Validation

People used to tell me I was a good writer. I worked on some flashy accounts in my 30s. But being able to write isn’t much use to a copywriter since a Twitter feed became an acceptable body of work. I took this freelance job because, well, they offered it to me. No one has done that in a while.

I know they saw my portfolio because the thing I paid a 19-year-old to add to my website told me so—one new view from a mobile device lasting two and a half minutes. My face gets hot just thinking about it. A recently promoted creative director scrolls through my life’s work at a stoplight on the way home from the office at 3am. He watches my commercial for Pennzoil and doesn’t laugh. Why would he? His dad still takes his car to get the oil changed for him. Fucking millennials.

Cruising from level to level, every parking spot in the garage is the size of a portal leading into John Malkovich’s brain. Do this many compact cars even exist in America? I park my 8-seater like a complete jerk and hustle to the elevator. I catch my reflection in the stainless steel doors. Is a 40-year-old woman wearing high tops hip or hilarious? A young man appears next to me wearing the kind of suit that looks too small but isn’t. He wants me to see his socks, right?

I walk into the office and look around. There are no cubicles, just rows of desks topped with shiny technology. I pause at the receptionist’s desk. Her age and outfit appear to be violating all sorts of labor laws.

“Welcome to Pop, how can I help you?”

“I’m Margaret Kay, the freelance writer you called.”

“Totally. Welcome. We’re swamped so I’m so glad we found someone who is available.”

Unfolding from behind the desk like a newborn foal, she leads me through the office.

“Great timing because they just kicked off a Gogo.com brainstorm.”

We arrive at a conference room where a vertical garden covers the entirety of one wall. Everything smells like parsley.

“Hey team! This is Margaret. She’s the writer helping us out.”

Their heads bob up from various screens, they mumble hello, and their heads drop back down. I sit and open my thick, white MacBook. A handsome guy wearing a tank top is leading the meeting. He looks at me and suddenly the light above me feels twice as fluorescent as all the others.

“Did they email you a brief?”

I nod and pull a piece of paper out of my laptop case. Everyone seems confused by its tangibility.

“Any questions before we get started?” asks Tank Top.

“Am I right that the gist of the campaign is, Gogo.com is the new and better Amazon.com?”

He smiles and I forget about my crow’s feet.

“You’ve got it.”

Then a young woman, broadcasting mixed messages with her neck tattoos and Nancy Reagan-esque tweed suit, speaks up.

“Well, we can’t say Amazon.”

“That makes sense because they’re a competitor,” I reply agreeably. “So it’s more like, Gogo.com is the new and better place to shop online.”

Now Chubby Ex-Frat Boy has something to add.

“We can’t say ‘new’ because the site launched over six months ago.”

“I think ‘better’ is off limits, too,” says Tattoo Nancy. “We can’t back up that claim.”

“So where are these ads going to run?” I ask, scanning the brief.

All of a sudden Tank Top addresses me like I’m a dementia patient.

“At Pop, we don’t create advertising. We create stories.”

“I see. Where are we going to share these stories? Facebook? Times Square?”

Chubby Ex-Frat Boy seems bored by me.

“The campaign is running exclusively on Snapchat,” he says.

“Isn’t that the one that disappears after 30 seconds?”

“10,” Tattoo Nancy says without looking up.

I stare at the garden wall and wonder if they would let me take home some herbs. Bon Appétit has a recipe for parsley risotto I really want to try.

“What if we show a guy surfing on a credit card and in the waves we see things he might buy, like a bike helmet…an electric razor…that kind of thing?” says Tank Top.

This gets Tattoo Nancy going.

“Yeah, and maybe it ends with a line like, ‘Deals that won’t wipe you out,’” she adds.

So puns are acceptable again. That makes sense considering how kids these days seem to be fascinated by the 1980s. I manage to be both too old and too young for this crowd.

Tank Top jumps up, grabs a dry erase marker, and plants in front of the whiteboard. He starts scrawling the surfer idea.

“That’s good, that’s good. What else?”

Chubby Ex-Frat Boy sets down his array of devices.

“Maybe there’s a cheerleader—a hot cheerleader—and she’s jumping around with this sign that says, ‘Shop for your team at Gogo.com!’”

And just like that, another gem on the whiteboard. I start sweating. I need to contribute something, that’s what I’m here for. Yesterday, I spent the entire day cleaning out our garage and now, like some sort of miracle, both of our cars can fit inside. I should start a garage-organizing business. I clear my throat.

“What if there’s a cute puppy—like a golden retriever—and he’s tearing up a shoe. We hear a woman’s voice over say, ‘Come, Gogo, come!’ Then a line comes up: ‘Great deals on shoes and more at Gogo.com.’”

Silence.

“We could do a series of them starring Gogo the dog and he’s always chewing on something different that you can buy at Gogo.com.”

Silence and then…Tank Top starts writing.

“I love it,” he says. “That kind of story has share value.”

Are those like stock options? I decide not to ask.

“Cool,” I say coolly.

An hour later, I get back in my car. They asked me to come back for another brainstorm tomorrow. When I pull up to the parking garage attendant, I realize I forgot to get my ticket validated by Bambi the receptionist. The woman in the booth tells me it’s going to be $30. That’s how much I charge per hour, so basically I was never here. I hand over the money and stare at the attendant. She looks to be about my age, with long, thin hair and spotty teeth. A book called Love at Sea is sitting open across her broad lap. I realize I’m jealous. I wonder how much she makes an hour?


Written by: CE Jordan
Photograph by: Daniel Vidal

Stanley Cupid's Eulogy & Coda

Varying Degrees of Murder

On a rainy-day Tuesday I murdered Cupid. It was an accident of course. No amount of spit-in-my-face romance would drive me to murder the entire industrial complex of love. I loved love. Love made singing birds, giggling babies, and the most honest smiles ever smiled.

Also, there was no body. It had vanished like a sock after a dryer run. Poof.

“Manslaughter,” I sighed. “A case of murder-lite. At most.”

“I’m not a lawyer,” said Van, “but I don’t think there are degrees of murder.”

“Yes, there are, you idiot. There are literally degrees of murder. Second degree murder. First degree. Etc.”

That was Joan Newman. I was in love with her, though it was a new love, the age of which was approximately three, call it...eh...four hours.

“No body,” I said.

“True,” said Van. He struck a thinking man’s pose. “A guilty verdict might be tough to…”

“Should we, like, do something for him?” she interrupted. “Some sort of eulogy? I mean, he was a man…”

“Was he?” I asked Joan.

We both looked at Van.

“What?” he said, like an idiot. Like Van. Like the oblivious assistant: King of the Fuckboys.

How We Got Here

My path to murd… err… manslaughter, began with a harmless crush. A crush that would have made Aphrodite proud. One of those attractions that, even if only for a moment, makes you believe we are more than walking sticks of DNA, bumping and fucking our way to the grave.

I worked at a place called “Charlie’s Books” which was a goddamn awful place to work. Don’t let the name fool you - there were dozens of them. They gave 5 Ways to be Wealthy: Get Rich Bitch (Or Your Money Back) prime real estate and buried Nabokov in the back with Joyce and Fitzy. We had to wear name-tags, and mine said Jonah. That’s my name, BTW. There was also a place to write your favorite book on the name-tag, and so I wrote Moby Dick.

“I love that book,” a nice older woman said to me that very same day, the first day of the name-tag.

“I’ve never read it.”

“So why did you write it on your name-tag?”

I shrugged. “Seemed like low-hanging fruit.”

She wandered off, and I felt pretty bad. I don’t think she got it. People say I have issues with my tone, young man.

I got written up by the manager (on my first fucking day!), so I had to change my favorite book to How to Win Friends and Influence People because fuck you, Charlie. And your books.

Anyway, I fell in love with Joan Newman because she was a writer, and wore black frame glasses, and white high-top Converse below a dress and a sweater. Also because I fall in love easily. I tell people that I’m a romantic, which is different than actually being a romantic, but I’m one of those too. My brothers call me a pussy, which is just not cool, bros.

Joan was a pretty great writer on a book tour. She hailed from the west coast and was trudging her way across the Great Plains via a host of Holiday Inn Expresses, dodging Oklahoma’s imperfect smiles and aggressively Christian billboards while, she felt, her artistic integrity lit itself on fire. She found herself bible-belt sequestered, stuck in the rain.

She read from her book, Woman in the Mirror: My Decade of Dancing Like Beyonce and Being a Bad Bitch, and complained that she couldn’t buy wine at the grocery. We told her it was because Jesus didn’t want her getting too drunk, but she was still pissed. Nobody told Joan Newman what to do. Not even Jesus. Especially not Jesus.

Love’s a Battlefield w/ Crossbows

Joan Newman, damply fabulous under a red and white umbrella, was cutting through an alley to cut some time. It was late, near midnight. Post book-reading. Her white Converse were muddied but gaining character by the step.

I wasn’t following her, so much as walking a respectful distance behind in the same direction. Could I have walked with her? Sure! Did I? Hahahah...

Either way, she wasn’t being safe. The neighborhood gentrification had set and dried (which was kind of shitty, and also kind of historically inevitable), but nitrogenated cold-coffee shops or not, there were always pockets of danger in the witching hour. We should have been in an Uber. One of the cheap ones.

Even though I was on high alert, it was still pretty surprising when a Hobbit-like figure slide into the alleyway behind Joan. Most appearances are pretty surprising in dark alleyways around midnight, I suppose. Per my nature, I immediately thought, Nothing good can come of this. Fuck.

I had no idea where he’d come from. His appearance was some kind of magic trick. He was very short and round, with hair that was long but afraid of the crown of his head. The little fat man shined by the light of the lone streetlamp. He was also struggling to carry something, dragging it behind him like a third leg.

Right around the time the short-round lifted the third leg up to his arm, it struck me that life is sometimes stranger than fiction. That the world will never make sense. That we are all flawed beings, fucked and beautiful, and oh my god is that a crossbow?!?!

Yes. Yes it was.

Something came over me. It was love. Not a boner, but courage. Courage! Unheeded! So I squawked my battle cry into the night, and ran at him. I thought he would, you know, stop whatever it was that he was doing. Don’t criminals say, “Fuck it,” and bail when some good citizen intervenes?

But the little troll didn’t bail. Instead, he spun around and pointed the crossbow at me. I zigged and zagged like I was playing capture the flag at motherfucking summer camp. (Falls Creek Runner-Up, 1995 & 1996. Screw you, Barry “Beaver” Bevinson. You didn’t deserve it.) Unfortunately, I got to him quicker than planned. Having nothing better to do, and not having an arrow in my gut, I just...kept going. I didn’t so much tackle as run into him. We both tumbled into the side of some dumpsters.

The Recycle one knocked me unconscious.

Stanley Cupid’s Eulogy & Coda

When I woke, Stanley Cupid was gone and Van, his assistant, had appeared. Van said that Stanley had been his name, and Cupid his title. He said that Stanley Cupid was the one true Cupid, and that his crossbow was not only harmless, but actually, “more important than the wheel and fire combined.”

I found that claim dubious at best.

Van said without Cupid, without the crossbow, there would be no love.

“It’s a partner system,” Van said. He held up a small black address book. “This,” he said, “this is the little black book of love. It tells us who our targets are.”

“And then?” Joan asked.

The rain had stopped, and so the three of us gathered around the death dumpster of the hobbit. Van gave both the eulogy and some much-needed background info on Stanley Cupid.

“It is with great regret,” he began, head bowed, holding back tears, “that I say goodbye to the only boss I’ve ever known. Stan, you were a good matchmaker. The best. You shot the world with your arrows of love. You shot children and old people. Penguins. Swans. Some Bald Eagles, I think. Sometimes you would shoot, like, ten people a day.”

I looked at Joan Newman who was, like, what the flying fuck is going on? But then she smiled at me and...I dunno...we were a team.

“I told you who to shoot,” Van continued with cracking voice. “The names appeared, dispatched from Le Factory del Amore. I’ve never been to Texas, but I’ve heard it’s there.”

Van sneezed, and wiped his teary eyes. I felt bad for him. Whoever this Stanley Cupid was or wasn’t, he meant something to someone. After it’s all said and done, I hope someone sneezes and wipes teary eyes for me.

“Rest in peace, Stan the man,” he finished.

We sat there in that humid post-rain silence. The halo of dawn peeked from the east, and with it came a Wednesday.

“What’s next?” Joan Newman asked.

“Well,” Van said, “I don’t know. I guess we go to the factory. They’ll tell us what to do.”

“Where’s that?” I asked.

“Somewhere in Texas,” Van replied. “Down by the border. They make tortillas there. And love. Tortillas and love.”

“Good luck,” Joan scoffed.

“Oh, well, you have to come with us,” Van said.

“Us?” I said.

“Fuck that,” she said. “Topeka awaits me.”

“If you don’t,” Van said, pointing at me, “then he dies.”

“What???” I yelled.

Van scratched his head, and with trademark confusion said:

“Well...it’s possible. I think. I think it’s possible.”

It’s possible our quest will continue with…

Eros Wants Revenge

Written by: Logan Theissen

Photograph by: Daniel Vidal

Three of Swords

The window fogs beneath my breath; a blank slate. Here I write your name. Always your name. The upholstery is not unlike that of any other train: rough and stained and seeping with other people’s secrets. This gives me a nonsensical dose of hope, leaving the taste of lemons and honey behind.

Somewhere out there you might be sitting on a train, looking out the window, thinking about me too. Maybe you smile without opening your mouth, your lips the seal of an envelope. I loved to kiss words from you this way. But maybe there is another pair of lips performing this same kind of ventriloquist act and you let her, even though it was our thing.

Maybe you tell her about that movie and you both laugh and nod and she slips her legs around you and the train moves slow and rocks you back and forth. You are in love with her, and you kiss more words into her.

“Can I sit here?”

The voice comes from a twenty­-something who slides into the seat next to me. His eyebrows are thick and his lips are full, as if every part of him is filled up with youth. He looks younger than you ever did.

“Jess?” he asks. And I look, like maybe I’m responding to my own name.

“Grace,” I say. I’m not sure why the lie slips so easily from me, except that your name is still printed on the window.

“Where you headed?”

His question makes me remember why I hated having you as a travel companion. I just want to absorb the feeling of leaving, the abundance of possibilities out there in the world; quiet.

“The beach.”

“Bit cold for that,” he says, pointing to the snow beyond the train window. “Me, I just like to ride and write. No place in mind, no place to go. Just the ride,” he says. He pulls a leather notebook from his bag and scratches a few lines onto the page.

“What’re you writing?” I ask. I don’t tell him I’m a writer, that a similar journal hides in my purse. Because when I used to talk about writing, you never said anything. You just poured cream into your coffee and smiled while stirring everything up, like maybe you were looking at the entire galaxy instead of just a cup of coffee. Instead of looking at me.

“Notes, ideas, sentences. Whatever.”

I nod and retrace the letters of your name on the window. I hear the scratching again and know he’s taken himself back to the page. I close my eyes and pretend it is the sound of waves. I imagine you with your windows open, the way they always were back home. Maybe they wrap around your new house like the symbol for infinity, window after window; forever. Or maybe they are like an ampersand now, a broken reminder that nothing lasts, that there is always an and when it all ends.

“Infinity sign or ampersand?” I ask.

“Ampersand, always. Just look at it,” he says, sketching it out on the page. It looks beautiful, like a line embracing itself. “Self-­love,” he says.

“Oh.”

“No, not like that. Like it’s just you and, whoever, whatever you want, you know?”

“Yeah, I like that.”

“So where are you really going?” he asks, his pen holding place in the notebook. I stare at the cover, trying to find the words hidden within.

“Away.” This is the first true thing I tell him, even though I don’t know his name.

“Away happens to be my favorite.”

You never said anything that perfect. Maybe you are better with words now that I am gone. And maybe the phrases you give her blossom into beautiful sentiments because they have filled you with something new.

“I’ll just call you Away, then,” I say.

“It’s Shaw.”

I smile at the way he says his name, like it is the most precious thing he owns. “Mine’s Grayson,” I say, letting another truth pass over my lips.

“So, you hate your name?”

“Ah, no, actually. But—”

“No, wait, let me guess,” he says, turning in his seat so he faces me. From this angle his vintage-­style tee looks shabbier beneath his jacket; well­-loved. An image of a baby cherub peeks at me with eyes like his, round and grey. “You hate your dad? Or mom? Or your ex hated the name? Or you like to lie to strangers? Must be getting close,” he says.

“Are you speaking from experience?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

He pulls out an iPod and hands me an earbud. We sit like that for too many miles, the landscape zipping by in a collage of greens: dill and meadow and sea mist and cabbage. They remind me of your eyes until I look back at Shaw. He mouths the words to the acoustic song that blares through the headphones.

“Indigo dawn,” he says out loud, no longer lip syncing.

Soon the song ends and he finds another and closes his eyes. I write Shaw’s name in stiff, sword-­like letters on the window before adding my own. I pull my journal from my bag and write indigo dawn and same sun, a partial lyric from the current song. I make them into a story and when I look up, Shaw is watching me write. And then he kisses me, and he tastes like cigarettes and gin.

When the train stops, Shaw grabs my hand, and leads me out into the station. He pulls a joint from his pocket and we smoke and kiss beneath the sign to Fairfield where no one can see us. He traces the back of my neck and I feel the word writer.

If you looked through that train window now, all you would see is a pair of empty seats and the remnants of names criss­-crossing the glass like constellations. And maybe that is the way it should be.

Written by: Kayla King
Photograph by: Samuel Zeller