Category: Fiction

Holy Orders

3/28/2019

We escaped the famine and landed in New York City expecting God knows what. Papa was determined while Mama held her counsel and my brother, Pete, absorbed everything from advertisements painted across buildings to crowds of unsure eyes and men in the shadows who awaited opportunities to exploit the weak and unsuspecting.
Papa was a big man so anyone would know to approach him with caution. Thus the sole figure who talked with us was a man in a wagon who bargained with Papa to guide us through the clamor and odors of the great city to our new home, a four-story walk-up tenement of two small rooms.
Pete and I slept in the kitchen while Mama and Papa took the only space that might pass as a bedroom. The flat appeared smaller than what we had in the old country, but we were spared the chill and dampness that filled our memories.
Papa made his living with his muscles, the matter above his shoulders being similar to my own. Following a dinner of beans or stew, Papa would sit in his chair and stare at a newspaper until he’d fall asleep and be nudged by Mama to come to bed. And It’d be years before I learned he could neither read nor write.
But he worked hard, drank hard, and spared no mercy to the two of us when we strayed from what he, Mama, or our given faith expected of us. What I endured from the nuns at school, I thought, should have been enough. But I was slower than my brother who wed himself to books and verses and soon won the hearts of the sisters. I, on the other hand, earned reddened knuckles and turned to my pal, Louie, who taught me street smarts. “Light-Fingered Louie” he was called. But I was never a quick study and soon got nabbed in a bodega where I’d attempted to lift some sweets.
After I endured a corporeal restructuring over Papa’s knee, Mama decided more time in a religious atmosphere was the answer to my formative needs. An altar boy clad in red, white, and innocence, I carried a brass cross down the aisle. Even I could not believe it. The other acolyte whose presence didn’t seem to reflect a need for punishment carried the processional torch and pretended I didn’t exist. But there were others assisting the father and more than a few shared the same heft of guilt that rested across my shoulders. I must admit after realizing so many in the congregation were watching us, or so I thought, I felt an air of importance, gifted even.
And just when I needed Papa the most, he had a massive heart attack and vanished from our midst entirely. I was left with a healthy respect for authority, discipline, and fear, nothing more. But Mama knew what I needed and filled a hole looming in my sense of self-worth. After evening Mass she’d peer down at me in my vestments and say, “Michael, you are very special.” And she’d follow this with a flowery pronouncement of my precious nature. As a witness to this undaunted pride that glowed in her face, I soon inhaled a new status for myself: blessed and holy in every respect.
And in return, I wanted to acknowledge her role early in what I suddenly realized would become my new destiny: ascendance to the papal throne in Rome. Adoring eyes from the pews remained fixed on me as I gripped the heavy brass crucifix and moved with grace behind Father Daniel down the aisle. Alert to my loyal following in the congregation, I soon felt assured of my bright new vision.
Richard, an older and wiser, helped me to foresee the next big move I’d make toward sainthood. “For your eyes only,” he said as he demonstrated the formal wave the Pope employed for large crowds. “Try this simple gesture during the processional,” he added. This sign, I decided, would confirm to all the path I’d take toward my resplendent holy orders to follow.
With soft strains from the choir loft, Father Daniel ventured forth down the aisle with two altar boys in his wake. With a firm grip on my staff, I moved in measured steps causing me to lag behind my colleague, Michael, who carried the weighty brass candlestick. About three-quarters of the way to the altar, I lifted my right hand from the staff and moved my flattened palm in gentle waves as Richard had instructed. This I achieved at the same moment I turned my smiling face to the right near the aisle where I knew Mama would be seated with my brother.
So caught up in this sacred moment I initially failed to realize that the top of the cross I carried had begun a rapid decent forward from its approved position. By the time I realized what was happening and attempted to right the pole with both hands, my holy crucifix had become a medieval lance in attack position. As fate would have it, I tripped on a piece of slate in the floor and fell forward, my weapon striking Father Daniel who stumbled headfirst into the altar.
An audible gasp filled the sanctuary as this young acolyte happened upon one of the masterful precepts of classical philosophy: if one is not present at an event, nothing concerning that individual could have occurred there. With the swiftness of Mercury, I raced from the sanctuary to the vestry where I hid behind a closet full of robes. A while later I heard the soft voice of the priest who’d entered my secret sanctum. If I said nothing to give myself away, I reasoned, he’d go away.
“Michael, I know you’re in here,” he said. Rats! All is lost. Purgatory, please welcome another fool.
After tears, hugs, and reconciliation, I was returned to Mama’s tender care. That night I vividly recalled Father Daniel’s parting words: “You are a special and beloved boy, Michael. Let’s just forget this unfortunate incident.” Had I heard his words clearly? The papacy still awaits, I thought.
But I needed a plan of action to confirm my local patronage before I moved on. And the idea I needed came to life the day I saw Lucy Greene enter the confessional. Lucy was in my class at school. She was no angel. I had the scratch marks to prove it.
My master strategy quickly fell into place. I’d slip behind the confessional, listen to the exchange, and then fill the Father in on the true nature of this wicked girl.
With reluctance, I’d be forced to confirm several sinful acts I was confident she’d conveniently fail to mention in her confession. It would be my holy duty to assist the Father in unraveling this girl’s sanctimonious testimony. I’d just place a glass against the back of the booth, put my ear to it, and listen to every word.
And I would have had I not sneezed and watched with horror as the glass broke into a thousand pieces at my feet.
I was soon blessed with new holy orders at Saint Peter’s Church. I was to polish brass. Brass this and brass that. So much of it to polish, more than a boy could ever imagine. But with every finished piece I could behold the reflections of my angelic face, the face of a future pope, I thought. My future assured.

Author

Fred Miller is a California writer who specializes in penning short stories with eclectic themes. His first was selected by Constance Hunting, the New England poet laureate in 2003. More than fifty of his stories have appeared in publications around the world in the past ten years. Many of his stories may be seen on his blog: https://pookah1943.wordpress.com. Fred lives in Southern California with his wife and two Cocker Spaniels.

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Fan mail: from the trenches of feared emasculation

3/10/2019

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Like so many emerging writers, I spend Sunday mornings answering fan mail:

Dear Walter,
I’m afraid I don't have a real answer, because your message is not about my essay. What you summarized as "the gist" is not at all the gist of what I wrote.
If you think the plight of the Western man should be more appreciated in the media, I suggest you write your own essay. Hours of work to be fair to nuance will net you about $150 and pissy messages from angry people who cannot read. Not for everyone, essays.
Personally, I’ve no experience with evil women who screw over well-meaning men. The exposure of gold diggers may be a worthwhile topic – they’re no angels, you see – but myself I’m not interested so please leave me alone.
Onward,
—N

Soon I scanned his reply, like a nervous boxer checking enemy brawn. Walter jabbed hard – he had reread my piece condemning American men chasing Asian women – but then sighed about his marriage without benefits, a point I filed coldly away under ‘weakness.’ I could take him on, I realized. I am proud of my agile positioning, unburdened by the needs of identity that give other men so much to prove. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee full of woke. Jeez, that word, what an irritant.
I ignored ‘grievance pimp’ and ‘man traitor hack piling on,’ but I was clipped unawares when he called me a ‘cuck,’ which a quick online check showed to mean ‘an unmanly man desperate for approval from women.’
Eat shit, Walter.

Hi there again,
I understand if you feel men are besieged. Because we are – by people who’ve gotten shafted for generations. So you can cling to your John Wayne DVD collection and dream of the good old days (dukerides@aol.com – really?) or you can man up and share the room.
—N

This of course invited escalation, the simplest way to proceed. After rounds of fierce combat, however, the venom became routine and we merely showed up for work. ‘End the stupid,’ exhorted my wife, who had been updated on developments save for the stupid part with the cuck. I told Walter I would stop responding: Getting bored here, moving on.
But then, lulled by a false sense of safety, one day the enemy slipped. Keep the wifey happy, he snarled. And good luck with your $150 articles.
I made an ugly face, seeing the opening. It was like the moment in Star Wars, when your spacecraft crosshairs have the death star’s thermal exhaust port at last where you need it. Your face set with bitter gravitas, you push ‘send’ on the message, unleashing a powerful thing that destroys. You sink back in your chair orgasmically, knowing how much this will hurt.

W,
I like my $150 articles, thank you.
Good luck with that marriage without benefits.

You get to know a man when you fight him, to where both of you understand when a blow is decisive. One staggers, shocked by the cruelty of a god that allows bitch slaps to happen, then slumps to the ground with a terrible thud. A moment of awe, a stunned, atavistic silence. After that, if the defeated man is still alive, he goes mean like a wounded raccoon.
It was key now to ghost him, to ignore red meat titled ‘Berkley libtard’ or ‘new gig as a fluffer?’ which came in a salvo of growing despair. My indifference signaled to Walt it was over: own the silence, you own the exchange. His job was to go away, and indeed, soon the messages ceased.
As I am working on a new essay that may land unseen blows, I imagine Walter out there, nursing a gaping wound as he cranks up his modem, watching for my next step. It feels good to have won. No more need to keep checking my messages and worrying what I might find, no need for disturbing dreams of meeting Walter in a dark alley. It is silly to envision breaking his face, just for saying I kiss up to women.

Author

Nicolas Gattig writes short fiction and is a Contributing Writer at The Japan Times. He lives in San Francisco and is thinking about moving back to Japan.

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Eye of the Storm

3/2/2019

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An Excerpt

I've had night terrors since I was a kid. My older sister Katie said that they started the night after a tornado tore off part of our roof, but that seems too ominous. The tornado had torn through our neighborhood on a warm, muggy Friday in June. I was seven at the time, Katie was nine. Tornadoes were what we feared most.

The night of that tornado, we huddled together in our mom's closet, turning the volume up and down on her small, red battery-powered radio. I still remember curling up in Katie's lap, my screams muffled by her thin legs. Over and over again, she stroked my long, dark blonde hair. Her blue pajama pants were soft against my cheek. Next to us, Mom was on her flip phone, frantically texting our father, who was on a trip for work and wouldn't get in until a couple of days later.

When he finally did get back, he looked at our house and the wreckage in front of it with wide, darkened eyes. On the right side, nearly all of the red shingles had been torn off. Scattered across the grass were tulips, roses and scraggly branches, remnants of the garden that had withstood every storm but this one. After perusing the scene for several long seconds, he looked at his wife and daughters with disdain, as though we had caused this mess.

“We got the worst of it, didn't we?” he asked in a raspy voice on the verge of rising in volume. I couldn't tell at first if he was talking to us, the house or God. Maybe he was screaming at all of us, letting out the anger he let build inside of him quickly, always hot, pouring into his body and becoming hot ashes when he let it out through his hands and fists.

* * *

Whenever I thought of the eye of the storm, I'd always imagined a tranquil, glowing space at its center, like a light in the middle of darkness. I learned later that the eye of the storm doesn't really look like that; it's just a space where the destruction of the storm happens to not reach. But even after I'd learned the truth, I imagined that the very center of a hurricane or tornado had a glowing eye at its center, even a tiny one. Something had to penetrate the darkness, to remind it that, one day, it would have to end.

* * *

I knew that traces of that night and its aftermath would reappear in Katie's work. A comics artist from a young age, she'd spend hours at her mahogany desk, pencil moving slowly over one sketch pad after another. Sometimes, in passing by her room, I'd sneak a glimpse at her work, but Katie would cover the paper with her arm before I could get a good look at it.
“Not today. Sorry, Daphne.”

I tried not to let myself get too offended. Still, I knew that Katie hid them for a reason. Mostly, it was because she knew our father hated The Stargazer, a character she'd been drawing for as long as I could remember. In the sketches I did glimpse, he ran through dark streets in a light brown hat, a middle-aged man with stubble and big eyes, often red-rimmed with dark circles beneath them. A drug addict and alcoholic, The Stargazer fought crime in his neighborhood, even when his own destructive tendencies threatened to overwhelm him completely. Occasionally, when Katie wasn't home, I would read some of the comic strips, watching The Stargazer resolve kidnappings, stop abuse and protect the girl he loved. I wanted to believe that I could have that sort of power, too.

“You should stand up to him. Call the police on his sorry ass,” my best friend Raquel said. At the time, we were sitting on my twin-sized bed, listening to Kygo and Avril Lavigne. Her dark curls spilled across my fuzzy, lime green pillow.

“It doesn't work that way,” I mumbled. The music suddenly seemed muffled, like I was underwater. Raquel started saying something else, but I wasn't listening. Eventually, silence fell on us, as heavy as the hot, humid weather outside.

Raquel knew about the lashes and slaps my father gave. About all the times he yelled at Katie, me and our mother, or simply stood in silence in the kitchen or his room. Raquel even knew about The Stargazer. I'd told her to keep it a secret; If Katie found out that I had told her, she would get angry at me, grow silent, the silence always worse than the anger itself. A part of me didn't understand why I couldn't tell my best friend about my sister's comics and what they meant. Yet I also understood that Katie was waiting until the right time to send them out for publication. When she finally did, a few years after going off to college, she changed her last name on the book cover of her first graphic novel, as well as under the magazine strips. Her author bio mentions nothing about her family, only the places where her work appears and that she attended Sewanee: The University of the South in middle-of-nowhere Tennessee.

* * *

Our father got arrested one day when he started hitting Katie. I had been on the phone with Raquel in my room when I heard loud noises coming from downstairs. When I got to the kitchen, I found him holding Katie down. After a lot of shouting, he lunged at me, but Katie blocked his path. In my memory, there is a blur between that moment and when the police showed up. I vaguely remember sitting out on our front steps, a plaid blanket wrapped around me. One of the neighbors, Mrs. Giddings, had come over and sat beside me, offering me an orange popsicle.

“Everything is going to be okay, sweetheart. You are a brave girl,” she said, her green eyes wrinkled at the edges.

I tried to remind myself of those words in the days that followed, as my father was thrown in jail, awaiting trial. Soon after, Katie left for Sewanee, where she had gotten a full scholarship.
“I'll come back and visit as often as I can. I promise,” she said tearfully before leaving. I watched her leave, then thought about high school. I would have my very first day the following Monday. As I tried to imagine what school would really be like, plus life at home without Katie or our father, I thought of the words of Katie's favorite song, “Gifts and Curses” by Yellowcard, the ones that said, “And my worst pains are words I cannot say, still I will always fight on for you.”

* * *

The only person who I could ever really talk to about the Mrs. Giddings incident was Taiel, my high school boyfriend. I'm not sure why I never told Raquel about it; maybe because of her advice about my father, I thought she wouldn't understand why I kept going back to Mrs. Giddings, the orange popsicle and the Yellowcard song. Maybe I was wrong. But I was certain that Taiel understood, because I'd seen that glimmer in his eyes whenever I talked to him about it.

I first met Taiel at a party that I wasn't even planning to go to in the first place. It was the summer before my senior year of high school. I had spent most of the summer volunteering at the food bank and homeless shelter in the afternoons, then working at at a tiny pizza place, Flying Pig Pizza, alongside Raquel, in the evenings. Partying was the last thing on my mind.
Then, one sweltering day in early August, Raquel called me to announce that she was planning to have a party at her house. While she claimed that she wasn't “much of a party girl,” Raquel went to a number of parties, most of which she held at her house, which was conducive to that sort of thing: a living room with four leather couches, a kitchen with a large island and several cabinets where it was surprisingly easy to tuck away alcohol, plus acoustic foam in multiple rooms, one of the perks of having multiple musicians in the family.

“It'll be a good party,” she coaxed. “Come on. You'll like it, I promise. A bunch of my cousins are in town and will come. You can sleep over afterwards. My parents will be out of town for the weekend.”

“And they're okay with you doing this?”

“I mean... they don't know all the details. But it will be fun!” Raquel exclaimed. “And you and my cousins will get along, I'm sure of it.”

“You know how awkward I am meeting people,” I whined, wishing that I had a better excuse not to go.

“Yeah, but you're cute awkward,” Raquel replied nonchalantly.

I laughed and finally agreed to go, but still couldn't help thinking of all the possible awkward scenarios that could occur. What if Raquel's cousins looked down on my beginner-level Spanish? They could probably hold their liquor well, or at least better than I could. So I took my time getting ready and made the fifteen-minute walk there turn into a twenty-five-minute one as I thought about what I might say. I just told my mom I was going to a sleepover at Raquel's, which was still true.

Most kids had an older brother or sister who they could ask for advice about parties or talking to their crushes, but Katie didn't really go to parties and, to my knowledge, had never formally dated anyone. There was one girl, Grace, a pretty redhead who always spoke highly of Katie's work and often came over to study with her. Katie said Grace was her best friend, but I was almost certain there had to be something more there.

One night, shortly before a big exam they had in Calculus, Grace spent the night. On a surface level, at least to my parents, it seemed normal. When my night terrors woke me up in the early hours of morning, however, I wandered down the hall to my bathroom and found Grace there, washing her face and trying to fix her hair. At the time, I'd never even kissed a boy, but I could see in Grace's posture, her messed up hair, the way she half-smiled and bent over to splash water on her face, that something else had happened that night. I didn't approach her, just waited until she had gone back into Katie's room before I went to wash my own face. I still remember the look in her eye, the one I caught briefly in the mirror, the look of one who is tired but satisfied.

* * *

Out on Raquel's front porch were several people smoking and talking loudly in English and Spanish. A couple of them looked at me briefly, then returned to their conversations. I felt for a moment like I was at the wrong party, even though I knew I was at my best friend's house, one of my few safe havens throughout my middle and high school years. Looking down, I tugged at my black summer dress and walked inside.

The front door led immediately into the kitchen, where several bottles of alcohol and a few beer cans were spread out on the island. Raquel stood amongst at least a dozen others in the kitchen. Catching my eye through the crowd, she parted her bright red lips in a smile and waved me over. I'd never seen her wearing lipstick; it looked so pretty on her.

“You're finally here!” she shouted over the noise. “What took you so long?”

“Sorry, I got held up at home,” I replied. Then, looking back at the kitchen counter, I exclaimed,
“There's so much alcohol here.”

“Of course there's alcohol, chica. What did you think, that we'd be playing Scrabble or something?” Raquel threw her head back and laughed. “Come on, let me introduce you to one of my cousins. Isa's right over there.”

Making our way to Raquel's dining room, a tall guy bumped into me. Slicked-back brown hair, black Yellowcard T-shirt. His big, brown eyes met mine. Around his neck, the dog tags glinted in the yellow light. I found myself quietly shaking.

Raquel looked at him and half-smiled. “Hi Taiel,” she called out before walking into her dining room.

In the far right corner of the dining room, a girl in a black pencil skirt and multicolored tank top stood holding a bottle, filling a shot glass with what looked like tequila. As we got closer, she noticed Raquel and smiled at her.

“Daphne, this is Isa,” she said, motioning to girl, who had curly black hair like Raquel's, but much longer, and wore bright pink lipstick.

“Hi. Nice to meet you,” Isa said, leaning in to kiss me on the cheek. It was an Argentine custom that I had grown used to from dinners with Raquel's family.

“Daphne. I don't think I've seen you around here before,” came a voice from behind me. I turned around. The Yellowcard T-shirt guy who had been staring at me had followed us. I hadn't thought he would, but here he was, looking right at me.

“She comes over here all the time, Taiel,” Raquel said. “You're a bit of a newcomer yourself, aren't you?” Turning to me, she said, “Taiel is one of my cousins, too. But he was living in Maryland up until a couple of months ago.”

“What made you leave?” I asked, taking a step closer. He smelled like mint and hair gel.
“Well, my mom got a new job here, so we'll be here for a while. But when college comes, who knows? I could stay here in the States, or go all the way back to Buenos Aires and study at the UBA. At least it's public.” Then, probably realizing I didn't know what UBA was, he added, “It's the University of Buenos Aires. You don't have to pay tuition. It's basically free. You just pay for your books and travel fares.”

“That sounds amazing,” I exclaimed, thinking of the scholarships I'd been applying for and the thousands of dollars my family would probably still have to funnel into my education.
“It's not as great as it sounds,” Isa interjected. “They don't have housing. Plus, there's so much upheaval with the strikes and demonstrations and all that. And you know how far Diana travels by bus to get there? Two hours there, then back, four days a week.”

“I might still go though,” Isa added. “It would be a good experience.”

“What do you know? You've hardly been back to Buenos Aires since you left,” Taiel retorted. “When was the last time? Two years ago? Three?”

As Isa and Taiel started bickering, I quietly slipped away and up to the second floor of Raquel's house. I crept up the winding stairs, across the carpeted floor and out to the balcony that faced the street, just above Raquel's front patio. Noise from the party still got through, but it felt more like I was hearing it from underwater. I pressed my hands into the cool, metallic railing of the balcony and sighed. Breeze blowing softly against my face, smelling of flowers and cigarette smoke, I descended into my own thoughts, barely noticing the sound of the door opening as someone else came out on the balcony.

“Hey.”

I jumped a little bit when I heard Taiel's voice. He approached me slowly and took his spot by me, grasping the railing tightly. I observed the features of his face, thinking of how I might draw them: a strong nose and jaw, pronounced cheekbones, smooth skin. When he looked over at me again, I turned quickly to look out at the bright streetlamps, but could still feel his gaze on me.
“You left so suddenly,” he said, his voice softer than before. “Are you okay?”

When I met his eyes, they were wide and honest. I thought of lowering my head, sealing my lips and keeping him from the thoughts that were throbbing in my head, but I couldn't look at him, with his honest eyes, and just keep my mouth shut.

“It was just so loud in there. And school is a lot right now. Family, too. I-I don't know where I'll end up, either. I just want to end up somewhere away from Memphis.”

“Yeah. You and me both,” he replied, laughing softly.

“Do you really think you might go back to Argentina?” I asked.

“I don't know. At this point, anything could happen.” Then, noticing how I gazed at his dog tags, he took them off and handed them to me. “The smaller ones are mine. The others were my grandfather's. He was a combat medic for the Marines. Saw the Lebanon War, so many people dead... I'm sorry. I don't want to bore you with all this.”

“No, actually...” On my lips, a smile lingered. “Can we just stay here for a while? And you can tell me about your grandfather.”

He smiled. “Okay. But then you have to tell a story, too.” Then, slowly, he put his hand on top of mine. I spread out my fingers so that our hands laced together on the balcony railing.

Author

Courtney Justus is a recent graduate of Trinity University. Her fiction, nonfiction and poetry have been published in Texas's Emerging Writers Anthologies of Fiction and Nonfiction, Tipton Poetry Journal and The Trinity Review, among others. She resides in Houston, where she works at a nonprofit.

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Undeliverable

7/11/2018

0 Comments

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2017 2:12 PM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Michelle:
Do you want the toaster, coffee maker, any of the kitchen stuff?
Ben

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Thursday, May 4, 2017 8:01 AM
To: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Ben:
No, you can keep it all.
Michelle

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Thursday, May 4, 2017 4:00 PM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Michelle:
How about the photographs?
Ben

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 5, 2017 8:13 AM
To: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

You can keep those, too.
Michelle

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 5, 2017 10:17 PM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

I’ve attached one from our last trip to the lake. Two years ago, just before Timmy died. We’re having his third birthday party on the beach.
Ben

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Saturday, May 6, 2017 8:36 AM
To: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Please don’t send me any more pictures.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Sunday, May 7, 2017 3:06 PM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

How about your houseplants? You were always so careful with those. I can box them up and leave them on the front step for you.

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Sunday, May 7, 2017 3:13 PM
To: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

No, thank you. I don’t want anything from the house.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Sunday, May 7, 2017 3:24 PM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

What about the clothes you left? Your grandmother’s footstool?

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Sunday, May 7, 2017 3:29 PM
To: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Give them away. Or throw them away, whichever you prefer.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Sunday, May 7, 2017 3:33 PM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Your perfume? That new bottle I gave you for Christmas is still unopened in the box.

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Sunday, May 7, 2017 3:36 PM
To: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

I don’t want it.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Sunday, May 7, 2017 3:39 PM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Your wedding ring?

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Sunday, May 7, 2017 3:41 PM
To: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

I thought it would be clear that I left that intentionally. Please stop asking me these kinds of questions.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Tuesday, May 9, 2017 7:41 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Michelle:
Yesterday, Mutt got his paw stung swatting at a bee on the lawn. He’s been limping around and whining like a baby.
Ben

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Tuesday, May 9, 2017 1:00 PM
To: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Too bad…hope he’s better soon.
Michelle

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Tuesday, May 9, 2017 4:08 PM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Yeah, me too.
BTW, I changed the electricity and newspaper accounts over to my name yesterday. I think those are the last ones.

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Tuesday, May 9, 2017 4:13 PM
To: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Thank you.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 12:08 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Did that earthquake reach you in Los Angeles a little while ago? We could feel it here in San Diego even though it was centered out by Palm Springs.

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 8:43 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

We slept right through it.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 8:48 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

I was worried about you.

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 8:53 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Don’t be.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 8:58 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

You know, we could text each other instead of emailing, but I don’t have your new cell phone number.

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 9:04 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

No, that’s all right.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 9:09 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

I saw that you took down your Facebook page, too.

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 9:12 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Yes.

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2017 6:30 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Ben:
Did you get the divorce papers in the mail? Mine arrived yesterday morning. I’ve already signed and returned them. Have you?
Michelle

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2017 5:17 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Did you get my message below?
Michelle

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2017 11:28 PM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Yes, I got it.

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 5:06 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Well?

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 2:08 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Signed. Sent.

From: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 4:46 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Okay, good. Thanks. Listen, Nick and I are moving out of state, and I’m closing this email account.
Take care of yourself, Ben.
Michelle

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 11:03 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Stuff

Wait, how will I get ahold of you?

From: postmaster@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 11:04 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Undeliverable (EXTERNAL) Re: Stuff

Delivery has failed to these recipients: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
The e-mail address you entered couldn't be found. Check the address and try to resend the message. If the problem continues, please contact your helpdesk.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 11:10 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Undeliverable (EXTERNAL) Re: Stuff

Giving this another try.

From: postmaster@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 11:11 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Undeliverable (EXTERNAL) Re: Stuff

Delivery has failed to these recipients: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
The e-mail address you entered couldn't be found. Check the address and try to resend the message. If the problem continues, please contact your helpdesk.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2017 7:21 PM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Undeliverable (EXTERNAL) Re: Stuff

One more time…are you there?

From: postmaster@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2017 7:22 PM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Undeliverable (EXTERNAL) Re: Stuff

Delivery has failed to these recipients: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
The e-mail address you entered couldn't be found. Check the address and try to resend the message. If the problem continues, please contact your helpdesk.

From: benjamin.adams@sbcglobal.net
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2017 3:14 AM
To: michelle.adams@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Undeliverable (EXTERNAL) Re: Stuff

I still love you. I miss you.

Author

William Cass has had over a hundred short stories appear in a variety of literary magazines such as december, Briar Cliff Review, Conium Review, and High Desert Journal. Recently, he was a finalist in short fiction and novella competitions at Glimmer Train and Black Hill Press, received a Pushcart nomination, and won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. He lives in San Diego, California.

0 Comments

Modems and Memories

5/31/2018

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I can’t exactly pinpoint the last time my eyes met yours, but staring at them across the table,
those deep pools of cinnamon, it felt as though not a day had passed. There was so much I
wanted to tell you. Needed to say. But where to begin was what caught the words in my throat,
left them stale on my tongue, and drowned them in the cup of coffee I nursed at.

Had this been yesterday, a world when we were young, careless, full of innocence and
hope… maybe then, just maybe then, I could have found them. My tongue was fruitful with
words then. They would spill from my lips each morning I passed you in the hall, our eyes
meeting as they did now, sparking the embers to a fire inside I still kindled now and again. And,
they would drip from my fingertips, across pages of text messages in modems now covered in
dust. Locked away in storage. Hard drives too outdated to find the signal anymore. To revive the logs. The words. Perhaps my tongue, too, has become outdated. In need of a system update—so we move at the same speed and capability again. But it’s been so long. So, so, long…

I remember our mundane conversations over the lecture of algebra—notes we never took.
You’d complain how your younger sister had ruined dinner again with her sobbing over an ex-
boyfriend; a boy that she claimed to have loved so deeply, she would never love again.
“She’s only ten,” you would say to me, “she doesn’t even know what love is!”

We’d laugh, pretending we, as the older kids, had a better grasp on love than she. How
wrong we were. How young and innocent.

I’d fill you in on the latest drama on the way to geography—mapping the newest gossip
and friendship circles to be wary of. These stories, these people, how one day they would merely be shadows in the back of my mind. Names without faces, faces without names… Simply figures moving through the halls, those, empty modems, like ghosts. They never made it through when the upgrade happened. They never saw the latest software and technology that painted my future.

But then again… neither did you.

It was the simple things. The mundane. That’s what we spoke of every day. We knew
every detail: what we had for dinner, where we went, who our crush was. There were no secrets, nothing zipped and stowed away. But now. As I stare across at you, your eyes are all I know.

Countless dinners have gone by—the best meals I’ve sampled, foreign delicacies that I
would have longed to tell you of. I’ve traveled far too much of the world to ever sit down and
share the stories with you. I could tell you the places, but it’s just not the same. The images on
the screen aren’t as real as walking the streets—streets I used to wish you could have walked
with me. And our crushes…

It’s almost painful to realize you never met my wife. Never read my late night texts
contemplating asking her out for coffee on our first date. Never got to hear the things I said about her—the utmost praise I showered her with to my closest friends. And you never got to see us get engaged. Never saw us share that kiss, and watch as she took my name. I remember wanting to send you an invitation. A card to simply say “hey, I’m married!”. Perhaps to show you up and claim victory over the bet we made once—that you would be wed before me.

But now we’ve got a kid on the way, and I’ve got a high paying position in the career
field of my dreams. It’s not what I wanted to be when we left school—not in the slightest—but
it’s what I became and I’m proud. I think, if you had been there, you would have been, too.

I keep watch on your eyes, how they rise and fall from me to your cup and I can’t help but to
accept that we’ve become strangers. Shadows. Ghosts in the modem. I knew you once, as you
knew me, but these days…

I’m not the same kid who parted ways with you after graduation anymore. You knew me
back then as the starry eyed dreamer out to make something of his name. The one who stayed up late to write somber poetry in old notebooks no one would ever read. You knew me for who I
was—my shadow – all that made me who I am.

But now… My hand trembles as I set my cup down, vision fixated on the table between
us. Now, you don’t know a thing about me. And it hurts. It burns like the fires I’d longed to fan
for this day—but the spark simply isn’t there. Not as it once was. The circuits have been cut
short.

Yet still, I look back into your eyes, finding the only piece of memory that I know. The
only traces of who we once were—who you once were. The person I grew up with, shared my
dreams with, and my stories. The person who watched me fall and stand, pushed me to never
give in, and granted me with the gift I will always be grateful for. Friendship.

And that’s something deep inside, hidden in memories of saved chat logs, in corridors
echoing with late night laughter, which never can truly be erased. No matter the distance. No
matter the time.

I smile. There are no words. There don’t need to be. From across the table, I see that
spark in your eye again, the awakening of a memory thought to long be lost. And you smile
back.

It’s then I know we both know what love is. What it means to truly love, and how
perhaps, even as young children, we did understand. It just took all our lives to piece it together.

So where to start? I question myself over and over again. Lost in the mundane—the
dinners, the crushes, the places. There’s so much I want to tell you. So much you need to know.
So much you never got to hear. My heart pumps hard in my chest as I part my lips to speak,
finding the words that have longed to reach you. Somewhere inside, deep, deep inside… the
system is rebooting. Back-up files found. And I smile. And smile.

“Hey… how’ve you been?”

Author

Dorian J. Sinnott is a graduate of Emerson College's Writing, Literature, and Publishing program, currently living in Kingston, New York with his sassy munchkin-mix cat, Scarlette. When he's not busy at his full-time job, he works as a cat adoption assistant at a local humane society-- which he claims is more therapy than work. Dorian's work has appeared in Crab Fat Literary Magazine, The Bleeding Lion, Alter Ego, and The Hungry Chimera.

0 Comments

Necessity

5/27/2018

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We were very quiet in Mrs. Rodriguez's second-grade class late that morning. Our teacher had the lights off, and we were working by the sunshine that came in through the open windows. It was spring. The weather had only just gone from cold to hot. The warm breeze and the smells it carried made even the school's old asphalt playground seem like it would be paradise if I could touch my sneakers to it.

I looked around the room. Everyone was still working on their math problems but me. The teacher had just finished teaching us to subtract a one-digit number from a two-digit number and then she had given us an assignment. I had already checked over my work like I was supposed to, but I was waiting a few more minutes to turn it in because Mrs. Rodriguez got angry if anyone got done before she finished her coffee. That's how long it was supposed to take us to do our work.
She drank a lot of coffee.

I admired the classroom's bulletin boards once again in an effort to kill some time. They were still full of happy cartoon children wearing primary colors who had been reading and writing and playing at recess in stasis since the beginning of the year. They all seemed as if they were near exploding with joy for being at school. The letters of the alphabet still lined the top of the chalkboard, big A and little a to big Z and little z, and numerals too. The chalkboard itself was colored a modern green instead of the traditional black, and it always had our schedule for the day written on it in yellow chalk. The flag on the wall to the left side of the board waved in the little breeze that was passing on and off through the room. Our teacher's desk was along the same wall as the main door to the classroom to our right. On the other side of the room was the exit to the metal fire escape that always scared me when we climbed down it during fire drills. The glass in the windows was laced with wires. I had always wondered why, but I never seemed to remember to ask.

I was almost always done with my work first, and my work was usually right. I never forgot to write Simon S. at the top. Sometimes I even wrote my full name, Simon Shulman, if there was enough room for it. I was also usually the first one to finish my English and science and social studies too. Mom told me at the beginning of the school year that they wanted to skip me to third grade. The way she talked about it made me think that she wanted me to skip, and I wanted to skip too. When my mother asked my father about it, he said he had been skipped, and he didn't like it, so I had to go through the second grade with the same classmates as I had had in kindergarten and first grade.

Mrs. Rodriguez wasn't finished with her coffee yet, but I couldn't wait any longer. I brought it up to her desk and put it in the "In" basket. She still had most of her coffee in her mug. She looked from the mug to my work and frowned. Her eyes flicked across the ditto and then she nodded grudgingly. That meant I was done.

The best thing about finishing my work first was that I had more time go to the reading corner and sit on the padded seats and read a book. My favorite book was The Runaway Robot. I'd read it three times even though we weren't supposed to read a reading corner book more than once. It was the only rule I remember breaking on purpose.

Eric, Leah, and Norman got finished with their work right after I did. That was strange. They usually didn't get done with their work until last, so they didn't make it to the reading corner often, and that was fine with me. When Mrs. Rodriguez called on them during class, they never knew the answer. Half the time they didn't know what the question was. They didn't pay attention. Sometimes they tried to get me to tell them the answer so they could raise their hands, but I wouldn't because it's against the rules.

The three got up at the same time and put their work in the "In" basket. She narrowed her eyes at them the way she did when she thought someone was doing something wrong, but she didn't say anything. After turning in their work, the three of them came over to the reading corner. I could tell by the cruel smiles on their faces that they were going to do something mean to me.

Without bothering to look at the titles, they quickly grabbed books from the reading corner shelf and sat down next to each other and across from me, blocking my view of Mrs. Rodriguez, isolating me. They opened their books and pretended to read while sneaking peeks back at her, waiting for the coast to clear. They got their chance when Robert went up to her desk to ask for help with his math problems. He almost always needed help.

"You're going to Hell," Leah whispered at me over her book. I noticed her book was the dictionary. At first, I thought she had read the word "hell" out of it. This wasn't the usual thing they picked on me for. They usually made fun of my clothes or my curly hair or my glasses, or they'd call me a teacher's pet. Hell was something new, and I didn't know what hell was, so I didn't whisper anything back.

"Jews killed Christ," Norman said. "That's why Jews are bad. That's why you're going to Hell."

I'm wasn't too sure about what a Jew was. My mother had tried to explain it to me once, but it didn't make a lot of sense. It didn't seem like I was any different from the other kids, but from that moment on I was different whether it made sense or not. I didn't know why I had to be a Jew. I wished I was like the other kids. Being a Jew had suddenly become just another reason to get picked on, and there already seemed to be plenty of reasons.
I had almost no idea who Christ was either. Mom had told me that he was someone who had lived a long time ago, before televisions and schools and cars. She said that people who went to church liked to talk about him. When I asked her why we didn't go to church, she said that God and Jesus Christ were make-believe.

"Christ is make-believe," I said.

Mrs. Rodriguez started coughing. Everyone looked at her until she stopped. When it seemed like she was distracted again, my Sunday school lesson continued.

"You don't believe in God?" Eric asked incredulously.

"God's real. Everyone knows that," said Norman.

"If he's real, why doesn't he come?" I asked.

Norman started to say something but didn't. He made fists with his hands, and his face got all red.

"You still killed Christ even if you don't believe in Him," Leah said.

"I didn't do anything."

"Jews did," Leah said. "So you did too."

I thought that was ridiculous, but I didn't dare say it was stupid.

"My dad says that Jews are dirty," Eric said. "He said you're worse than rats. He said you shouldn't even be allowed to go to school with us Chris-en kids."

"I am not dirty!" I protested. They must have sensed the anguish in my voice.

"We're going to tell everybody in school how bad you smell," Leah taunted. "Si-mon Smelly-jew!" she sing-songed. "Si-mon Smelly-jew!"

Eric and Norman cackled. I stood up so I could see Mrs. Rodriguez. Robert wasn't at her desk anymore, and she had stopped coughing. She had to be able to hear us because no one else was talking right then. Not only that, but it looked like she had been watching the reading corner, but when I looked at her she looked down at her desk. I didn't understand why she wasn't stopping them. Normally she would have sent them away from me. This was different; it was different for me, and it was different for her. I didn't know why or what was different, but I could feel it. I knew that the reading corner would never be safe again.

The unfairness stung. It was one thing to be picked on by other kids when the teacher wasn't around, but she was letting it happen, and I didn't understand why. I tried to go to her desk to ask, but Eric pushed me back down into my chair, hard, almost making me topple backward in the chair. I thought that the teacher must have seen that, but she didn't say anything, and I didn't hear the sound of her scraping her chair along the floor, the noise that always preceded her rising from the fortress of her desk.

"Leave me alone!" I said loudly so that Mrs. Rodriguez was sure to hear. She must have heard because everyone in class turned to look at us. She didn't stop my personal Inquisition, though. The lunch bell did. She told the class to line up to go to lunch. I tried to get as far away from my three inquisitors as I could, but no one in the class was brave enough to stop Norman and Leah and Eric from shoving their way in front of me in line.

The three of them had made walking home traumatic for a few weeks before my first religion lesson. My nemeses had taken to forming a walking roadblock in front of me as we walked home for lunch and at the end of the day. They liked to walk slowly, and every time I tried to get around them, they would jump in front of me and block my path. They never did it in front of the crossing guard outside the school, so if I could leave before them, I wouldn't have to walk behind them.

Not only did I have to walk behind them once again, but I had to listen to them say "What's that smell?" and "Ew, it's Si-mon Smelly-jew!" to each other over and over again, giggling. It seemed like forever to get to the second crossing guard where they went in a different direction than me.

Lunch was on the kitchen table when I got home. It was cottage cheese on a lettuce leaf with fruit cocktail on top. I didn't like it very much, but my mother made it at least once a week, maybe more, depending on how my baby sister was acting. She was in her high chair. A smaller and more finely chopped version of the same meal was in front of her, and she hadn't bothered to wait for me. Her baby spoon was the only thing that didn't have food smeared all over it.

"What's the matter?" Mom asked as I sat down.

"Nothing," I mumbled. I took a breath, held it, and swallowed a spoonful of cottage cheese and canned fruit. Holding my breath made it taste less bad than it was.

"Tell me," Mom demanded.

"I don't want to," I said.

"You need to. You'll feel better if you get it off your chest."

"They're picking on me again," I said softly after a further moment's hesitation.

She sighed. "Why does this always happen to you?"

"They're picking on me because I'm a Jew. They said that I'm going to Hell and I'm dirty and Jews killed Christ. Is that true?"

"Well, technically you're not a Jew," Mom said, answering the wrong question, "because I'm not a Jew."

"I don't think they care about that."

"You have a Jewish name because your father is Jewish," she continued.

"Can't I have a different name?" I asked.

"It doesn't work like that."

"Why not?"

"Children always get their father's name. It's a rule."

I forced another couple of swallows down my throat. I almost choked on a whole grape.

"You need to stop letting yourself get picked on," Mom said after a few moments.

"How?" I asked simply.

"Stick up for yourself," she said. "Don't put up with it. Tell them you don't care what they think. And you shouldn't."

"But it hurts my feelings."

"You need to stop being a victim. That's why they pick on you, not because you've got a Jewish name."

I didn't know what a victim was or how to stop being one. My mother seemed to think that I should, so I pretended that I understood.

"Okay."

My baby sister started screaming, so we didn't talk much after that.

* * *

Right after the class got back from lunch, Mrs. Rodriguez took us to the bathroom like she did every day. Leah and Eric and Norman had been busy on the playground after getting back from lunch because as we walked down to the basement where the bathrooms were the kids took turns chanting "Si-mon Smelly-jew" in harsh taunting whispers, chuckling at each other each time someone did it. Eric tried to push me down the stairs, but I caught myself on the banister, unfortunately not soon enough to avoid bumping into Norman. Norman punched me lightly in the face for the misstep. I raised my hand to try to tell Mrs. Rodriguez, but somehow she didn't see my hand even though it seemed like she looked right at me.

In addition to bathrooms, the basement contained the gym, the eraser cleaner, and other things we didn't understand in places we were not allowed to go. We automatically lined up as we had been trained to, girls outside the girl's room and the boys outside the boy's room. I was bracketed by Eric and Norman. It always seemed to happen that way when we were in the boy's room line.

My hand was still up when the teacher sent the boys and girls into the bathroom. I tried to stay back so I could tell Mrs. Rodriguez what they were doing to me, but her eyes seemed fixed on some distant point beyond the basement walls, and she shooed me into the bathroom sternly without listening to what I was trying to tell her or even looking at my face.
Going into the bathroom was scary. Everyone had learned my new nickname. Soon it would be all over the school. The first graders and the third graders and even the kindergarten kids would be calling me "Si-mon Smelly-jew" by the end of the day too. The name would stick for a while.

I could tell by how clever they all thought it was.

"Does anyone smell anything?" Norman asked.

"Just Simon Smellyjew," Eric and a few other boys called back. Forced hilarity ensued.
"Phew! What stinks?" asked Robert.

"It's Simon Smellyjew!" came the happy reply from Norman.

My eyes started to tear up. I knew it would just make things worse, but I just couldn't help it. Hot wet tears of anger rolled down my face.

"Crybaby! Crybaby! Cry, baby!" Eric said gleefully.

"Fuck you!" I sobbed.

All talking and motion ceased as the words registered in their brains.

"Ooh!" they chorused gleefully. A second later they were all rushing out of the bathroom to be the first one to tell Mrs. Rodriguez. I could hear them buzzing around her telling her that I had said the F-word. I stood alone in the boy's room, trying to think of a way to get out of the mess I was in. No excuses and no plausible lies leaped to mind. I wondered if maybe I did smell bad.

"Simon!" Mrs. Rodriguez barked from the doorway to the boy's room. "Come out here now!"

I did what I was told. She grabbed me by my left arm and dragged me almost far enough away from the class for them not to hear us. I remember thinking that we weren't far enough away and everyone would hear everything.

"Did you say a bad word?" she demanded.

I said nothing. Her hand clamped down a little harder on my arm.

"I said, did you say a bad word," she asked again, angrier than the first time she had asked. I got scared.

"Uh huh," I answered.

"What did you say?"

"I don't want to say."

"Well, you don't have a choice. You can tell me, or you can tell the principal."

"Am I in trouble?"

"First you tell me what you said. Then we'll see about that."

I couldn't bring myself to say it in front of my teacher. She shook me a little to work my confession loose.

"Fuck," I whispered. She gasped and put her hand over her mouth. The class failed to resist tittering over what they had heard. I didn't know why Mrs. Rodriguez was so shocked. It was an adult word. My parents used it all the time.

"They were picking on me," I tried to explain. "They called me Simon..."

"We're not talking about them," Mrs. Rodriguez said. "We're talking about you. Two wrongs don't make a right."

"But..."

"But nothing. You've disappointed me, Simon. Your parents probably don't care, but I do."
She was wrong. My parents would care. My ears burned with shame.

When we got back to our classroom, Mrs. Rodriguez took a long time to write out the note to my parents. She didn't give us anything to do, so the room was full of low murmurs about how much trouble I was in. She addressed it to Mr. and Mrs. Shulman, stapled it closed and made me fold it and put it in my pocket even though school wasn't over yet.

During the reading lesson, a wad of paper landed on my desk while my head was turned. I uncrumpled it. It said, "I gong get you afer scol." I turned and looked at the class, trying to figure out who it was. Norman was staring at me, and when I looked at him, he made a fist with his right hand and silently punched the palm of his left hand. I raised my hand again, but I had once more become invisible.

After I got the note the school day went a lot faster. I spent the rest of the day in dread of hearing the dismissal bell. After the bell rang I hung around inside the front lobby of the school until a first-grade teacher made me leave. Eric and Norman and Leah and a boy named Brian were waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. I knew what was going to happen. As I walked down the stairs toward them, my legs were shaking.

"I don't want to fight," I said when I got to the bottom.

"You have to," Norman said.

"Why?"

"Take off your glasses," he ordered in lieu of an answer. "I'm not allowed to hit someone with glasses." I took off my glasses. Brian put out his hand to hold them, and I handed them over. I looked at the blur Norman had become and balled up my fists. I had never won a fight before. I wasn't sure how. While I was trying to screw up the nerve to throw a punch, Norman hit me in the stomach and knocked the wind out of me. I fell backward and landed on the pavement on my butt.

"He's not crying!" Brian shouted. "He's not crying!" I didn't understand why that was important, but I didn't even feel like crying. I just wanted to get it over with, so I could go home and get that over with.

Once I was able to breathe again, I got up and made fists and held them in front of me like I'd seen on TV. Before Norman could hit me again, Mrs. Rodriguez came out the front door. She looked at us. Norman, Eric, Leah, and Brian lit out of there, leaving me to face Mrs. Rodriguez alone. I was scared, and my guts were aching, and I had to squint at the world because Brian had run off with my glasses in his hand.

My teacher grabbed me by the arm for the second time that day and pulled me up the stairs to Mr. Capella's office. I had never been to the principal's office before for being in trouble. I had always been deathly afraid of being sent there, and there I was in the same room as The Paddle that stood in the corner. It felt like a nightmare. Mrs. Rodriguez shoved me onto a chair while the principal stared at me with anger and disapproval.

"Cursing and fighting on the same day," Mrs. Rodriguez said to Principal Capella. "You need to paddle him."

"Do I really, Mrs. Rodriguez?" the principal asked, his stare falling on her instead.

"It wasn't my fault," I said quickly, seizing the moment. "Norman said I had to fight. He hit me first. I didn't even hit him back."

"Is Norman the boss of you?" my teacher asked.

"No, but..."

"What should you have done?"

"Tell a teacher. But I tried..."

"But nothing, mister."

"Do you know your phone number?" Mr. Capella asked me.

"Uh huh. Yes, sir."

"You're going to call your mother," Mr. Capella said, "and you're going to tell her to come and get you so we can to talk to her."

"I don't want to call my mother!" I begged. I knew how angry she would be to have to load up my baby sister into the carriage and walk to the school. I was sure to get a spanking. "I won't do it again, I swear!"

My teacher turned her head away from Mr. Capella and grinned at me. It was the second time I had seen that kind of smile that day.

"You have to," she said.

"No, I don't," I said, surprising myself with my backtalk.

I crossed my arms intransigently, and I felt the heaviness of the day float off my shoulders and into the air. I smiled back at Mrs. Rodriguez, and for once I was not afraid.

Author

Jason A. Feingold began writing after a teaching career, with works published in journals, anthologies, and collections. When not writing, he reads, keeps house, is a husband, raises a son, chases dogs, and volunteers as a Guardian ad Litem in his North Carolina home.

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