2 Drink Minimum

The bar is small, dark, and trite, nestled in a strip mall between a prosperous and garish Korean nail salon and the upscale Gourdough’s Public House. This bar is not upscale. It survives precisely because it’s a hole people can climb into and pull over themselves.

It’s as anonymous as porn theater sex. It has no windows, no sign over the door, no chipped and faded little cigarette-company decal with a penguin proclaiming Come on in, it’s KOOL inside! The metal door is old and rusted, dented here and there, with two punctures that let in rain. It works with a scream of protest, just like most of the bar’s patrons.

The place has weathered barn wood nailed to the wall at the far end, and a few dart players of unreliable skill throw feathered projectiles at a target hung from a nail. A ragged color printout of someone’s ex-wife is taped over the ten-ring, encouraging accuracy. Most of the darts embed into the barn wood anyway.

As a celluloid Nick the Bartender said to the you-never-existed George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, this too is a place where men, and now women, are hard customers who come to drink hard liquor, and get drunk. If you can’t drink at least two, you are out of your league here. Go next door to Gourdough’s where there is better lighting and you can order your fucking Mojito.

Coincidentally, the bartender here is also named Nick. He hasn’t mixed a White Russian in two years. There was that Manhattan last month, but it was served to a regular who followed up with a triple Lagavulin neat. The woman’s date never showed—married prick, got cold feet. After almost two years on that bar stool, she never came back.

This is a destination bar, where men and women often meet with others not their spouse. Couples huddle in booths around the perimeter of the main room. A few more sit at booths and a few tables in satellite rooms even darker than the main area. There are other regulars, too. You can buy or sell information here, or plan some deal, but don’t get caught with dope or it’s your ass. If someone calls in looking for a customer—a frantic wife, an angry husband—no one is ever there. Sorry, really busy. Take a message?

Detective Inspector Douglas Lee Pavlichek is distinguishable from the other customers only to the bartender. Nick has served the cop booze since he came on the job; through two marriages, three killed partners and six promotions. He does a very passable simulation of a businessman, with his Abboud suits and Burberry trench coat. The homicide cops are well known to be natty dressers, and Pavlichek does his part. You need nice suits when you go to your partners’ funerals. Pavlichek doesn’t have a terrible average, though, for his thirty-two years. That works out to less than one dead partner per decade. But after he lost Mooney, Pavlichek decided he’d rather work solo. He’s on the glide slope to a disappointing retirement anyway, so the bosses agreed.

He also doesn’t care about any two-drink minimum, because Detective Pavlichek hasn’t had two or fewer drinks at a sitting since 12th grade, when he partied so hard that he barely graduated. Only Mrs. Ellsworth had saved that, allowing a retake of the final exam over the angry objections of Mr. Crawford, the so-called “guidance counselor” who hated Pavlichek since he was a southmore. That’s how they say it here, southmore, not sophomore. So he passed with a D-plus—still hadn’t studied—and drew the Logan green cap and gown to make the high school perp walk with almost a thousand other seniors that year.

Here’s a piece of info for that next lull in class reunion conversation: Today, a man named Logan Green is the co-founder and chief executive officer of the ride-sharing service Lyft.

No, that doesn’t mean anything. Nothing does.

Pavlichek doodles on a bar napkin. When he looks up, Nick is already watching him. The detective waves an index finger in airy, imperfect circles, ordering another round. Nick pulls a Stroh’s from an ornate tap and then pours an extra-double Johnny Walker Black while the beer foam settles. By the time Pavlichek survived the summer after high school, he could drink a whole fifth of Johnny Walker Black and still be just walking-around high, could drive and everything. That time he wrecked his car down the street from Griff’s house, where Griff’s mother always bought the party alcohol, the local uniforms didn’t even know he was wasted. That was the first time Pavlichek thought about a career in police work.

Police work is how he describes it, because cops will tell you honestly, in quiet moments, that “law enforcement” isn’t the same thing. Rookies do law enforcement; veterans do police work. Police work maintains order and keeps people safe and free, keeps the jackoffs in their own districts, at least. Those lofty goals are not always the purview of laws, so most cops don’t enforce laws. They do police work.

Pavlichek’s phone buzzes in an inside-left coat pocket, but he doesn’t have to look at it to know who it is. His personal cell is in the inside-right pocket, but it never buzzes. He downs the scotch at once, then powers down the beer.

“Gotta run, Nick. Work,” he says. He leaves a fifty on the bar, because if you tip a bartender well now, he tips a cop well later. Pavlichek gets only two steps away before turning back to Nick.

“Hey, you havin’ a good day, man?”

Nick shrugs. “Yeah. I guess. You know, it is what it is.”

“You are right about that.” Pavlichek waves a two-finger salute and turns to the door. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Okay, Inspector,” Nick says. He wipes wet rings from the polished surface of the bar and picks up the napkin. Pavlichek has carefully torn up the business card of the department psychologist and left it in a perfect teepee of matte pasteboard on the bar.

On the napkin, Pavlichek has drawn the crude image of a handgun shooting a bullet through a cartoon badge, and all around it, over and over, he’s written the words Kill me now.



Written by: Daniel Charles Ross
Photograph by: Chris Boyles

Nights in the Hollow

Remember the night the fire nearly escaped us? Of course you do. Britt Myerson almost turned the whole park into an ashtray, bottles of lighter fluid crumpled in both hands. “Xiuhtechuhtli! I praise you!” Pyro bastard. Did you hear he’s in real estate now? Makes a killing. Maybe the rest of us backed the wrong horse. God-wise, I mean.

I take my kids down there every now and then, to the hollow, to see how many trout or bass we can catch before someone succumbs to screen withdrawal. You will be happy, I think, to know that our summer left permanent marks on the place. Remember when that volleyball player – someone’s cousin – casually mentioned that she wanted to hear OutKast and Jason Zapp lept up, announced he had the CD in his car, and proceeded to drive his Grand Am down the tiny dirt trail until he got it wedged between two trees?

They have a “NO AUTOMOBILES” sign at the trailhead now. The Zapp Rule. One day I heard a woman say “Like anyone would ever try to take a car through here!” I let the remark pass, uncorrected.

Nowadays, ten guys would whip out their phones and, I’m sorry Ms. Jackson, the party would receive an eternal jukebox; effort-free music for as long as anyone desired. Where’s the chivalry in that? I understand that it’s dumb to get your car stuck in a tree, but when’s the last time you were so passionate about something that you’d drive through the fucking woods for it?

Impulses need time to linger, to shapeshift into longing.

After he struck out with the volleyballer, DJ Zapp took refuge in that goofy old song he loved, the one that was in the car rental commercials recently - ommaway, ommaway - and he stomped around the fire pretending to play a flute, masking the sting of public rejection. You perched on a stump, performing spasmodic karate moves that I later realized were precise replications of the real music video. Why and when had you possibly seen that video?! Everyone was dying laughing, like they always did. You had all the reference points, had always seen the movie, heard of the band, knew all the words. How I ached for your approval.

People were fighting and fucking, pissing and puking in the brush, smoking bowls in the shadows. The whole year went like that, one bonfire to another, alliances forged and forgotten, all of us together, always, like a reality show without the cameras. “Where’s the party at tonight?” Everyone asked that, and everyone got the same answer. Sports heroes and sensitive hippies from the Montessori, come on down. A party for every stoplight in a one stoplight town.

Right before the cops came, I was on my back in the tall grass past the far side of the lake, throat syrupy thick from one too many Big Gulps filled 50/50 with Mountain Dew and the cheapest vodka on the market. Wolfsbane? Wolf’s Breath? I drank so much of it that its name disappeared down the memory hole, though the snarling silver wolf on the label stayed with me.

I don’t remember how I got there--maybe Xiuhtechuhtli was looking out for me after all--but Gabi Giroux and I were side-by-side, staring up at infinite sky, probably thinking we were the first teenagers to discover the joys of alcohol and astronomy.

“Isn’t it majestic?” she said, sarcasm and sincerity blending like peanut butter and chocolate, like Wolf’s Breath and the Dew.

When the police Maglites started cutting across the trees, she said “Cops are here” as matter-of-factly as if they were just another carload of invited guests.

She inched closer and put her head on my shoulder and continued talking, now in a whisper, about PJ Harvey’s Brooklyn rooftops and Joan Didion’s Hollywood parties, about her secret sketchpad teeming with savage caricatures, about the conventional sterility of our parents’ lives, about how much we hated our hometown (which all of our friends, family, teachers and casual acquaintances knew) and how scared we were to leave (which we’d admitted to no one, including ourselves). A thistle pierced the small of my back and my Big Gulp-battered bladder cried for relief, but there was no chance I’d betray our location, or give Gabi any cause whatsoever to think I was restless. I wanted the sun to die and the cops to live forever, humdrum Highlanders searching the hollow for underage drinkers as Gabi and I grew old together in the prairie grass.

Instead, satisfied with their taming of the teenagers, and no doubt restless to return to their speed traps, the cops abandoned us. I’m not sure whether they even handed out any tickets. Someone said they snatched a loaded cooler as “evidence.” I wouldn’t be surprised. Gabi and I kept talking for a while, but I was already on alert, already feeling the ache of absence. Soon enough, the four dreaded words: we should get back.

Some survivors had already straggled back to the campsite, defiantly feeding fresh logs to the flames. Others, like Gabi, decided to quit while they were ahead, and took their trashed but ticket-free selves back to town. You don’t want to make small town cops drive out of their way twice in one night.

That’s when you had the bright idea: let’s walk home. Let’s cut through the fields, trek to town, buy sausage biscuits at the Quik-N-EZ, and salute the sunrise. Everyone else balked, but I was ready. This was my night. I could have done anything.

Things got heavy during our walk. No more karate-dancing. You talked about the “horrible banality of family trauma.” You even cried a little. You got angry. Were people just needing to unburden themselves that night, I wondered, or was there something particular about me?

I steered myself toward the latter interpretation. I never knew where I fit in, and now here was the answer. I’d be the co-conspirator hiding in weeds and tromping through pastures, the omnipresent shoulder, the last guy standing.

I was giddy and greasy-chinned as we settled onto a bench in the park, two wolves with four biscuits, snickering as a morning jogger side-eyed us. Remember that?

I don’t remember any of this. You sure it was me?

Of course it was you! Who else could it have been?

I don’t know.

I mean, I could have sworn. It’s always been you in my head.


Written by: Adam McKibbin

Photograph by: Garrett Carroll

Alone

I never want to die alone, but it seems that’s my fate.

My gramma was found next to her dried up minestrone soup, rotting for three days. Choked on a piece of bread. I guess it was sad and all, but then who’d want to grow old like that anyway and be so withered?

One spring day, Ma overdosed outside a crack house downtown, age 29. It was shortly after Dad blew town, and I went to juvie. I never could resist a shiny red car. Ma was younger, I suppose, and definitely not forgotten, at least by me. But she had her urgent need to sneak out, leaving her with only an empty needle beside her when she kicked it.

Dying alone scares me more than taking my final driving test.

Every spring night, I’m called out to scour the streets freshly lined with fast-food bags from a healthy gale off the Flatirons. Something about that night air and my restless fingers are what tug at me. I become more alert once the heat from the Colorado sun seeps out of the tar roads and the crimson tail lights brighten my night. But I don’t want to be alone.

Tonight, I "borrow" my foster parents’ SUV. Big deal, right? It’s not like they’ll miss the car much, and they definitely won’t notice I’m gone. They’re those “look how generous we are” types who take in “special needs” kids, like me. They feel so bad for the way I was raised that they always forgive me. They’ll definitely forgive me tonight.

Against a beer-soaked bar’s edge, I make two new friends, a couple. Turns out these two lovebirds are college kids. Samantha smells like the spring tulips along the Pearl Street Mall. I didn’t catch the guy’s name. Started with a ‘ch’ sound. The music in the bar is thrumming too loud to hear the rest. When they introduce themselves and their majors, I pretend like I’m someone too, someone they want to know, someone with money and a car. And then, just like nothing’s wrong, we’re friends. They’re so cute together. I want to steal their love and keep it with me always.

They ride around town with me. I put on a great act of not being the teenager I am. We stop at a friend of Chance or Chase or Chad, or whatever. A fraternity party is in full swing, mostly on the perfectly manicured lawn and partially on the roof. Samantha and the C-word guy leave to grab drinks. I hang back like I fit in. My real self reminds me who I am as soon as they leave me alone with a pretty beefy-looking dude who asks my major. I don’t belong here. I’d never belong here. I panic until my friends return with a glowing drink in a martini cup and a shot glass. Once I have that little high from the smaller cup, I sway through the party and pretend I’m someone again. I keep the high going a little by grabbing drinks from the guy dressed in just boxers and a tie who’s cruising around with a serving tray.

I suppose I shouldn’t have had that last shooter. My stomach flips after I pass some guy, who hasn't moved from the juniper bush since barfing. But I can’t let my friends see that I can’t handle the liquor. It might give me away, and I need them.

Samantha asks me for the car keys. She hasn’t drank a drop, she claims. If she has been drinking, she’s a great actress. I can’t think straight, but the hum of the busiest roads aren’t far from Delta Chi and they call to me.

“Nope,” I say, dangling the diamanté-studded key ring just inches from her nose, yanking them back.

The night air cools, and my skin craves rain drops. A spring mountain storm makes every drive a little more fun, a little more dangerous and thrilling. But there are only stars above.

The guy, whose name I now desperately wish I could remember, says I need to walk a line to prove myself. Like I’d prove to him how buzzed I was. There was only one thing I could focus on at the moment, and that was the cherry paint of the foster’s Range Rover.

"Dude, my car. Don’t you trust me?“

“Yeah, come on!” Samantha giggles and hops in back.

After giving me a once-over, he bumps my shoulder and I catch the light, musky smell he applied earlier tonight, now covered over with eau-de-beer. Then, instead of a further fight, he climbs in the back next to Samantha.

He says, "Then let's get this over with. All right?”

I nod. We definitely will be all right. What’s that saying about groups of three? They’re a charm?

The engine grinds a little as I over turn the stupid key. Samantha flirts with the C-word guy in the back. Neither notices anything might be wrong. The tail lights of the car in front of me reflect a feverish glow as I turn on the headlights. I’m so giddy.

All is perfect with the world I realize as I screech out past the neon bar lights where we’d met. We’re out among the cars on Broadway. The smell of newness breezes through the window I’ve opened a crack. These two people, here in this car, are the best friends I’ve ever had, I think. They so trust me.

I cruise faster toward the crossroads of Broadway and Baseline. The green light switches to a warning yellow. I slalom around the cars that slow down and accelerate toward the intersection, light now a glaring red. I’ve finally found two people who can stand me enough to spend more than a few minutes with me, and I definitely don’t want to die alone.

Written by: Leni Checkas

Photograph by: Skyler Smith

Enough

“Shot of Patron, gorgeous.” The man cups the back of her thigh with his hand and offers his best high roller smile.

She takes the crisp twenty, leaning in to reach it. He moves his hand up, almost a caress, and inquires when her shift ends. He smells like greasy hair and the sum of the bad decisions that led him to this Blackjack table — up, but not for long. She can see in his wide, gray eyes that he doesn’t have the spine or stomach or soul for this town. Vegas’ll take from him. Whatever he came to find, he won’t.

“Shift just started. Sorry, handsome,” she slides away from his hand, which has now hit the stretchy fabric of her miniskirt. Dangerous territory: that’s what the other women call these microminis, they’re so short.

She knows the man will stare at her ass, barely concealed in black, as she glides to the bar for his shot.

The bartender turns away from her as she walks up.

“Hey,” she says to him, looking at the mirror. Their eyes meet, frigid blue on warm brown. Hers say I’m sorry and his I don’t care.

“Go away,” he says.

It isn’t the response she expects, and he turns to her with rage in his eyes. Still frigid blue, still beautiful, still not enough.

“There are a dozen bars in this building. Go to one of the other eleven.”

“But this is closest — ”

“Figure it out.”

By the time she returns with the shot, the greasy man has multiplied into three more, a hydra of middle-aged douchebaggery.

Her shift lasts another eight hours. There is nothing special about it.

She narrowly avoids all three of the customers who got so shit-faced they puked on the slot machines.

A group of bachelorettes in silk rompers and pink sashes, red-rimmed lips gnawing at the air in search of their plastic phallus straws, call her a slut when she slips into the restroom to readjust her bra straps.

She loses count at the number of hands on her ass, the number of arms that just graze some part of her breasts.

Consent is keeping that goddamned coquettish smile plastered on her face.

She is grateful for the genuine moments, when her eyes grow bright and kind and her smile slips from flirty to friendly. It doesn’t take much.

The other bartender who makes her drinks before everyone else’s, knowing she’s got to hoof it back to her section. The men who say “please” instead of “gorgeous,” “honey,” or “darlin’.” The woman who warned her her shirt was caught on the Roulette table, sparing her a loud, painful rip of separation. When anyone says “thank you” and looks her in the eyes without judgment.

When her shift ends, she walks outside, the cold bite of wind wrapping her in an icy hug. She thinks of the frigid blue eyes, the permafrost that was once her best friend.

This isn’t the life they wanted. Or maybe it is for him. Maybe he wants her away from everyone else, dependent and sullen and broken.

He said he wanted to be a Blackjack dealer, but he was too handsome, too distracting. She didn’t understand, wouldn’t that be better? He had sighed, said she didn’t get it. She shrugged her shoulders and didn’t push. He liked being a bartender. Better hours, better tips. She could try being a cocktail waitress. Wouldn’t it be fun? Wouldn’t it? She refused to sink to that, kept pursuing a dream onstage, illuminated by the house lights.

Dance auditions were brutal, harder than she anticipated. No callbacks. At the last one, her bank account nearly depleted, her teeth clenched so hard her jaw ached, her feet bleeding in her own shoes, she pulled no punches.

“Why not me?”

The men looked at her.

“I know I’m not getting this. You’ll call in a day or week or not at all and I won’t get the job. I just want to know why not.”

“You want it too much. There’s nothing effortless about you. You are weighed down by hopes and dreams and expectations. It shows, and it is distracting.”

After that last audition, one of them approached her with a time and an address. A job that might help her. A strip club. Come in for an audition, you might be good at it. You might be great.

She got as far as the club’s front door, tried to justify it. On stage. House lights. Dancing. A sliver of her dream, just the inedible rind. She turned away. She swore the bouncer out front had given her a nod, permission to say no.

Back in their tiny shared apartment, she looked her best friend in the eye and asked if he thought the cocktail waitress thing could still work out for her, because the dancer thing never would.

She shivers but doesn’t head to the bus stop. The bright gold glimmer beckons her like so many others.

When she walks the Strip, she is not a failed performer, an almost exotic dancer, a cocktail waitress. She is like all of them, seeking something and out to take it. She can be a tourist, living in a vacation from her own life.

But tonight, the illusion doesn’t take. The last part of her is gone, her best friend cleaved from her after he pulled her to him despite the rigid protest of her hands against his chest. His breath, hot and heavy against her shoulder, her neck, her ear. His words, alcohol drowsy but sharp: I want you. Let’s do this, it will be fun.

She shoved him, a hard push. Her eyes, furious. Her words, unforgivable to him: Never. You are not enough for me.

She tilts her head up, an act eclipsing prayer. She will meet her god’s gaze in the heavens and demand an answer.

The casino lights flicker and it is there: bright neon lights that say “Go.”



Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Jen Stevens

Penumbra

I like to remember the way Camryn looked when she made creatures in the snow, arms spread wide like the wings of those honey bees she always loved. In those moments she seemed more wild than I could ever be. She seemed free.

“Kane’s party will be so beyond,” Camryn says. Her hand brushes the fabric of my pale pink skirt, which once belonged to a ballerina.

Late spring snow nestles in Camryn’s hair and eyelashes as we climb the steps to Kane’s place.

                                                                                              ***

“Did I make this weird? Did I ruin your perfect last snow day?” Camryn had asked, snow settling around her.

“What about Aislyn? She’s pretty. She goes to parties. She kind of looks like me, you know?” I’d said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

And all Camryn had been able to say was,“That’s so fucked up, Len.” And it was.

I focus on that moment as Kane hands us drinks. He disappears into a group of his party goers. He doesn’t see the way Camryn brushes Aislyn’s hair over her shoulder.

“Why do you drink it like that?” Aislyn asks when I spoon the liquid into my mouth.

I smile and stir a lime around my gin fizz, trying to mask the taste of the gin.

“It’s how she drinks her tea, too,” Camryn says. She nudges Aislyn, but smiles at me, and I wonder if it’s because of all those things I’d said.

I could never love Camryn the way she needed me to.

I knew Camryn loved me before she told me. The months between that moment and today feel so full of what I feared would happen. The knowing ruined everything. It was always so much easier to pretend things didn’t have to change, that we never had to change.

“You know I can’t do change,” I say. It’s not a real response because there was never a real question.

“You’d never try,” Camryn says, between sips of her own drink. The way she says those words sounds wrong, too sharp; too much truth for this moment.

Instead of smiling and nodding my head, I tip my drink back, and swallow the rest in one gulp.

“Len, you don’t have to,” Camryn says when I take another shot of gin from some nameless guy.

“I’m trying,” I say. “Just like you wanted.”

“Don’t,” Camryn says, grabbing my hand.

I think she tries not to hold it like she loves me, but I feel it anyway. She’s gentle, but won’t let go. After everything, I know she doesn’t want me to leave her. Camryn needs us to be together, even if we’re only friends. Even if she wants us to be more.

I wonder if I’d feel different in another time or another place. Sometimes I look at my shadow and wonder if she is in love with Camryn. And if that’s true, I hope our shadow selves are happy. But I know shadows aren’t enough because I can never love Camryn that way.

When I pull away, her hand still reaches for me, but I can’t be here with her.

I grab another drink and make my way to the other side of the living room. I take one shot, and then another. The floor shifts beneath my feet, and I understand why our friends drink. Though I don’t know what weighs them down, I know they must like to feel themselves flutter; their pulse and their limbs and their wings. Maybe they need to feel free, too.

                                                                                              ***

“Are you drunk?” Kane asks. I wrap my arms around his neck and use him to anchor myself to this spot and this moment and this life.

“I know, Kane. And I just need to tell Camy, because she needs to know,” I say.

“Yeah? Why don’t we find Cam then?” he asks, helping me weave through the people as they drink and dance.

For some reason I can’t remember when we became friends with Kane. I wonder if he knows what Camryn said, what Camryn wants; all the things I’ve tried to forget. I open my mouth to tell him, but the words aren’t there because they’re not mine.

I try again, but only one word spills out, Camy. Her name sounds distant even though it leaves my mouth and my lips.

When I use her nickname, Camryn cries, but it’s not drunk crying. I’ve been to enough parties to know the difference between drunk crying and real tears.

“Let’s get you home, Len,” she says. She wraps an arm around my waist and we move through her words so slow like swimming underwater. “I’ve got her,” she says over her shoulder, and I know she does.

We’re out the door and on the street with the sidewalk beneath our feet. It moves in waves as we walk. Camryn asks, and I remember she was never the one to cry.

“I’m sure you want me to say I’m sorry. Maybe I am. Maybe I always will be,” I say.

“Let’s not do this, Len. Not when you’re like this.”

Her words float into lines trying to make themselves into hexagons. They close around us like dwelling walls, like honeycombs ready to keep us together.

“I remember growing up listening to I’m sorry, and it never made anything better. So I’m not sure saying the same thing to you would change anything.”

“And you hate change,” she says. She helps me up one step and then the next. I know we’re at her dwelling place because of the way the door creaks.

“They’ll only make me feel better.”

“You’ll feel better tomorrow,” Camryn says. She tucks her Gram’s quilt beneath my chin, and the flowered squares sway and grow over my shoulders.

“You said, I don’t know how to not be in love with you. Remember?” I ask.

“I’m sorry,” Camryn says.

“Well I don’t know how to be in love with you, can’t pretend everything’s the same anymore.”

“Don’t you know people change?” she asks from the edge of the bed.

All this time I think Camryn’s tried too hard to keep her heart untouched. I don’t think she ever meant to give so much away to me, because when she looks at me, I know she’s not all there anymore. I think we’re both scared of never being whole.

But I don’t tell her this.

I find the outline of my shadow self cast on the wall beyond us. I give my words to her, hoping she’ll know what to do with them.



Written by: Kayla King
Photograph by: Anthony Delanoix

Calculations

I wait for you to say something perfect. Niri finishes stringing the lanterns around the patio. All those colored paper shells look like sugared sweets; a candy necklace for the night. I wish they would melt into syrup and trap you and Kinsey; the two of you ambered together forever. Maybe then you would find something to say.

From my spot in the yard, I’ve watched you fight and kiss and maybe do a bit more. Niri’s parents presented me when she moved into this new place, back when you were with her, and not anyone else. She’s been here for five years, eleven months, and twelve days, but everyone still calls it the “new” place, and everyone seems to forget about the two of you.

But I’m still here. Albeit I’m a little less pink and my ankles have rusted from last summer’s rain. Grandy still tells me I’m beautiful, but I’m not sure I believe him. He’s so much younger than I’ll ever be. Tonight I’m not talking to him because I’m too busy trying to listen to you. And Kinsey. These past few months it’s been Wade and Kinsey at every party.

“Niri!” You yell her name, pulling her in for a hug. She makes a face at me and Kinsey over your shoulder. Her eyebrows rise and say no way, her eyes go wide and wonder what happened. Even I know that you and Kinsey have something.

“Somebody get this girl a drink,” you say, passing Niri off to the others at the party.

Kinsey hands her a glass of your homemade sangria, and Niri dumps it by my feet as soon as you’re not looking. I suck it up through my legs and it makes me feel good, almost great.

“Kinsey, girl,” Niri says.

I smile even as my stomach sloshes with too much sangria and sappy daydreams of what tonight should have been for you.

“And nothing,” Kinsey says. She chews on a soggy orange wedge. I imagine the fruit bursts with booze and saturates her tongue in slime and seeds. When she spits into the bottom of her glass, I know I am right.

“Like, really nothing? Not even hey or hi or you know, let’s fuck?” Niri asks. No one looks because it’s Niri. But if it were me or Grandy, they’d all be like acid trip? And then maybe they’d drink and dance and forget that the lawn ornament said something so profane.

“It’s not like that. We just, I don’t know, and it…he’s just different here,” Kinsey says. I want to say he is different, he gets you, he just gets confused, and I think he might love—

“The dance floor is calling us,” Niri says.

There is no dance floor.

You drink that gin with yesterday’s lips, the ones that talked about Kinsey. You said she was brilliant and beautiful and you finally got that there was something real about her. So where is that guy? Why isn’t he here tonight? Why aren’t you kissing Kinsey and keeping her in your arms? Why are you so determined to fuck everything up?

“Later,” you say to a girl named Kat when she asks you to dance. I follow your gaze to Kinsey swaying, seeped in those lanterns’ colored light. She looks like some sort of mystical creature, and she smiles when she sees you staring.

You still haven’t said anything to her. You hugged everyone but her. You laughed with everyone and just nodded your head when she said the stars, even though we all know that is your special code for let’s talk. Because everyone remembers the last three parties and how you brought champagne because Kinsey loves it and it makes her crazy and it reminds you both of the galaxy.

Tonight it’s like you are trying to put as much distance between you and her as possible. I hope you know that your Kinsey is a philophobiac, and the idea of loving someone, like really loving someone, scares her. But sometimes you are sweet and you sang that one line from your favorite song to her that night she got sick. I think she still remembers that version of you.

Everyone dances and sings another shot before we kiss, but you stand still beside me. You sigh and I miss the end of that line and the one after. But when it gets to the chorus, you whisper the words, and smile. I know you want to join the party, but you don’t. I’m not sure if it is because of the song or because of whatever has happened with Kinsey. You pull your phone from your pocket, start typing into your Notes. How will she get back up?

I know it is about Kinsey because you only write things about real people. They are never characters created from blood and ink. And knowing that, your silence makes sense, but it doesn’t satiate my need to hear it straight from your lips. I want to ask: how do you know she’ll fall? How do you know she’ll care as much about whatever isn’t happening as those of us who know the two of you might add up to something better?

You say “only sunshine” to Kat as you pull her into a slow dance. I wonder if you said “only stars” to Kinsey. I wonder if you will ever just love someone to love them.

When you lead Kat to the porch, we all watch. Kinsey stops dancing and leans against Niri and they whisper back and forth. I can’t hear them from here so I try to read their lips. Kinsey’s mouth moves slow and it looks like she says fudge, but I know she must be saying fuck you because that’s what we are all thinking.

Kinsey doesn’t crumble, even as you lift Kat, and take her into the house. She is so much stronger than you. Maybe you don’t care. Maybe you care too much and that’s why you feel the need to hate fuck strange girls instead of making love to just one.

“It’ll be okay,” Grandy says, nudging me with his little grey wing.

I’m not sure that’s true. Grandy hasn’t seen enough of you to know either way. But I think about how you almost kissed Kinsey at the last party, the way you closed your eyes, and drank in her words. I remember the way you leaned in and whispered something I almost heard, but never would. And now our lives consist of the almost.

Written by: Kayla King

Photograph by: Garrett Carroll
 

Exulansis

The memories are strongest when you sit across from me, knee to knee. We close the circle and hold the moments between us like trapped spirits called in a candle-lit vigil.

“Could’ve just gone to my house. There’s whiskey there,” you say.

I drop the planchette on the wooden Ouija board and the sound echoes across the empty tennis court. There haven’t been real matches here since the seventies; the court taken over by the wilderness and other foreign things. I don’t ask if you remember last year’s discovery: that red plastic lunchbox with cartoon Beetlejuice, hiding other people’s secrets. I wonder what secret you left behind, but I don’t ask, because some things are better left in lunchboxes. I think about the memory belonging to this place and know you must remember too. And that’s enough.

“Here,” I say, handing you my flask.

You close your eyes and squeeze the bridge of your nose. I’m not sure when you picked up the habit, but it’s part of you now. You shift over the only existing corner of the boundary line, tracing the edge with your sneaker.

“Can’t believe we still do this,” you say. It’s strange to think about our first time here, before it became a tradition. That summer before high school exists in a sort of haze now, but I remember the first storm of every summer since because we spent them all here.

“Your question first,” I say, savoring the burn of the booze as I sip once and then twice.

You take the flask again and tip your head back with it pressed to your lips. The etched seven disappears in the shadow of your chin and I miss it. Because you’re twenty-one and still a muggle you said on my birthday two years ago. You forever memorialized my love for Harry Potter in just one small etching.

“Okay,” you say. “What word am I thinking of right now?”

The planchette slips across the board from the rain, but our fingertips stay on either side.

V. E. N. U. S. 

“Just because we’re on a tennis court,” you say. “Like, how do you always guess?”

“And deprive the Goddess of our connection?” I ask and you smile.

I don’t bother the board or the universe with my own question. Sounds of the storm are all around us, the rain softening beneath the ink-stained sky. We swig and pass the flask back and forth until the court crumbles and cracks and we laugh and laugh like lost echoes.

“Know the story about Echo?” I feel myself ask, feel the words on my tongue. They are full and sure and not mine even though they are.

“You’re drunk,” you say.

“Mmhmm. But the story is just so sad. Because she gets trapped with no real voice. And she can’t tell him she loves him because she really doesn’t and he doesn’t so it’s not, you know?”

“But she fell for him anyway?” you ask.

I can’t focus on your face when you ask because the words don’t match your mouth. Your lips have left so many sentences here already and the rain makes listening too difficult. So I close my eyes and I hear you nine years ago. Together, you said, pulling a book from your sweatshirt pocket. We started reading beside each other and we made a promise.

We keep promises. And you are here and I am here and we’re a different kind of we sitting in the rain at our court. It’s just us, but we’re never really an us.

“The first summer storm,” I say.

“Last one, maybe. I don’t think I’ll be back.” Your voice drifts away because I don’t want the words.

“You won’t come home?” I ask. I drain the last dregs and the whiskey no longer burns, just numbs my tongue. I’m not sure I asked the question right because you don’t answer.

“Nica—”

I don’t say your name back because I can’t. Instead I pull my letter to you from my coat pocket. I don’t think I can watch you reading my words here because they will sound so much better on the streets of Seattle with more rain than our court could ever offer.

“Don’t open this until you miss me,” I say, handing you the letter.

“So right now, then?” you ask, tracing the seal. “I always miss you. But this isn’t home anymore.”

“What’ll happen to us? Like we die and then what happens?”

“Why do you always start life talks when we’re drunk?” you ask.

“Maybe there are just some conversations you need to have drunk. And maybe the memory just sits with you for days, like a dream.”

“Babe’s so wise with whiskey,” you say and you pull me to you. I tuck my chin into your neck and you hug me and the shoulder of your shirt is damp. Maybe it’s the rain or maybe I am crying.

The world spins beyond you and stars leak dry dust somewhere out there in the universe. And maybe the ghost of Venus watches us. I don’t have to say soulmate or kindred or best because you know. I don’t have to love you to love you because that wouldn’t be the same as hiding in your neck where it’s safe.

“You think the rain’ll sound different there?” I ask. “That’s the reason you’re leaving.”

You don’t answer. The wind and the rain chink the fence and I don’t see us as caged birds, but the kids we were years ago. The early summer smells thick with worm bodies and rehydrated leaves and whiskey breath. And there is the bitter arugula taste of an ending left in my mouth.

“I’m sure it sings lullabies because—what else?”

Our foreheads meet and they are skin against skin, skull to skull and memories against each other, seeping and sharing this life we’ve had for so long.

“You never asked your question,” you say. We cross our legs, resting the old Ouija board on our laps. I remember finding it in your grandmother’s basement and the way you cried when she died. No one said anything when you curled into me at the funeral. Everyone thought they knew us because they just knew us.

You hold your hands above the board and there are charcoal smudges, the long ago painted letters finally imprinted on your skin. I move the planchette and you follow my lead as we spell words we need. We’ll never be anything more than this because we’re already too much.

T.O.O. M.U.C.H.

T.O.O. U.S. 

T.O.N.I.G.H.T. 

G.O.O.D.N.I.G.H.T.

When I wake, you’re gone. The ground is mapped with cracks like state lines we’ll have to cross to see each other again. Your folded sweatshirt is nestled between my head and the white painted corner of the court. The morning air is cool, and I slip your sweatshirt over my windbreaker. The pocket crinkles.

When you’re missing me. The words are scratched on the back of a Food King takeout menu.

I read on until there are no words left. I’m already missing you, too.

Written by: Kayla King

Photograph by: Daniel Vidal

Freshmen

We recap the year with pitchers of overpriced margaritas at Chili's, procured less by our fake IDs and more by fortuitous seating in a section manned by a frazzled waitress. Her name tag reads Jessica, but we all swore she said her name was Beth. Either way, she's tilting at windmills trying to get a good tip from that six-top of frat boys.

It's the three of us: Naomi, queen of problem sets and keg stands; Yara, wannabe director, actual drug dealer; and me, future M.D. unless the system breaks me. A third of our freshman class entered in some kind of pre-med track; after four days a week with 7 AM chem or bio from the dullest profs the college could hire, survival of the fittest has whittled it to a fifth of our class.

I'm still hanging in there, but Yara sometimes mentions adding two more to our crew to keep the pre-med proportions right and when she does, there's a good chance Naomi will say something about three-fifths and give me this look.

If we've been drinking it's hilarious like Chappelle's Show, but if we're not it's just sad and awkward, like explaining Key & Peele's magical negro sketch.

I'm about to lose faith in Jessabeth the waitress, but a timely refill of margaritas and bottomless chips and salsa keep her in Naomi's good graces, and Naomi's picking up the tab (with her mom's AmEx).

And oh God, when I think there can't be a more bittersweet moment, when we're laughing till we're crying and refusing to consider how this summer we'll be bound only by FaceTime and Instagram, Naomi slips and mentions Levi.

It's how I imagine a stained glass window would melt in an inferno: searing heat, crackling glass, the vibrant colors pooling together and hardening, a warped lump once beautiful.

Yara's face scrunches up. She's trying not to cry for real this time, and Naomi looks down and we're conspicuously quiet. Jessabeth checks in, but probably because her waitress senses are tingling and she's worried we realized we don't have enough cash to cover three rounds of margaritas and counting.

One of us should say something, break up the mood before we all descend into memories of the great night that turned into a bad morning.

I know I should say something, but I can't.

I remember sickly-sweet vodka, flavors manufactured to market to teen girls. Cake and cotton candy; didn’t even need a chaser.

Bailey was there and I tried to play it cool, tried to make my way over to him gradually. He was all suburban prep: J. Crew closet, lacrosse scholarship, poli sci and econ double major. Such a vanilla choice, but he captivated me with that orthodontia-perfect smile and New England charm.

He offered to make a s'mores shot in my mouth, and when we finally kissed the cigarette smoke on his lips made me taste campfires and cool nights.

We all left and stumbled through the freshman quad, everything in soft focus and blurred to perfection.

Yara and Levi slipped away. I watched them go, her hip pressing into his thigh and his arm around her shoulders, their silhouette illuminated.

Naomi and I made it to the frat house, the bass thumping, a beacon for the wasted. I don't remember much other than Bailey's hands against my hips, furtive kisses tasting less like smoke, more like sweat. I woke up in his bed the next morning, and we didn’t kiss or cuddle.

I don’t even remember my first time.

Maybe I should be more upset about what happened and why we haven't spoken since, but I don't want to think about it, and if you don't think about things they can't make you upset.

I went back to our room, walk of shame mercifully short. Yara was single and heartbroken. Naomi had spilled coffee all over my floor trying to juggle my hot pot and french press.

At least she wasn’t injured, she pointed out. At least I was here, the subtext. And the evidence: Yara’s blotchy cheeks streaked with tears. She shook with sobs and choked it out: how Levi’d confessed he loved her, but thought he was in love with a girl from her film class.

And I couldn’t say why or what happened, because what would I say? Why would I take the comfort Yara needed more than I did?

"I don't want to talk about him," Yara says, dragging a chip around the perimeter of the salsa bowl, and I know how she feels although I can't tell her why.

"I'm sorry,” Naomi replies. “Guys are assholes. Especially that one."

"Where are you working again this summer?" I turn to Yara. She's told me half a dozen times in the last week but her gray eyes light up, eager to think or talk about anything other than Levi, her first real boyfriend. Her first real ex.

"The community theater at my hometown. They're letting me do some of the programming for the youth performance camp," Yara sips on her margarita. "Oh, and my job from last year. It's so much easier to sell pills there, you have no idea."

                                                                                                   ***

A month into summer and the three of us have talked less than I thought we would. A text here or there, maybe a Snapchat. No phone calls, no FaceTime, no sound other than the static of friendships on hold. We communicate through pixels.

I try to convince myself that I don't feel abandoned, just neglected when Yara texts me from work. Golden arches leer at me in her photo.

Making bank. 1st brunch on me as thx. xoxoxo.

One day I'll tell her things I remember about that night. How I saw a couple wrapped up in each other, backlit by hazy possibility and walking into the future together. How I wanted that moment, to be so caught in it I didn’t know it was happening, dizzy in love and invincible in ignorance, unaware that anyone could hurt you.

Written by: Erin Justice

Photograph by: Matt Crump

Portia's Suitor

We made love with the taste of wine and olives on our tongues. We made love the way new couples do, pretending to be something we no longer were. It was careful and pretty, untainted by the ugly laziness that comes from years of togetherness. I liked to be on top, hair cascading across my breasts; he held me with his arms flexed, hands massaging me. He teased that I could only cum with a pillow over my face, and I laughed from behind my cotton fortress until my giggles turned to moans, then shivers.

Three weeks we had in Italy. Three weeks to save our relationship. Three weeks of romance and adventure, to spice things up.

Three of the longest weeks of my life.

It wasn't that he was always ogling the Italian women. That was understandable, I couldn't stop gawking myself. They danced across cobblestone streets in stiletto heels, impervious to the heat, navigating heart stopping traffic circles with graceful aggression. I fumbled my way around, tripping over my own blistered feet.

I also wasn't surprised by his behavior in the museums. I knew he wouldn't appreciate the treasures of antiquity. He would stand in front of a Botticelli just long enough to read the title, checking it off a mental list of things he had seen, without bothering to actually look.

I knew he would be a jerk to the locals, so I was prepared for his arguments. I hid my face behind my map while he hollered about the fact that the Italian economy depended on tourism and they should value him and his money. It always came back to money.

I expected all of those things. What surprised me, what murdered our dying relationship, was his drinking.

I learned quickly not to suggest guided tours; those all lingered too much for his tastes, delaying his reunion with the bottle. He flew through the Coliseum in a mad dash, suggesting we sit down for a "bevi" the second we made it to the exit. Who the fuck says bevi anyway? He always used cutesy words like that, trying to make it seem like no big deal.

“Time for a drinky-poo babe?” I was in the land of Chianti, Grappa, Sambuca, and it all tasted like vinegar sitting across from an alcoholic. I suffered through the vacation committed to a silent strike of sobriety. I realized that this relationship would end the instant our tires touched tarmac back home.

As the trip drew to a close, we descended on Venice. We had three nights in the city before catching a train back to Rome for our flight home. On our last night, with our bags stowed safely in a locker at the train station, we travelled to the island of Burano. There wasn't much there--handwoven lace and fishing boats against a backdrop of brightly painted buildings. He sat sipping cocktails in the warm August sun while I watched.

“How great has this been, babe?”

“Italy is beautiful.”

“I know how to take care of my girl.”

He said it with such swagger in his voice, forgetting I had paid my own way. The desperate need to distract myself coupled with the lure of the electric orange Campari coaxing me, I leaned full tilt into the bender I knew he wanted.

We eventually stumbled down to a restaurant, ripe with smells of garlic and anchovies. We ate a feast of clams and pasta, port and parmesan, and of course, buckets full of red wine. When we were done the restaurant manager rented us a room upstairs. It wasn't much--an ancient bed, a miniature sink, and a toilet.

In the quiet of our shabby hideaway, our bodies collided. I knew it was our last time together, a pleasure usually reserved for firsts. I put him to work, giving myself over to him with uncommon laziness. I let him smear me across the well-used mattress, his tongue pushed through my petal folds. It stroked, smooth and methodical, like a mother cat cleansing the fur of a kitten. I wanted him to have the tongue of a snake; quick stabs, tasting me, smelling me, and deciding to swallow me whole. When I came, it was without my usual pillow shield, and he followed soon after, before collapsing in a heap on top of me.

We lay like that, in a hot, tangled mess, watching Italian phone sex commercials until we fell asleep. I woke up hours later in the dark room, bile rising thick and bitter in the back of my throat. The darkness was complete, my head was pounding, and the unfamiliar room made my poles spin. Naked and drunk, I stumbled around in a useless panic before suddenly and violently vomiting on the floor.

It was a spectacular puke. A heroic puke. When I had finally purged the contents of my stomach, I searched for a light. I flicked the switch and as my eyes adjusted to the glow, relief gave way to fresh horror. With all the empty floor space in our spartan room, my vomit had landed squarely on my own clothing. I tried, unsuccessfully, to wash them in the tiny sink, peeling red-wine-soaked clams off the fabric, and rinsing the Campari orange noodles down the drain. None of it was salvageable, not my clothing, socks, or underwear. I threw the whole pile in the trash and cried in bed till morning.

In the morning, I remained useless in bed while he scoured the town for supplies, returning hours later with a very tight, very short, green lace gown. Clad in my skimpy lace disaster, we made it to the ferry in time. We sat waiting to leave, when I realized I’d forgotten my passport. If this ferry left without us, we might miss our flight home. The idea that I could be stuck here, for even one extra day in relationship purgatory, horrified me. With the end in sight, I ran through the tourist-clogged streets like I have never run before or since. I cut through carefully posed photo shoots, I knocked over chubby-cheeked German children, I hurdled a man in a wheelchair. I ran in all my puke-breathed, bare-bottomed, green-laced glory and somehow, with passport in hand, I made it back to the ferry and out of Italy.

I've never been back, and likely never will, but if you ever make it to Burano, I recommend you try the fettuccine alla vongole.

Written by: Sarah Scott

Photograph by: Sophie Stuart

Biscuit Sings the Blues

James ‘Biscuit’ Baker sat alone at a little table in his motel room, sipping on a bottle of Lone Star. The clock read ten til six. His curtains, like all motel curtains, would not quite close. Light seeped in from the red neon sign outside, bathing his room in a sanguine aura.

He felt like Goldilocks when he was out on the road these days, the bed two nights ago in Amarillo was too soft, this one too hard. With any luck, the one tomorrow night in San Antonio would be just right. He swallowed a Vicodin and waited for the pain in his lower back to subside. Once the opiate started to work its magic, Biscuit nodded off in the chair.

A knock on the door woke him from his slumber two hours later. He lurched his sixty-year old body out of the chair and lumbered towards the door.

There was more knocking, louder this time.

“Hold the fuck on. I’m coming.”

The hazy, morning sun blinded him when he opened the door, but he recognized his visitor as soon as she spoke.

“Morning, sunshine,” she said in an unmistakable tone.

Maxine, his ex-wife, had a huskiness to her voice that once reminded him of a young Lauren Bacall, but after a lifetime of cigarettes of whiskey, she now sounded more Johnny Cash.

“Fucking hell…what do you want?”

“Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Oh yeah, you’re a sore sight for eyes.”

“Don’t you mean a sight for sore eyes.”

“Nope.”

“Well, you’re not looking so hot yourself, old man. I see that you got that dickey-do disease going on.”

“Dickey-do disease?”

“Your belly is sticking out farther than your dickey do.”

She chuckled at her own joke. Her laugh sent a chill down his spine.

“Not that it would take much of a belly for that to happen,” she added.

“You know Maxine, I’m sure we could just continue this love fest all day, but what the fuck do you want?”

“Can I come in?”

“No… I’ll come out there. Hold on,” he said, slamming the door.

Biscuit splashed some water on his face, put on a fresh shirt and grabbed the pack of Parliament Menthols that were lying on the table. He closed the door behind him and lit one up.

“How did you know I was here?”

“In Austin? Hell, Biscuit, I do live here, you know. And it’s not like I don’t go to the Continental anymore. If you don’t want me to find out, maybe you shouldn’t be playing at one of the most popular fucking clubs in town.”

They started walking towards the sidewalk.

“I meant, how did you know where I was staying?”

“Because you always stay here. You’re a creature of habit.”

Maxine gestured at the big Austin Motel sign, almost pink in the early morning light, that shot up into the sky.

“I figure it has something to do with that sign. A dick for a dick.”

“Huh…” Biscuit took a long drag of his cigarette. “I wonder what old Sigmund Freud would say about that. I always thought of that sign as a hand, with a big middle finger. Kind of a giant ‘fuck you’ to whole entire world… And you think of it as a dick. Maybe he was onto something with that penis envy thing.”

“Not that you would have anything to envy,” came her retort.

“Touché.”

“Seriously though, did you call Scotty and tell him you were going to be in town?”

“I tried last night when I got in, but he didn’t answer. I didn’t leave a message. I was going to try again today.”

“That’s convenient.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, that it’s convenient how you wait until the last minute to tell him, hoping that he has other plans.”

“That’s not true. I would love to see Scotty.”

“Bullshit. What are you afraid of Biscuit? Failing as father? You already did that.”

“Fuck Maxine, do you have to be so harsh?”

“What? Does the truth hurt, honey? You know what else probably hurts? When your father doesn’t make it to your high school graduation, or when he forgets to call you on your birthday. So if you’re looking for sympathy, you better find a dictionary, it’s somewhere between shit and syphilis.”

Biscuit stared down South Congress Street, searching his memory for anything other than hatred for this woman.

“He’s getting married.”

“Huh?” Biscuit turned to look at Maxine. “He’s what?”

“Getting married. She’s a real nice girl. I think he wants you to come to the wedding.”

“If I’m such a failure as a father, why would he want me there?”

“Because he still loves you Biscuit. I don’t know why, but he still does.”

Maxine put on her sunglasses and opened her car door.

“You know, despite all of our shortcomings, that is one hell of a good kid we have. And before you get all pissy, I’ll admit, it wasn’t just you. I was by no means mother of the year. But somehow he turned out real good. Give him a call, Biscuit. See you around.”

Maxine got into her car and disappeared into the Austin traffic.

                                                                                                        ***

Biscuit walked onto the stage to raucous applause. He sat down on the stool and picked up his trusty old Telecaster. Once the crowd quieted down he pulled the microphone close.

“Before I play tonight, I just want to say a few words. My son is here in the crowd, with his beautiful new fiancé.”

A spotlight was turned on to a table near the back of the small room. A waitress was delivering a bottle of champagne to the young couple sitting there.

“So I just want to say to Scott and Sara, congratulations, and I know I was a shitty father…” Biscuit’s voiced cracked. “Hell, I still am a shitty father, but I love you.”

Scott smiled and wiped a quick tear from his eye.

“Now enough with all this feel good shit. If you want happy music, go to Nashville. My name is Biscuit and I sing the blues.”

“They say that time is money… well, I guess I’m broke as fuck…”

Written by: Ben Cook
Photograph by: Matt Crump

Pissed

I’m no stranger to disrespect. I’ve been verbally insulted, physically assaulted, slandered, abandoned, betrayed, pranked; you name it, I’ve been subjected to it. I thought my self-esteem would be impenetrable by now. And then, I got peed on.

I wish I could say it was a puppy or a baby or some kinky sex thing (not involving a puppy or a baby), but I’m afraid there is no logical explanation for this piss. There was only revenge.

But before I retell one of the most degrading moments of my life, I encourage you to ask yourself; “What would I have done in this situation?” Don’t answer yet! Give me at least a paragraph before you roll out your Jump to Conclusions Mat.

Scene: a dive bar in east Austin, the interior lined with damask wallpaper (possibly vintage, probably Target). A DJ spun the tunes you used to rollerblade to in the 90s. The bar was stocked with both liquor and cigarettes (because cancer’s only cool if you get it before your friends). A two-top in the corner housed an unfinished game of chess (more likely a photo prop than a battle of wits). Out back was a patio full of bearded men singeing their facial hairs with American Spirits. Beyond the smoke sat a row of trailers where stoners prepared food inspired by whatever pun was painted on the side of their truck. And in the restroom, there was me; straddling a urinal and checking my watch as locally-brewed beer, tequila, and H20 poured from my body.

It was a quarter till midnight, and like Cinderella, I was frantically looking for an exit. Unlike Cinderella, my only curse is the inability to have fun in loud, overpopulated, and perspiration-filled social settings. That’s when it hit me; that warm liquid that hasn’t dribbled down my leg since Kindergarten.

I initially blamed myself (as usual), until I noticed a golden torrent attacking my feet like an angry serpent.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” I yelled, jumping around like a cartoon character avoiding gunfire.

My gaze flowed upstream to find the monster responsible for this atrocity, but most of his body was hidden behind a stall wall. All I could see were his eyes peering down at me as his pee melted away my dignity like freshly fallen snow. My humiliation was magnified by his buddy cheering him on every drip of the way from the sink.

So that’s the crime portion of this story. You now have my permission to ask yourself, “What would I have done in this situation?” Got your answer? Good. Follow along and see if we chose the same punishment.

If you’re like me, you did NOT punch through the wall and rip his still-beating heart from his chest. You contemplated it, but your superego overpowered your id (as usual).

Instead, you fled, maintaining a clear line of vision between yourself and the men’s room. You hid in the sea of sweaty Millennials until your target emerged, both hands in the air like he just didn’t care.

“He must pay,” you whispered, still plotting vengeance. You stalked him from afar like the lovable serial killer you’re likened to every time you wear a dark-brown henley.

THAT’S IT, you thought, as he ordered a fresh drink. You placed yourself in his path and began a game of chicken he unknowingly agreed to play. Your inner Braveheart told you to, “Hold.” “HOLD,” he repeated. “HAAAWWLLD,” he howled one final time. “NOW!”

The moment your paths crossed you flapped your left elbow towards his drink as if someone tickled your armpit. You missed. Hellbent on retribution, you circled around like a bull taking a second pass at a matador. The target beckoned his friend to the dance floor by dangling his cup in midair like a cape.

YOU COULDN’T TAKE IT. You lowered your head and charged, sending his drink flying towards the DJ as you plowed through the exit. You stopped once you reached the sidewalk and pulled out your phone to let your friends know you left. And then ...

“THERE HE IS.”

But I was so stealth, you assured yourself.

“You got a problem, BRO?” the pisser asked, cornering you with TWO sidekicks.

“What? No,” you responded, praying that would settle it.

“Then why’d you flip my drink,” he justly argued.

“Did I?” you answered, convincing no one.

“YEAH.”

“Oh, my bad.”

“Yeah, it IS your bad. So what’s your problem?”

You thought about mentioning the piss, but you feared he’d judge you for your passive-aggressive conflict resolution.

“He’s drunk,” one sidekick noted, potentially giving you an out.

You looked at him, and there was a sense of acknowledgment. He knew you were the guy his buddy used as a pee trough. He knew that’s why you spilled his drink. And he didn’t seem to fault you for it.

“He’sh right, shman. I’m drunksh,” you said, overselling the intoxication plea.

“See,” the sidekick responded. “Just come inside and buy my boy a new drink. There. Settled.”

The pisser accepted, gritting his teeth and shadow boxing all the way to the entrance.

“Come on,” said his sidekick, ushering you to the door.

You fumbled through your wallet, suggesting his henchmen go ahead.

“After you,” said the previously silent sidekick.

Great, not only did this guy piss on me, but now I’m going to buy him a drink, you thought, preparing to hand the doorman your driver’s license. And then, as if by divine intervention, a bicyclist parted the entry line with his fixie.

You stumbled out of the way, leaving a good ten feet of separation between you and sidekick #2. You smiled, pivoted, and disappeared into the night like a cowardly Batman.

You don’t know if they tried to find you, and you really don’t care. All you know is a man pissed on your leg, and in turn, you pissed him off by flipping his drink in his face. In your eyes, that’s justice, and one hell of a story.

Written by: Mark Killian
Photograph by: Chris Boyles

Law 203B

My wife thought I was joking when I told her I had killed someone once.

“You’re such a shit. You did not!” she said with a smile, taking another sip of her wine.

“I did.” I said, no smile on my face.

We went back and forth like this a few times, her laughter growing more apprehensive each round.

“Alright,” she began. “If you did kill a guy, then how’d you do it?”

“You really want to know?”

She nodded.

“Well,” I said. “I stabbed him. Here… Here… And here.” I pointed to my stomach, heart and throat. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes, I really, really do,” she said. Her smile had long since disappeared, her face flooded with concern. Should she fear me, or should she love me? Couldn’t she do both? These were questions her mind couldn’t answer. Or maybe it could but was too afraid to do so. 

“Okay…” I said, drawing in a deep breath. “First I stabbed him in the heart, then the stomach.” I paused to take a sip of my whiskey. “Then I cut open his throat.” I felt I had said too much at this point, but that’s what happens when you have almost four glasses of Knob Creek coursing through your veins.

She still wasn’t convinced I had actually killed somebody. But at the same time, she wasn’t convinced I hadn’t killed someone either. She gulped the rest of her wine, eager to refill her glass. I followed her lead and downed the rest of my whiskey.

As the alcohol made our minds heavy and dull, I continued telling my wife about the man I’d killed. I was twenty-three at the time, fresh out of college and living on my own along a small highway north of Lawrenceville. The man had knocked on the door of the house I was renting.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he said. “But would you be able to give me a lift to the gas station? I ran out about a mile back.”

I couldn’t place my finger on it, but there was something about him that made me feel uneasy. His words weren’t genuine, and when he spoke, he filled the space between us with ill intention as thick and sticky as the air on a hot, humid day.

“Sure,” I said. “Let me just grab my keys.”

I came back to the door. The man wedged his boot into the doorframe and had a gun drawn. “Give me your keys,” he said. Up until that point, I had never been in a fight in my life, but at that moment, something inside me took over like a set of instructions my body had to obey. The next thing I remembered was looking down and seeing the man’s lifeless body lying in a pool of his own blood. His name, as the cops told me, was Robert Sanderson, a local meth head.

“I know this was self defense,” the police officer said. “Ain’t no doubt about that, but the way you killed this man… Looks like you really knew what you were doing here.”

After that night, my wife was cold and distant. She only said the bare minimum and came up with excuses that kept her away from the house as long as possible. I didn’t know if she was afraid of me or angry.

“What’s going on?” I asked over dinner one night. “Are you mad at me for what I said the other night?”

She didn’t answer, just stared down at her plate, nuzzling her food with her fork.

“Well?” I said, my voice swelling with anger.

Finally she said, “I want you to get the test.”

The killing gene test was developed five years ago by a scientist named Dr. Alex Sherman. One small drop of blood could easily identify if someone carried what Dr. Sherman called the killing gene. If you had it, it meant you were hardwired to become a killer, and the evidence supporting his research was overwhelming. And by overwhelming, I mean one hundred percent accurate. At first Dr. Sherman’s discovery was controversial, but pretty soon politicians began using it as part of their political platforms. This lead to the passing of Law 203B, or as it was more popularly referred to: the Killing Gene Law. The law required the pre-emptive arrest of anyone testing positive, even newborns. Once arrested, carriers were sent to specially designed prisons the press had dubbed Killer Camp. There are lots of theories surrounding what goes on at these camps, but no one knows for sure. Despite all this, the public still embraced the law.

“You can’t be serious!” I said. “I killed that man out of self-defense, and you know it.”

“I have to know,” my wife said. “I’m scared.”

As she finished her words, the world around me became fuzzy. My thoughts were suddenly mangled and confused. My body felt heavy and clumsy. And then everything went dark. I woke up a few hours later, tied to a dining room chair. My father-in-law was there. I assumed she was the one who tied me up.

“Candice told me everything,” he said. “We just have to make sure you’re not one of them. You understand, right?”

I didn’t say anything. I was too angry.

“The cops will be here in a few minutes,” he continued.

“Where is Candice?” I asked.

“She’s with her mother. Said she can’t come back until she knows she’s safe.”

During my third day at the Lawrence County Jail, an older doctor visited my cell late in the afternoon. With him were two police officers and a man wearing a suit, a lawyer I assumed.

Without any greeting, he jumped right into it, “I’m afraid you have the killing gene.”

“You’ll be transferred to killer camp in the morning,” one of the officers told me as he walked off, grinning sadistically.

Written by: Michael Williams

Photograph by: Whitney Ott

Tequila Sunrise

“I am so goddamned hungover,” Nicole moans.

The thin queen mattress shudders from her restlessness, and Cheyenne groans in response. “Ohmigod, were you still asleep? I thought you were awake!”

“Mmmph,” Cheyenne manages.

She feels Nicole wiggle closer, her body heat radiating through a thin camisole. Nicole’s body brushes against hers and Cheyenne blushes. She wants to roll over and cup Nicole’s round face in her hands, kiss her and say, “I have been madly in love with you since orientation.”

Cheyenne swallows the words before they can escape. Along with their bitterness, she tastes stale tequila and beer. The room smells like old vomit and sweat, and Cheyenne concentrates on keeping her stomach settled. The fantasy yields to a more practical reality: sobriety.

Small miracle, Cheyenne thinks when she sees the dark shades drawn. The light might repel too many shadows and illuminate too many secrets, like desire, hunger, and lust.

“I think I’m still drunk,” Cheyenne croaks. The room spins around her and she closes her eyes.

“Lucky,” Nicole pokes Cheyenne in the ribs. “You can still fight it off.”

“Huh?”

“The hangover,” Cheyenne doesn’t need to open her eyes to know Nicole is rolling hers.

“I thought that was like, an urban legend.”

“Think of it as an experiment. When people ask us what we did on spring break, we can tell them we hypothesized some metabolic shit.”

Nicole doesn’t know a lot about science, but she does know booze.

Cheyenne rolls out of the thin bed they share and stumbles toward the dresser, decorated with carved initials and school slogans by previous budget-conscious occupants.

“I would drink a gallon of water if I could,” Nicole continues from the bed.

“Is it gallons here?” Cheyenne paws through the drawer until she finds the tiny plastic bottle. She shakes it, and the rattle comforts and torments.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Nicole asks.

“Metric system, right?” Cheyenne shoves the chair away from the mini fridge. The door swings open, and the bottle of water in front of her seems to glow.

“I don’t remember any of that,” Nicole pauses, “but whatever. I would drink a metric fuckton of water if I could.”

“Let me take these and you can have some,” Cheyenne pops three Advil into her mouth and takes a huge swig of water.

The burn hits her tongue first. When the artificial cotton candy flavor registers, she coughs vodka everywhere.

“Was that the vodka?” Nicole laughs.

Cheyenne looks over and Nicole’s camisole has shifted. The neckline is low, too low, and Cheyenne sees more of her left breast, the shape and tint of a nipple. She no longer thinks of sobriety. Fantasies conquer her concentration.

The night before takes advantage of this lapse.

The cloying sweetness of the cotton candy and the burn of the vodka commingle with the stagnant taste of old alcohol. The rush of sickness overwhelms her, and Cheyenne scrambles over a haphazard tower of luggage and a pile of skintight dresses and heels.

After excavating water bottles from the luggage and binge-eating their granola bar stash, Nicole and Cheyenne clean up and escape the hotel room. The sun is too bright, and Cheyenne worries that she didn’t apply enough sunscreen. Her pale peach skin has a reddish tint to it. Nicole’s skin shimmers bronze, contrasting with a microscopic turquoise bikini and oversized white cotton shirt. Cheyenne risks a glance at her cleavage.

Nicole angles a floppy hat over straight dark hair. Paired with the shirt and an obnoxious scarf tied around her thin waist, Nicole looks like a sexy pirate.

“Beach or resort pool?” Nicole asks.

“Beach is cheaper,” Cheyenne says.

“And creepier. I bet those Sig guys we met last night will be at the resort.”

Cheyenne doesn’t want to ask. Admitting she blacked out is embarrassing. The thought of hearing about some hot dudes Nicole wants to flirt with makes Cheyenne cringe.

When they enter the lobby, Nicole glides over to a couple of guys sitting in wicker chairs next to a pink marble column. She perches on the arm of one chair. Its occupant strokes her thigh with disturbing familiarity.

“Feeling okay, Cheyenne?” The other man stands up and offers her his chair.

“Sure, I guess,” Cheyenne says. The guy has a face like a ferret and disproportionately small hands. Cheyenne remains where she is and stifles a laugh.

“Spring break, right?” The guy shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t want to assume anything, but just in case - I’m Adrian and this is Tyler.”

Tyler gives a thumbs-up without looking over. Nicole monopolizes his attention, and he hers.

“Nice to meet you - again,” Cheyenne runs a hand through her long black hair and offers Adrian a wan smile.

“We were gonna lounge by the pool for the afternoon,” Nicole chirps. “Wanna join?”

“We’ll get changed and meet you there,” Adrian responds. “There’s a bar in the pool. I’ll take a margarita if you’re up for splitting it, or cerveza if you aren’t.”

Adrian pronounces it “cerveeeza” and Cheyenne wants to punch him.

“Aren’t they great?” Nicole gushes at the pool. Cheyenne leaves Nicole with her tanning lotion, which smells like lighter fluid and cinnamon. Less sexy, more pirate, Cheyenne thinks.

“I’ll be at the bar,” Cheyenne gags. She adjusts the waistband of her bikini so the tiny Greek letters on her hipbone peek out.

Cheyenne wades into the lukewarm pool and orders a Dark & Stormy. She leans against the counter and brainstorms ways to salvage spring break with Nicole and ditch the frat boys.

“You’re in Kappa?” Slender fingers graze Cheyenne’s hip, then linger. A petite Asian girl with a choppy red bob inspects her tattoo. The girl raises her arm and displays an elaborate one of her own, complete with the same Greek letters. “Hurt like a bitch on my ribcage, but it makes me feel so badass. I’m Whitney.”

“Cheyenne,” Cheyenne traces the interwoven knots down Whitney’s side. They are linked by their sorority tattoos and their inability to stop touching them.

“Tequila sunrise, please,” Whitney’s fingers brush against the length of Cheyenne’s stomach as she turns to the bartender. Both women know it is not an accident.

“You know what? Make that two,” Cheyenne smiles.

Written by: Erin Justice
Photograph by: Hannah Chertock

The Regular

“Knock on wood,” Charles chuckled, rapping his knuckles on the bar and fumbling for the light in his pocket.

The bartender, Dan—Danny as he was known by regulars at The Poodle Dog Lounge—had just finished another of his perpetually optimistic “if/then” arguments on how the ’Boys were destined for the playoffs.

But Charles knew better. He’d seen—and heard—it all before.

Still, Danny is a good kid, Charles thought.

I was a good kid once, too. But that was before.
Before the long days. Before the late nights. Before Linda.

His hand passed to the next pocket of his stained microsuede jacket, fingering every familiar crevice, the seams surprisingly intact. Sure, the cuffs were frayed and the smell of smoke—black and white—lingered permanently, but the coat held its own.

And to think what that Injun sold it for. It’s funny what booze’ll do to a man.

The door screeched open and light poured in, illuminating the ever-present stream of dust and particleboard wafting from the over-cranked A/C. A young couple stumbled through the entrance. Charles caught the glint of what he thought was a Volvo keychain.

Sloppy.

Their giggles dying down, the fresh meat came to a standstill a few feet in. Scoping the scene, they began to whisper to one another.

Charles hated that.

“Why can’t people just say what they mean? I mean, this is America, God damn it! Land of the free speech, home of the bravado, and all that crap,” he’d say. But Linda wasn’t listening.

Linda never listened.

The newcomers reeled around, herding themselves toward the door. Above it: a half-rusted exit sign next to which the word “only” had been carved, alongside a rough caricature of someone’s rear end.

“That’s a real pain in the crass,” Charles used to joke with Buck, the previous barkeep, who couldn’t help but groan.

Buck had passed a few years back. Charles was sorry he couldn’t make the funeral, but he’d poured one out while watching the game. There had been a lot riding on “that one.”

Fuck the ’Boys.

Fuck Linda.
“Fuck, that’s bright,” came a cry from the shadows as the tourists took their leave. “It’s like the land of the rising sun in here.”

Pat.

Pat, the patron—that’s what Charles called him anyway. He’d never known Pat’s given name. But he didn’t need to; they’d shared drinks and stories and Marlboros—none of that American Spirit shit. They’d shot pool together. They’d swapped life lessons with Buck. Hell, they’d bled together. Pat; Pat was a blood brother.

The hinges swang shut. “I didn’t know!” Charles thought he could make out one of the outsiders chirp at the other.

“That’s the problem with kids today,” Pat bemoaned. “They can’t tell if they’re coming or…” he broke into a half cough, half laugh, half gasp. Then he turned the tank nozzle half-a-notch, or thereabouts.

Pat knew. Pat was wise beyond even his years.

There was a special place in Heaven just waiting for Pat: a stool with his (real) name on it. Pat was one of the good guys.

“I hope he outlasts us all,” Charles had toasted once, before tossing back a shot of Jack with the boys, while some sissy onlooker sipped his Scotch.

He’d cracked the glass on the first slam and cut his finger. “Amazin’ how the littlest cuts’ll bleed forever and a day.”

He’d soaked the back half-seat of Linda’s pickup straight through to the foam. But the man had problems of his own.

“Where the hell is my light?” he muttered aloud, having reached his limit on time spent without the lucky striker.

The lighter had been a gift from his father. Stainless steel. Emblazoned with an eagle—an eagle killin’ a snake, nonetheless! God bless America.

His father had been a true American, a red-blooded American. A patriot, as the French would say. And dagnabbit if he hadn’t been willing to do whatever it took to preserve that way of life, including swapping a fat cash cow or two (who could count?) with that dirt farmer from down south for that fine fire-starter.

“Aha!” he proclaimed, finally finding the prized heirloom behind the two empty glasses in front of him. “Sneaky bastard, ain’tcha?”

It was there. It was always there. It had always been there.

It was there to light candles on his eighteenth birthday. It was there to fan the flame of Lord knows how many cigs on his first tour. It was there to stoke the celebratory stogie when his first-born was… y’know.

It was there on the Fourth, when the kids needed to fire up the roman candles to burn out each other’s eyes.

And it was there when that first “LATE:” notice came; for all the overnights; the 12-minute “lunch” breaks; the 5 a.m. “happy” hours.

It was there at the end. It was there to burn the papers she had signed—and made him sign. It was there. It was always there.

Just like The Poodle Dog. The Poodle Dog was always there. The Poodle Dog had always been there.

For birthdays. For holidays. For that promotion. For funerals.

R.I.P., Buck.

Chuck crossed himself, or rather, backward-J’d himself, forgetting where the fourth tap should land.

“Aww, to hell with it.” And with one, two, three strikes came the flicker of flame and the sweet release. Paradise in his lungs—his haven on Earth.

“Hey, hey… Charlie! …You can’t do that in here,” Dan chided from across the bar, one eye on Charles, one eye on the girl he was (over)serving, and another on the front door.

What? Does he think Serpent Co. is about to bust the joint?

“Since when?” Charles inquired, earnestly.

“Since so-and-so said so… whenever… awhile ago.”

“Oh, come on, Danny boy! Be a team player. You’re a good guy.”

“It’s Donald,” spat back the young buck, rolling his eyes and snatching the smoke. “Danny only works Tuesdays. And those things will kill you anyway.”

“Knock on wood.”

Written by: Josh McGonigle
Photograph by: Chris Boyles