The Killers, Part I

Carl points his gnarly, yellow-nailed finger (cigarettes) at the graffiti and says:

“Hey, that’s pretty funny.”

The graffiti is Don’t Open. Dead Inside.

“Yeah, that’s pretty funny, Carl,” you say.

You’ve been killing people, you and Carl, long enough to know that the graffiti might as well be tattooed on your chest. When your time comes and they open you up under the fluorescent lights of the basement morgue, out of you will come a stink that smells like sulfur and gut rot. You’ve been thinking that each kill is you playing god, and that each loss of life measures out in some place unseen on the cosmic scale, and that in this invisible place beyond the horizon there are racks on racks on racks of unpaid tickets, crimes against humanity, and that eventually you will be responsible for those tickets.

Lately, you’ve been getting nervous about this whole death thing.

Next week, you turn thirty.

“Carl, do you remember when you were a young man?”

“I remember everything, honey. Remember it all like it was yesterday.”

You’ve been telling Carl to stop calling you “honey” for years but the old fool does not listen and now it’s honey, honey, honey, and goddamn, you cannot mess with things you cannot control.

“You ever worry about fate, Carl?”

Carl flips his half smoked cigarette out of the open car window and says:

“Honey, I don’t think too much on fate. That’s a mad man’s game, worrying about fate.”

It’s so hot outside that the open window doubles as an open oven door when you’re not moving, so you pull the truck slowly away from the graffitied garage door with the dead inside and the warnings to keep shit closed.

East Austin: ain’t like it used to be. There used to be dusty parking lots and shabby bars, Mexicans and blacks, a faint whiff of danger in the stagnant summer nights. Now, you ask, what’s left? Condos. Fancy restaurants always crowded. Hordes of tourists that move up and down the street like newborns blind to traffic or death. The Mexicans moved east, and the blacks, well, you don’t know where the blacks moved.

Carl is black, so you ask him.

“Gone fishin’, brother.”

He doesn’t say anything more, so either he doesn’t know or he doesn’t feel like sharing the information with a shithead young buck white boy, and you know both answers mean the question will drift down the street, out of town like an unwanted stranger.

It is funny, you think, seizing the hypothetical before it goes, that you can kill a man with Carl, an act of instinct, and one that is very intimate, and yet he still won’t talk about his race and color.

“Weird…” you mutter to no one; not to Carl, nor the faded blue paint on brick walls, sixth street, steel bones of prepubescent buildings covered in sun and burning to the touch; none of it is weird, none of it is much of anything, and goddamn if it doesn’t make you pretty sad.

You pull up to the coffee shop and Google Maps goes:

You’ve arrived at your destination! Happy killing!
The coffee shop is an old house with mismatched antique furniture in the front yard. There’s a wraparound wooden porch, home to a half-dozen white-painted steel patio chairs and their table partners, each one in varying stages of disrepair. Everything is manicured, the environment subjugated, the scene one of inflated good taste, the revelation of the cool.

Carl walks with a limp from the time he took a machete to the thigh. It clipped his femoral artery and there was blood, blood, blood. You remember you were close quarters with some whacked out Colombians full of crack and unpaid dues, tenants of your boss, in this little white house with white walls and a white staircase, and when a bleeding Carl tumbled down that staircase, dude left a trail of macabre painterly genius, like Jack the Ripper and Jackson Pollack came together and opened an art exhibit. You even took a picture with your iPhone after you shot the Colombians dead-meat dead.

Those days were a little wild, but Carl survived, and eventually everything went back to normal.

“What if he ain’t here?” Carl asks.

Even though he’s two decades older than you, Carl knows that you’re smarter than he is, and so he capitulates to your plans most of the time. But the old-timer still gets nervous around cell phones, doesn’t trust technology or GPS, has dreams about floating satellites beaming nightmares into his sleeping skull, and so he’s always afraid “the guy” won’t be where he’s supposed to be. That’s Carl’s mantra, motto, and creed: What if he ain’t here?

“He’ll be here,” you say. “If he ain’t here now, he will be shortly, and we’ll just wait and have a coffee and strike up conversation.”

Inside the coffee shop there’s a wooden bar with stools painted different colors of springtime pastel. There’s a glass case of muffins, a big fat tip jar full of pennies and nickels and one poor bastard fiver, and a chalkboard with: Today’s Specials! Vegan White Bean Chili! Split Pea Soup w/ Rosemary!

You’re in what was the kitchen of the house, and they’ve knocked down the wall to what was the living room, with windows that open out to Sixth Street, and dark couches with light floral patterns and millennials on them. Some asshole plays an acoustic in the corner and behind him the Texas sun is turning purple through the window and even from this distance, you can see flecks of dust rise and fall, disappear and reappear like electrons, with the in and out breath of the dozen or so young adults chatting and drinking coffee and carrying the fuck on.

You and Carl take a seat at the bar.

“Place looks faggy,” Carl mutters.

“Get you something?” asks the barista.

“Black coffee,” you say and Carl nods, one for me as well.

The barista looks at you like: French press or...? And then says:

“Anything else?”

“Not right now,” you say. “We’re waiting on a friend.”

Written by: Logan Theissen

Photograph by: Daniel Vidal

White Flight Ghost

They say her baby never cries. The handsome, black woman wanders the streets each afternoon in a beet red cardigan and a white poodle skirt. There are large, yellow dots on that skirt, and shapely hips beneath. The businessmen paid her to swagger: a buck fifty an hour, and a dollar bonus for scaring the white husbands. She learned to stride in two-inch heels: a rhythmic click that turns our heads. Her stroller rattles upon worn, plastic tires. Ripe daisies cover the movable bassinette - a print that climbs over an accordion hood. The child beneath is lifeless.

She began her tour before I was born, when the block’s windows were adorned with flower boxes - when a westerly breeze might carry lilac into the city. These were also the years when the tension was obvious. The sprawling urban streets were plastered white, and the fear of new, black residents – climbing north for jobs – sent the neighborhood into a frenzy. Some crumpled, old men point to “era” as an excuse for their racism: “Our houses would be worth less if black families moved next door.” This is denoted with the same cavalier smirk as when they explain atom bomb survival techniques -- “We’d hide under our desks and cover our heads.”

The woman’s lips are painted cherry-red. She occasionally touches them with her ivory, lace gloves, then looks to her blemished fingers. Fifty years later, she’s not used to the facade. Her candy-apple veneer stands out against a burnt background. She passes by Merv’s Grocery, or the faded building that was, and speeds her gait. She is running from someone.

The average house had two prices: three thousand for whites, four thousand for blacks. This was the result of deficient realty laws and racial zoning. It became advantageous, to the shoe-shined narcissist, to force white families out of the city – to the burbs – and replace them with the more profitable blacks. Movement is created by fear.

Some men who measured moral foresight in nickels tried to scare the white residents away. They created black ghosts. These spirits were released as rumor: “A negro family is moving into the Smith’s house.” As slander, “The nigger child is ripe with disease.” And as a beautiful, black woman in a red cardigan, “Just have her push a carriage through the streets. Don’t let her talk, just walk. They’ll assume. Hell, they’ll assume.”

My middle school clan used to hang out behind the boarded windows of an abandoned storefront. The building sold televisions - records prior to that - and before that, women’s shoes. The interior light bulbs were smashed, and the circuits mutilated, so we’d have to assemble during the day – when channels of light would sneak through cracked walls. Dust particles were heavy in the beams. Four others, and myself, all thirteen or nearly thirteen, would argue about the White Sox, punch one-another’s arms numb, and consider sex from afar. We were boisterous until three o’clock. The woman arrived at three. Her clicking heels would stop in front of the boarded windows. Her head turned toward the dilapidated storefront. With halted breath, we watched her through the porous timber. Johnny, who was slight yet brash, would whisper, “Damn she’s fine.” James, whose father was shot while holding a gram, concurred, “The things I’d do to that ghost.” Richard, tall and straight-jawed, promptly reminded us, “I heard she worked for them, and did a fucking good job. I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole. She’s not real, you can’t touch her.” The woman would proceed to take off her right shoe. She then examined her calloused toes – fifty years on two-inch heels. She peered into the vacant glass, to the shoe store past. The woman will never afford comfortable shoes, but she will come again tomorrow.

She was, one might surmise, like thousands of others – ambitious, black, and berated by the south. She could legally vote, but large men who wore white hoods at night stood in the doors of the polling centers. She could legally buy a house, but it might be set aflame. She was taught with shoddy books, in a shoddy building, where she urinated in shoddy toilets -- “Don’t flush, the city hasn’t fixed the plumbing.” Her relentless spirit longed for freedom – to own a car - a home - herself. She scaled north on a bus, and was dropped into Chicago, where her cousin said the jobs were. The bigotry was not obvious. She could walk on white sidewalks, but discrimination bubbled discretely beneath. She pressed for a meaningful career, but was repeatedly turned down.

Not wanting to give up, she answered a newspaper ad, “Seeking a pretty, 20-25 year old black girl—physically fit.” Looking past the kinship to slavery, she answered the call. Two clean-shaven, white men in tailored blue suits, gave her a baby doll, a carriage, and paid her in cash. “Make them think you’re moving in. Walk slowly. Give the husbands a wink…the wives can’t hurt you. You’re a ghost now.”

She sauntered.

White men considered her ass, and then considered their net-worth. White women envied her rouge, and then solidified racist dogma. White children wanted to see the black baby, but they were packed into the Studebaker and shipped forty minutes west. Nobody sees the baby.

Her stiletto blades have worn grooves into the cement. She watched the neighborhood change hands, and kept walking. She watched her loved ones default on dirty loans, and kept walking. She watched houses crumble under racially burdened debts, and kept walking. She watched nature crawl through the cement cracks, then trampled the weeds in her path, and kept walking. She is the lasting moniker of our demise. But I’m used to her poodle skirt – this ghost in the daylight.


Written by: Dan Rousseau
Photograph by: Sophie Stuart

Kingdom Come

I’m way too early, waiting for a group of hipsters I met at church to meet for brunch. And I’m feeling sick to my stomach, like I shouldn’t be here. This restaurant used to be an auto shop. You should have seen the beauties that would be parked out front, the size and shine of the rims, the incredible paint jobs. But then the owner couldn’t afford to stay in the area. He had to close up shop because someone made an offer on the building, someone who wanted to sell expensive tacos. Here I am, about to drink the koolaid and sit with a bunch of assholes who are gonna just take Instagrams of their food after they’ve staged the plate, mimosa, and their vegan clutch just right.

It’s called gentrification. Makes the whole damn thing sound sophisticated. Just a handful of years ago, this part of town was “the hood.” People - white people - didn’t live up here because it was too dangerous, too dark. But then white people started running out of places to live. They had to start moving into the run down houses on the east side. They had to start shopping at the ghetto grocery stores and stopping in the corner stores run by immigrants. It went from dangerous to cool real quick, from dark to light - dark to white.

What happens is the kinda-broke white kids start moving in and they get to know the neighbors. They start to realize that there’s a code, like don’t park in front of someone else’s house even if it’s a public street. Say hello when folks are sitting on their porches lest you be shunned. Don’t pay the transgender prostitutes any mind. They’ve got work to do and you hanging around with your jaw dropped is costing them money. Eventually, the kinda-broke white kids make friends with their black neighbors. And despite themselves, the black neighbors drop their guard and invite them to the block parties.

But eventually, the rich white kids catch on.

They move their tech start-ups to cheaper commercial spaces in what was once the dangerous part of town. They open up their bougie coffee shops and gourmet sandwich dives, and finally the kinda-broke white kids can get a job closer to where they live. But the rent’s going up every year. Organic is showing up at the grocery store, and stay-at-home moms are requesting the baby food they usually buy from Whole Foods. The micro-brewed IPAs are taking up the shelf space once reserved for Icehouse. The six pack of ramen noodles for a dollar are sitting next to some cinnamon-sprinkled pita chips that cost more than a pound of ground beef.

Those kinda-broke white kids start to resent the crokie-wearing, Sperry-footed, Land Rover-driving entrepreneurs, just like the black neighbors used to resent them. And all of a sudden, city government gives a damn about the playground getting a facelift. There’s festivals at the park, and more cops are patrolling the blocks. It’s finally starting to look good around here, but only because white people with more money are showing up. When it was people with less money - and before that, black people with less money - nothing got done. Cops turned a blind eye, unless a kid was busting a sag too low and hustling across the street. Then they had something to keep them entertained.

I’m feeling sick because gentrification isn’t just affecting the neighborhood where I live. It’s infiltrating my faith. There are apps for Jesus, guys. I’ve heard the preachers say that we have to make Christ relevant to the times. We have to use today’s technology to reach the lost. And when I put that check in the offering plate - or rather, make my tithe via PayPal - I can’t help but cringe when I realize it’s going toward a new sound system. I can’t help but imagine my Lord and Savior face-palming himself because he didn’t have a place to lay his head. He didn’t have a place to call home.

But as soon as the crew walks in, I’m all smiles and easing into conversation. I’m recommending the kimchi beef taco and fawning over the trailer a girl shows me of a Christian women’s conference she’s attending. She tells me I should come and shoots me the link via iMessage. The sweat erupts in my armpits when I read the pricetag and realize the cost is over half my rent. I’m trying my hardest to blend in, but I can’t afford their manicures or their perpetual Stitch Fixes. I don’t say enough can’t even’s to keep up. I don’t have an Etsy shop and I’m not internet famous. And I don’t think they care, but just being around them makes me care.

Because I’m the kinda-broke white kid.

The bill almost breaks my bank because someone decided we’ll just all split the bill equally, and three girls felt like each of their mimosas should also come with a bloody mary and some more tapas to share. After brunch, everybody wants to keep hanging out, keep drinking and talking about life and bringing Jesus glory, keep spending money I don’t have. And I have to politely decline for the hundredth time. And they’re starting to catch on. They’ll probably stop asking to hang. And I’ll probably stop asking them to come over.

When I get home, I plop down at my desk and look down at my open Bible. I’ve highlighted so many verses, written so many notes in the margins. I’ve copied so many of the words that Jesus is supposed to have spoken, the words in red, the words that bring life. But I can’t stand to look at it. I can’t stand that I’m being pushed out of my faith’s territory, and that my poor, brown, homeless savior is being replaced by someone whiter, someone richer, someone cooler than a man who died for a kingdom that didn’t come.

Written by: Natasha Akery
Photograph by: Daniel Vidal

Roses

“Mama?”

“Yes, child?”

“Can we move across the road?”

Brenda scowled at the newly constructed lofts across the street and closed the curtains.

“No, child. We can’t.”

She made her way across the cramped bedroom and took a seat at the foot of the twin-sized bed being shared by her two daughters. She sat quietly, trying her best not to disturb the sleeping sister

“Why not, Mama?”

“We ain’t got that kinda money.”

“What kinda money we got?”

“This kind.”

Brenda twirled her right hand above her head like a ceiling fan–one of the many amenities that were hard to find on their side of the asphalt. Her eyes remained on her daughters’ juice-stained comforter. She didn’t need to see the constellations of mold spores spanning the roof. She didn’t need to look at the cracks in the walls where pests fled with food crumbs held over their heads. She didn’t need to watch the AC unit convulse erratically in the window to keep the room below 90 degrees. She was painfully aware of their living conditions.

“Why don’t we got that kind of money?”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“What’s opinnin?”

“An opinion is something people say is true, even though they ain’t got no way of proving it.”

“What’s your opinnin?”

“It don’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“Because I ain’t got that kinda money.”

“Who does?”

“The people across the street.”

“What’s their opinnin?”

“I’m lazy.”

“Are you?”

Brenda laughed, looking down at her knuckles that were swollen from decades of clenching cleaning supplies.

“I guess that’s a matter of opinion, too.”

“How?”

“It depends on what you think is important.”

“What do they think is important?”

“Who?”

“The people that think you lazy.”

“School.”

“You was lazy in school?”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“Everything’s a matter of opinnin to you, Mama!”

Brenda and her daughter braced themselves as the sleeping sibling started to squirm. After a few furrows of her brow and nose, the toddler squeezed her raggedy plush turtle and settled back to sleep.

“You betta watch your tone.”

“Sorry, Mama. So why do people think you was lazy in school?”

“Because I didn’t do too good on my report cards.”

“Did your mama get mad at you like you do at me?”

“I didn’t have no mama growing up.”

“You didn’t have no mama!”

The daughter quickly grabbed her mouth to stop the outburst from spilling out, but it was too late. Her younger sister yawned, stretching her slender frame as if her arms and legs were being pulled in opposite directions by invisible forces.

Her ribs pressed against the caramel-mocha skin of her unclothed torso. Her elbows disrupted the smooth lines of her arms like knots in a length of rope. The thighs extending from her reusable diaper were the same width as her underdeveloped calves. And her sugar-rotted teeth protruding crookedly from her gums like a weathered picket fence. Her eyes opened as her lips closed.

“Come here, child.”

Brenda’s youngest daughter crawled into her mother’s outstretched arms and pressed herself against the right side of her body. Her tiny figure left plenty of space for her older sister.

“You too.”

Brenda beckoned her talkative child with her free arm. She bounded across the bed to Brenda’s left thigh in a single leap. The three of them sat bunched together at the foot of the narrow mattress.

“No, child, I didn’t have no mama.”

“Did you have a daddy?”

“Nope. I didn’t have no daddy either.”

“Where were they?”

“Jail? A grave? I don’t know? I just know they wasn’t there. I was raised in a foster home.”

“Did you have any sisters or brothers?”

“TOO many! They weren’t my real brothers and sisters, but we still had to share beds and food and all the things you two fight over. There must’ve been a hundred of us.”

“Did they keep you safe?”

“Safe? I haven’t felt safe my whole life.”

“Do you feel safe now?”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then that’s all that matters.”

“Do the people across the street feel safe?”

“Not yet.”

“When will they?”

“When our side of the street looks like theirs.”

“Can we still live here then?”

“No, child.”

“Why not?”

“Because we ain’t like them.”

“What are they like?”

Brenda looked up from the sleeping toddler leaning against the right side of her body and stared at the floral-pattern curtains separating her eyes from the other side of the road.

“They‘re roses.”

“Roses?”

“Yes, child, roses. They’re soft and delicate and pretty to look at. They need a lot of food and water and a special place to live. They need lots of love and attention.

“Well if they’re roses, what are we?”

“We’re more like those.”

Brenda pointed to the tripling of succulents sitting on the girls’ nightstand, their durable petals illuminated by the leftover moonlight seeping in from behind the curtains.

“Cactuses?”

“Yes, child, cactuses.”

“How?”

“Because we’re tougher than roses. We survive on a lot less than they do. Most people don’t pay us no mind, but we stay alive.”

“But I don’t want to be a cactus, Mama.”

“Why not?”

“Because everybody likes roses more than cactuses.”

“Well, child, that’s not up to you. You’re either born a cactus or a rose, and you and your sister, you’re a couple of cactuses.”

The daughter pressed her face against Brenda’s chest. Brenda could feel her shirt moisten with tears.

“Quit your cryin, girl.”

Brenda gently slapped her daughter in the back of the head as if she were hitting an emergency-release button. Brenda’s daughter peeled her dampened eyes from her mother’s shirt.

“Let me finish. You and your sister were born cactuses and you will always be cactuses deep down in your souls, but if you make smarter decisions than your mama, you’ll be the strongest, fiercest, most beautiful flower of all.”

“What’s that?”

“A cactus rose.”

“Do they live across the road?”

“Child, there ain’t nowhere a cactus rose can’t grow.”

Photograph by: Whitney Ott
Written by: Mark Killian