of others. They are eaten daily. These fast food restaurants are a concession without any real economic impact, the illusion of growth and success. Being a shift manager is still not going to cut it.
~
Her mother gets the call about 15 minutes before...there are noises from the phone falling, the girl's voice screaming,no, and then, mama, I'm at the cemetery. The phone call is abruptly ended, the drone of her ringtone. Her voice sounded like a plea for the mercy of god--a flawed redemption. It's in these times that the eyes of god are plucked from their sockets, his presence ineffectual. Absentes Vero. Prayer is always an act of desperation, a salvation poorly planned, and the early morning air is mute.
~
People drip out of their houses surrounding the cemetery. They hear a weak cry in the morning rime. And they start to gather, blinking out the morning dew. Their mouths drop and somehow in their minds they're thinking something about the girl's lifestyle, careless thoughts that make its way to a conclusion, what they think they know, what they imagine it to be, late night bars with wild music, dances; their perception is that she parties nightly, using a fake ID, people talk, it’s how news spreads in Ag City, and her reputation is somehow responsible for her death. And her mother---what does she know, she allowed it all to happen.
-What a tragedy. But if you play with fire expect to get burned. The community is already preparing its lie.
One of the young girl's breasts poke out of her threadbare blouse, and men, with pink faces, as guilty as candy-stealing children stare. Her mother pushes it as best as she can back into the blouse, but the blouse is torn and weak and her daughter isn't wearing a bra.
-We called the police, one of the men says flatly.
She just shakes her head; she's buried in her daughter's face. She’s going to miss work today at the convenience store, and it’s something she can’t afford. She has a mortgage on a house that disappears daily into the landscape. She can’t afford the repairs. Its roof is chaffed and the siding scraped to the naked wood, gray and cracked. The yard is full of abandoned junk. The inside of the house has the thick scent of unwashed blankets. There’s no air-conditioning.
-These people are used to this kind of thing, another man concedes. They suffer daily. Most of their children die in birth. All Okies, with weak values, it’s no wonder bad things happen to them. That’s life.
The others agree.
-Just white trash--very sad. We’ve never had this shit before. It’s a recent thing. It happened when those damned fast food places started coming to town, creating bad jobs for people to buy once perfectly good houses, letting them go to hell, property that will never be repaired. And tattoos: How do these people afford their tattoos? The town is disappearing into the Blackland plains. This used to be a good place to live.
The woman whips her hair behind her shoulder and looks in the direction of the men and glares.
-And I’m fat and stupid, too.
They back up with a steely guilt.
-Come on guys, let's go. The police are here.
The police cruiser pulls, quietly, up to the bleachers, the crunch of gravel under the wheels. The lights on the cruiser spin chaotically: red, white and blue. The siren is silent. There are beer cans, murdered birds, sprinkled around the bleachers.
She already knows what’s going to happen. She knows it's those boys, the rich ones with the cars that sparkle. They drive around town every night like vultures. They hunt, stalk and never go home until something is broken or destroyed, a victory over the night. She can't do anything about it. They own all the respectability in town. She warned her daughter: Hon, never try to be like them, they will hurt you. You are not like them. You are less in their eyes; you will always be less in their eyes. And here she is...below her arm. She’s pale and limp; the wave of her soft brown hair, thin like a small child, blows over her knees. Just dig a grave now, put her into the cold ground, we’re already here, there’s no reason to move her body, and why pretend there’s anything else important to do? She’s been abused enough. No one cares. All that’s left is the sprinkle of a little charity, the brown dirt of the earth.
In this small town she knows who she is--her place. And we keep her down on purpose. Her life is like this cemetery, absent the words involving conscience, forever void. Let my daughter down in her grave, softly, in peace, she whispers, please, let the earth comfort her;it’s a soft begging sound. These people can’t afford to bury their death. But her whisper accompanies the hundreds, the thousands of others, the community of the forgotten, among the big mausoleums filled with the immortals, forever in their place. There is a line drawn between worlds. It’s always there. But it’s more visible in Ag City. It's intended to insure order, maintain the stability of the community. It’s there to create a sense of place, identity, and each person is assured their measure of decorum. It's solidified in the paint and mortar, in the glass and the asphalt that criss-crosses the town. It’s visible in the homes people occupy, the degree of comfort; it tells the world who you are and some of the houses are very ornate. It’s displayed in their ignorance of architecture, in their hunger for all things practical. Our community is a museum for the culturally untrained.
We designed and built the house ourselves.
~
At this point, you have to understand our town to understand what happened, and to understand these desperate people who pack themselves in the unseen corners of our community—the convenience store and fast food restaurant workers. I know my picture is vague and mean. But something is slipping away. My eyes are no longer blind. Yes, I killed the girl. I watched and I imagined, as it all unfolded, moving branches as I spied her mother sitting on the bleachers with her dead daughter's head in her lap. I watched the neighbors mock. I guessed their thoughts. I assigned a reality to it. I know everything. And these white trash people who clutter up our community, whose intentions never slip past my thoughts, they think they are entitled to something that we have, things they will never get. The poor you have with you always. Again, Jesus was right. Pour the perfume on my feet where it belongs. Let its sweet fragrance save my day. The whole thing was set in history, long ago. Who can argue with that?
I'll find a way to clean up this mess. She's a small person in a larger world. The girl's life had imagined value, as unnoticed as the dirt I walk on. How dare she reject me: the little slut. I gave her things—trinkets—things that shine. She never turned them away. And her mother: she’s a confused woman. She's a couple months behind on her mortgage. I know. My father owns the bank. He's been patient, too patient, and I suspect she will soon disappear, moved to a different town, forgotten. The Mexican whose truck broke down at the edge of the cemetery has no idea what is about to happen to him when he comes back to claim his property. They, too, are starting to fill our town. Our town suffers scourge after scourge. The whole thing is planned out in my head. Yes, I had to kill the girl. It was necessary. She would have ruined everything. This is a good place to live, filled with good people and good families. I have many friends here. I plan to stay. This cemetery is filled with monuments to our past, of the people who truly belong here and have a promise of a future—our eternity. These gravestones are precious gems, lessons to the community on the value of our history, the cornerstone of our beliefs—the substance of our God. She wanted to put a stain on everything. I shook her to get her to understand. She swore she was going to tell everyone that I forced myself on her. I didn’t force anything. It was just sex; it was done before each of us even blinked. Why did it matter? But, no, she spit in my face and tried to tear herself away. She struggled. But my grip was a vise. She's not going to do it. She's not going to say a word. Not if I can help it. No, definitely not.
It's time for me to get to my car, drive around the block, come back, and pull into the cemetery disheveled and distraught. After all, I just lost my girlfriend and I’m deeply pained.
AUTHOR
Michael L. Woodruff is a graduate of the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. While at the Workshop he received the Reikes Scholarship for Writing.
His stories have appeared in Summerset Review and the Main Street Rag.
His poems have appeared in Live Poets’ Society Vol. V 2018
He is a 2019 Nominee for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.
He was born in Los Angeles, California, and currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In addition to writing and reading, he spends his time hiking the deserts of New Mexico.
The River washes everything
by Chris Mpofu
The bulls shoveled sand backwards, heads to the ground, eyes locked.
"Sgu-u-u-u-u!" Mexan, thick and squat like the bull he was calling on, crouched beside the animals, his own legs wide apart, hands clasped tight. Khaki shorts torn down the middle, the crack between his buttocks wide open.
Thabo watched the bulls, his eyes wandering from time to time to the tear in Mexan's shorts. The boys exploded in cheers as the bulls clashed, yelling and applauding every time their animal gored the other. As usual, Sgubudu, Mexan's prize bull, triumphed. Thabo watched the defeated bull trudge away, blood dripping down its side. His stomach roiled as he caught sight of Mexan's gloating eyes.
The river made a V-like bend here, its widest point. In the dry season, it was a vast stretch of soft sand, patches of water dotting its width. Tree roots cracked its banks in search of water. The cattle drank and grazed around it, the caress of its cool breeze soft and gentle in the punishing heat.
The boys sought shade under a camel thorn tree, where they played tsoro. The game boards—four rows and seven columns of holes—pockmarked the ground under the tree. Players scooped and shuffled stones furiously from one hole to the next in a bid to capture their opponents' stones. The senior boys played non-stop while the juniors took turns watching the animals. Thabo looked on as Mexan played, cocky after his bullfight victory; hovering over his opponent with arm drawn back as if to land a punch, scorn skinning his lips across his teeth. Mexan would join the army one day, Thabo was sure. Well, maybe he would meet his match there. Get his big testicles crushed under a giant boot. He hadn't looked so cocky a year ago when Gogotook him in, his parents burned to death in their hut. Thabo loved his grandmother, but why did it have to be theirfamily that rescued this baboon? It didn't take long for Mexan to settle in, and he was soon pushing Thabo around. Kicking Thabo's feet away under the blankets at night. Sometimes ripping the blankets away from him. He was strong, and Thabo never challenged him. If only Thabo could share his bedroom with just his little brother Spikili. But Gogo had insisted that he make Mexan feel welcome. Didn't he feel sorry for the poor boy? Both his parents gone just like that? At the river, Mexan maneuvered his way to the senior group of boys. So now he played tsoro while Thabo watched the cattle.
Darkness crept in, time to round the animals up.
"Thabo! Thabo!" The junior boys chanted as they corralled the cattle onto the narrow path. Some patted Thabo on the bum as they jumped up and down, naughty smiles lighting their faces. Thabo kept his head down, home suddenly far away. The narrow path filled with dust as hooves hit the ground, a sense of urgency filling the inexorable march home.
____
That evening Mexan sat across the fire, prodding groundnuts in the hot ash. His left leg folded underneath him, the right leg forming an inverted L shape above the floor. Thabo could never sit like that—it always hurt his foot. Mexan's eyes were partly shut by the smoke rising up to the thatched roof. When the nuts were roasted he gathered them into a pile, expertly removing the ash.
"Want some?" He extended a handful to Gogo, who reached across and accepted the nuts.
"Thank you, Mexan."
Thabo felt Mexan staring at him, but focused on his own search for nuts.
"You should've seen Sgu today, Gogo!" Mexan crunched his thick fists, holding them up as he stared at Thabo.
Gogo's not interested in bullfights, you asshole!Thabo scratched the ash, collected groundnuts from the fire.
"One day he'll find his match," Gogo said, smiling.
"Not for my Sgu, Gogo." Mexan had his arms folded upwards to imitate a bull's horns, his head dipped towards the fire. "There's no match!"
Gogo held a groundnut suspended in mid-air, her mouth hanging open. She looked like she was going to break into one of her loud cackles that always made her cough. Then, as if she'd suddenly realized that Mexan was just full of himself and didn't need to be encouraged, popped the groundnut into her mouth and chewed it well before speaking. "Anyway, Sgubudu's job is to give us calves."
Just then, Spikili walked in, covered in dust from head to toe. He squatted next to his grandmother. "Where do calves come from, Gogo?"
Spikili, always asking questions.
"Nxa isitshisa, inkomokaz'iyahamba khatshana iyozekwa."When the cow is in heat, it goes away to get fucked.
The firewood crackled in the little hut, groundnuts exploding as they cracked open. Thabo watched Spikili's little face fall in on itself and drive his gaze to the floor, his eyes darting in every direction but Gogo's.
"Ithi nxa isiphenduka iyab'isizithwele."And then it returns pregnant.
"One day Thabo will come back pregnant!" Mexan almost choked on a groundnut as he broke into laughter.
Thabo's nuts slid off his hands and rolled around the fireplace. He jerked his face towards the doorway, then down at the fire, not daring to glance at Mexan. He tried to jump up but his legs wouldn't move. So he fixed his gaze on the fire, its flames spewing smoke into his eyes.
Gogo turned to Mexan, her voice soft. "Hayi Mexan, ungenzi njalo."
"Will Thabo go away like the cow, Gogo?" Spikili asked.
The night's silence flowed in and flooded the hut. Thabo wished for the morning, the distant promise of relief.
Finally, Gogo gathered her blanket, groaning as she got up. "Everyone to sleep, it's late." She laid a gentle hand on Thabo's shoulder on her way out.
Thabo sat by the fire, tears streaming in the smoke.
____
The village store came into view, and he crouched behind a tree. It was mid-morning, but the sun was already baking, painting mirages in the air. He was sure no one had seen him. All he needed was a quick sprint across the open road and he would be at the back of the store. Zitha, their neighbor, was dragging her little daughter out. When they disappeared out of sight, he dashed across.
"Aah, Thabo!"
Why did Johnson have to be so loud? He was lugging a sack of maize from the storeroom. Thabo caught a glimpse of Mrs. Johnson at the store counter—scrawny and pale despite all the food in the store. He raced up the stairs, and stood finally in the bedroom doorway. The bed could sleep three people, maybe four, even. It was neatly made; the sheets folded back, a perfect white. He imagined Johnson and his wife in the bed, and something in him hurt.
"Like the bed, boy? Madam would shoot me if she caught us in her bed!"
Thabo felt Johnson's hard penis on his bum. He went to get on his knees, but Johnson pulled him back.
"Easy, boy. We take it slow, hey boy?"
Johnson's fingers roamed over Thabo's chest. Thick, hairy stubs. Thabo wondered if all white men were so hairy. Slowly, the fingers came to rest on Thabo's crotch. And then suddenly, Johnson was ripping Thabo's shirt off, forcing him to the floor. Making frantic attempts to unbuckle his belt, panting and wheezing. Thabo's own blood was racing now. He tossed his shorts onto the floor, put his head down, his fingers clawing the carpet.
____
Later that afternoon, the boys were back at the river, Mexan perched on a little rock, twirling his club in the air. Thabo found a shady spot on the riverbank and sat down. He was tired and wanted to go to sleep, but couldn't; he didn't want to wake up with his shorts missing again. So he lay down, eyes wide open, and studied the clouds. It wasn't long before Mexan was standing over him, club in hand.
"Uyindoda wena?" Are you a man?
The thin clouds melted in the heat, exposing a vast blue sky.
Mexan kicked up some dust. "When are you going to get pregnant?"
Thabo bolted upright. He scooped a handful of sand to throw onto Mexan's face. Too slow. Mexan's thick fingers were around his wrist, his crotch hard on Thabo's back. The sand slid from Thabo's hand onto the riverbank. A scream formed in his throat but remained there. The other boys surrounded them now.
"He says he's a man!" Mexan pointed at Thabo, a sneer on his face. "Ayihlome!"
Before he knew what was happening, the boys had pinned Thabo to the ground, yanked his shorts off. "Big ass!" Bursts of laughter flooded the air and floated over the river.
Thabo didn't see it coming, but when Mexan thrust his club up his rectum, a bolt of lightning seared every inch of his body, bursting his head as blood rushed up. He inhaled sand. Convulsed so hard he yanked his head free and breathed air again.
Laughing faces hovered over him, all teeth and gums, his vision now a blur.
Mexan shoved the club deeper.
Sweat cracked Thabo’s forehead. His body went cold.
Then, one by one, the feet around his face shuffled away, a dove cooing above them.
"Where's your white husband now?" Mexan said.
Thabo caught Mexan's foul breath, the stench of rotten milk.
Mexan ran grubby fingers, hard, down Thabo's back.
Thabo couldn't breathe for the pain.
"In through the back door again tomorrow, huh?" Flashing his evil smile one last time, Mexan ripped his club out, and was gone.
Thabo collected his shorts, rolled himself into a ball, his breaths quick and short. His rectum throbbing. A few minutes later, he struggled onto his hands and knees, shoveled sand backwards, his head to the ground.
____
The blanket over his head helped to block out the forest sounds—crickets chirping, the sudden ruffling of grass. He tucked the edges of the blanket underneath him to get a good seal. Three nights in the bush now, hiding by day, Thabo had survived on roots. If only the river were full, splashing its swooshing sounds to calm him to sleep, wash away his pain. But this was the dry season.
In the morning he rolled his blanket, tucked it under his arm. He buried his tools by the tree and, his plan finalized, set off for home. When he entered the yard Gogo was sweeping the hut. He stood in the doorway and watched her. She wasn't humming her usual song, her sweeping strokes halting, almost breaking the grass broom. When she saw him the broom slid off her hands. She stood silent, her skin furrowed. Then, the tension draining from her face, she approached him. Slowly. Deliberately. Tears snaking down her rugged cheeks. She hugged him tightly, breaking into sobs.
Thabo clung on to her, convulsing hard. Until finally, they parted.
"Sit down," Gogo whispered, making for the door. She returned with a plate of sweet potatoes, a welcome break from the amadumbehe'd survived on in the bush.
When he was done eating, Thabo got up and went to the boys' hut.
His blankets formed a small mound next to Spikili, who was still sleeping, the stench of urine rising from his blankets. Mexan's blankets were strewn on the floor, his naked body stretching as he yawned.
"Haaa!" Mexan leaned in to inspect Thabo's tummy. "Are you pregnant now? You must be, after three whole days of it."
Thabo walked past him, picked up a bucket. He washed, changed into a clean pair of shorts and t-shirt. Then he went out to milk the cows. He loved milking the cows; he could talk to them, tell them his secrets, anything. They never laughed at him, never hurt him.
____
The river was particularly dry that afternoon, forcing the boys to dig deep in the sand to get water to drink . Thabo had brought his club, something he hadn't done for a while. He sat on a soft patch of grass in the shade and watched the animals.
"Iph'indoda?" Where is the man? Mexan, having sneaked up from nowhere, dancing a war dance, waving his club.
Thabo watched in silence, keeping his own club close by. Mexan danced towards him, kicking dust into the air. He hit the ground in front of Thabo with his club, a direct challenge to battle. Thabo stayed put. The boys gathered, laughing.
Thwack!
An explosion of laughter ripped the air. Thabo felt the skin on his back split. Slowly, he rose from the ground. Shook sand off his body, broke into a dance of his own. He swung his club, throwing it in the air, catching it. And finally, struck the ground beside Mexan's feet.
A sudden quiet fell on the riverside; even the doves stopped cooing. The boys stood still, their jeering moves paralyzed, sneers frozen on their faces. Mexan was no longer dancing, his club held stiffly down his side. Thabo feigned an attack, and Mexan ducked. As he rose, Thabo struck. Squarely on the head, sending him sprawling to the ground. Thabo dragged the limp body to a tree, dug up his rope and knife from the ground. No boy stopped him. In fast jerky movements, he tied Mexan's arms and legs up, then tied them to a tree. Next, he ripped Mexan's shorts off and knelt beside his limp body. Then he snatched Mexan's penis in his hand, regarded it for a moment, and looked up at the boys. They stood in shock.
"Iph'indoda?"Where is the man? Thabo’s voice filled the air, searching the sky.
The crowd stared, unmoving.
Thabo wiped the sand stuck from his knife onto Mexan's shorts. "This is what you've made me do." He shifted gaze from one face to another, knife firmly in hand.
Mexan stirred again. Briefly. Then fell back again, limp as a dead frog.
"This is what you think makes a man?" Thabo stretched Mexan's penis. "Well, heis not a man anymore!"
He slit across Mexan's penis.
An ejaculate of blood gushed out. Splashed on the ground. Cries of shock wailed from the crowd. The boys fell on Thabo, pinned him down. Thabo dropped the penis, now just hanging on by a sliver of skin.
____
Gogo extended a hand through the metal bars to greet him. "I talked to the police," she said.
Thabo felt nothing. He stared past her. What would talking to the police help? He had told them everything. Admitted everything. There was nothing to discover.
"I told them how…" Gogo was saying. "I told them how he longed for you."
Thabo's eyes fastened on her. Longed? Mexan? What was Gogo talking about?
"He loved you, Thabo, couldn't you see?"
Where's your white husband now?
Mexan? "No!" Thabo roared, shaking the prison bars, making Gogo jump.
"He couldn't take it that you gave to Mr. Johnson and not him."
Thabo stared into her kind, rheumy eyes.
"He shamed me." Tears streamed down his cheeks. "He hurt…"
Gogo stroked his hand. "He didn't know how to tell you."
____
Outside, darkness fell on the river, and Thabo sat alone in the stifling prison, his isolation complete. Maybe, just maybe, there was another boy out there. Maybe one day they would talk. Sit by the river's edge, listen to its secrets. And maybe, with the ancestors’ blessing, the river would flow again, wash away his shame.
AUTHOR
Chris is an emerging writer who was born in Zimbabwe and lives in Canada. He has had a short story long listed for the CBC Short Story competition, and another shortlisted for the Writers’ Union of Canada Annual Short Prose Competition. He is currently working on a novel that explores the experiences of those who have left their countries of origin to settle elsewhere.
The bulls shoveled sand backwards, heads to the ground, eyes locked.
"Sgu-u-u-u-u!" Mexan, thick and squat like the bull he was calling on, crouched beside the animals, his own legs wide apart, hands clasped tight. Khaki shorts torn down the middle, the crack between his buttocks wide open.
Thabo watched the bulls, his eyes wandering from time to time to the tear in Mexan's shorts. The boys exploded in cheers as the bulls clashed, yelling and applauding every time their animal gored the other. As usual, Sgubudu, Mexan's prize bull, triumphed. Thabo watched the defeated bull trudge away, blood dripping down its side. His stomach roiled as he caught sight of Mexan's gloating eyes.
The river made a V-like bend here, its widest point. In the dry season, it was a vast stretch of soft sand, patches of water dotting its width. Tree roots cracked its banks in search of water. The cattle drank and grazed around it, the caress of its cool breeze soft and gentle in the punishing heat.
The boys sought shade under a camel thorn tree, where they played tsoro. The game boards—four rows and seven columns of holes—pockmarked the ground under the tree. Players scooped and shuffled stones furiously from one hole to the next in a bid to capture their opponents' stones. The senior boys played non-stop while the juniors took turns watching the animals. Thabo looked on as Mexan played, cocky after his bullfight victory; hovering over his opponent with arm drawn back as if to land a punch, scorn skinning his lips across his teeth. Mexan would join the army one day, Thabo was sure. Well, maybe he would meet his match there. Get his big testicles crushed under a giant boot. He hadn't looked so cocky a year ago when Gogotook him in, his parents burned to death in their hut. Thabo loved his grandmother, but why did it have to be theirfamily that rescued this baboon? It didn't take long for Mexan to settle in, and he was soon pushing Thabo around. Kicking Thabo's feet away under the blankets at night. Sometimes ripping the blankets away from him. He was strong, and Thabo never challenged him. If only Thabo could share his bedroom with just his little brother Spikili. But Gogo had insisted that he make Mexan feel welcome. Didn't he feel sorry for the poor boy? Both his parents gone just like that? At the river, Mexan maneuvered his way to the senior group of boys. So now he played tsoro while Thabo watched the cattle.
Darkness crept in, time to round the animals up.
"Thabo! Thabo!" The junior boys chanted as they corralled the cattle onto the narrow path. Some patted Thabo on the bum as they jumped up and down, naughty smiles lighting their faces. Thabo kept his head down, home suddenly far away. The narrow path filled with dust as hooves hit the ground, a sense of urgency filling the inexorable march home.
____
That evening Mexan sat across the fire, prodding groundnuts in the hot ash. His left leg folded underneath him, the right leg forming an inverted L shape above the floor. Thabo could never sit like that—it always hurt his foot. Mexan's eyes were partly shut by the smoke rising up to the thatched roof. When the nuts were roasted he gathered them into a pile, expertly removing the ash.
"Want some?" He extended a handful to Gogo, who reached across and accepted the nuts.
"Thank you, Mexan."
Thabo felt Mexan staring at him, but focused on his own search for nuts.
"You should've seen Sgu today, Gogo!" Mexan crunched his thick fists, holding them up as he stared at Thabo.
Gogo's not interested in bullfights, you asshole!Thabo scratched the ash, collected groundnuts from the fire.
"One day he'll find his match," Gogo said, smiling.
"Not for my Sgu, Gogo." Mexan had his arms folded upwards to imitate a bull's horns, his head dipped towards the fire. "There's no match!"
Gogo held a groundnut suspended in mid-air, her mouth hanging open. She looked like she was going to break into one of her loud cackles that always made her cough. Then, as if she'd suddenly realized that Mexan was just full of himself and didn't need to be encouraged, popped the groundnut into her mouth and chewed it well before speaking. "Anyway, Sgubudu's job is to give us calves."
Just then, Spikili walked in, covered in dust from head to toe. He squatted next to his grandmother. "Where do calves come from, Gogo?"
Spikili, always asking questions.
"Nxa isitshisa, inkomokaz'iyahamba khatshana iyozekwa."When the cow is in heat, it goes away to get fucked.
The firewood crackled in the little hut, groundnuts exploding as they cracked open. Thabo watched Spikili's little face fall in on itself and drive his gaze to the floor, his eyes darting in every direction but Gogo's.
"Ithi nxa isiphenduka iyab'isizithwele."And then it returns pregnant.
"One day Thabo will come back pregnant!" Mexan almost choked on a groundnut as he broke into laughter.
Thabo's nuts slid off his hands and rolled around the fireplace. He jerked his face towards the doorway, then down at the fire, not daring to glance at Mexan. He tried to jump up but his legs wouldn't move. So he fixed his gaze on the fire, its flames spewing smoke into his eyes.
Gogo turned to Mexan, her voice soft. "Hayi Mexan, ungenzi njalo."
"Will Thabo go away like the cow, Gogo?" Spikili asked.
The night's silence flowed in and flooded the hut. Thabo wished for the morning, the distant promise of relief.
Finally, Gogo gathered her blanket, groaning as she got up. "Everyone to sleep, it's late." She laid a gentle hand on Thabo's shoulder on her way out.
Thabo sat by the fire, tears streaming in the smoke.
____
The village store came into view, and he crouched behind a tree. It was mid-morning, but the sun was already baking, painting mirages in the air. He was sure no one had seen him. All he needed was a quick sprint across the open road and he would be at the back of the store. Zitha, their neighbor, was dragging her little daughter out. When they disappeared out of sight, he dashed across.
"Aah, Thabo!"
Why did Johnson have to be so loud? He was lugging a sack of maize from the storeroom. Thabo caught a glimpse of Mrs. Johnson at the store counter—scrawny and pale despite all the food in the store. He raced up the stairs, and stood finally in the bedroom doorway. The bed could sleep three people, maybe four, even. It was neatly made; the sheets folded back, a perfect white. He imagined Johnson and his wife in the bed, and something in him hurt.
"Like the bed, boy? Madam would shoot me if she caught us in her bed!"
Thabo felt Johnson's hard penis on his bum. He went to get on his knees, but Johnson pulled him back.
"Easy, boy. We take it slow, hey boy?"
Johnson's fingers roamed over Thabo's chest. Thick, hairy stubs. Thabo wondered if all white men were so hairy. Slowly, the fingers came to rest on Thabo's crotch. And then suddenly, Johnson was ripping Thabo's shirt off, forcing him to the floor. Making frantic attempts to unbuckle his belt, panting and wheezing. Thabo's own blood was racing now. He tossed his shorts onto the floor, put his head down, his fingers clawing the carpet.
____
Later that afternoon, the boys were back at the river, Mexan perched on a little rock, twirling his club in the air. Thabo found a shady spot on the riverbank and sat down. He was tired and wanted to go to sleep, but couldn't; he didn't want to wake up with his shorts missing again. So he lay down, eyes wide open, and studied the clouds. It wasn't long before Mexan was standing over him, club in hand.
"Uyindoda wena?" Are you a man?
The thin clouds melted in the heat, exposing a vast blue sky.
Mexan kicked up some dust. "When are you going to get pregnant?"
Thabo bolted upright. He scooped a handful of sand to throw onto Mexan's face. Too slow. Mexan's thick fingers were around his wrist, his crotch hard on Thabo's back. The sand slid from Thabo's hand onto the riverbank. A scream formed in his throat but remained there. The other boys surrounded them now.
"He says he's a man!" Mexan pointed at Thabo, a sneer on his face. "Ayihlome!"
Before he knew what was happening, the boys had pinned Thabo to the ground, yanked his shorts off. "Big ass!" Bursts of laughter flooded the air and floated over the river.
Thabo didn't see it coming, but when Mexan thrust his club up his rectum, a bolt of lightning seared every inch of his body, bursting his head as blood rushed up. He inhaled sand. Convulsed so hard he yanked his head free and breathed air again.
Laughing faces hovered over him, all teeth and gums, his vision now a blur.
Mexan shoved the club deeper.
Sweat cracked Thabo’s forehead. His body went cold.
Then, one by one, the feet around his face shuffled away, a dove cooing above them.
"Where's your white husband now?" Mexan said.
Thabo caught Mexan's foul breath, the stench of rotten milk.
Mexan ran grubby fingers, hard, down Thabo's back.
Thabo couldn't breathe for the pain.
"In through the back door again tomorrow, huh?" Flashing his evil smile one last time, Mexan ripped his club out, and was gone.
Thabo collected his shorts, rolled himself into a ball, his breaths quick and short. His rectum throbbing. A few minutes later, he struggled onto his hands and knees, shoveled sand backwards, his head to the ground.
____
The blanket over his head helped to block out the forest sounds—crickets chirping, the sudden ruffling of grass. He tucked the edges of the blanket underneath him to get a good seal. Three nights in the bush now, hiding by day, Thabo had survived on roots. If only the river were full, splashing its swooshing sounds to calm him to sleep, wash away his pain. But this was the dry season.
In the morning he rolled his blanket, tucked it under his arm. He buried his tools by the tree and, his plan finalized, set off for home. When he entered the yard Gogo was sweeping the hut. He stood in the doorway and watched her. She wasn't humming her usual song, her sweeping strokes halting, almost breaking the grass broom. When she saw him the broom slid off her hands. She stood silent, her skin furrowed. Then, the tension draining from her face, she approached him. Slowly. Deliberately. Tears snaking down her rugged cheeks. She hugged him tightly, breaking into sobs.
Thabo clung on to her, convulsing hard. Until finally, they parted.
"Sit down," Gogo whispered, making for the door. She returned with a plate of sweet potatoes, a welcome break from the amadumbehe'd survived on in the bush.
When he was done eating, Thabo got up and went to the boys' hut.
His blankets formed a small mound next to Spikili, who was still sleeping, the stench of urine rising from his blankets. Mexan's blankets were strewn on the floor, his naked body stretching as he yawned.
"Haaa!" Mexan leaned in to inspect Thabo's tummy. "Are you pregnant now? You must be, after three whole days of it."
Thabo walked past him, picked up a bucket. He washed, changed into a clean pair of shorts and t-shirt. Then he went out to milk the cows. He loved milking the cows; he could talk to them, tell them his secrets, anything. They never laughed at him, never hurt him.
____
The river was particularly dry that afternoon, forcing the boys to dig deep in the sand to get water to drink . Thabo had brought his club, something he hadn't done for a while. He sat on a soft patch of grass in the shade and watched the animals.
"Iph'indoda?" Where is the man? Mexan, having sneaked up from nowhere, dancing a war dance, waving his club.
Thabo watched in silence, keeping his own club close by. Mexan danced towards him, kicking dust into the air. He hit the ground in front of Thabo with his club, a direct challenge to battle. Thabo stayed put. The boys gathered, laughing.
Thwack!
An explosion of laughter ripped the air. Thabo felt the skin on his back split. Slowly, he rose from the ground. Shook sand off his body, broke into a dance of his own. He swung his club, throwing it in the air, catching it. And finally, struck the ground beside Mexan's feet.
A sudden quiet fell on the riverside; even the doves stopped cooing. The boys stood still, their jeering moves paralyzed, sneers frozen on their faces. Mexan was no longer dancing, his club held stiffly down his side. Thabo feigned an attack, and Mexan ducked. As he rose, Thabo struck. Squarely on the head, sending him sprawling to the ground. Thabo dragged the limp body to a tree, dug up his rope and knife from the ground. No boy stopped him. In fast jerky movements, he tied Mexan's arms and legs up, then tied them to a tree. Next, he ripped Mexan's shorts off and knelt beside his limp body. Then he snatched Mexan's penis in his hand, regarded it for a moment, and looked up at the boys. They stood in shock.
"Iph'indoda?"Where is the man? Thabo’s voice filled the air, searching the sky.
The crowd stared, unmoving.
Thabo wiped the sand stuck from his knife onto Mexan's shorts. "This is what you've made me do." He shifted gaze from one face to another, knife firmly in hand.
Mexan stirred again. Briefly. Then fell back again, limp as a dead frog.
"This is what you think makes a man?" Thabo stretched Mexan's penis. "Well, heis not a man anymore!"
He slit across Mexan's penis.
An ejaculate of blood gushed out. Splashed on the ground. Cries of shock wailed from the crowd. The boys fell on Thabo, pinned him down. Thabo dropped the penis, now just hanging on by a sliver of skin.
____
Gogo extended a hand through the metal bars to greet him. "I talked to the police," she said.
Thabo felt nothing. He stared past her. What would talking to the police help? He had told them everything. Admitted everything. There was nothing to discover.
"I told them how…" Gogo was saying. "I told them how he longed for you."
Thabo's eyes fastened on her. Longed? Mexan? What was Gogo talking about?
"He loved you, Thabo, couldn't you see?"
Where's your white husband now?
Mexan? "No!" Thabo roared, shaking the prison bars, making Gogo jump.
"He couldn't take it that you gave to Mr. Johnson and not him."
Thabo stared into her kind, rheumy eyes.
"He shamed me." Tears streamed down his cheeks. "He hurt…"
Gogo stroked his hand. "He didn't know how to tell you."
____
Outside, darkness fell on the river, and Thabo sat alone in the stifling prison, his isolation complete. Maybe, just maybe, there was another boy out there. Maybe one day they would talk. Sit by the river's edge, listen to its secrets. And maybe, with the ancestors’ blessing, the river would flow again, wash away his shame.
AUTHOR
Chris is an emerging writer who was born in Zimbabwe and lives in Canada. He has had a short story long listed for the CBC Short Story competition, and another shortlisted for the Writers’ Union of Canada Annual Short Prose Competition. He is currently working on a novel that explores the experiences of those who have left their countries of origin to settle elsewhere.
inbox empty
by Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri
Beautiful day. Must check inbox before going walking. Swimming. I’m a writer. Inbox, read 1. Hold acceptance. Possibility. Just read 1. Convey possibility. Let me obsess over that number. Try to discern story’s fate from first line. No emails. Refresh. Refresh. Morning fades, afternoon, walks and swimming fleeting. Keep checking. Just once. I’ll step away. Waiting is a reward. I must learn patience. But emails follow me. I’m a writer. Just one rejection? Pine trees blow in late afternoon breeze. I can watch Office Space. Dusk, still checking. Pink and purple shadows fall. Avoid email tomorrow.
Can’t wait to check.
AUTHOR
Mir-Yashar is a graduate of Colorado State's MFA program in fiction. His work has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as Terror House Magazine, Unstamatic, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Ariel Chart. He lives in Garden Valley, Idaho.
lines written in dejection, august 24th, 2019
by Robert Marshall
I would like to say my depression is because of the Amazon. But it’s not because of the Amazon, or maybe it’s in part because of the Amazon. It is, in part, because you don’t call me back. But perhaps you don’t call me back because of the Amazon, because you are depressed because of the Amazon. Or perhaps it’s because you’re depressed for other reasons, perhaps there is someone who hasn’t called you back, someone who is, to you, more important than me, and this has sapped your strength. But of course it’s possible that this person, whose existence I may just be imagining, doesn’t call you because they’re depressed because of the Amazon. I do not, in truth, understand what is happening in the Amazon; I could not, if pressed, explain why or how the forest does—or does not—breathe. Causality is always a story; I believe the one the scientists tell, I have to hold onto something, though really I know nothing about science, nor about the Amazon, nor do I know why you don’t call; I do not understand the zone that’s named your heart. I can make out nothing clearly, there’s just the haze, or maybe it’s smoke.
AUTHOR
Robert Marshall is a writer and artist. His novel, A Separate Reality, was released in 2006 by Carroll & Graf and nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. His work appeared in Salon, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review Online, among others.
Olive[r]
by Nicole Miller
9/6/19
9/6/19
“You remember you’re a girl, right?” Weston laughed as he lounged lazily against the wall. His arms were crossed over his chest in a casual stance with one leg crossed under the other.
“Last time I checked.” Olivine panted as she lifted both hands to her face, rubbing the sweat out of her eyes. They had been at the gym for an hour already and she wasn’t ready to call it quits even if her muscles were demanding that she stop before they imploded. “Why? Scared you’ll be outperformed by a little ol’ girl?”
Weston gave a snort that was made up of half a laugh and half an annoyed bark. “Have you seen my guns? Do you really think you could win against these bad boys?”
Olivine gave a snort that matched Weston’s before saying, “you mean the guns in the safe back at your house or half-deflated blow-up ones you call arms? Both are not intimidating.”
With a little effort, Olivine stood from her spot on the workout mat and stretched out her arms above her head. Even standing, Weston had to look down at Olivine because her head barely reached his collarbone.
“They are not deflated.” While Weston’s eyes narrowed in mock annoyance, he did make sure to flex a little to show off his muscles.
Olivine ignored her friend’s show and moved to pluck the twenty-pound weights from the floor where she had set them earlier. It took effort to continue her workout, but she began to curl the weights toward her body, making her arms burn more.
“And you are going to hurt yourself if you try to keep up with my routine. Just because the weights are less doesn’t mean shit.” Again, Olivine ignored Weston’s words and instead focused on what number curl she had reached.
Six. Seven. Eight.
“Olive, you listening?” Weston asked.
Don’t push yourself Olive. You can’t do that many Olive. Stop trying to be like me Olive.
She had heard all this before, and it wouldn’t be the last time she heard it. “If you remind me, I’m a girl one more time, I will use these to bash your fucking head in.” Olivine’s eyes snapped to the male as she curled both weights toward her body for the twelfth time.
Weston lifted his hands up in surrender, knowing better than to push his friend further than he had already. The playful teasing amongst friends could only go so far before Olivine would do something she might regret like go after Weston with the weights. She never backed down from a fight even if it was clear she would lose. Some said she had a Napoleon complex. She said she was just a girl tired of hearing “you can’t” from others.
“Fine. How about I remind you that if you push yourself now you won’t be able to lift your arms at the dance tomorrow? Speaking of, are you seriously going to wear a tux?” Weston asked as he finally moved from his spot holding up the wall to grab onto a pair of weights for himself. He curled them at the same time Olivine did, not seeming to be bothered by the fact his weights weighed twice the amount of the ones Olivine was struggling with.
Olivine grunted again in response and continued until she hit her desired number of reps. She hadn’t been able to reach forty like she had today with this weight before and she probably shouldn’t have today. Her arms already screamed like pissed off howler monkeys from yesterday’s workout, but she couldn’t have made herself stop at thirty if the world had suddenly caught fire around her. She had work to do on her body.
“Dude. Don’t ignore me,” Weston demanded.
“I’m not going. Tux doesn’t fit,” Olivine finally answered as she dropped the weights onto the bench to give her arms a break.
Weston just continued his own routine, shifting to watch himself in the wall-length mirrors that Olivine had been facing away from. Between his reps Weston asked, “So, get a dress. Isn’t that what girls usually wear? Something that sparkles and shows off cleavage?”
A few more reps and a few exaggerated grunts later and Weston finished, setting his own weights down so he could fall back on the bench next to Olivine. Olivine shot him a glare as he sat. “If I wanted to wear a dress, I would’ve bought one.”
“Then are you seriously missing out on prom because of clothes? If that isn’t a girl problem, I don’t know what is.”
The glare Olivine was giving intensified. If he had been paying attention Weston probably would have died of stab wounds from the daggers shooting out of his friend’s eyes. Instead, his gaze was captured by a few girls who were waving at him. Weston never could pass up seeing girls in sports bras and tight yoga pants.
Olivine probably could have let him sink into that distraction, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Would you wear a dress to prom?”
Weston seemed to think about that. In fact, he made a show of it by stroking his jaw and looking at the closest mirror. “I mean, as good as I would look in a beautiful silky dress, I’m going to say no.”
“So why the hell would I wear something stupid when you wouldn’t?” Olivine draped her arms over her thighs so her hands could clasp between her knees. Moments later and Weston did the same.
“You’re a girl. You can get away with wearing a dress. I can’t. I would be the butt of every damn joke if I did.”
Even though her arms felt like they were made of stone, Olivine launched herself at Weston who moved out of the way as quickly as he could. His long legs got him out of the danger zone in a few strides, putting an exercise machine between them before her hands could hit him or strangle him. It wasn’t clear what Olivine planned. She just wanted him to run away from her.
“Seriously, mad at me for telling the truth?” Weston laughed breathlessly to himself, making Olivine’s teeth clench.
At this point, Olivine was done with the teasing and decided she was going to head home instead of finishing the routine Weston kept saying she couldn’t keep up with. This time she had to listen to the “you can’t” since she was about to strangle the only person she was close with. He might be stupid, but he was still her best friend from fifth grade and he had been by her even when she broke her arm in seventh grade and when she cut her hair off in ninth grade much to her parent’s dismay.
Olivine had to power through putting away the weight, but she managed before she and Weston walked silently to the parking lot. The rusty brown car Olivine owned looked like it had rolled out of a 1970s catalog as it sat between two brand new cars, but the machine still ran, and Olivine didn’t have to make payments on it. Her parents had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday and today, two years later, it still ran like a champ. Although driving it was probably not a smart idea since it had almost 300,000 miles on it. It might be a good car for the drives between the gym and the house, but at some point, it would reach the breaking point. For all Olivine knew, that breaking point could be one more mile. It might be the next meeting with Weston, or it could be on the way to the dance he kept trying to get her to go to that it would give up on her.
“But really Olive, get a dress and come to the dance. Please.” With that said, Weston jogged to the bus stop. Normally, Olivine would have offered to drive him home even with the threat of her car finally realizing its old age, but he had gotten on her nerves today. He was on his own.
Seriously mad at me for telling the truth?
Olive huffed to herself and climbed into the car. Resting her forehead on the steering wheel of her car she had practically fallen into, Olivine thought of every moment that she had heard such a sentence that reminded her of just how messed up she felt inside. No matter how hard she pushed herself, she would never grow as tall as Weston, she would never lift forty-pound weights like they were feathers, and she would never look like Captain America with his exaggerated triangle shape.
She would always look the same. She would always avoid seeing herself in one of the gym mirrors. Hell, she barely looked in the mirror at home because it was always a horrible reflection looking back at her.
The jaw of the woman in the mirror was too round and looked akin to someone rolling a ball of cream playdough on the desk until they got a rough circle. Her hair looked like someone had taken a Halloween wig and placed it on top of that ball of playdough, but without making sure the cut was flattering. Then someone had taken that playdough head and put it on a body that was far too curvy. The hips were too wide and the waist too narrow. The creator of this horrible art project had used toothpicks for arms and legs. No muscle or definition could be found on that body even after months of push-ups, pull-ups, and a few deadlifts. Well, there was a change, but not enough for the greedy Olivine. She wanted “guns” not toothpicks.
It was just all wrong.
Olivine forced her head to lift and began the drive home with arms that were growing less and less cooperative by the second. Ten minutes later and she was home, sitting in the driveway with her head back on the steering wheel like it was the only thing that could possibly hold her head up.
It took another ten minutes before she could get up and coax her arms into letting her inside the house. Both of her parents were still at work since it was only four, leaving Olivine alone in the warm home. She could have invited Weston over to see what she meant by her tux not fitting to show him why she was so devastated.
But that would have meant listening to her parents complain when they got home about Weston coming over while she was home alone again. They would tell her that no respectable young lady would invite an unmarried man into their home unsupervised. No respectable young lady should try on clothes in front of a man because it was simply a travesty.
If only they knew how little Olivine cared about being a respectable young lady. She was old enough to know that she was respectable, but she didn’t like the fact her parents would tag on the young lady part. It was like Olivine couldn’t be respectable unless she was a young lady.
Fucking stupid.
Olivine made her way to her room and gave up on trying to keep her arms up. The moment she was close enough she fell back on the bed, her head hanging over the edge like a ragdoll. The angle of her head put her closet and her tux in her view. The tux was a classic, just the kind Olivine liked. It was black and white and crisp.
Too bad it would never be worn.
Olivine had been told that it wouldn’t fit when she tried it on at the store, but she had been determined to fit into it when she got it on clearance a few months back. She had been told to get the woman’s suit, but those showed off the hourglass figure that Olivine hated. She wanted something that made her taper at the hip instead of the waist and not look like someone had squeezed all the juice out of their juice box.
Annoyed with the view, Olivine started to sit only to get a reminder that it wasn’t only her arms that were sore. Her chest was sore too, but not from the exercise. She had bound her chest before her workout, per her daily habit to get rid of some of her natural figure, but the wrapping had been too tight for that long of a workout. Each time her chest expanded with a breath it felt like she was fighting with a python. Soon she wouldn’t be able to suck in air and she would be consumed by the ace bandage.
As if on cue, the bandage dug harder into her left side, the small bits of Velcro turning on her to make it feel like a million tiny needles were scraping at her ribs.
“Alright, alright,” Olivine whispered to herself as she slowly pulled off her tank. Then she had to work harder than normal to pull off the sports bra that was two times too small before she could slowly unravel herself from the bandage. The moment the bandage was in her hands, Olivine walked to the bathroom to clean herself off the best she could without straining her arms in the shower. She hated taking the bandage off even if it was the most uncomfortable thing she could ever wear. Taking off the bandage was like taking off a part of her body because it almost gave her what she needed.
Almost.
---------
“I’m a guy.” Olivine blurted out at the dinner table, her gaze on the salad she hadn’t bothered to touch for the last three minutes. She held onto her fork, but the salad didn’t have a leaf out of place. She couldn’t eat until this was out. She had been dreaming of this conversation for three years, but never had the balls to say it until right this second.
Well, maybe not that second. It had been a build-up from her phone call with her doctor at four-thirty after discovering her favorite ace bandage was ripping at its seams. She had spoken to the doctor about coming in for a consultation and he had seemed more than happy to talk to her about her options. Transitioning was a big deal, but the doctor had talked to her like it was a routine conversation. It had seemed normal. That is what had given Olivine the strength to shout out her proclamation partway through dinner.
However, silence met her words. Not that silence was something that Olivine hadn’t expected. Dinner was usually a silent affair and her outburst would have been met with silence regardless of what it was. She could have said she made a left turn down the road like she did every day she went to the gym and she still would have been greeted with silence. The only thing different about this soundless moment was the lack of movement. It was like Olivine had pressed pause on a remote. Had she looked up; Olivine probably wouldn’t have seen a single breath being taken by her parents.
“What did you say?” Her father asked first after several minutes. The man was looking at his plate, much like his daughter, but his fork was stabbing his steak and the knife was halfway through cutting it.
“I called a doctor about transitioning?” Olivine hadn’t intended that to come out as a question, but she couldn’t change it to give her words more power.
“What?” Olivine’s mother said as she glanced between her husband and her daughter.
“Transitioning?”
“I’m not a girl. It’s not who I am. I made an appointment with the doctor next week. I just, you know, thought I would tell you before this got more serious.” Olivine paused and finally poked at a lettuce leaf with the tip of her fork. She needed a moment to make another statement because it was somehow a harder truth to spit out. “And I’m going to change my name to Oliver.”
“Fuck that!” Her father roared at her, his eyes burning holes into the side of his daughter’s face.
“You were born Olivine and you will remain Olivine until you die.”
Finally, his daughter lifted her head and met her father’s burning eyes with as much fire that she could muster. “I was born a beautiful young girl that you named Olivine. I grew up and discovered I was a man that wants to be named Oliver.” There was a small pause before she continued. She had to get this out. “You said I needed to make the most of my life. I’m doing it. I don’t like having boobs and a vagina. They are the worst parts of me. I am something different than this.”
“Enough!” Olivine’s mother placed a hand on her chest and looked past her daughter like she was searching for a puppet master. Someone had to be telling her daughter to say this. It wasn’t Olivine who had come up with this idea and mulled it over for years.
Oh, no. It couldn’t be the respectable young lady saying all this.
“Sorry,” Olivine said without really meaning it. “I know it is crazy to think I’m unhappy with my body, but I’m different. I never liked playing with Barbie dolls and I never liked wearing dresses. I never felt comfortable wearing bras or wearing heels. My clothes look like I am playing dress up for Halloween. None of its right and I am being reminded of that over and over and fucking over.” Olivine stopped to catch her breath. She hadn’t really let herself breathe through her quick rant. How could she pause for something as silly as breath? “I want my tux to fit! I want to be like Weston. I want his arms, legs, abs. I want it so damn bad. You have no idea how bad.”
Oliver’s father slowly stood, so he loomed over the table. “And? Just because you don’t like those things doesn’t mean you should be a man! You are not a man Olivine!”
For a moment, the room was silent as mother and father stared down their child, but that child was not backing down. “You’re right. Not all of them think about changing their body parts, but I do. The difference between them and me is that I hate looking at myself in the mirror. I actively avoid it and it’s all because I never see myself. I always see a messed-up art project.”
Finally, the mother spoke again. Even if it was frail and quiet, it could be heard over her husband’s heavy breathing and her child’s frantic heart. “But you are perfect now.”
Olivine had to close her eyes as she spoke again because she hated the hurt in her mother’s voice, “My body was made wrong. In my head, I hear a male’s voice, I feel a male’s thoughts and his emotions, but outside all I see is a misshapen woman. I love who I am and love that I am strong enough for this, but I want my outside to match my inside. I can’t be this anymore.” Olivine stopped and forced her eyes to open to meet her parents' gazes. “I am doing this with or without your permission. I love you more than anything and I hope you love me too, but nothing will change this. I don’t want to work my ass off and find that I will always look wrong.”
“But you’re our daughter,” Olivine’s mother pleaded again.
“Son. I will be your son. I will be Oliver.” And that is who he was. He had known it for as long as he could remember but had only thought it about in the last several years. This was a horrible, stupid conversation between child and parents. Oliver knew that and he knew it would be hard for them.
After all, there was still fire in his father’s eyes and his mother looked like she was about to faint, but Oliver couldn’t change his mind about this.
Not if his father threw things and sore like the sailor he was because he didn’t understand.
Not if her mother cried for him to stop referring to himself as a man because it was not womanly.
Not if Weston teased him about being a girl one more time because that is how he had always seen her.
Oliver was going to be Oliver and there was nothing they could do to stop him because that is who he was.
AUTHOR
Nicole Miller is an undergraduate student at Central Washington University. She is working on finishing the Professional and Creative Writing program that will be paired with a minor in Sociology all while working at Shoreline School District where she plays the role of an Accounting Technician.
From baraka to mother eve
by Amera Elwesef
8/30/19
8/30/19
I am writing to you now without putting my right hand on my chest, quivering from cold and grief. I don't cry any more, Mom, just hide under our destroyed table, count my breath, a very long time holding my dirty cotton doll, watching the footsteps of the hurry passengers on our crowded road. As usual, I am putting my mad eyes into the wide openings of our ragged tent, waiting to catch someone's eyes, perhaps seeing those eyes convincing me I am still alive.
I am still your sweet daughter, your lovely baby, the crawler on the sharp platforms every midnight. I am still your patience girl walking after your shadow, looking for the warmth of your heart and the smell of your face. Last night I dreamed about you. I was showering under the honey down, and you were in front of me and tried your best to touch my little belly with your warm fingers. In my dream, I was the baby girl with wavy hair and you were my immortal mother still moving her big fingers under her baby’s belly to make her laughing, but in spite of her great job, her baby still crying. I am writing to you with a flushed dirty face and also a delicious confusion which make me whisper through the long hours of the day and night like an immigrant bird.
It is my dearest confusion of my whole life as a woman who decided to write with her foot. Everybody here in my world still wondering how could a woman dare to write with her foot? Everybody here in my world whispers from the first light on down until the last light of twilight, my people want seriously to catch my inner secret, they addicted to asking each other about my upturned situation.
"Writing with your foot, how dare you?!" they cry in front of my face and behind my back. They never stop asking and asking and asking, and I conceal my heart very well because in the case of they saw it, they will discover immediately my secret, they will know the only answer of "how a woman dare writing with her foot?"
If you are a writer, there will be a weird rumor, never leave you, based upon some upper stories such as you use the stars as punctuation, and the blue of skies is your immortal ink that never runs dry, and you have a deal with angels and devils, also you spy on every insect crawled on the earth. If you are a writer, you may see the shadow of William Shakespeare every midnight above your head, explain to you how to eat the time, how to dissolve yourself between letters, he will explain to you how to put your heart on the paper without pretending.
As a woman decided to write with her foot, I just asked how to think differently, how to play with your imagination ball like a professional player. My name is Baraka, one of those homeless women who spent their spring age on the cold sidewalks, eating nothing, feeling nothing, tried their best to tame neediness. I have no idea about the rosy dreams and all I know is scratching the trash cans every night. And about my pillow, it is not surprising to be a haystack. When the honey down, watered my hair, I figured out that I am in the middle of nowhere. When the headlights blocked my sight, I touched my darkness.
I am a very patient crawler on the rough edges of life, I am a naked woman because of the conspiracy of poverty, lean body stretched along with the torn papers which covered the pavement.
I am here writing in my mind, in my blood, create my own imaginary world which doesn’t seem similar to my harsh fate. All my whole life, I have been covered with an ecstasy of writing. I gorge my poor flesh with clay and this weird stuff, not my choice at all. Dear and poor Eve, I am dissolving under the furious sky, need your help to clean my dirty body. I am here in one of the street corners recalling your great spirit against the boys who chased me by throwing clay which forced me to run away, in fact, I couldn't escape away from their harsh beats, but really I do it, I ran away here in my imaginary world. I have shed tears here under the elder tree, touching my ribs during that much time. I am not blind, I am just half-educated woman who lives in a separate tent on one side of our hungry street, a half-educated woman who still desperately dream to finish her education, but how an orphaned female in the third world dares to demand to achieve any dream except getting married?
I was crawling on the floor, trying to count my breath slowly and hurry. It is my exclusive moment where I stitch my poetry piece. The very last time when I contemplate myself as a baby with a wide mouth and curious eyes. And the hours pass heavily, my poor heart couldn’t bear any more. Yes, it is me the funniest creature you see ever, the ocean which walks on two feet, and that idiot elephant which bitterly wish to fit the crazy fashion. There is a mysterious voice escaping away from the ticking of my watch, the voice haunted me, but my soul with a harsh weapon, here in the heart of my ears all these secrets which nights hide them very well, every secret scream in the silence of space Who am I? and I join in their mourning now with nonstop of repeating Who am I?
AUTHOR
Amera Elwesef is a freelance writer, poet, and novelist. With five books written in Arabic and many English works have been published in various cultural magazines in many international literary and cultural magazines around the globe. With 2 published books in English, a collection of poetry "for those who don't know chocolate" and a children's book "the cocoa boy and other stories". Her literary creative works have been translated into Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, and Kurdish.
The Bribe
by Carrie Esposito
8/9/19
The girl bounced past the paan stands drowning in shouting men and the boys shoving postcards of the Taj Mahal up her nose. She smiled at them like they were holding out flowers for her to sniff. But she didn’t buy any, and what use did they have for her smile?
I hadn’t seen her before, but I knew she was on her way to Crystal Bar, where my three children and I watched the foreigners come and go from our prime spot in front of the bar. Her matted blonde hair was bunched on top of her head, and she looked around, her blue eyes excited like the eyes of a goat who has found a string of grass in the slums. Shyam, who was always trying to sell his green elephant statues, jumped in front of her. He thrust some into her hand, and she looked at them like they were treasures instead of junk.
I didn’t understand why people like her came here at all. It’s the last place anyone should go skipping around, when they could be anywhere else, maybe on a breezy mountain, by the cleanest river, like in a story my father used to tell us, where children could jump in and drink the cold, cold liquid, without dying from the stomach curses. But enough of that.
Two-year-old Laxmi, my youngest, dropped her head in my lap. My mother called me a fool for naming her after the goddess of wealth. But she was born a girl in a tin-roofed shack, so what else could I do?
Her eyes were closing. I lifted my hand. I resisted stroking her silky black hair, and instead curled it in my palm, pulling her up by it. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, and though my chest burned, I ignored it. It was the time when all the foreigners were going for their late in the day drink, and her brown eyes, shiny like fine jewels, made us the most. Besides, if I didn’t tell her not to sleep when survival was at stake, who would?
That blue-eyed girl frowned at me now. I’d thought she was too busy paying for her elephant statues to notice. I pulled my lips in and dropped my eyes. It was my most money-making doomed look, the look that asked, but what can you expect from me, a woman who sits with three luckless children on a blanket? Her frown uncurled.
When she was almost on top of us, she crouched down. Her baggy dress brushed the dirt. These foreign women wore shapeless, too-big clothing, like they had something to hide. Or, to protect.
Instead of giving us money, she reached out and tickled Laxmi’s chin. Laxmi giggled. I had been like that once too, pleased by any attention. As I got older, I tried to fake that feeling. But my mother had seen it was impossible for me to be sweet, like my youngest sister, while we begged, so she told me at least I could not act like a goat about to knock the knife out of its slaughterer’s hands.
I glanced at Shivshankar, who was eight and my oldest son. “Tell her how you speak English.”
I sometimes sent him to beg on his own, and he came back with money, but also words. Precious words he had a gift for learning. And the more he could speak to the foreigners, the more they gave. Lucky for us, if a begging boy was a sad thing, that same boy with a special mind was too much to bear.
Shivshankar told her, and she clapped like she’d found out we were going to sing and dance for her, then let out a string of words in English.
He stared at her blankly, then lowered his head. “I don’t understand her American.”
I tapped the back of his head. “Listen again. It is English either way.”
She looked back and forth between us, then spoke more slowly. Shivshankar’s mouth started to move in the way that happened when he understood. When she stopped, he said the name of his sister, and then his younger, less clever brother, Ramadhuta, who was six. I’d named the boys after the most powerful gods, in a burst of pride for which my now dead husband had insisted we’d be punished. I’d laughed and said the gods had done all they could already.
“Maan, she told me her name is Amber. Isn’t that name so nice sounding?”
She balanced the elephant statues on her palm, while speaking to Shivshankar.
He looked at me. “She flies here to give things to everybody.”
This sounded like some kind of nonsense where people like her hopped around like the monkeys that sniffed and chattered while we emptied our bowels in whatever private place we could find.
Amber said something else, and he smiled widely.
“She wants to play with all the children. She says this will help the children do very good.”
I looked past her. She had wasted enough of our time already.
“Tell her to go away.”
“Can’t we play with the elephants? Please?”
Ramadhuta’s eyes, which almost never seemed to move, flicked over to the statues. I told Shivshankar fine, and Amber gave an elephant to each of them. Ramadhuta’s teeth showed as he and Shivshankar crashed theirs together, then zigzagged them apart. Laxmi laughed.
A camera gleaming in the front pocket of Amber’s dress caught the sun, then shot it back into my eyes. She asked Shivshankar something, ducking her head.
“She wants to take a picture of us.”
I didn’t ask why. All I needed to know was what it was worth to her.
I pulled Laxmi into my lap, feeling the warm lump of her through my frayed skirt and then the pressure of Shivshankar’s hand on mine. I held Ramadhuta’s ankle, because he didn’t like to be touched anywhere else. A click came from the camera each time Amber pressed a button on the top. It was a strange sound because now foreigners had phones attached to their palms, taking pictures of things like the man in orange who played for the cobra he’d stolen the venom from. But never of us. Most people didn’t want to look at us, even when they gave us money, so why would they want a picture? Amber, though, looked like she’d won a prize as she clutched the camera and babbled to Shivshankar.
He nodded at her, then said to me, “She says thank you. Herfather tells her to put everything inside the camera she loves very much.”
Amber rocked on her heels and still offered nothing, so, seething, I put my hand out. She blushed and pulled out a small wallet. She put a few rupees in my palm, but didn’t get up.
If she was waiting for thanks, I never gave it. I was sure the rest of her money was hidden somewhere. What she’d given me was nothing to her—a speck of dirt on a cow’s behind.
Someone scavenged a television once from the dump near our slum and found a way to get power to it. We all flocked to it like dumb beasts. A show blinked on for a few seconds, before power was lost. But it was enough time to see a bright green lawn with this house towering behind it, and these two beautiful foreign women, laying on chairs, who looked nothing like the rag-draped foreign women I saw here, but everything like I thought they should look.
Finally, a man poked his head out of the bar and whistled. He grinned at Amber like my husband used to when he felt like doing things to me in the dark while everyone else slept. Her steps dragged now like she didn’t want to go to him, but then why go? She could do whatever she wanted.
My children stared until the man took her by the arm and pulled her inside. The cool air that had leaked out was cut off. Shivshankar and Laxmi watched the closed door like they could will her to come back out, and Ramadhuta frowned. This was both troublesome and a relief, because his face hardly ever gave a feeling.
I counted the money. It was enough for some rice and chappati, but nothing else. At night, while my children snored and drooled, I dreamt of sending them, especially Shivshankar, to school. But even the uniforms they made you buy or one skinny book would cost too much.Besides, if I were senseless enough to come out here without them, I’d be stepped over or worse.
Though they never said, I knew they wanted to go. Their eyes, especially Shivshankar’s, followed the children in the morning who walked past us on their way to school. I had hoped for it too. When I was ten, I saw a sign taped to the wall near our slum. It was red and smooth, with a picture of a girl sitting at a desk reading a book. I put my next oldest sister in charge of the rest of my sisters, and idiot that I was, I went there, as if magic existed in this world. But before I got too close, I saw nothing but one man standing in the dirt, talking to a group of girls, and I knew it was a plot to trap girls like me. So I’d run away, so fast my eyes were blinded by dust that rose and rose and rose.
More foreigners went by on their way to Crystal Bar, but none stopped like Amber. A few dropped coins from their pockets onto our blanket, while they looked straight ahead, as if it had been an accident.
When Shyam started rolling his elephants in a blanket, it was time to go. That day, I’d told only my mother about the fake school while she cleaned the tears from my face and the mud from my legs. She’d talked to me about Lakshmi’s lotus flower, which Lakshmi stood on like a throne. It floated endlessly on the surface of the water without getting pulled into the sludge below. What my mother was trying to say was that we weren’t supposed to try for more than we had.
Yet she’d named me Banhi, meaning fire. I made of that what I could.
*
The next day, Amber hurried toward us, around that time the sun does its little trick by going down but making the air get thicker and hotter. Nothing better to do with no one to worry about but herself probably—no children or ill parents, like mine, who were counting on me, their first-born of eight and the only one still alive. All girls, much to their misfortune.
My children stared at her like she was the prime minister coming to visit. Amber sat down like I’d once seen a camel do, raising her behind and dropping her knees first. She showed my children the back of her camera. Our shrunken, bony faces looked like they should be staring up from a funeral pyre. Amber murmured to Shivshankar, and his eyebrows creased in worry.
“What is she asking?”
“To be with us in the camera I think.”
This would have to be worth more than the other one, so I nodded. She handed me her camera, and I closed my fist around it. I could sell it to the man who came hunting around our slum for things like this. But if I ran with it, my children would not be quick enough to follow.
Amber took Laxmi into her lap and put her arm around each of the boys. Ramadhuta didn’t even move away. Did she think she was their auntie? I gritted my teeth and held the camera close to my eye, but saw nothing but black. Amber laughed and moved the camera so I looked into a window that showed them far away and smiling on the other side. Her laughter made my hands shake as I felt along the top for the button.
“It’s the shiny round one there,” Shivshankar said.
I crushed it with my finger. Click, and again, a piece of us was hers forever. I suddenly wanted to claw the camera apart and take it back, but knew that was impossible.
She handed me some rupees. But then, she didn’t stand, and instead spoke to Shivshankar while keeping her eyes on me. I wondered what she could want now. Maybe for us to stand on our heads so she could have a funny picture to bring home.
“She says me and my brother and sister smile so much and she wants to be in our very good life. She will sit with us forever,” Shivshankar said.
I almost choked. Something poked my eyes. I clenched my teeth when I understood it was tears wanting to come, since I’d stopped crying after my youngest sister died.
I wanted to tear every hair out of her head and hollow out her belly and put hungry children on her shoulders to kick and scream and moan, and then silence them, so she would know the sound of silent children was the saddest sound of all.
I shook my head. Disappointment flashed in the eyes of my children, but they knew not to argue. Amber tilted her head as she spoke.
Shivshankar looked at me. “She wants to tell you there is a god who sits very still by a big stick. He has a belly like this.” He held his arms out in a circle. “And he is like you, she says.”
I’d never heard anything about this god who does nothing all day but grow fat. But if something looks like cow feces being eaten by flies, that’s what it is, and you don’t go around telling someone you see something else.
She asked Shivshankar if she could come back tomorrow. I busied myself undoing the knots in Laxmi’s hair until Amber walked over to the bar with her head bowed and went inside.
*
Amber appeared earlier the next day, jostling through the crowds with two gray plastic bags slapping against her long dress. She held the bags out to me, her face pink and her breath rushed. When I didn’t take them, she spoke rapidly to Shivshankar.
He turned to me. “She says rupees are not good for us and clothes are very nice and not too nice that everyone will sell them.”
She dropped the bags at my feet and pushed them toward me with her toe. The plastic snapped in a rare wind. That’s when everything came together. The clothes and the camera. Lakshmi’s front left hand—the one that showered golden coins—dangled.
I gathered the bags into my lap and told Shivshankar to ask her if she’d come back tomorrow. Glee made my voice higher pitched, but I didn’t need to hide it. Amber would never guess why. She nodded and did this clumsy curtsy-bow before going toward the bar. At the door, she looked to me. Lakshmi’s red smile sliced her lips like a gash. One cannot choose the forms the goddess takes.
Ramadhuta pinched the edge of one bag, pulling it back to look inside. I swatted his hand away.
“This is evidence. Follow me.”
I held Laxmi’s hand, soft and feeble as a flower on a prayer garland, and the boys trailed us to the police station, Shivshankar sometimes whispering to Ramadhuta to walk faster. The cheap plastic of the bags melted to the skin of my other hand.
My husband would have told me not to go, but he was a coward. He’d gotten himself killed during the construction of a foreigner’s office building by falling off the shaky sticks climbing its growing walls. He left me a widow, even lower on the ladder than I was already. But now, the time had come when I would fight my destiny.
The police station was stuffed between stores and tea stands, which leaned this way and that, all fighting for a spot. No one was inside the station, so my children and I squatted on the concrete floor to wait. Ramadhuta pointed to the chairs, but I swatted his finger.
“Do you want them to knock you to the ground?”
He lowered his head. Finally, the door swung open. The policeman who came in wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Go away,” he said. “This isn’t a place to get rest from the heat.”
I rose, but kept my head down. I had to show I had important business, but also that I recognized I was a fly to him and he could crush me if he chose. “I need to see Mukesh. He will be sorry if he misses this opportunity.”
Mukesh was an officer who came to our slum sometimes. He would work with anyone, if it would make him money.
The policeman sighed and went through a door, slamming it closed. He was fooling himself to think it was better in here. The trapped heat was worse than outside. But we knew not to move more than we needed. Laxmi lay her sweaty cheek on my shoulder.
Mukesh finally came out of the back and snapped his fingers. I lifted Laxmi and pressed her to my chest as we followed him outside and through the crowded streets until Mukesh turned into an alley. I stood against the damp wall and lowered Laxmi next to Shivshankar. He cupped his hand over her eyes as Mukesh faced me. The space was so narrow that I smelled his breath.
Mukesh fingered his pitiful moustache. “You better not be wasting my time.”
Before I could say anything, he reached out and gripped my neck. I struggled to breathe. Laxmi wrapped herself around my leg, pressing her face into my thigh. Shivshankar circled Ramadhuta’s waist, holding his younger brother’s arms to his sides.
Finally, the muscles in Mukesh’s fingers loosened, and some air made it down my throat, before he let me go. I choked out a breath. He sometimes beat the people in the slums that he worked with, just to remind them of his position, so I’d gotten off easy.
Shivshankar pulled Laxmi off my leg, and Ramadhuta stared at me. I told them to go to the end of the alley and wait with their backs to us, then told Mukesh about Amber.
I tugged on my earlobe. “I’ll do this when I see her tomorrow. And I must come to the station so I can know I’m getting my share. I can get more like her if you work with me.”
He nodded. He could, when the time came, still cheat me, but I had faith in his greed.
*
All that next afternoon, the minutes passed like the movements of a cow. When I used to beg with my sisters, we would sometimes play a game to see who could move her body as slowly as one of the cows around us. My youngest sister always won.
When the sky became darker, and Amber still hadn’t come, Mukesh glared at me every time he peeked his head out of a narrow alley across from us. I felt the pressure of his hands on my throat, knowing he only would have had to squeeze a little bit harder for all the air to go.
Then Laxmi’s nails dug into my skin as Amber walked toward us with that strange way she had of looking like she was floating. I had to force myself not to jump up as I pulled my earlobe. Mukesh ran to her, grabbed her tiny wrists, and cuffed them. She screamed, and a shudder rippled down my back.
Laxmi curled her fingers around my wrist. “Maan, no!”
My veins throbbed under her hand, but I shushed her. Mukesh dragged Amber through the crowds that parted and murmured, then came back together. We followed them, slipping through the crowd’s cracks. Laxmi was squirming too much in my shaking arms so I handed her to Shivshankar, who held her tightly against his ribs.
Mukesh pulled Amber inside the station, and we waited a few seconds before going in too. Amber’s pleas traveled down the long hallway. We followed the noise to a boiling office crammed with a desk and two chairs. Mukesh was forcing Amber into one of the chairs and cuffing each of her wrists to a chair arm. He pointed to me.
She turned as I squatted with my children against the wall. Her mouth trembled as she spoke.
Shivshankar whispered, “She asks you to tell him she helps all the time.”
I steadied my mouth from curling into a smile.
She looked up at Mukesh, who stood over her, swinging his keys and telling her in English what she’d done.
Shivshankar inched away from me. “You told him she put new clothes on us and took pictures of us doing the disgusting things?”
Ramadhuta began humming softly.
I stared ahead. One day they would understand. Amber twisted to face me. Satisfaction spread through me as I watched her realize I wasn’t who she thought I was.
Mukesh snapped his fingers and leaned toward her, speaking in English, as he rubbed a rupee note between his fingers. I licked my lips. A dusty fan didn’t stir the air.
Amber squawked, and the smell of urine dampened the air. I bit my lip, twisting my head toward the door.
But this would be over soon, and she could go back to her big house and green lawn and lay on a chair in the sun. And my children and me. We would eat samosas and gulab jamun. Then, I would tell the boys they were going to school. They would blush, but would be too solemn to smile. They would take their due from Lakshmi’s left hand, that I, and only I, had managed to turn in our direction.
Amber’s voice pierced the hot, quiet room.
Shivshankar spoke to the floor. “She has zero rupees.”
I slapped my leg, impatient now. Why was she playing games with us? I sprang up. Even though she wouldn’t understand, I said, “Don’t be stupid! Indian jails are no place for someone like you.”
Ramadhuta tapped his head against the wall. Mukesh lifted the keys, and I flinched, thinking he would gouge her cheeks with them, something to show her she should give in before this got any worse. But coward that he was, he only let them fall.
She didn’t turn to look at me. Her body rocked from side to side as she spoke to Mukesh. The chair legs that were a little shorter on one side tipped and tapped. Tip. Tap. Tip.
And then it was silent. She was still, except for her shaking shoulders. I squeezed Shivshankar’s arm.
He wouldn’t look at me. “She used her rupees to get far away. Then something about cold and ice and her father. Something that makes her sad.”
I closed my eyes so the room would stop spinning and saw Lakshmi’s hands, all four of them now, waving before they closed into fists.
I opened my eyes to Mukesh baring his teeth. The never-satisfied wanting that Lakshmi warned against flashed in his eyes, and dread rose in me as I saw how his life must be—a wife who complained for better jewelry than her neighbor, and friends who drove past his house with their bigger cars, and children who laughed at their father when he couldn’t buy them everything they wanted.
He collapsed the keys from one hand to the other, then yanked the camera from Amber’s pocket. He turned it in his hands, saying it was worthless, even as he placed it on his desk. She moaned, soft and low, like a cow calling for us to hear how it suffered.
I strode toward Mukesh with my hand up, wanting to stop him from whatever he planned to do with Amber now. He pulled me by the wrist to where Amber could see, then slashed his keys down my cheek, before pushing me away.
Amber gasped.
Mukesh raised his baton. “Go. Now!”
I went to my children and picked up Laxmi, who was crying without a whimper or sniffle or even a quick breath. She rubbed her cheek against mine, her tears a stinging river running down my cut skin. A river in which I might have drowned if it wasn’t for how I needed to hold her above the surface.
When we got back to our spot, Shivshankar walked past our blanket and to the entrance of Crystal Bar. I didn’t stop him, even though I knew the foreigners would cough and pretend not to notice his smell, and some might even laugh at him as he tried to explain in English how Amber needed someone’s help. A waiter might even kick him out before he got to say anything. No matter the shame, he had to try. He held his shoulders back as he went inside.
I sat in my same place on the blanket with Laxmi in my lap. Ramadhuta sat in his same place too, but with his back to me. With the end of my faded red shirt, I dried Laxmi’s face. She stood up and watched me without blinking, as if there was something she was hoping to see. There was mud on her cheeks from the dust on my shirt mixing with her tears, so I picked it off, piece by piece, until she, at least, was as clean as I could get her.
AUTHOR
Carrie Esposito has had short stories published in The Georgia Review and in Mused, and she has received an honorable mention in Glimmer Train for one of her stories. She is working on a novel No Way to Fall Off This Earth, set in Brooklyn and India. You can find out more about her work at www.carrieesposito.com.
I hadn’t seen her before, but I knew she was on her way to Crystal Bar, where my three children and I watched the foreigners come and go from our prime spot in front of the bar. Her matted blonde hair was bunched on top of her head, and she looked around, her blue eyes excited like the eyes of a goat who has found a string of grass in the slums. Shyam, who was always trying to sell his green elephant statues, jumped in front of her. He thrust some into her hand, and she looked at them like they were treasures instead of junk.
I didn’t understand why people like her came here at all. It’s the last place anyone should go skipping around, when they could be anywhere else, maybe on a breezy mountain, by the cleanest river, like in a story my father used to tell us, where children could jump in and drink the cold, cold liquid, without dying from the stomach curses. But enough of that.
Two-year-old Laxmi, my youngest, dropped her head in my lap. My mother called me a fool for naming her after the goddess of wealth. But she was born a girl in a tin-roofed shack, so what else could I do?
Her eyes were closing. I lifted my hand. I resisted stroking her silky black hair, and instead curled it in my palm, pulling her up by it. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, and though my chest burned, I ignored it. It was the time when all the foreigners were going for their late in the day drink, and her brown eyes, shiny like fine jewels, made us the most. Besides, if I didn’t tell her not to sleep when survival was at stake, who would?
That blue-eyed girl frowned at me now. I’d thought she was too busy paying for her elephant statues to notice. I pulled my lips in and dropped my eyes. It was my most money-making doomed look, the look that asked, but what can you expect from me, a woman who sits with three luckless children on a blanket? Her frown uncurled.
When she was almost on top of us, she crouched down. Her baggy dress brushed the dirt. These foreign women wore shapeless, too-big clothing, like they had something to hide. Or, to protect.
Instead of giving us money, she reached out and tickled Laxmi’s chin. Laxmi giggled. I had been like that once too, pleased by any attention. As I got older, I tried to fake that feeling. But my mother had seen it was impossible for me to be sweet, like my youngest sister, while we begged, so she told me at least I could not act like a goat about to knock the knife out of its slaughterer’s hands.
I glanced at Shivshankar, who was eight and my oldest son. “Tell her how you speak English.”
I sometimes sent him to beg on his own, and he came back with money, but also words. Precious words he had a gift for learning. And the more he could speak to the foreigners, the more they gave. Lucky for us, if a begging boy was a sad thing, that same boy with a special mind was too much to bear.
Shivshankar told her, and she clapped like she’d found out we were going to sing and dance for her, then let out a string of words in English.
He stared at her blankly, then lowered his head. “I don’t understand her American.”
I tapped the back of his head. “Listen again. It is English either way.”
She looked back and forth between us, then spoke more slowly. Shivshankar’s mouth started to move in the way that happened when he understood. When she stopped, he said the name of his sister, and then his younger, less clever brother, Ramadhuta, who was six. I’d named the boys after the most powerful gods, in a burst of pride for which my now dead husband had insisted we’d be punished. I’d laughed and said the gods had done all they could already.
“Maan, she told me her name is Amber. Isn’t that name so nice sounding?”
She balanced the elephant statues on her palm, while speaking to Shivshankar.
He looked at me. “She flies here to give things to everybody.”
This sounded like some kind of nonsense where people like her hopped around like the monkeys that sniffed and chattered while we emptied our bowels in whatever private place we could find.
Amber said something else, and he smiled widely.
“She wants to play with all the children. She says this will help the children do very good.”
I looked past her. She had wasted enough of our time already.
“Tell her to go away.”
“Can’t we play with the elephants? Please?”
Ramadhuta’s eyes, which almost never seemed to move, flicked over to the statues. I told Shivshankar fine, and Amber gave an elephant to each of them. Ramadhuta’s teeth showed as he and Shivshankar crashed theirs together, then zigzagged them apart. Laxmi laughed.
A camera gleaming in the front pocket of Amber’s dress caught the sun, then shot it back into my eyes. She asked Shivshankar something, ducking her head.
“She wants to take a picture of us.”
I didn’t ask why. All I needed to know was what it was worth to her.
I pulled Laxmi into my lap, feeling the warm lump of her through my frayed skirt and then the pressure of Shivshankar’s hand on mine. I held Ramadhuta’s ankle, because he didn’t like to be touched anywhere else. A click came from the camera each time Amber pressed a button on the top. It was a strange sound because now foreigners had phones attached to their palms, taking pictures of things like the man in orange who played for the cobra he’d stolen the venom from. But never of us. Most people didn’t want to look at us, even when they gave us money, so why would they want a picture? Amber, though, looked like she’d won a prize as she clutched the camera and babbled to Shivshankar.
He nodded at her, then said to me, “She says thank you. Herfather tells her to put everything inside the camera she loves very much.”
Amber rocked on her heels and still offered nothing, so, seething, I put my hand out. She blushed and pulled out a small wallet. She put a few rupees in my palm, but didn’t get up.
If she was waiting for thanks, I never gave it. I was sure the rest of her money was hidden somewhere. What she’d given me was nothing to her—a speck of dirt on a cow’s behind.
Someone scavenged a television once from the dump near our slum and found a way to get power to it. We all flocked to it like dumb beasts. A show blinked on for a few seconds, before power was lost. But it was enough time to see a bright green lawn with this house towering behind it, and these two beautiful foreign women, laying on chairs, who looked nothing like the rag-draped foreign women I saw here, but everything like I thought they should look.
Finally, a man poked his head out of the bar and whistled. He grinned at Amber like my husband used to when he felt like doing things to me in the dark while everyone else slept. Her steps dragged now like she didn’t want to go to him, but then why go? She could do whatever she wanted.
My children stared until the man took her by the arm and pulled her inside. The cool air that had leaked out was cut off. Shivshankar and Laxmi watched the closed door like they could will her to come back out, and Ramadhuta frowned. This was both troublesome and a relief, because his face hardly ever gave a feeling.
I counted the money. It was enough for some rice and chappati, but nothing else. At night, while my children snored and drooled, I dreamt of sending them, especially Shivshankar, to school. But even the uniforms they made you buy or one skinny book would cost too much.Besides, if I were senseless enough to come out here without them, I’d be stepped over or worse.
Though they never said, I knew they wanted to go. Their eyes, especially Shivshankar’s, followed the children in the morning who walked past us on their way to school. I had hoped for it too. When I was ten, I saw a sign taped to the wall near our slum. It was red and smooth, with a picture of a girl sitting at a desk reading a book. I put my next oldest sister in charge of the rest of my sisters, and idiot that I was, I went there, as if magic existed in this world. But before I got too close, I saw nothing but one man standing in the dirt, talking to a group of girls, and I knew it was a plot to trap girls like me. So I’d run away, so fast my eyes were blinded by dust that rose and rose and rose.
More foreigners went by on their way to Crystal Bar, but none stopped like Amber. A few dropped coins from their pockets onto our blanket, while they looked straight ahead, as if it had been an accident.
When Shyam started rolling his elephants in a blanket, it was time to go. That day, I’d told only my mother about the fake school while she cleaned the tears from my face and the mud from my legs. She’d talked to me about Lakshmi’s lotus flower, which Lakshmi stood on like a throne. It floated endlessly on the surface of the water without getting pulled into the sludge below. What my mother was trying to say was that we weren’t supposed to try for more than we had.
Yet she’d named me Banhi, meaning fire. I made of that what I could.
*
The next day, Amber hurried toward us, around that time the sun does its little trick by going down but making the air get thicker and hotter. Nothing better to do with no one to worry about but herself probably—no children or ill parents, like mine, who were counting on me, their first-born of eight and the only one still alive. All girls, much to their misfortune.
My children stared at her like she was the prime minister coming to visit. Amber sat down like I’d once seen a camel do, raising her behind and dropping her knees first. She showed my children the back of her camera. Our shrunken, bony faces looked like they should be staring up from a funeral pyre. Amber murmured to Shivshankar, and his eyebrows creased in worry.
“What is she asking?”
“To be with us in the camera I think.”
This would have to be worth more than the other one, so I nodded. She handed me her camera, and I closed my fist around it. I could sell it to the man who came hunting around our slum for things like this. But if I ran with it, my children would not be quick enough to follow.
Amber took Laxmi into her lap and put her arm around each of the boys. Ramadhuta didn’t even move away. Did she think she was their auntie? I gritted my teeth and held the camera close to my eye, but saw nothing but black. Amber laughed and moved the camera so I looked into a window that showed them far away and smiling on the other side. Her laughter made my hands shake as I felt along the top for the button.
“It’s the shiny round one there,” Shivshankar said.
I crushed it with my finger. Click, and again, a piece of us was hers forever. I suddenly wanted to claw the camera apart and take it back, but knew that was impossible.
She handed me some rupees. But then, she didn’t stand, and instead spoke to Shivshankar while keeping her eyes on me. I wondered what she could want now. Maybe for us to stand on our heads so she could have a funny picture to bring home.
“She says me and my brother and sister smile so much and she wants to be in our very good life. She will sit with us forever,” Shivshankar said.
I almost choked. Something poked my eyes. I clenched my teeth when I understood it was tears wanting to come, since I’d stopped crying after my youngest sister died.
I wanted to tear every hair out of her head and hollow out her belly and put hungry children on her shoulders to kick and scream and moan, and then silence them, so she would know the sound of silent children was the saddest sound of all.
I shook my head. Disappointment flashed in the eyes of my children, but they knew not to argue. Amber tilted her head as she spoke.
Shivshankar looked at me. “She wants to tell you there is a god who sits very still by a big stick. He has a belly like this.” He held his arms out in a circle. “And he is like you, she says.”
I’d never heard anything about this god who does nothing all day but grow fat. But if something looks like cow feces being eaten by flies, that’s what it is, and you don’t go around telling someone you see something else.
She asked Shivshankar if she could come back tomorrow. I busied myself undoing the knots in Laxmi’s hair until Amber walked over to the bar with her head bowed and went inside.
*
Amber appeared earlier the next day, jostling through the crowds with two gray plastic bags slapping against her long dress. She held the bags out to me, her face pink and her breath rushed. When I didn’t take them, she spoke rapidly to Shivshankar.
He turned to me. “She says rupees are not good for us and clothes are very nice and not too nice that everyone will sell them.”
She dropped the bags at my feet and pushed them toward me with her toe. The plastic snapped in a rare wind. That’s when everything came together. The clothes and the camera. Lakshmi’s front left hand—the one that showered golden coins—dangled.
I gathered the bags into my lap and told Shivshankar to ask her if she’d come back tomorrow. Glee made my voice higher pitched, but I didn’t need to hide it. Amber would never guess why. She nodded and did this clumsy curtsy-bow before going toward the bar. At the door, she looked to me. Lakshmi’s red smile sliced her lips like a gash. One cannot choose the forms the goddess takes.
Ramadhuta pinched the edge of one bag, pulling it back to look inside. I swatted his hand away.
“This is evidence. Follow me.”
I held Laxmi’s hand, soft and feeble as a flower on a prayer garland, and the boys trailed us to the police station, Shivshankar sometimes whispering to Ramadhuta to walk faster. The cheap plastic of the bags melted to the skin of my other hand.
My husband would have told me not to go, but he was a coward. He’d gotten himself killed during the construction of a foreigner’s office building by falling off the shaky sticks climbing its growing walls. He left me a widow, even lower on the ladder than I was already. But now, the time had come when I would fight my destiny.
The police station was stuffed between stores and tea stands, which leaned this way and that, all fighting for a spot. No one was inside the station, so my children and I squatted on the concrete floor to wait. Ramadhuta pointed to the chairs, but I swatted his finger.
“Do you want them to knock you to the ground?”
He lowered his head. Finally, the door swung open. The policeman who came in wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Go away,” he said. “This isn’t a place to get rest from the heat.”
I rose, but kept my head down. I had to show I had important business, but also that I recognized I was a fly to him and he could crush me if he chose. “I need to see Mukesh. He will be sorry if he misses this opportunity.”
Mukesh was an officer who came to our slum sometimes. He would work with anyone, if it would make him money.
The policeman sighed and went through a door, slamming it closed. He was fooling himself to think it was better in here. The trapped heat was worse than outside. But we knew not to move more than we needed. Laxmi lay her sweaty cheek on my shoulder.
Mukesh finally came out of the back and snapped his fingers. I lifted Laxmi and pressed her to my chest as we followed him outside and through the crowded streets until Mukesh turned into an alley. I stood against the damp wall and lowered Laxmi next to Shivshankar. He cupped his hand over her eyes as Mukesh faced me. The space was so narrow that I smelled his breath.
Mukesh fingered his pitiful moustache. “You better not be wasting my time.”
Before I could say anything, he reached out and gripped my neck. I struggled to breathe. Laxmi wrapped herself around my leg, pressing her face into my thigh. Shivshankar circled Ramadhuta’s waist, holding his younger brother’s arms to his sides.
Finally, the muscles in Mukesh’s fingers loosened, and some air made it down my throat, before he let me go. I choked out a breath. He sometimes beat the people in the slums that he worked with, just to remind them of his position, so I’d gotten off easy.
Shivshankar pulled Laxmi off my leg, and Ramadhuta stared at me. I told them to go to the end of the alley and wait with their backs to us, then told Mukesh about Amber.
I tugged on my earlobe. “I’ll do this when I see her tomorrow. And I must come to the station so I can know I’m getting my share. I can get more like her if you work with me.”
He nodded. He could, when the time came, still cheat me, but I had faith in his greed.
*
All that next afternoon, the minutes passed like the movements of a cow. When I used to beg with my sisters, we would sometimes play a game to see who could move her body as slowly as one of the cows around us. My youngest sister always won.
When the sky became darker, and Amber still hadn’t come, Mukesh glared at me every time he peeked his head out of a narrow alley across from us. I felt the pressure of his hands on my throat, knowing he only would have had to squeeze a little bit harder for all the air to go.
Then Laxmi’s nails dug into my skin as Amber walked toward us with that strange way she had of looking like she was floating. I had to force myself not to jump up as I pulled my earlobe. Mukesh ran to her, grabbed her tiny wrists, and cuffed them. She screamed, and a shudder rippled down my back.
Laxmi curled her fingers around my wrist. “Maan, no!”
My veins throbbed under her hand, but I shushed her. Mukesh dragged Amber through the crowds that parted and murmured, then came back together. We followed them, slipping through the crowd’s cracks. Laxmi was squirming too much in my shaking arms so I handed her to Shivshankar, who held her tightly against his ribs.
Mukesh pulled Amber inside the station, and we waited a few seconds before going in too. Amber’s pleas traveled down the long hallway. We followed the noise to a boiling office crammed with a desk and two chairs. Mukesh was forcing Amber into one of the chairs and cuffing each of her wrists to a chair arm. He pointed to me.
She turned as I squatted with my children against the wall. Her mouth trembled as she spoke.
Shivshankar whispered, “She asks you to tell him she helps all the time.”
I steadied my mouth from curling into a smile.
She looked up at Mukesh, who stood over her, swinging his keys and telling her in English what she’d done.
Shivshankar inched away from me. “You told him she put new clothes on us and took pictures of us doing the disgusting things?”
Ramadhuta began humming softly.
I stared ahead. One day they would understand. Amber twisted to face me. Satisfaction spread through me as I watched her realize I wasn’t who she thought I was.
Mukesh snapped his fingers and leaned toward her, speaking in English, as he rubbed a rupee note between his fingers. I licked my lips. A dusty fan didn’t stir the air.
Amber squawked, and the smell of urine dampened the air. I bit my lip, twisting my head toward the door.
But this would be over soon, and she could go back to her big house and green lawn and lay on a chair in the sun. And my children and me. We would eat samosas and gulab jamun. Then, I would tell the boys they were going to school. They would blush, but would be too solemn to smile. They would take their due from Lakshmi’s left hand, that I, and only I, had managed to turn in our direction.
Amber’s voice pierced the hot, quiet room.
Shivshankar spoke to the floor. “She has zero rupees.”
I slapped my leg, impatient now. Why was she playing games with us? I sprang up. Even though she wouldn’t understand, I said, “Don’t be stupid! Indian jails are no place for someone like you.”
Ramadhuta tapped his head against the wall. Mukesh lifted the keys, and I flinched, thinking he would gouge her cheeks with them, something to show her she should give in before this got any worse. But coward that he was, he only let them fall.
She didn’t turn to look at me. Her body rocked from side to side as she spoke to Mukesh. The chair legs that were a little shorter on one side tipped and tapped. Tip. Tap. Tip.
And then it was silent. She was still, except for her shaking shoulders. I squeezed Shivshankar’s arm.
He wouldn’t look at me. “She used her rupees to get far away. Then something about cold and ice and her father. Something that makes her sad.”
I closed my eyes so the room would stop spinning and saw Lakshmi’s hands, all four of them now, waving before they closed into fists.
I opened my eyes to Mukesh baring his teeth. The never-satisfied wanting that Lakshmi warned against flashed in his eyes, and dread rose in me as I saw how his life must be—a wife who complained for better jewelry than her neighbor, and friends who drove past his house with their bigger cars, and children who laughed at their father when he couldn’t buy them everything they wanted.
He collapsed the keys from one hand to the other, then yanked the camera from Amber’s pocket. He turned it in his hands, saying it was worthless, even as he placed it on his desk. She moaned, soft and low, like a cow calling for us to hear how it suffered.
I strode toward Mukesh with my hand up, wanting to stop him from whatever he planned to do with Amber now. He pulled me by the wrist to where Amber could see, then slashed his keys down my cheek, before pushing me away.
Amber gasped.
Mukesh raised his baton. “Go. Now!”
I went to my children and picked up Laxmi, who was crying without a whimper or sniffle or even a quick breath. She rubbed her cheek against mine, her tears a stinging river running down my cut skin. A river in which I might have drowned if it wasn’t for how I needed to hold her above the surface.
When we got back to our spot, Shivshankar walked past our blanket and to the entrance of Crystal Bar. I didn’t stop him, even though I knew the foreigners would cough and pretend not to notice his smell, and some might even laugh at him as he tried to explain in English how Amber needed someone’s help. A waiter might even kick him out before he got to say anything. No matter the shame, he had to try. He held his shoulders back as he went inside.
I sat in my same place on the blanket with Laxmi in my lap. Ramadhuta sat in his same place too, but with his back to me. With the end of my faded red shirt, I dried Laxmi’s face. She stood up and watched me without blinking, as if there was something she was hoping to see. There was mud on her cheeks from the dust on my shirt mixing with her tears, so I picked it off, piece by piece, until she, at least, was as clean as I could get her.
AUTHOR
Carrie Esposito has had short stories published in The Georgia Review and in Mused, and she has received an honorable mention in Glimmer Train for one of her stories. She is working on a novel No Way to Fall Off This Earth, set in Brooklyn and India. You can find out more about her work at www.carrieesposito.com.
#how2bsuburbanwhite19 #dmv
BY LESLIE PIETRZYK
8/2/19
Everyone in your Northern Virginia neighborhood belongs to the list serve because everyone’s mission is finding a reasonably priced plumber willing to replace a busted garbage disposal at five-thirty p.m. the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Also on the list serve will be requests from people seeking vacation plant-waterers and cat-feeders and mail-fetchers that start, “Looking for college student/recent grad home for the summer….” Also: requests from neighbors with dandelions and pokeweed crowding their mulched flower beds: “Any high school students available for light weeding?” Pretend not to understand that those requests written in that exact way are code calling for “white people” to do the work. And pretend that you didn’t tweak the front curtain aside to glance out the window after seeing the list serve warning, “Aggressive door-to-door solicitor @ W Maple; black man selling candy bars from cardboard box but was nervous that my (big!) dog was barking. Reported him to the non-emergency police #. Where’s his permit!!?”
When you’re riding the Metro and land a double-seat to yourself because you board at the beginning of the line, watch the car fill up as you approach the city. But pretend you don’t see how the white-collar black men stand instead of slide next to you, sharing your seat. Pretend you think that’s because they’ll be sitting at a desk all day or they’re riding only a couple of stops. Pretend not to see the blue-collar black man alone on a double-seat, how no one sits next to him, until the train packs so full that commuters can’t breathe. Pretend you are “brave” when you sit next to him, especially if the train is only slightly crowded. On the way back home, at Gallery Place, when you’re descending on the escalator, pretend you don’t look to see if the people waiting on the platform are black, because if they are, you’ll know immediately that it’s the green line arriving next. Pretend you’re not hoping to see white people waiting because that means the incoming train will be yellow to suburban Virginia. Pretend you’re the only one pretending not to notice this. Pretend that the black people notice too so it’s okay. Pretend that sometimes you don’t walk a few extra blocks after 9 p.m. to the Archives station because fewer “rowdy” and “noisy” teenagers wait there to catch trains.
Pretend you’re also “brave” when you pass through a sprawl of black teenage boys clad in hoodies (winter) or tank tops (summer) or T-shirts imprinted with the face of a dead black man or boy (any season) on the street where you walk daily in your historic suburban town’s shopping district. Pretend that they bother noticing a drab, middle-aged white woman wearing lavender running shoes purchased with a coupon at a strip mall DSW. Pretend they’re examining you closely with the male gaze. Pretend you’re fine with that. Pretend your breathing doesn’t race just a tiny, tiny bit. Pretend you wanted to walk this fast for cardio.
Next time you’re in DC, notice a young, striking black woman’s jazzy natural hair as she stands next to you at a red light at McPherson Square, her paisley-patterned maxi dress billowing like she’s in a model shoot. Pretend that your desire to compliment her hair isn’t about you. Pretend she would be happy to hear how pretty you think she and her hair are, you in your shlumpy clothing because you’re headed to a cut-and-color appointment. Pretend you’re not practicing the exact phrasing of this compliment in your head to get it right. The light turns green and off she goes, swift in her platform sandals, and now you can pretend that you changed your mind. At the hair appointment, pretend you’re not over-tipping the bad shampoo girl who splashes soap in your eyes and grinds her knuckles into your temples though you ask her to stop; pretend you “asked” when really it was “told.” Pretend to understand it’s okay to maybe be a little tiny bit demanding if you are physically in pain; nevertheless, tuck a ten in her tip envelope. Pretend you have a clue how to spell her name, which you’re going to have to pretend to remember.
Pretend you’ve forgotten a certain conversation from fifteen years ago when you were a sweet young thing at a happy hour of up-and-coming lawyers with first mortgages and first babies, all complaining that their cleaning women didn’t dust the ceiling fans, “not even when I pointed right at it,” a woman whined. Pretend that you said—instead of merely thought—“Dust it yourself,” and now pretend that it’s not driving you just a little tiny bit crazy that the ceiling fan in your bedroom is layered with dust and that, honestly, just how hard would it be for her to lift the damn Swiffer up there?
When speaking of it, always say “Prince George’s County” so you can pretend you never think “P.G. County” in a dismissive way. Pretend it wasn’t a big deal when you drove all the way there that one Fourth of July for fried chicken because the place was written up in the Washington Post food section, and pretend the chicken was better than it turned out to be, and pretend you didn’t mind waiting forty-five minutes for your order at the bar, and definitely pretend you didn’t think that the kitchen staff (all eight of them) seemed maybe a little tiny bit disorganized, especially since plenty of people want take-out fried chicken on the Fourth of July so it’s no surprise the day will be busy, and pretend you didn’t think for even four seconds about how you’d run things if you were back there in the kitchen, frying those chicken pieces yourself. Pretend to forget that you used to fry the Fourth of July chicken at home but stopped because it’s one thousand percent easier buying it, and your kitchen, clothes, and hair don’t reek of grease when it’s take-out chicken that someone else makes. Pretend their clothes and hair don’t reek of grease, and pretend they get off in plenty of time to make it to the fireworks.
In downtown DC, always have a dollar in a pocket that’s easily accessible so you can quickly pass it to a panhandler without breaking stride. Pretend you’re doing something principled, and explain to your friends walking with you, “I don’t care what he spends it on. Food, liquor, drugs. All I know is that it would be hard to live on the streets, so whatever he needs.” Pretend you’re not royally pissed when you don’t hear “thank you” or “god bless” immediately upon handing over your crumpled dollar. Pretend you don’t save the clean, crisp bills for your wallet. Pretend you’ve never walked into a NJ Turnpike McDonald’s and thought, “See, the Dollar Menu. So people can buy food for a dollar.” You also support Street Sense, the newspaper about and sold by the homeless, but pretend you’re not a little tiny bit pissed that they jacked the price from one dollar to two. Pretend that reading the poetry written by Street Sense vendors, filled with clichés and optimism and God, doesn’t make you feel impotently sad. Pretend you don’t imagine posting one of those poems on Facebook or Twitter and being heroically responsible for it going viral. Pretend a dollar will save someone’s life.
Pretend those canned vegetables you donate to the food bank would be right at home on your dinner table, that your husband would happily say, “Hey, hon, please pass over the bowl of delicious canned corn because I would really love me a second serving.” Pretend that you eat beans or tuna every night for dinner because you’re grateful for protein. Pretend that you prefer the store brands, and maybe even pretend that the people getting the food won’t notice that nothing is Del Monte, nothing is Jif, nothing is organic, nothing is bought at full-price. Pretend you would be bursting with appreciation for this bounty. Pretend that when you do eat canned black beans that you don’t shake on fancy hot sauce from Miami for flavor. Pretend you’re noble because you’d never grab expired crap from the back of your cabinets; you’re noble to throw that shit away. Pretend not to mind dropping off a bag of (unwrapped) toys from Target to a holiday gift drive, and that it’s okay to take your donation to a box in a busy realtor’s office, and pretend you don’t wish someone there or anywhere would thank you to your face and/or (but really and) pop a handwritten note with a real stamp into the mail. Pretend not to be pleased with yourself for imagining the smile of the black teenage boy enchanted by your gift on Christmas Day, a regulation basketball, and then pretend you don’t see the dozen or so basketballs already filling the box at the realtor’s office.
Pretend that you never notice that there is maybe one black couple at the parties you go to. Pretend not to feel instant relief when you see that couple there, clutching their glasses of Trader Joe wine. Pretend to have no idea that everyone around you is equally relieved, that the host of the party is thinking, “Look, I have black friends.” In a different conversation at a different time, maybe over brunch with women, pretend that you’ve been invited to a party at a black couple’s house. Or an Asian couple’s house. Or a Latinx couple’s house, and pretend you know how to use Latinx properly, without feeling nervous about screwing it up.
Pretend that when someone mentions “a professor,” the image in your mind is of a black person wearing tweed. Pretend this of lawyers and lobbyists, of CEOs and hipster entrepreneurs, of PhD students and research librarians and all scientists. Pretend that when someone mentions “African-American,” that athletes and musicians and Oprah aren’t in your mind at all, and neither are the homeless or single moms or “The Wire” or prison or a dead boy in the street. Pretend you’ve always seen “black man” when you think president or Santa Claus.
Pretend that the Washington Redskins honestly is a perfectly normal and excellent name for a professional football team worth 1.5 billion dollars, even though one simple google search shows online dictionaries calling that word dated, offensive, derogatory, contemptuous, and a racial slur. Shout, “Go, Skins,” at your large-screen TV, and pretend that’s acceptable. Pretend that if your burgundy and gold T-shirt doesn’t have the Indian’s face printed on it, then it’s okay to wear it in public; but pretend you don’t actually want to wear that shirt in public because it’s “lucky” and that’s why you only wear it at home. Pretend you’re not looking forward to the December 17th game against the Cardinals and your friend’s season ticket seats. Pretend you believe that one day the team’s owner will magically come to his senses and change Redskins to “Pigskins” and that doing so will undo all the damage of rooting for a team named after a racial slur. Pretend you don’t type #HTTR on Twitter during a tense overtime when the passing game has been sucking and the QB nails it.
Pretend there’s nothing more to say. Pretend this is the end. Pretend you admitted to all of it.
Read this, and pretend that it’s not about you.
Publish it under “fiction.”
###
AUTHOR
Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of SILVER GIRL, a novel, and THIS ANGEL ON MY CHEST, a collection of unconventionally linked stories that received the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. More info: www.lesliepietrzyk.com
When you’re riding the Metro and land a double-seat to yourself because you board at the beginning of the line, watch the car fill up as you approach the city. But pretend you don’t see how the white-collar black men stand instead of slide next to you, sharing your seat. Pretend you think that’s because they’ll be sitting at a desk all day or they’re riding only a couple of stops. Pretend not to see the blue-collar black man alone on a double-seat, how no one sits next to him, until the train packs so full that commuters can’t breathe. Pretend you are “brave” when you sit next to him, especially if the train is only slightly crowded. On the way back home, at Gallery Place, when you’re descending on the escalator, pretend you don’t look to see if the people waiting on the platform are black, because if they are, you’ll know immediately that it’s the green line arriving next. Pretend you’re not hoping to see white people waiting because that means the incoming train will be yellow to suburban Virginia. Pretend you’re the only one pretending not to notice this. Pretend that the black people notice too so it’s okay. Pretend that sometimes you don’t walk a few extra blocks after 9 p.m. to the Archives station because fewer “rowdy” and “noisy” teenagers wait there to catch trains.
Pretend you’re also “brave” when you pass through a sprawl of black teenage boys clad in hoodies (winter) or tank tops (summer) or T-shirts imprinted with the face of a dead black man or boy (any season) on the street where you walk daily in your historic suburban town’s shopping district. Pretend that they bother noticing a drab, middle-aged white woman wearing lavender running shoes purchased with a coupon at a strip mall DSW. Pretend they’re examining you closely with the male gaze. Pretend you’re fine with that. Pretend your breathing doesn’t race just a tiny, tiny bit. Pretend you wanted to walk this fast for cardio.
Next time you’re in DC, notice a young, striking black woman’s jazzy natural hair as she stands next to you at a red light at McPherson Square, her paisley-patterned maxi dress billowing like she’s in a model shoot. Pretend that your desire to compliment her hair isn’t about you. Pretend she would be happy to hear how pretty you think she and her hair are, you in your shlumpy clothing because you’re headed to a cut-and-color appointment. Pretend you’re not practicing the exact phrasing of this compliment in your head to get it right. The light turns green and off she goes, swift in her platform sandals, and now you can pretend that you changed your mind. At the hair appointment, pretend you’re not over-tipping the bad shampoo girl who splashes soap in your eyes and grinds her knuckles into your temples though you ask her to stop; pretend you “asked” when really it was “told.” Pretend to understand it’s okay to maybe be a little tiny bit demanding if you are physically in pain; nevertheless, tuck a ten in her tip envelope. Pretend you have a clue how to spell her name, which you’re going to have to pretend to remember.
Pretend you’ve forgotten a certain conversation from fifteen years ago when you were a sweet young thing at a happy hour of up-and-coming lawyers with first mortgages and first babies, all complaining that their cleaning women didn’t dust the ceiling fans, “not even when I pointed right at it,” a woman whined. Pretend that you said—instead of merely thought—“Dust it yourself,” and now pretend that it’s not driving you just a little tiny bit crazy that the ceiling fan in your bedroom is layered with dust and that, honestly, just how hard would it be for her to lift the damn Swiffer up there?
When speaking of it, always say “Prince George’s County” so you can pretend you never think “P.G. County” in a dismissive way. Pretend it wasn’t a big deal when you drove all the way there that one Fourth of July for fried chicken because the place was written up in the Washington Post food section, and pretend the chicken was better than it turned out to be, and pretend you didn’t mind waiting forty-five minutes for your order at the bar, and definitely pretend you didn’t think that the kitchen staff (all eight of them) seemed maybe a little tiny bit disorganized, especially since plenty of people want take-out fried chicken on the Fourth of July so it’s no surprise the day will be busy, and pretend you didn’t think for even four seconds about how you’d run things if you were back there in the kitchen, frying those chicken pieces yourself. Pretend to forget that you used to fry the Fourth of July chicken at home but stopped because it’s one thousand percent easier buying it, and your kitchen, clothes, and hair don’t reek of grease when it’s take-out chicken that someone else makes. Pretend their clothes and hair don’t reek of grease, and pretend they get off in plenty of time to make it to the fireworks.
In downtown DC, always have a dollar in a pocket that’s easily accessible so you can quickly pass it to a panhandler without breaking stride. Pretend you’re doing something principled, and explain to your friends walking with you, “I don’t care what he spends it on. Food, liquor, drugs. All I know is that it would be hard to live on the streets, so whatever he needs.” Pretend you’re not royally pissed when you don’t hear “thank you” or “god bless” immediately upon handing over your crumpled dollar. Pretend you don’t save the clean, crisp bills for your wallet. Pretend you’ve never walked into a NJ Turnpike McDonald’s and thought, “See, the Dollar Menu. So people can buy food for a dollar.” You also support Street Sense, the newspaper about and sold by the homeless, but pretend you’re not a little tiny bit pissed that they jacked the price from one dollar to two. Pretend that reading the poetry written by Street Sense vendors, filled with clichés and optimism and God, doesn’t make you feel impotently sad. Pretend you don’t imagine posting one of those poems on Facebook or Twitter and being heroically responsible for it going viral. Pretend a dollar will save someone’s life.
Pretend those canned vegetables you donate to the food bank would be right at home on your dinner table, that your husband would happily say, “Hey, hon, please pass over the bowl of delicious canned corn because I would really love me a second serving.” Pretend that you eat beans or tuna every night for dinner because you’re grateful for protein. Pretend that you prefer the store brands, and maybe even pretend that the people getting the food won’t notice that nothing is Del Monte, nothing is Jif, nothing is organic, nothing is bought at full-price. Pretend you would be bursting with appreciation for this bounty. Pretend that when you do eat canned black beans that you don’t shake on fancy hot sauce from Miami for flavor. Pretend you’re noble because you’d never grab expired crap from the back of your cabinets; you’re noble to throw that shit away. Pretend not to mind dropping off a bag of (unwrapped) toys from Target to a holiday gift drive, and that it’s okay to take your donation to a box in a busy realtor’s office, and pretend you don’t wish someone there or anywhere would thank you to your face and/or (but really and) pop a handwritten note with a real stamp into the mail. Pretend not to be pleased with yourself for imagining the smile of the black teenage boy enchanted by your gift on Christmas Day, a regulation basketball, and then pretend you don’t see the dozen or so basketballs already filling the box at the realtor’s office.
Pretend that you never notice that there is maybe one black couple at the parties you go to. Pretend not to feel instant relief when you see that couple there, clutching their glasses of Trader Joe wine. Pretend to have no idea that everyone around you is equally relieved, that the host of the party is thinking, “Look, I have black friends.” In a different conversation at a different time, maybe over brunch with women, pretend that you’ve been invited to a party at a black couple’s house. Or an Asian couple’s house. Or a Latinx couple’s house, and pretend you know how to use Latinx properly, without feeling nervous about screwing it up.
Pretend that when someone mentions “a professor,” the image in your mind is of a black person wearing tweed. Pretend this of lawyers and lobbyists, of CEOs and hipster entrepreneurs, of PhD students and research librarians and all scientists. Pretend that when someone mentions “African-American,” that athletes and musicians and Oprah aren’t in your mind at all, and neither are the homeless or single moms or “The Wire” or prison or a dead boy in the street. Pretend you’ve always seen “black man” when you think president or Santa Claus.
Pretend that the Washington Redskins honestly is a perfectly normal and excellent name for a professional football team worth 1.5 billion dollars, even though one simple google search shows online dictionaries calling that word dated, offensive, derogatory, contemptuous, and a racial slur. Shout, “Go, Skins,” at your large-screen TV, and pretend that’s acceptable. Pretend that if your burgundy and gold T-shirt doesn’t have the Indian’s face printed on it, then it’s okay to wear it in public; but pretend you don’t actually want to wear that shirt in public because it’s “lucky” and that’s why you only wear it at home. Pretend you’re not looking forward to the December 17th game against the Cardinals and your friend’s season ticket seats. Pretend you believe that one day the team’s owner will magically come to his senses and change Redskins to “Pigskins” and that doing so will undo all the damage of rooting for a team named after a racial slur. Pretend you don’t type #HTTR on Twitter during a tense overtime when the passing game has been sucking and the QB nails it.
Pretend there’s nothing more to say. Pretend this is the end. Pretend you admitted to all of it.
Read this, and pretend that it’s not about you.
Publish it under “fiction.”
###
AUTHOR
Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of SILVER GIRL, a novel, and THIS ANGEL ON MY CHEST, a collection of unconventionally linked stories that received the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. More info: www.lesliepietrzyk.com
Holy Hearts
7/8/19
By Joe Lyons
7/8/2019
0 Comments
Our second Monday of ninth grade was the first day we saw Jeanie Cain. It was also the day that our health teacher Ms. Dagny, stood up in front of the class and announced that everyone is born with a tiny hole in their heart.
“A microscopic sized hole,” she said pinching her fingers together to give the class an accurate representation.
We sat in the back, never truly listening to what was going on outside of our circle, but what she said hooked us in by our ears. Since the school year began, she hadn’t said a single word, let alone anything factual. The silence hung heavy throughout the room until the bell rang out, and in a mute shuffle of zippering backpacks, we gathered our things and left.
We discovered the mysterious Jeanie Cain the class period after Ms. Dagny discussed the heart holes. By that time in the year August was over, and the resonance of our summer spent in the sun and nose-diving into the county pool was far in the back of our minds. We stood in the courtyard of Harrisburg High School, waiting for our next class, when Jeanie darted by us in a flash. Her parent’s watched her from their car as she ran in. That first day we saw her, scurrying inside, she wore long drab baggy sweatpants and a skin-colored mock turtleneck that managed to conceal everything we wanted to see. She ran into the bathroom. We thought at first she was just having a bad case of indigestion, or maybe she was on her period, but Ms. Dagny hadn’t gotten to that lesson yet so we couldn’t be sure.
We moved closer to the girl’s bathroom to investigate. When she walked out, a different Jeanie appeared. She wore a yellow halter top that revealed her thin stomach and a pair of tight-fitting jeans. She had jammed her revealing outfit into her backpack, stuffing that fleshy turtleneck down to the bottom. Her parents, Colin and Denise Cain, both worked at the Northern Hills Christian Church near the school. They worked from early in the morning until the candles in the church illuminated dimly and dribbled out streams of hot wax. From neighboring parents we heard that the Cain household was strict to say the least. But seeing Jeanie leave the bathroom, freshly blended blush highlighting the sunken sides of her rosy cheeks, we were hooked just as we had when Ms. Dagny unleashed her fact to the class. From that day early on in the school year, we tried to watch Jeanie any time we could.
We had never truly spoken to her. She was a tenth grader, a whole separate breed of girls to us. The one’s in our grade still seemed juvenile, roaming around with hunks of metal in their teeth, still wearing the same clothes they wore to eighth grade graduation. On her way to social studies is where we often crossed paths. We wanted to be in social studies with her. To spend every droning class period, our eyes yearning to be gouged out staring at world maps and reading about the origins of the American Revolution, in her presence. We imagined that she was different in class, actually studious compared to the other girls who strayed to the back walls, popping their pink wads of gum and gossiping over where Ryan Cannata went for spring break.
Once, cutting our way to English through the teacher’s lounge, we stumbled upon a social studies study group that included Jeanie. She sat around with the other students in a circle, watching almost tediously as Ms. Kubsch tore into her egg-salad sandwich, sending dollops of mustard colored yolks onto the table and releasing a smell that drove us back the way we came. Even when the aroma of two-day old eggs was torturing her, Jeanie’s face still looked beautiful and full of mystery. The way her mop of brunette hair dangled over the sides of her shoulders, and the dark almond color in her eyes seemed to look through whatever she was staring at, as if she was waiting for Ms. Kubsch to ask her some profound question about life rather than one about the Ottoman Empire. Jeanie was surrounded by people, but her eyes wandered aimlessly out, like she was looking for a piece of herself that was missing.
By the time spring rolled around, we had been watching Jeanie around school for months. We saw the seasons shift with decayed flowerbeds and frozen windshields. At times we often felt ashamed of watching Jeanie do so much without her knowledge of our existence. One of us considered talking to her, or even slipping a note through the vents of her locker. But we couldn’t come to an agreement on what to say, so we returned to watching and agreed that we could only talk to Jeanie if approached or under dire circumstances. Later that week, the day Kirk Ellison came to us in the hallway with an offer we couldn’t refuse or even believe, was when everything changed.
On that particular day, Jeanie was running late, maybe held behind fixing her makeup in the bathroom mirror, or curving the tube of deep crimson lipstick over the hills and valleys of her lips. We were worried, watching her walk was like watching God traverse across water, each step just floating. Our hearts felt like dead weights waiting in our secluded spots for her. We all knew exactly where to position ourselves between the social studies room where the tenth graders herded into, and then catty corner from where the janitor always left his broom closet door open. Whoever showed up to school last got the spot near the janitor’s closet, and had to inhale deep streams of ammonia while waiting for Jeanie.
Suddenly she waltzed around the corner. Jeanie Cain had on her plum-colored heels that seemed to make her a foot taller, and the dress she was wearing fit too well, causing her, with each ten or so steps, to adjust the end of the slim blue felt material down to reveal less of her pasty thighs. The top of the dress curved up and around her shoulders, meeting together in a tangle on the ball of her neck.
But at the moment she cruised down the hallway, tucked out of sight we looked and seared into our brains each curve that her slim body protruded. The heels made her tower over the tops of the manila metal lockers. It felt like she was looking down upon everyone, but we seemed to be the only ones who even bothered to notice. The traffic of students walking in and out of the social studies hallway looked her up and down and then continued with their conversation or shoved their hands deeper into their pockets. Jeanie sauntered into class; we all exhaled.
“It happened, last night it finally happened,” Kirk said as he slammed the palm of his hand onto a locker in excitement.
Kirk was apart of our group that watched Jeanie, and he had a leg up on all of us because he lived next to her. In fact Kirk’s room had a window that faced directly towards Jeanie’s window. He said that for a while now he had kept his blinds closed, only peeking out through the cracks at night to look. Her window had no blinds, just pure glass coated in dust from the Cottonwood tree that shrouded her backyard.
Kirk had never seen anything, not so much as the flick of a light switch coming on or even someone opening the window to take in some fresh air. But in the past weeks he said the Jeanie Cain sightings through his musty window were increasing. First, just a brief glimpse, like a ghost in jeans and a white Pink Floyd t-shirt had sprinted past the window in a flash. But then he said that sometimes after school she would perch herself up in the windowsill and look out onto their street. Gazing out with the same mystery her eyes had the day we saw her in the study group. But the Jeanie sightings turned into more.
“ I saw her change, she took everything off,” Kirk said.
We didn’t know how to react. Fantasies of her clothes falling down to the floor, her slim legs sliding out of denim material, they all crowded our minds.
“Liar, you didn’t see shit,” one of us said.
“Yeah Kirk the only naked girls you’ve seen are from Dagny’s dioramas.”
We spread our fingers out wide, and cupped the excess skin from our chests up, motioning like the girls from Mardi Gras towards Kirk.
“I did! Come over after school tomorrow and we’ll all watch,” Kirk said.
We agreed, and a plan was formed. The halls started to thin out as the class bells chimed in. We gathered our things and as we were walking we passed Mrs. Dagny. She stared at us with hollow eyes; we kept ours down, focusing on the tiled floor rather than her. One of us swore that she was poking at her chest with her index finger, still checking for the holes in her heart.
The next day came quickly. We abandoned our final class to get a head start toward Kirk’s. Walking through the neighborhood, we realized that we had only ever watched Jeanie at school, never this close to her home. For some reason, we had thought that she lived in some big white marble house like the Vatican. Maybe it was because of her parents working for the church. But approaching Kirk’s we walked one house further to see what the Cain residence truly looked like.
The house was the worst looking one on Clermont Street. The rough outer layer of white paint was floating off in thin chunks, exposing a base-layer of rotting wood. The gutters looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in years. A mucky concoction of thickets, leaves from Kirk’s tree in his front yard, and dark grime like a fungus dangled over the side of the drain. The metal sidings and bolts that hung on for dear life sagged towards the earth. Stray shingles were scattered across the roof. A cobblestone path was etched into her driveway and lead all the way up to the front door, which was the oddest part of the house out of everything. The door was painted the same color of crimson as the lipstick Jeanie always put on. Every other house on the street looked fresh and new, but had no such lingering color as the Cain’s door had.
We inched up towards the window to look inside. A while back Kirk had told us that Mrs. Cain had invited his mom over so that she could teach her the famous apple pie recipe Kirk’s mom only made in the summertime.
“She said their house looked the same as the inside of Northern Hills,” Kirk had said to us, “You couldn’t go two feet without seeing Jesus pinned to a cross, Jeanie’s mom even had one hung up above the microwave.”
When we cupped our hands up to the front window, the report from Kirk’s mom was true. Crosses were hung up everywhere. Big ones, small ones, golden ones, wooden ones, the realistic ones where someone poorly drew Jesus’s body a pink fleshy color with red smudges up and down his sides. All of these crosses hung on the walls like the Cain’s had bought a haunted house and were trying to exorcize the demon that came with it.
Kirk let us inside his house and we marched upstairs to his room where everyone was already waiting. We were prepared; one of us even had a pair of binoculars draped around their neck. We knew Jeanie had gym class eighth hour, where the sounds of rubber soles bounced across the evenly waxed floor and the smell of young bodies that hadn’t discovered deodorant yet wafted to the rafters. The walk from Harrisburg to Clermont Street took roughly fifteen minutes if you didn’t get stuck at the two intersections along the way. Kirk told us that Jeanie had been coming home from school at the ends of long days and had been drowning her house with music. He couldn’t identify the exact song as it was mostly muffled until she opened her window.
“It’s rock, definitely rock, I’ve heard one of the songs on the radio before,” Kirk had said.
Minutes later, we finally saw Jeanie walking up the street. We lurked from Kirk’s front window. Before going inside, she stopped dead in her tracks on the cobblestone path and looked the house up and down. We felt like she was making designs in her head of what she would fix with the house. Hire roofers for the shingles; maybe paint the side panels the same shade of red as the door to match. When she finally went inside, we ran upstairs to Kirk’s room and hid behind his window waiting. Kirk slid his window open just a bit, and then put the blinds down. Our eyes darted back and forth, our heads bobbed up and down trying to find the right angles to watch from.
The walls of her room were the same shade of faded white as the house. They weren’t adorned with posters or vibrant flyers like most kids rooms were. Jeanie’s walls were blank besides a lone cross that was centered above her bed.
“I can’t see shit,” one of us said, jamming our way to the front of the window.
Jeanie’s window was shut, but as we settled into our spots we saw the door to her room swing open followed shortly after by the top of her body walking across the room. We all moved in closer to the blinds, squinting our eyes to get better details. She seemed distressed, moving around her room at a pace we had never seen during any hour of school. She put her hands up onto her head like she was out of breath, running her fingers through her hair that was still slightly damp probably from playing tennis out on the courts behind the school. We watched as Jeanie, with her hands still over her head, began to breathe in heavy streams of air. Her chest pushed up against the boundaries of her jet-black shirt with each breath in. The outline of her rigid rib cage splintering out.
We all but put our heads through the blinds, mesmerized by what they were seeing. And as Jeanie went around her rooms in tiny laps, we started to get the sense that something was off. Her demeanor, the way she breathed and even walked all seemed out of character. Like she was hiding the natural way she did those ordinary things at school, striving to stand and walk like all the other girls.
“Kirk, when is this gonna get good man?” we asked in a hushed tone.
She slid her window open, and then moved to the corner of her room out of our line of sight. The scent of laundry detergent floated from her window and into Kirk’s. We leaned in closer. Kirk stood up and opened the blinds up a little more, pressing his head against them.
“Do you hear that?” we asked. Tiny inklings of guitar riffs and a hard beating drum began to wander from Jeanie’s room.
“Told you, rock music, she digs it,” Kirk said.
From the obscure corner of her room Jeanie reappeared in the window. At first she slowly nodded her head, as if she was hearing the song for the first time, picking up the beat as each pluck of the bass and tap of the drum sped up. Her shoulders began to jutter up and down, then the hips went. They rotated about, following the path her shoulders carved out. Her shirt twisted and scrunched up along her slender body with each contortion. We moved further and further into the blinds, our noses beginning to poke through, aching to open up the blinds fully. Our minds went blank; the binoculars were placed on the floor; Kirk covered his pants with his comforter.
Jeanie had us hooked in by string, our heads couldn’t move even if we wanted them to. Watching her dance wildly about her room was even more astonishing than watching her traverse the halls of school, or the time her eyes met ours as we cut through the courtyard, Jeanie staring out into the parking lot like she was watching a movie. We saw the true Jeanie, and she danced like nobody was watching, except we were.
As we watched Jeanie move wildly about her room, we must’ve missed Mr. and Mrs. Cain pull their car up the driveway. The rock music now at its peak likely drowned out the sounds of their car doors slamming shut, Mr. Cain fumbling with the keys trying to open their front door.
Mr. Cain busted through Jeanie’s bedroom door so fast, we thought the frame exploded off, the hinges flaying out in a mangled mess of bronze plates and bent screws. Jeanie didn’t notice her Dad for a brief moment and we stared in horror wanting to shout and warn her of what she was not seeing. Jeanie danced in a circle until she locked eyes with her Dad, her shoulders settling down like a wave finally crashing into a sandy beach. They stood there for what seemed like minutes, the music rising. Mr. Cain walked into the corner and cut the music off. Mr. Cain looked Jeanie up and down, at her outfit, at the obscure corner of her room. Kirk opened the blinds a bit more. We pleaded for him to stop out of fear that Mr. Cain would give us the same glare he gave his daughter.
“What? We gotta hear this,” Kirk said.
Jeanie backed up onto the corner of her bed, Mr. Cain towering over her. Mrs. Cain walked through the door shortly after. She began to talk to Jeanie. We could barely hear and someone put the binoculars on in an attempt to translate.
“She’s asking about the music, and, and her clothes, her makeup, dude this is bad.”
Jeanie began to plead her case to them both. “Please…. can’t control what I wear…. is who I am,” Jeanie said, muffled through the window.
Mr. Cain paced to her window in anger. He returned back to Jeanie and sent a firm backhand across her face. We lurched back, shaking the blinds, feeling the coarse knuckles of Mr. Cain’s hand across our faces too.
We ducked beneath the window and held our breath. When we returned, Jeanie was now sprawled across her bed. She tried to cover her face but we saw her hollow cheeks already beginning to swell up like a mountain of flesh, stained sunburn red. Mrs. Cain stood at the edge of the door in fear; Mr. Cain began to dig through Jeanie’s closet. Kirk buried his head deep into his comforter, the binoculars again went to the floor, but we continued to watch Jeanie.
Mr. Cain ripped through her closet, flashes of metal containers and CD’s glinted in the sunlight as he examined each item before tossing them out of the window. Jeanie stayed glued to her bed; we heard her sobs just as we had heard her music.
Her mom and dad left her room, and after an hour we figured the coast was clear. Kirk opened up the blinds. We looked down at the side of her house where a violent heap of objects and clothing had formed on top of the leaves that had been ignored since fall. But as we stared at everything thrown from the window, we looked up to see Jeanie staring back at us. We stayed there for a moment, our eyes locked with Jeanie’s. She looked down at the pile of her objects, and then back to us. Runny, dark outlines of mascara drifted down from her eyes like some sort of hole had been pierced and ink had spilled out. Jeanie turned, and closed her window.
Sometimes at night that brief moment we had with Jeanie through her window would come back to us. How the whole time we stood there looking directly at the girl we cared so much about, our minds could only wander to the thought of Ms. Dagny, and the day she stood up to the class and talked about the heart holes. How the cacophony of conversations, laughter, and smacking gum that consumed the class fell silent just as the last word left her lips. How her eyes moved in a blank motion across the room, how she stood tall, and let out a huge, fresh breath of air as if she had been waiting forever to tell anyone about the tiny heart holes, a truth that she held so desperately close to her. How everyone in the school knew that Ms. Dagny’s son had died at birth from a heart defect but couldn’t look her in the eyes as she watched us from the front of the class. How, with Ms. Dagny looking at us, we held our hands at our chests to make sure they were still beating properly, and dug our fingers deep into our sternum bones to see if we could detect any microscopic holes.
Joe Lyons on the collective we of adolescence.
Author
Joe Lyons is currently a junior at the University of Colorado, Denver. He has been writing fiction for three years now.
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7/8/2019
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Our second Monday of ninth grade was the first day we saw Jeanie Cain. It was also the day that our health teacher Ms. Dagny, stood up in front of the class and announced that everyone is born with a tiny hole in their heart.
“A microscopic sized hole,” she said pinching her fingers together to give the class an accurate representation.
We sat in the back, never truly listening to what was going on outside of our circle, but what she said hooked us in by our ears. Since the school year began, she hadn’t said a single word, let alone anything factual. The silence hung heavy throughout the room until the bell rang out, and in a mute shuffle of zippering backpacks, we gathered our things and left.
We discovered the mysterious Jeanie Cain the class period after Ms. Dagny discussed the heart holes. By that time in the year August was over, and the resonance of our summer spent in the sun and nose-diving into the county pool was far in the back of our minds. We stood in the courtyard of Harrisburg High School, waiting for our next class, when Jeanie darted by us in a flash. Her parent’s watched her from their car as she ran in. That first day we saw her, scurrying inside, she wore long drab baggy sweatpants and a skin-colored mock turtleneck that managed to conceal everything we wanted to see. She ran into the bathroom. We thought at first she was just having a bad case of indigestion, or maybe she was on her period, but Ms. Dagny hadn’t gotten to that lesson yet so we couldn’t be sure.
We moved closer to the girl’s bathroom to investigate. When she walked out, a different Jeanie appeared. She wore a yellow halter top that revealed her thin stomach and a pair of tight-fitting jeans. She had jammed her revealing outfit into her backpack, stuffing that fleshy turtleneck down to the bottom. Her parents, Colin and Denise Cain, both worked at the Northern Hills Christian Church near the school. They worked from early in the morning until the candles in the church illuminated dimly and dribbled out streams of hot wax. From neighboring parents we heard that the Cain household was strict to say the least. But seeing Jeanie leave the bathroom, freshly blended blush highlighting the sunken sides of her rosy cheeks, we were hooked just as we had when Ms. Dagny unleashed her fact to the class. From that day early on in the school year, we tried to watch Jeanie any time we could.
We had never truly spoken to her. She was a tenth grader, a whole separate breed of girls to us. The one’s in our grade still seemed juvenile, roaming around with hunks of metal in their teeth, still wearing the same clothes they wore to eighth grade graduation. On her way to social studies is where we often crossed paths. We wanted to be in social studies with her. To spend every droning class period, our eyes yearning to be gouged out staring at world maps and reading about the origins of the American Revolution, in her presence. We imagined that she was different in class, actually studious compared to the other girls who strayed to the back walls, popping their pink wads of gum and gossiping over where Ryan Cannata went for spring break.
Once, cutting our way to English through the teacher’s lounge, we stumbled upon a social studies study group that included Jeanie. She sat around with the other students in a circle, watching almost tediously as Ms. Kubsch tore into her egg-salad sandwich, sending dollops of mustard colored yolks onto the table and releasing a smell that drove us back the way we came. Even when the aroma of two-day old eggs was torturing her, Jeanie’s face still looked beautiful and full of mystery. The way her mop of brunette hair dangled over the sides of her shoulders, and the dark almond color in her eyes seemed to look through whatever she was staring at, as if she was waiting for Ms. Kubsch to ask her some profound question about life rather than one about the Ottoman Empire. Jeanie was surrounded by people, but her eyes wandered aimlessly out, like she was looking for a piece of herself that was missing.
By the time spring rolled around, we had been watching Jeanie around school for months. We saw the seasons shift with decayed flowerbeds and frozen windshields. At times we often felt ashamed of watching Jeanie do so much without her knowledge of our existence. One of us considered talking to her, or even slipping a note through the vents of her locker. But we couldn’t come to an agreement on what to say, so we returned to watching and agreed that we could only talk to Jeanie if approached or under dire circumstances. Later that week, the day Kirk Ellison came to us in the hallway with an offer we couldn’t refuse or even believe, was when everything changed.
On that particular day, Jeanie was running late, maybe held behind fixing her makeup in the bathroom mirror, or curving the tube of deep crimson lipstick over the hills and valleys of her lips. We were worried, watching her walk was like watching God traverse across water, each step just floating. Our hearts felt like dead weights waiting in our secluded spots for her. We all knew exactly where to position ourselves between the social studies room where the tenth graders herded into, and then catty corner from where the janitor always left his broom closet door open. Whoever showed up to school last got the spot near the janitor’s closet, and had to inhale deep streams of ammonia while waiting for Jeanie.
Suddenly she waltzed around the corner. Jeanie Cain had on her plum-colored heels that seemed to make her a foot taller, and the dress she was wearing fit too well, causing her, with each ten or so steps, to adjust the end of the slim blue felt material down to reveal less of her pasty thighs. The top of the dress curved up and around her shoulders, meeting together in a tangle on the ball of her neck.
But at the moment she cruised down the hallway, tucked out of sight we looked and seared into our brains each curve that her slim body protruded. The heels made her tower over the tops of the manila metal lockers. It felt like she was looking down upon everyone, but we seemed to be the only ones who even bothered to notice. The traffic of students walking in and out of the social studies hallway looked her up and down and then continued with their conversation or shoved their hands deeper into their pockets. Jeanie sauntered into class; we all exhaled.
“It happened, last night it finally happened,” Kirk said as he slammed the palm of his hand onto a locker in excitement.
Kirk was apart of our group that watched Jeanie, and he had a leg up on all of us because he lived next to her. In fact Kirk’s room had a window that faced directly towards Jeanie’s window. He said that for a while now he had kept his blinds closed, only peeking out through the cracks at night to look. Her window had no blinds, just pure glass coated in dust from the Cottonwood tree that shrouded her backyard.
Kirk had never seen anything, not so much as the flick of a light switch coming on or even someone opening the window to take in some fresh air. But in the past weeks he said the Jeanie Cain sightings through his musty window were increasing. First, just a brief glimpse, like a ghost in jeans and a white Pink Floyd t-shirt had sprinted past the window in a flash. But then he said that sometimes after school she would perch herself up in the windowsill and look out onto their street. Gazing out with the same mystery her eyes had the day we saw her in the study group. But the Jeanie sightings turned into more.
“ I saw her change, she took everything off,” Kirk said.
We didn’t know how to react. Fantasies of her clothes falling down to the floor, her slim legs sliding out of denim material, they all crowded our minds.
“Liar, you didn’t see shit,” one of us said.
“Yeah Kirk the only naked girls you’ve seen are from Dagny’s dioramas.”
We spread our fingers out wide, and cupped the excess skin from our chests up, motioning like the girls from Mardi Gras towards Kirk.
“I did! Come over after school tomorrow and we’ll all watch,” Kirk said.
We agreed, and a plan was formed. The halls started to thin out as the class bells chimed in. We gathered our things and as we were walking we passed Mrs. Dagny. She stared at us with hollow eyes; we kept ours down, focusing on the tiled floor rather than her. One of us swore that she was poking at her chest with her index finger, still checking for the holes in her heart.
The next day came quickly. We abandoned our final class to get a head start toward Kirk’s. Walking through the neighborhood, we realized that we had only ever watched Jeanie at school, never this close to her home. For some reason, we had thought that she lived in some big white marble house like the Vatican. Maybe it was because of her parents working for the church. But approaching Kirk’s we walked one house further to see what the Cain residence truly looked like.
The house was the worst looking one on Clermont Street. The rough outer layer of white paint was floating off in thin chunks, exposing a base-layer of rotting wood. The gutters looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in years. A mucky concoction of thickets, leaves from Kirk’s tree in his front yard, and dark grime like a fungus dangled over the side of the drain. The metal sidings and bolts that hung on for dear life sagged towards the earth. Stray shingles were scattered across the roof. A cobblestone path was etched into her driveway and lead all the way up to the front door, which was the oddest part of the house out of everything. The door was painted the same color of crimson as the lipstick Jeanie always put on. Every other house on the street looked fresh and new, but had no such lingering color as the Cain’s door had.
We inched up towards the window to look inside. A while back Kirk had told us that Mrs. Cain had invited his mom over so that she could teach her the famous apple pie recipe Kirk’s mom only made in the summertime.
“She said their house looked the same as the inside of Northern Hills,” Kirk had said to us, “You couldn’t go two feet without seeing Jesus pinned to a cross, Jeanie’s mom even had one hung up above the microwave.”
When we cupped our hands up to the front window, the report from Kirk’s mom was true. Crosses were hung up everywhere. Big ones, small ones, golden ones, wooden ones, the realistic ones where someone poorly drew Jesus’s body a pink fleshy color with red smudges up and down his sides. All of these crosses hung on the walls like the Cain’s had bought a haunted house and were trying to exorcize the demon that came with it.
Kirk let us inside his house and we marched upstairs to his room where everyone was already waiting. We were prepared; one of us even had a pair of binoculars draped around their neck. We knew Jeanie had gym class eighth hour, where the sounds of rubber soles bounced across the evenly waxed floor and the smell of young bodies that hadn’t discovered deodorant yet wafted to the rafters. The walk from Harrisburg to Clermont Street took roughly fifteen minutes if you didn’t get stuck at the two intersections along the way. Kirk told us that Jeanie had been coming home from school at the ends of long days and had been drowning her house with music. He couldn’t identify the exact song as it was mostly muffled until she opened her window.
“It’s rock, definitely rock, I’ve heard one of the songs on the radio before,” Kirk had said.
Minutes later, we finally saw Jeanie walking up the street. We lurked from Kirk’s front window. Before going inside, she stopped dead in her tracks on the cobblestone path and looked the house up and down. We felt like she was making designs in her head of what she would fix with the house. Hire roofers for the shingles; maybe paint the side panels the same shade of red as the door to match. When she finally went inside, we ran upstairs to Kirk’s room and hid behind his window waiting. Kirk slid his window open just a bit, and then put the blinds down. Our eyes darted back and forth, our heads bobbed up and down trying to find the right angles to watch from.
The walls of her room were the same shade of faded white as the house. They weren’t adorned with posters or vibrant flyers like most kids rooms were. Jeanie’s walls were blank besides a lone cross that was centered above her bed.
“I can’t see shit,” one of us said, jamming our way to the front of the window.
Jeanie’s window was shut, but as we settled into our spots we saw the door to her room swing open followed shortly after by the top of her body walking across the room. We all moved in closer to the blinds, squinting our eyes to get better details. She seemed distressed, moving around her room at a pace we had never seen during any hour of school. She put her hands up onto her head like she was out of breath, running her fingers through her hair that was still slightly damp probably from playing tennis out on the courts behind the school. We watched as Jeanie, with her hands still over her head, began to breathe in heavy streams of air. Her chest pushed up against the boundaries of her jet-black shirt with each breath in. The outline of her rigid rib cage splintering out.
We all but put our heads through the blinds, mesmerized by what they were seeing. And as Jeanie went around her rooms in tiny laps, we started to get the sense that something was off. Her demeanor, the way she breathed and even walked all seemed out of character. Like she was hiding the natural way she did those ordinary things at school, striving to stand and walk like all the other girls.
“Kirk, when is this gonna get good man?” we asked in a hushed tone.
She slid her window open, and then moved to the corner of her room out of our line of sight. The scent of laundry detergent floated from her window and into Kirk’s. We leaned in closer. Kirk stood up and opened the blinds up a little more, pressing his head against them.
“Do you hear that?” we asked. Tiny inklings of guitar riffs and a hard beating drum began to wander from Jeanie’s room.
“Told you, rock music, she digs it,” Kirk said.
From the obscure corner of her room Jeanie reappeared in the window. At first she slowly nodded her head, as if she was hearing the song for the first time, picking up the beat as each pluck of the bass and tap of the drum sped up. Her shoulders began to jutter up and down, then the hips went. They rotated about, following the path her shoulders carved out. Her shirt twisted and scrunched up along her slender body with each contortion. We moved further and further into the blinds, our noses beginning to poke through, aching to open up the blinds fully. Our minds went blank; the binoculars were placed on the floor; Kirk covered his pants with his comforter.
Jeanie had us hooked in by string, our heads couldn’t move even if we wanted them to. Watching her dance wildly about her room was even more astonishing than watching her traverse the halls of school, or the time her eyes met ours as we cut through the courtyard, Jeanie staring out into the parking lot like she was watching a movie. We saw the true Jeanie, and she danced like nobody was watching, except we were.
As we watched Jeanie move wildly about her room, we must’ve missed Mr. and Mrs. Cain pull their car up the driveway. The rock music now at its peak likely drowned out the sounds of their car doors slamming shut, Mr. Cain fumbling with the keys trying to open their front door.
Mr. Cain busted through Jeanie’s bedroom door so fast, we thought the frame exploded off, the hinges flaying out in a mangled mess of bronze plates and bent screws. Jeanie didn’t notice her Dad for a brief moment and we stared in horror wanting to shout and warn her of what she was not seeing. Jeanie danced in a circle until she locked eyes with her Dad, her shoulders settling down like a wave finally crashing into a sandy beach. They stood there for what seemed like minutes, the music rising. Mr. Cain walked into the corner and cut the music off. Mr. Cain looked Jeanie up and down, at her outfit, at the obscure corner of her room. Kirk opened the blinds a bit more. We pleaded for him to stop out of fear that Mr. Cain would give us the same glare he gave his daughter.
“What? We gotta hear this,” Kirk said.
Jeanie backed up onto the corner of her bed, Mr. Cain towering over her. Mrs. Cain walked through the door shortly after. She began to talk to Jeanie. We could barely hear and someone put the binoculars on in an attempt to translate.
“She’s asking about the music, and, and her clothes, her makeup, dude this is bad.”
Jeanie began to plead her case to them both. “Please…. can’t control what I wear…. is who I am,” Jeanie said, muffled through the window.
Mr. Cain paced to her window in anger. He returned back to Jeanie and sent a firm backhand across her face. We lurched back, shaking the blinds, feeling the coarse knuckles of Mr. Cain’s hand across our faces too.
We ducked beneath the window and held our breath. When we returned, Jeanie was now sprawled across her bed. She tried to cover her face but we saw her hollow cheeks already beginning to swell up like a mountain of flesh, stained sunburn red. Mrs. Cain stood at the edge of the door in fear; Mr. Cain began to dig through Jeanie’s closet. Kirk buried his head deep into his comforter, the binoculars again went to the floor, but we continued to watch Jeanie.
Mr. Cain ripped through her closet, flashes of metal containers and CD’s glinted in the sunlight as he examined each item before tossing them out of the window. Jeanie stayed glued to her bed; we heard her sobs just as we had heard her music.
Her mom and dad left her room, and after an hour we figured the coast was clear. Kirk opened up the blinds. We looked down at the side of her house where a violent heap of objects and clothing had formed on top of the leaves that had been ignored since fall. But as we stared at everything thrown from the window, we looked up to see Jeanie staring back at us. We stayed there for a moment, our eyes locked with Jeanie’s. She looked down at the pile of her objects, and then back to us. Runny, dark outlines of mascara drifted down from her eyes like some sort of hole had been pierced and ink had spilled out. Jeanie turned, and closed her window.
Sometimes at night that brief moment we had with Jeanie through her window would come back to us. How the whole time we stood there looking directly at the girl we cared so much about, our minds could only wander to the thought of Ms. Dagny, and the day she stood up to the class and talked about the heart holes. How the cacophony of conversations, laughter, and smacking gum that consumed the class fell silent just as the last word left her lips. How her eyes moved in a blank motion across the room, how she stood tall, and let out a huge, fresh breath of air as if she had been waiting forever to tell anyone about the tiny heart holes, a truth that she held so desperately close to her. How everyone in the school knew that Ms. Dagny’s son had died at birth from a heart defect but couldn’t look her in the eyes as she watched us from the front of the class. How, with Ms. Dagny looking at us, we held our hands at our chests to make sure they were still beating properly, and dug our fingers deep into our sternum bones to see if we could detect any microscopic holes.
Joe Lyons on the collective we of adolescence.
Author
Joe Lyons is currently a junior at the University of Colorado, Denver. He has been writing fiction for three years now.
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SEVEN TRAIN JOURNEYS: ROUTE 01: VARANASI-HYDERABAD
4/18/2019
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As I sat there intoxicated, the color play on the surface of Ganges looked like a part mirror and part mirage reflection of the sky and the lightbulbs. The city was breathing a sigh of relief at the retreat of the monsoons. Hundreds of people decorated the nooks and crannies of Assi Ghat. Each group more enraptured than the other. There was an air of uncertainty around the plans for the evening. Some suggested drinking and the rest appreciated the call. I too joined in. It was time for me to buy this round of cigarettes.
It was one of those evenings when you could get a looming sense of premonition that everything is going to change. Fiddling around with the filter of a Marlboro red, withdrawn from the ritual of visiting Maruadih¹ for paid sex I sat there waiting for my tea. At around half past seven, I switched on my phone. Other than my sister no other person had called me. There was a text message I would have deleted out of habit, but as I write these words, I do so because I decided otherwise.
After a year of bouncing off from one city to the other, looking for food, female company and select intoxicants, the time had come to part ways with my sundowner lifestyle. I had to pack everything up and board the train the next afternoon. It was going to be a long journey spanning slightly over nine and twenty hours. I sat down on the swing in the balcony and started rolling my cigarettes for the journey. I conveyed the news of my admission in the University of Hyderabad to my parents and they didn't react very well.
There was a commotion in the distance. A funeral procession was enroute Manikarnika Ghat. I could see flashbacks from my life leading up to this moment. As far back as my distorted memory allows me to look into my past, I can't think of a parallel to this star studded, celestial night sky. It was rather cold for a July evening.
By the time people decided to hitchhike their way to the brothel, I found myself disinterested in the idea of spending my night with someone else; and burdened under the sheer weight of similar emotions from the yesteryear. In the four months I spent in Varanasi, I had developed a connect with the way the people here. The city had interacted with me in languages I never knew existed. The language of arrivals and departure. The language of the river and the waves. The language of smiles exchanged over gifting her a mirror.
I scavenged for the cheapest pair of earphones at the railway station. Got myself a bottle of water and a dozen chewing gums. I had run out of money and could not afford to pay for a plate of food. I spent most of my time aboard, sitting at the doorway, smoking. There was an uncomfortable grain in the music because of the poor quality of the earphones.
Train journeys have always been really close to my heart. Flights take too little to reach the destination and voyages too long. Trains keep me interested. A continuous change of coordinates, the air too crisp at places, the water, soggy at some. I had started a journey to yet another city.
The realisation that I was broke, hopeful and intoxicated during the entire journey taught me a very valuable lesson. The lesson that nothing in life is too frighteningly monotonous or revoltingly difficult if you're broke hopeful and intoxicated.
The train was inching closer to Hyderabad. I thought of my mother and the first time I boarded a train to start off on a path away from where your heart belongs. The crossroad where I left my mother, marked the beginning of an everlasting chapter on the significance of distance.
Likewise, the journey in train number 12792, seat number 27 has become a chapter on the importance of courage. The courage to let go of the sun in the river in Varanasi only to find it coming out of the lake in Hyderabad.
Here, the cigarette leaves a strong aftertaste on your palate after sunset. There, you could taste the river in every cup of tea... The city had interacted with me in languages I never knew existed. The language of arrivals and departure, of the river and the waves, of life and impermanence. The city now lives inside me...
AUTHOR
Rahul, a T12 paraplegic, finds himself in a conundrum of inebriation. He writes to learn certain things; and to unlearn the rest.
You can find him online at :
https://wordpress.com/view/maroonedmonologues.wordpress.com
