When Nothing Counts

Gore wants to be a stuntman. Delilah wants to come with. Gore keeps telling her it’s not like that, none of the guys were bringing their girls. The policy is a strict No-Girlfriends-Allowed.

The two of them are on the Ferris wheel. It’s stuck again.

“I have to get out of here,” Delilah says, kicking the air as though it were water. “My mother’s driving me crazy. Bessie’s leaving for the convent next week and busy with her replacement sisters, so now it’s just me and Mother…you know last week, she dipped soybeans in bleach and had me hide them in every corner of the house? To kill off the critters, she said…but of course, critters don’t eat soybeans, so now they’re just sitting there, browning, these little rotten poison pills.”

Gore looks out over the fields. The line where the hills meet the horizon looks like it’s been drawn in by a paintbrush. The square red barns, haystacks singed orange, cows on trim green grass—all of it could’ve been inside a production studio. Brought to you by technicolor.

“I’ll make sundaes for us every day. You love my sundaes, Gore.” Delilah takes his arm and nuzzles it. “Sundaes with lime and coconut swirl for dinner, chocolate mousse for dessert.”

The boys in the carriage below are trying to get their attention. They’re banging against the glass with their fists. They’re making lewd signs with their hands. They’re thrusting their hips and wagging their tongues and waving their arms like monkeys.

“Oh, Gore,” Delilah says, her face now buried completely in his chest, “take me away.”

The fire department is assembled at the base of the Ferris wheel. Before the firefighters can begin their rescue, they must raise the ladder—before they raise the ladder, they must navigate the fire truck through the amusement park. Obstacles include: lake-sized patches of mud, roller coaster tracks, two adjacent tilt-a-whirls. Their biggest challenge is the crowd of booths near the entrance—inside these booths, pinstriped employees sit like puppets, looking up at the Ferris wheel as they spool cotton candy out of floss, dip hot dogs in corn batter.

Next to the firefighters stands Ms. Bristol, Gore’s teacher. Ms. Bristol recently advised Gore’s mother to hold him back until he could read at an eleventh grade level. When Gore learned of this, he walked straight to the fairground and played the high striker game until his arms went limp. It was a nice feeling, the hammer coming down. The bell shivering once it was hit. The puck rocketing up, speeding skyward, a ball of mercury in a fever-pitched thermometer.

Ms. Bristol was responsible for today’s last-day-of-school field trip. Over the years she’s chaperoned this event, she’s had to be counselor, arbitrator, nurse—now all she could do was wait, clutch her hands to the rim of her sun hat.

They should’ve closed the ride the last time this happened. The youngest Wilson boy had been alone on it, right at closing. For weeks after, he had nightmares of the circle detaching from its lateral support arms, rolling down the hill, gaining traction like some great hamster wheel. A rumor got around that, since then, the Wilson boy was sleeping with a blankie; the boys who beat him up are the same who, in the carriage below, are pounding heavier. Mouthing more aggressively.

This wasn’t the first time they’d taunted Gore, though their preferred target was his brother with the spine brace. If Gore’s father ever found out about the teasing, he’d show them. Gore’s father, a mechanic, could lift anything. One time he came home late and, arms swinging, scooped Gore in one hand and his brother in the other. Gore remembered his father’s fingers spreading under his ribcage, fitting into the trenches between the bones. When his brother started moaning about his back, and his mother begged for them to be put down, his father only raised them higher—almost to the ceiling, Gore stretched out every muscle in his body, testing his wingspan.

“We can be real adults together, Gore.”

Gore looks at Delilah, startled. Reality’s pretend, he wants to say. A real-life stuntman had once come to the auto body shop, and that’s what he’d said. Gore could tell he was a stuntman just from his muscles—the man could’ve lifted a whole Chevy if he wanted to. While Gore worked on the car, the two of them talked. The stuntman had lots of advice, about Hollywood, about agents, about executing a perfect backflip. At one point, the stuntman tossed some nuts and bolts on the ground like jacks and said, When nothing counts, might as well take a risk.

Delilah draws a heart on the corduroy of his pant leg. “Let’s have a baby, Gore.”

Gore leans forward and presses his hands against the glass. He’d done higher. The fences were around ten. The willow tree in the school ground was about this height, so was the telephone pole. The window of the silo had been even higher, though that leap had ended badly.

He looks back at Delilah—Delilah looks real pretty and plush, there, facing the sunset. They’d been an item for so long, he’d forgotten how nice her features were. Those soft creases on her lips. The rosebuds under her cheeks. Was it the light, or had she started wearing makeup?

The boys below had fogged the glass and, in the cloud, drawn two stick figures—one small Gore-boy, one small Delilah-girl—engaged in something obscene.

Gore looks out and stands. He takes a small step forward, pushing his weight against the glass door until it opens. Wind rushes against his face and neck. He reaches above to steady himself and slings one leg over the sill, then another. Positioning his feet squarely below his shoulders, he tenses his calves for impact.

Last step, Gore thinks, is to close your eyes—close them tight enough to see little stars behind your lids.

“Watch me, Delilah.”

Written by: Frani O'Toole

Photograph by: Siyan Ren

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

The Front Door

I was always surprised by the long drop to the ground from that window, no matter how many times I did it. I would lie with my stomach on the window, my legs stretching down as far they could before I would let myself drop to the grass. I hit the bushes most of the time, and almost always lost my shoes, but every now and then I would just miss and land with shoes intact. On those nights it seemed luck was with me. Strange, but when I left the house by the window, life's forbidden possibilities seemed so close at hand. Grandpa must have known I escaped. I think he planted that bush there to make it harder for me, but he never said a word. Doug was always there, waiting in the dark with a tender kiss.

That night we were headed to a party at Roger's house, a ten minute walk. Roger’s parents lived in the center of my little town -- alcoholics who always seemed rumpled and sad. They encouraged Roger's friends to hang out there by ignoring all company. The house was dingy, but you could tell it used to be nice -- a white wood-frame 50's style home with oversized rooms and lots of character. The back part of the house was added on later with narrow halls and lower ceilings. It felt like a cave, the perfect hangout for us.

That night the blender was making margaritas in the kitchen; Mrs. was doing the honors. It was rare to see her out of her bedroom as she was quiet -- not shy, just closed off. Her presence that night was explained by the fact that some relatives of Roger's were coming over and she wanted to see them. They were attending A&M, which made them celebrities. I had a secret dream of going off to college. I never mentioned this to any of my friends. I didn't think they would understand the urge to leave this town.

Doug got me a special margarita with sugar on the rim. He took care of me that way. It was a nice touch, but it made it messy to drink. We were asked to sit around the living room with the parents. Seemed to be the price of the special drinks that night as Mr. and Mrs. had never said a word to us before. We usually just went to the back of the house with the TV on mute and the hard-rock music on so loud we felt it, or we sat around on lawn chairs in the garage where an old ping-pong table sat untouched. I never even saw a paddle. Roger would have the music blaring from his crudely made plywood speaker cabinets housed in trunk of his car. The treble speakers were under the dashboard inside. It was a serious system, if unattractive. With all this heavy metal, not much talking went on. But this evening we were sitting around the living room and it was very uncomfortable, like being in a police lineup. I kept getting sticky sugar fingers, which I tried to wipe off on the sofa when no one was looking.

Mr. and Mrs. were asking what each of us planned for the future. Doug was planning on becoming a welder since he heard it paid real well. Jeff was thinking along the same lines, but he one-upped Doug saying he wanted to do the underwater kind. Roger did not know and said so with annoyance. Just as the question was about to get to me, the phone rang. I was relieved and disappointed in the same instant.

With the distraction of the phone, Roger dragged us to the garage avoiding the margaritas so his parents wouldn’t trap us again. He had beers in the ice box outside. Tonight Roger decided the stereo system had to come out of the car so we could hear it properly. This took an incredible amount of effort--things were cut and reassembled. Roger was proud of that system. After he got it out and working again, requiring some electrical tape and wire stripping, Ozzy Osbourne started playing. We’d seen him live two weeks before after camping out for tickets overnight. We were still all about the bat eater.

By the time we were all getting lazy and stoned, a small, nondescript sedan pulled up. Out stepped a young couple about twenty years old. They seemed deliberate in their movements, or maybe I was just in slow motion. They said they didn't have much time. They just wanted to stop to say hello. They seemed so goal-oriented in that one statement. The tension in the garage went way up and the music went down. Everyone wanted to impress them. Sentences were complete, voices were loud enough to be heard. But mostly, we all wanted to hear what their life was like. They had one more year to go til graduation, and they were already getting offers from Amoco and Conoco, not as welders but engineers. They didn't stay long -- half an hour at most, and Mrs. never made an appearance, but they made an impression on me.

We all were a little depressed when they left. The party kind of fizzled. We felt empty, without purpose. What were we working towards? It was a long, silent walk back to my window. I was bad company and I don’t know why I tried to hide it. Getting back in was always harder, but we had it down. Doug would lock his fingers together and I would step into his hands as he flung me up. Tonight I said, "I got it, you can go". I don't know if he understood, but he nodded as he turned to leave. I waited a bit, and then decided to just go in through the front door.

Written by: Deborah Dwight Brown

Photograph by: Daniel Vidal

Mercy

Dana was standing near the theater when he pulled up in his red BMW to ask for directions. He looked about her age, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, blond hair, golden tan, leading-role actor face, expensive-looking shirt. His overwhelming attractiveness made her instantly wary. Guys who looked like him didn't smile like that at girls with lank dishwater-blond hair, unremarkable faces, and dumpy bodies hidden under shapeless thrift-shop sweaters. They certainly didn't ask them out to the movies.

He introduced himself as John – no last name – just John.

Perhaps she could go with him, but head home right after in case this was a cruel prank or he was trying to recruit her for some crazy cult. Her friends didn't share her taste in movies, and it would be nice to have someone to go with for once, particularly someone so attractive. But she hesitated before getting into his car. She knew it wasn't a smart thing to do, so she scanned the vehicle's interior for signs, her gaze falling upon the photo of a beagle snuggled up to a kitten that sat on the dashboard.

"Your pets?" she asked.

"Yes."

She jumped into his vehicle and then cursed her naiveté as the door shut with an ominous click, trapping her in an enclosed space with a stranger. She rolled down the window to provide an escape hatch.

"The movie doesn't start until seven," she said.

"Is there somewhere we can hang out for a couple of hours?" he asked, flashing his perfect teeth at her.

Perhaps he was just looking for easy sex and assumed that a homely girl would be a quick and easy lay, she told herself to crush her pathetic hopefulness.

"We could go to the lake," she said. "It's only a couple of miles from here."

The lake was actually just a large pond surrounded by a few dilapidated cabins and farmhouses, pretty in a rough sort of way. As they made their way down to the surrounding grass, John looked up at the trees as though amazed by them, stopping to stroke the rough bark of a willow.

While he gazed at the tree, she examined his face, searching for the imperfections that make faces interesting, but his skin told no stories. Everything was symmetrical and immaculate.

After they settled on the grass, he asked about her favorite movies and she described the cheesy sci-fi epics and thrillers she loved.

"So, you like movies where everyone dies?"

"It's funny, because in real life, I can't stand it when anyone is sad. I think movies are my way of facing the darkness in a safe place."

He gazed at the murky pond, frowning. She willed her foot not to twitch. He was so calm and still.

"Are you nervous?" he asked.

She bit her lip. "A little."

"Why?"

"Because I like you."

Her treacherous mouth had released the words before she could stop it, and she wasn't even sure why she liked him. She didn't really know him at all.

"I like you, too," he said, but he wasn't smiling and she couldn't read him. She'd seen attraction on boys' faces a few times in her life, a dilation of the pupils, a quickening of the breath. John showed neither of these signs. Maybe he was gay and wanted a woman to hang around with for cover so that he could stay in the closet. She looked at her watch to escape the awkwardness.

"We should head back."

They rose from the grass. On the way to John's vehicle, Dana spotted something peering through the grimy window of a broken-down barn.

"There's a chicken in there," she said, scanning the surrounding buildings. The place was obviously abandoned. "I need to rescue it."

"Don't you eat chickens?" he asked.

"I'm a vegan. I don't eat anything from animals." she replied as she sought a way into the barn. The only entrance she found was an old gate secured with a rusted padlock.

"Why?"

"Just because you're smarter than something, doesn't give you the right to exploit it. And I'm not even sure we're smarter than them, at least not in the ways that count. I need to break this window."

"I'll do it," he said, unzipping his sweatshirt and wrapping it around his fist. He struck one of the panes with a quick, sharp jab, then watched with evident fascination as Dana coaxed the weak, scrawny bird toward the opening and lifted the little body into her arms.

"My aunt runs an animal sanctuary," she said. "I can bring the chicken to her tomorrow morning."

"Sanctuary," he repeated thoughtfully, as though tasting the word.

"I'm sorry," she said with a pang of regret. "I can't do the movie, now. I have to get food for her."

"What do they eat?"

"Grains, seeds, stuff like that."

"I have sunflower seeds at home. I live nearby."

"That would be awesome!"

This guy is dangerous, she thought. I could fall in love with him.

She'd expected something fancy and intimidating, so she was surprised when he pulled up in front of a decrepit little cottage with flaking paint surrounded by a neglected, overgrown garden. They walked along the broken cobblestones, the yellowing tendrils of wild plants snaking around their ankles. Nothing about John matched up, but she was happy that he lived in a place like this. She could imagine sitting with a second-hand book in the wild chaos of a garden where each plant was allowed to do whatever it wanted. Perhaps she and John weren't so different as she had initially thought.

He opened the door to a dark hallway, and she followed him until it gave way to a room that didn't make sense. Was this a meth lab? The place was full of scientific equipment arrayed on long, shiny, stainless steel counters, so at odds with the rustic exterior of the cottage. Then she spotted the shackles bolted to the gleaming metal table in the center of the room and a scream froze in her throat.

She turned to see John advancing on her. He was holding a long, slender metal object that had to be some sort of weapon, and her last thought was regret that she would die so absurdly, killed by a mad scientist while holding a starving chicken.

There was a flash, and everything went black.

                                                                                            ***

797097 was back on the ship, reporting to his superior officer.

"The meat is no good."

"Full dissection? You conducted all the tests?"

"Yes," he lied. "Very toxic. No usable parts."

"We'll need to find another source, then."

                                                                                            ***

Dana woke by the lake with no memory of how she'd come to be there. She'd been in front of the theater and now she lay on the grass with a scrawny chicken nuzzling her open palm. Had she hit her head? She didn't have a headache. Perhaps she'd fainted. She should go to a clinic and get checked out, but first she would take care of the pitiful animal at her side. For some reason she couldn't fathom, she wanted to name it John.

Written by: Jennifer Copley

Photograph by: Phillip Wolt

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

Cyclones in Kansas

“Pass me those papers will ya, Thea."

His fingers always draw my attention. They seem more capable than the rest of him, like they belong on a different person. His arms are okay, and his eyes are nice enough, but his hands, his fingers, always pull me in. Whether they are picking away at guitar strings or unbuttoning my jeans, I just can’t help but marvel at them in action.

“You start them at the same time and turn down the movie volume. It totally works?”

I turn my attention away from his mouth and back to his hands. I would much rather watch those capable fingers as they roll the joint than listen to another one of his half-true stories. He holds the first puff of smoke in his lungs, and continues talking without expelling any air. Then he leans back and breathes the cloud up into the rafters.

It smells like crap in here, and it makes me want to gag. The shop, which is busy Monday to Friday, is home only to us on weekends. His dad said it was okay for him to bring some friends over to hang out in the break room when the shop is closed. He doesn’t mind about the occasional night of drinking, and he pretends not to know about the pot. We always open the doors wide on Sundays, and the place is aired out before the mechanics arrive on Monday, covered up by the smell of motor oil and gasoline.

I take the offered joint from his fingers, though I don’t really want any. The thought of the skunky smoke in my mouth makes me want to vomit again, so I pass it back to him without bothering to take a toke. He doesn’t notice.

“I watched that movie a million times as a kid without having any idea how trippy it was.”

I manage a grunt to make it look like I care what he is telling me. Satisfied, he continues talking, leaving me to my thoughts, thoughts I don’t want to think anymore.

He taps out the ember of the joint against his shoe before stuffing it in his cigarette pack and shuffling closer to me.

“So you wanna watch with us next weekend?”

“What?”

“The Dark Side of the Moon thing.”

“I don’t know.”

He tugs a strand of hair from my ponytail and twists it around his finger. I am again watching his hands, trying to ignore the rest of him pushed up against me.

“You feel okay?”

“Fine.”

“No more puking?”

“I’m fine.”

He starts kissing my neck and his hands leave my hair.

"No, I can't."

"What's the harm? It's not like it matters now anyway."

"I'm not having sex an hour before I get there. Fuck off."

I push away and go outside to call Aunt Milly. She answers on the first ring. She said she understood that I had to see him, but I know she worried he would change my mind. He always talks so big, so full of bullshit. I guess she thinks I could fall for it, in my condition; that I might run away with him.

Back in the garage, he is stretched out on the couch smoking the rest of the joint. I pull my school backpack out from under his feet.

"K, so I'm leaving, I guess."

"Wanna come back over after?"

"I don’t think so."

"Call me when it’s done. I just can't be there when they do it. Ya know?"

I nod. Of course I know. I don't want to be there either.

                                                                                                   ***

One more hour until I get to be on the other side of this, done with the waiting, done with the vomiting, done with the fucking conversations that always end up at the same place.

“Health card?”

“Yes, I have her card right here.” I watch Milly pull the stack of plastic from a flap in her purse, a card for each of us kids.

I try to stand taller as I enter the waiting room. I don’t want to look so young among these women in their polished shoes with their ruby-painted lips. I am old enough, old enough to understand, old enough to consent, old enough to pay the price, but I don’t look it. I feel their eyes on me, I feel their pity, and I look down at the scuffed toes of my red leather boots, clunking my heels together, wishing I was home.

“It’s okay, Thea. This will all be over soon. One day, when you’re ready, you will have a real baby.”

I wish Milly would stop fidgeting, stop touching me so much. It doesn’t help me; maybe it helps her. They call my name, and I walk away from her. This part I have to do alone. I can share the rest with her. She wants to take the guilt, the sin, away for me, but when it comes down to it, I am walking on my own two legs.

                                                                                                   ***

They said it wouldn't hurt much, and they were right, but the tight, pinchy feeling drives me nuts anyway. The nurse, the same one who handed me a blue gown when I arrived, strokes my hair like Milly used to do when I was little. She smiles at me, but I can’t smile back, not with the rubber mask clamped tight against my face. I suck the gas deep into my lungs. As the world begins to stutter, I picture a black hole, swirling in the dead, flat centre of my body; deep where my insides are being scraped clean. I focus all my thoughts on the twirling mess of anti-matter filling me up.

The hungry tornado gobbles the contents of my womb, leaving me empty. Alone again with my own black and blue heart.

The cramps confirm that it’s over. The question has been answered, the decision has been made, I will not be a mother today. I will go back to being just Thea, Thea the lonely, the selfish. My body knows it’s done, confirmed by the ache, and later the finality of the bright, slick blood. Done.

Gone.

Alone.

Written by: Sarah Scott
Photograph by: Marshall Blevins

I'm Positive

You deserve this.

After countless days and nights spent scouring every byte on your external hard drive for the most pixel-perfect representations of your photographic eye, you deserve this.

After staging sit-ins in all of your teachers’ offices until they agreed to write you a glowing letter of recommendation, you deserve this.

After considering your competition–Shelly, the Sepia Queen; Oscar, the Overexposer; Lauren, the Lighting Illiterate; all the other hacks who call themselves photographers just because they own a DSLR–you definitely deserve this.

Then you get it, the envelope you’ve been checking the mailbox for every day since your submission. It’s thinner than you expected, but hey, how many pieces of paper does it take to say YOU’RE ACCEPTED?

You can’t answer that. All you know is it takes one to say you’re rejected.

You’re speechless.

You check the envelope to make sure it doesn’t say Shelly or Oscar or Lauren. All you see is your name, a name you’ve never been that fond of, and in this moment you absolutely fucking hate it.

You hate your parents: for giving you that name, for not giving you a camera until your freshman year of high school, for getting divorced.

Whoa. You’re spiraling.

This isn’t about them. This is about you. You suck. You failed. You should kill yourself.

No, no. You shouldn’t kill yourself. You should go back inside, your neighbors are watching.

You need to turn over the letter. Maybe it says PSYCHE on the back, and you’re actually accepted–those kooky artists types. Nope.

You get a text. Did you see Shelly’s Instagram?

You didn’t, but you will now.

SHIT! Why’d you do that!? Couldn’t you tell by Sam’s syntax that you were walking into a trap?

Guess who’s going to be posting a ton of pictures from RISD? This girl!

No shit, Shelly. We could infer from your stupid, sepia-toned selfie and that giant Rhode Island School of Design envelope you’re holding in your non-dominant hand that you are This Girl! You WHORE! You should kill yourself.

Not YOU, you. Shelly you.

You should find a distraction. Video games? TV? Pornography?

No, no. You should lie down. You should stare at those fan blades until they suck up all your pain and chop it into teeny tiny little pieces. Never mind. It’s summer, which means they’re moving counter clockwise. Which means you should stare at them until they blow your sorrows out the back of your skull like Marvin’s brains in Pulp Fiction.

You hear that? It’s a car. Your mom’s car. You should hide.

No, no. You shouldn’t hide. You should just tell her. She’s going to find out sooner or later. She’s going to know something’s up when fall semester rolls around and you’re still lying on her couch, staring at fan blades.

“Any news?” she says, every syllable drenched in hope.

You should lie. Tell her no. Buy yourself a little time.

Too late. She knows. She knows if the answer were no, you would’ve said so by now. She knows if the answer were yes, you would be flipping your shit like when you were a onesie-wearing, teeth-missing little brat and she asked, “Did the Tooth Fairy pay you a visit?”

“I’m sorry, Sweetheart. Mommy’s here when you’re ready to talk.”

You wish you didn’t feel that tear hit your forehead when she leaned over to give you a kiss. You wish your pain was yours alone, and that it didn’t pile on to the heap of hurt she’s been carrying since her marriage toppled over like a crumbling wedding cake, but empathy is at the heart of every great parent.

You wait until she leaves the living room and grab her keys.

“I’m going for a drive,” you say.

“Whatever you need,” she answers from the kitchen.

You fire up the engine and promptly turn off the Sheryl Crow CD she’s had on heavy rotation since the day she and your dad finalized the divorce papers.

You pull out of the driveway with no destination in mind. You just know you have to steer clear of your favorite coffee shop. Beth is working, and she can’t find out what a shitty photographer you are. Not yet. Not until you’ve helped her put together her modeling portfolio.

Sam. You should try to find Sam so you two can talk shit about Shelly until you’ve convinced yourself that the only logical explanation for her acceptance is that she must’ve blown the Dean of Admissions.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Shelly has never been anything but nice to you. Shelly has never been anything but nice to anyone. Maybe that’s why she’s going to be a huge success, and you’re going to die a miserable piece of shit. You should try being nice for a change, starting with Shelly.

Shelly, what’s something nice you could do for Shelly? Oh! You could like her Instagram post!

You scroll to the photo and hover your finger over the empty heart while trying to drain the dangerous mix of envy and spite from the one in your chest. You go against your wicked nature and press the button. A giant heart eclipses her post and another photo pops up on her feed. It’s her camera lense, shattered across the pavement like your hopes and dreams.

This celebratory photo shoot is not off to a good start :(

You smile, but quickly wipe it off your face. You’re nice now, remember?

You text her.

Hey Shelly. Congrats on RISD! Bummer about your lens though. You can borrow my extra for the summer if you want?

Thanks Gareth! That would be amazing! Are you sure?

I’m Positive.

You’re my hero! I’ll be sure to drop it off at your dorm ;)

I’m afraid that’s not possible. I didn’t get in :(

WHAT!!!!!!!?????? But you’re like, the best photog in our entire class! Maybe even the entire WORLD!

Ha! Well, now I guess you are.

Ha! I guess so.

Fuck it. You still hate her.

Written by: Mark Killian

Photograph by: Josh McGonigle

No Console for Old Men

Cliff watched in horror as his grandson stepped out of the car and jump kicked a scantily-clad woman in the spine, laughing maniacally as she plummeted to the ground. Once she was sprawled out on the pavement, he pulled out a baseball bat and proceeded to bash her skull in until money spilled out of her purse like the blood streaming out of her head. he collected the wad of cash and returned to his vehicle, but not before throwing a grenade at the lifeless body, extinguishing the flames with a round of ammunition from an automatic rifle.

“Tiffany, I don’t want Jacob playing that game any more,” Cliff said entering the kitchen.

Tiffany sighed and continued peeling potatoes, her charm bracelet jingling as the curls of coarse skin rained down on the garbage disposal.

“Save it, Dad.”

“No, Tiffany. It’s your son who needs to be saved.”

“He’s just a normal fifteen-year-old boy.”

“A fifteen-year-old boy who brutally murders prostitutes!”

“In a video game.”

“Does that make it any better?”

“YES.”

Tiffany turned around to face her father, tightening her fingers around the partially shaved vegetable like a prison shiv.

“You’re right,” Cliff conceded. “It’s certainly better on the TV than in the streets, but it’d be best if he didn’t do it at all.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have bought him that game for Christmas.”

“THAT is the game I got him?”

Tiffany smirked and returned to her duties.

“Yep.”

“Then I’m taking it away.”

“Good luck.”

Cliff returned to the living room to find Jacob’s eyes transfixed on the screen as a curvaceous woman wearing practically no clothing threw two blades into the torso of a man in a blue mask, sashayed across the room, grabbed his face, ripped off his head, and pulled down the thin purple veil covering her mouth to reveal a set of demonic teeth, which she then used to gnaw through his face like a competitive pie eater. Once her appetite was satisfied, she spiked what remained of his head into the ground and rubbed his blood all over her body, emitting moans of pleasure as her hands traveled below her navel.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Cliff uttered.

“GRANDDAD,” Jacob said, quickly covering the controller and his crotch with a throw pillow.

Cliff walked over to the gaming console and began searching for an off switch.

“Granddad, seriously, what are you doing?”

“How do you shut this damn thing off?”

“YOU don’t shut it off,” Jacob said, standing up from the couch.

Jacob grabbed hold of his granddad’s bicep, which maintained a surprising amount of the muscle he gained during three tours of duty and several decades of construction. Cliff ignored Jacob’s grasp and began unplugging the cords from the back of the machine.

“STOP,” Jacob yelled, tugging on Cliff’s arm with all of his might.

Cliff remained perfectly still, save for the hand he sent darting towards Jacob’s wrist. Jacob’s nostrils flared as Cliff’s fingers plucked his veins like guitar strings, forcing him to loosen his grip. Cliff began rotating his hand until Jacob was on his knees pleading for mercy.

“I SURRENDER,” Jacob yelled.

“You would,” Cliff responded, setting Jacob free to cower on the sofa.

Cliff finished unplugging the game console and tucked it beneath his arm.

“When you’re done crying, meet me in the car,” Cliff said as he marched out the door.

Tiffany poked her head out from the kitchen with a grin on her face.

“You heard him,” she said. “Get out there or I’ll tell all your friends you just got your butt kicked by a senior citizen.”

Her eyes followed Jacob to the door. He scowled back and shook the pain from his arm while reaching for the knob.

“I’m calling Social Services,” he threatened.

“So you can tell THEM a senior citizen kicked your ass?”

Jacob answered by slamming the door.

“Oh good,” Cliff shouted from behind the wheel. “I was afraid natural sunlight might kill you. You know, like a vampire.”

“I get it,” Jacob scoffed, climbing into the car.

“Oh, cheer up. Before you know it, I’ll be dead, and you can go back to beating up prostitutes and touching yourself to warrior women.”

“I WASN’T TOUCHING MYSELF.”

“Sure you weren’t.”

Cliff put the Oldsmobile in reverse and pulled out of the driveway. They rode in silence all the way to the park where grandparents and grandchildren regularly fly kites together.

“SURPRISE,” Cliff said after pulling into the parking lot.

“Kites?”

“Come on, give me an hour and you can kill all the hookers your heart desires.”

Jacob pulled his phone from his pocket and set a timer.

“Tick-tock,” he said, flashing his granddad the screen.

Cliff gathered the kites from the trunk and handed them to Jacob, along with the mission to find a patch of clean airspace while he takes a leak. Jacob walked towards the field with two kites beneath his left arm and a smartphone in his right hand.

Cliff exited the bathroom and scanned the sky for the Spongebob Squarepants kite he had given Jacob on his eighth birthday. To his surprise, he found the yellow and porous diamond fighting against the wind about fifty yards to his left.

He walked towards the spot and traced the string with his eyes, soon discovering that Jacob wasn’t manning the handle. He stopped and looked around the lawn until he saw another Spongebob kite facedown in the grass. Beside it was a scraggly-haired teenager with his head pointed straight down at a phone he was gripping with both of his hands.

When Cliff was close enough to see the screen he saw something he’d been trying to forget for the better part of his adult life. He saw an earth-toned helmet, he saw crosshairs, and then, he saw Jacob tap his thumb against the glass, making the helmet and its occupant vanish behind a puff of blood.

“I surrender,” Cliff murmured, gathering the kites and retreating to the car.

 
Written by: Mark Killian
Photograph By: Sophie Stuart

You Only Live Once

I’m standing in line for what my son and in his friends call the “YOLO-Coaster of Doom,” and my son's cutting me that slicing teenage glance that lets me know this is my one opportunity to prove myself. I've got my pup tent clearly parked on the border between Lame Dad and yo, Michael, your dad's all right. I am determined to end up in the preferable camp.

I’ve worked hard since Joanna and I split to cultivate a look that says I’m with it. Half-zip grey sweaters. Hair wax. NPR glasses, which Jamie, the optometrist's cute assistant, swore make me look thoughtful. I’m trying too hard, but at least I know I’m trying too hard. And shouldn't I?

When the woman you've mostly loved for seventeen years drags your name through a mixture of mud and sewage, you have to become the kind of dad your kid isn’t embarrassed to be with in public. But so far it's easier to get approval from the optometrist's assistant.

So here I am in line for the YOLO-Coaster of Doom. Michael's a respectable distance ahead, goofing off with his stoner buddies who I am trying hard not to judge, as they've got the power here. Dan, the taller one, doesn't say much, but laughs a fakey huh-huh at everything the other two say. The second half-bake, whom everyone calls Squirrel, is busy ogling a busty park employee escorting a Make-a-Wish group to the front of the line.

"They're like! They're like! Torpedoes!" Squirrel booms, and Michael makes that explosion sound with his mouth, the one he's been perfecting since he was six.

"Huh huh," Dan laughs.

Now Michael's cutting me another glance to see if I'm going to shut it down. To see if I'm going to pull a Joanna and remind them about the connectedness of the universe and the equality of humanity. To remind them karma's a total bitch.

Using only my eyebrow, I send Michael a look that says, "You make your own choices."

My son. My son, who is angry and has the right to be. My son, who has just transitioned from smoking pot at the end of the driveway to the bold test of smoking pot in his bathroom with the window open. Who has taken to sporting a ridiculous Rasta hat. Who complains when he comes over to my shitty rental, grumbling, “You should’ve fought Mom for the big TV.” He loads each action, each rolling eyeball, with a dare.

The line’s finally moving.

“You’re not gonna puke, are you?” Michael asks.

“I think I can hold it together,” I say.

“One time? I was here on Halloween? This lady was drunk?” Squirrel starts, his voice getting higher at the end of every phrase. “She puked EVERYWHERE.”

“Huh huh,” Dan laughs.

“Sick,” says Michael. “You better not puke, Dad. But just wait for the corkscrew. It is insane.”

“I’ve ridden a few coasters in my day,” I say, realizing this phrase has the opposite of the intended effect. In my day. Jesus.

The park employee with the boobs ushers us into the boarding area. Squirrel and Dan fist bump as they score seats in the front of the coaster. Michael looks vaguely sullen, but then elbows me.

“Buckle up,” he says.

The coaster cranks into motion. We start up the first hill and grind toward the top, each click and jolt of the machinery pushing us farther into the morning sky. I button my glasses into my shirt pocket.

“Your hat,” I say to Michael, but the coaster is toppling over the edge now, and Michael just grins and holds a hand to his head.

“Woooooo!” whoops Squirrel.

The YOLO-Coaster is everything. The first drop is perpendicular with the ground, and I’m suddenly relating to that warning about old-timey scuba suits—when you cut the air line and it depressurizes too fast, your internal organs force up into your helmet. But I don’t barf.

The corkscrew isn’t much better. The ground and sky become a giant loop. Squirrel is still Wooo-ing, and I look over at Michael, who is clenching his Rasta hat in one fist. He’s gritting his teeth. Is he—crying? Without my glasses I can’t tell. Maybe it’s sweat, but I swear it’s a tear, sliding from his eye and clinging to his cheek, despite the g-force wind pulling his skin against his bones so he looks like a corpse.

After I moved out, Joanna and I dividing our possessions like picking teams in gym class (Her: Give me the couch. Me: I pick the grill), Michael did what all the divorce websites said he would. He didn’t cry. He started acting out, failing tests and getting caught with pot on school property. Joanna would text me from work, and I’d go down to the high school and do the dad thing. I’d stand in the principal’s office and say, “We’re going through some stuff at home right now,” while Michael grabbed his crap from his locker to prepare for a two-day suspension.

Sometimes, before Joanna met Suraj at her yoga class and all the shit went down, we’d rent a convertible for a few hours, and I’d drive us, fast, out in the country. Her hair would whip in the wind like a commercial for youth and happiness, and I’d catch her crying, overwhelmed by the rush. She’d put her feet up on the dash, even though she knew it could kill her if we wrecked. But we would never wreck.

But that was before. Before Joanna met Suraj. Before I met Ashley Kletzinger, to get Joanna back for Suraj. Before even my friends took Joanna’s side, saying stuff like, “It’s really not for me to judge, but how old is Ashley?” Before I broke it off with Ashley and told Joanna that love was a choice I was committed to making. Convertible rides and happiness were before she said she was choosing to direct her love somewhere else, and I should probably come over and clean out my half of the closet.

The coaster jolts to a stop back at the boarding zone.

“Duuuuuude!” Squirrel bellows.

“Epic,” Dan grunts.

“You were right,” I say to Michael. “That was insane.”

Michael wipes his face with the back of his hand.

“I think I got a bug in my eye,” he says.

“Bummer,” I say.

“Hey Dad,” he says.

Thanks for bringing us here, I want him to say. Let’s ride it again, I want him to say. Then I’ll know he’s okay, that the half of him that’s Joanna was feeling free and alive, and he’s happy. Or what I really want to hear: I still love you.

“Yeah?” I answer.

“Can you give us money for the midway?”

“Sure,” I say. “Whatever you want.”

Written by: Dot Dannenberg
Photograph by: Matt Crump