Published by The Santa Fe Writer’s Project Journal (December 2013).

How to Take It Like A Man

Jason steps back, across the off-white kitchen tiles, his mouth slightly open and his eyes darting to the floor and the cabinets around him. “Naw, man,” he mumbles, then takes a swig of his Pabst and walks out of the room. I blink as my vision suddenly becomes crisp and my mind sobers, look around the dirty frat house kitchen and raise my beer to my lips despite the weight that’s churning in my stomach. Stupid, that’s what I am, fucking stupid. The edge of the counter feels sharper than before, like it’s digging into my back and pressing against the bones of my spine, so I shift forward, standing rigid and alone in Jason’s kitchen.

I drop my shoulders—how long have I been hunching them up like that?—as my left hand tugs at the hem of my baggy t-shirt. Just fucking stupid. I turn around to the sink and pour my beer on top of his crusty stacked dishes. Laughter and music from the party bounce into the kitchen from the living room and I set the Pabst can softly beside the sink as I keep still, trying to listen for any footsteps coming my way.

I close my eyes and breathe out hard from my nose, run a hand through my hair and roll my shoulders. Why won’t this fucking tension go away? My eyes pop open as Jason’s dopey, forced laugh joins the din of conversations and music coming from the party. Fuck this, fuck Alana Turner, and if Katie isn’t here now, she isn’t coming, so fuck her too.

I give a quick glance down the short hallway to the living room before turning to the back door, placing a hand on the cold glass knob and shoving my weight against the solid wood. The summer air billows inside, brushing against my face and bare arms as I step out onto the wooden stoop and take my first steps toward home.

***

Richard lights a cigarette and leans a shoulder on the bathroom wall, his hip jutting out. He blows smoke out his nose and says, “You know, Andy, for such a dumpy place, Empire has really nice bathrooms.”

I look around the simple, narrow bathroom. Richard is right: there’s not even dust in the white corners or smudges on the mirrors, but out in the club, the floor is sticky and all the vinyl barstools are duct-taped. I look back at Richard. “Isn’t this place no smoking?”

“Yes, Andy,” he huffs, rolling his eyes, “it’s no smoking, but what the hell are they gonna do? Ask me to put it out? Fine.” He nods his head toward the urinal facing us. “I’ll just flick it in there and that’ll be that.” Smoke trickles upward from his lips and curls in front of his face. “We’re here to pick up guys, not follow the goddamn rules.”

I smile at him as genuinely as I can manage and twist my head to pop my neck, which doesn’t work.

“That’s gross, I don’t know why you do it,” Richard says, his lips curling out.

“Because it feels good.” I straighten my back and put my hands on my hips. The door opens, letting in the pump of bass and the treble of gossips’ shrieks. A tall guy with a slim face, long legs and gelled hair—he kind of reminds me of Jason—walks in and glances at Richard before slipping past us and into the stall in the corner.

“He must be pee-shy,” Richard giggles. He taps his cigarette and the ash falls to the floor; he takes another long drag.

I fold my arms in front of me, my palms on the bare skin of my forearms. I want to go home already and we’ve only had one drink; I hate it when Richard drags me here. I tilt my head and cock one hip as the sound of pissing starts in the stall. “So are we going to Jason’s later? Katie said she would be there.”

Richard looks at me, pure dramatic shock on his face. “Why, Andy, would we want to go there? Frat boys suck. Besides,” he inhales through his cigarette, the tip burning orange, “you’re the only gay guy they like over there. It’s probably because you dress just as sloppy as they do.” He blows out smoke. “Besides, Katie’s a slut. She fucks every straight man I want.” The whoosh of a toilet flushing fills the small room and the man steps out from the stall and over to the sinks.

I watch the guy in the mirror, letting my arms drop and hang at my sides, twisting my hips toward him, and dropping my head a little bit, my eyes trained on the reflection of his lowered face. He waves his wet hands, water flying back into the sink, and wipes them on his jeans as he goes back out the door into the loud, humid club. Not even a fucking glance. I fold my arms again and look at Richard. “Are you done yet?”

Richard sucks down the last of his cigarette and flicks it across the white room and squarely into the urinal. It hisses for a second as the cherry turns black. He wiggles his head side to side and rolls his eyes at me. “Andy, you’re such a queen sometimes.”

I shake my head as Richard’s hips sway side to side on the way to the door.

***

I park my ’93 Nissan in my parents’ driveway. I’ll just walk to Jason’s, it’s only like five or six blocks; and that way I can get hammered and not have to drive back. I take my keys from the beeping ignition and step out of the car onto the pavement.

I shove my hands into my pockets and look up at the side of my parents’ dark house—it seems larger than usual, and the side windows sit as lowlights of inky black—and start to picture an oil pastel of the house from this angle—Mom might like the sweeping lines of ivy and extreme slant of the roof. As I walk down the driveway to the sidewalk, I take wide, careless steps and concentrate on hunching my shoulders to appear unconcerned with my appearance. When on the street, especially at night, the best thing that could happen is for someone to not recognize me—blending is the main objective.

I stare down at the uneven slabs of sidewalk as I walk, my fingers rubbing on the sharp edge of my apartment key. Richard is so negative sometimes. I hope the guy he wakes up with is way less attractive in the daylight. After a quick glance both ways, I cross Maple Avenue, my eyes still on the ground. At least it’s a warm night.

The light from Jason’s house leaks out onto the sidewalk and I see the glow before I can hear the music. It’s so weird that a frat has a house in this little residential area; the Greek letters above the porch look so out of place among the thick oak trees and manicured gardens. I cut across the yard, pull my hands from my pockets and straighten my back as I jog up the steps and to the front door. Since Katie said she’d be here, I just walk in.

The TV is playing some new music video and a group of six girls are on the Wal-Mart rug in the center of the living room, doing the dance from the video and laughing at each other’s mistakes. I look around at the frat guys watching the girls and smoking cigarettes, at the girls in their heavy make-up, and remember to slouch a little bit; blending is still the name of the game, especially since I don’t see Katie. Across the room, Jason looks up and raises his beer like he’s toasting me. He’s so cute when his eyes droop from drinking so much so early. I wave and he points to the staircase that leads up to his bedroom.

I follow him up the stairs and into his room, where some guys and a few girls are sitting in a circle, passing around a colorful glass bong. “Want a beer?” he asks.

“Sure.” I stuff my hands into my back pockets and glance around the room, at the pictures of women—none of whom are really all that attractive—taped to the walls, the hot rod calendar and the glass tank that houses his pet iguana.

He pulls a Pabst Blue Ribbon from the mini-fridge by his bed and hands it to me.

One of the girls in the circle looks up at me, smirking lazily, as I pop open the can. “Hey Andy,” she says, one hand around the swirled glass of the bong, the other pushing her blonde hair behind her ear. I think we had Bio together forever ago, before I dropped out, but I have no idea what her name is.

“Hey, girl,” I say as I walk over to her, swinging my hips a little. If I know one of these girls then I’m safe, in this room at least. I lean down and give her a loose hug. “How are you?” I take a slow sip of Pabst and bat my eyes flirtatiously at her—girls love that shit.

“I’m good.” She grins wider. “Wanna hit?”

I shake my head. “Nah, but thanks.” I smile widely, showing all my teeth, and turn back to Jason, who is standing by his bed. The way he’s standing makes it look like he’s about to do something, like his body is about to go into motion, but he just stands there. I relax my right leg. “How’ve you been, Jason?”

He blinks and smiles. “I’ve been good, just hanging around here, drinking.”

I laugh. “That sounds fun.”

He kicks at the blue carpet with one of his sneakers. “Yeah, I guess.”

I nod toward the sleeping iguana. “How’s Rudolph doing?”

Jason spins to face the dry aquarium. “He’s been good, I guess. He’s been sleeping a lot, but he’s been eating more, too, so I guess he’s just in summer-mode.”

“Yeah.” We stand silent for a minute as the girl who spoke to me receives the bong again, takes a hit and sputters out smoke. “Well,” I say, looking straight into his dark brown eyes, “I’m going to go downstairs and mingle.” I take a step toward the door, still letting my waist rock loosely.

“Yeah,” Jason says, “I’m right behind you.”

***

Outside the bathroom, among the crowd of men dancing, making out and drinking, Richard and I pause to let two drag queens—one in shimmering green, the other in bright pink—get past us to the bar.

Richard leans back to me. “I’ve been thinking about doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Drag, dummy,” he says, nodding toward the two who just passed us. We start walking behind them, single-file past the DJ stand to the bar, and I drop my arms so I can lean forward and hear him over the vintage Madonna and the screaming laughter of a cramped gay bar. “It seems fun,” he says. “I love to dance and performance is my forte.”

I make a show of rolling my eyes as I picture Richard’s many exes telling me, themselves still astounded, stories about theatrical arguments and sex acts.

“And besides, the whole ‘alternate persona’ thing would be fun,” he says. We stop just outside the mass of bodies at the tiny wooden bar, some shirtless, and Richard turns to me. I stick my ass out a little bit as I cock one hip. He raises one hand theatrically. “I think I would call myself Enya.”

I screw my face up to show him that the idea sucks. “Like the singer?”

His hand drops to his hip and he glares at me. “Yes, like the singer, but I wasn’t done.” Richard raises his hand again and leans back, his expression suddenly soft and angled toward the ceiling. “Enya. Enya Face!” As he says the last word, he bucks at me, pushing his shoulders and head dangerously close to mine. Then Richard bursts into giggles, covers his nose and mouth with his hands as the girls’ t-shirt he’s wearing rides up his waist and shaved stomach.

I laugh as he turns back to the bar and pushes past a rugged, hairy man in a leather chest harness. “Besides,” he calls over his shoulder, “have you seen the fucking tips those bitches make? Even the fat ones! I’d have no problem making mad money shaking my ass on stage. You want anything?” The man Richard pushed past looks down Richard’s slim hips and then looks out at the dancers, his expression completely neutral.

I put a hand on Richard’s upper back and lean in. “Get me a Cape Cod.”

Richard smiles sweetly at the bartender, whose blue eyes have that same sad, down-curving shape as Jason’s. I can barely hear him over the music, but I swear I hear Richard say, “I need a Heineken and a shot of Southern Comfort.” I straighten back, prop my hand against my right hip and raise an eyebrow at Richard, who leans back and shrugs. “Whatever,” he says, “it’s not like you don’t like it. And besides, you need to loosen up, Andy. You’ve been sucking lately.” He smiles at me like he did the bartender and bends over the bar to wait for the drinks.

The leather man gets up from his barstool, and as soon as he does, I jump past him onto the patched vinyl. I feel something bump against my back and when I look over my shoulder, the pink drag queen is glaring at me. Whatever, I got here first.

The bartender crosses in front of the wide mirrors and rows of liquor behind the bar and slides a shot of Southern Comfort in front of me. He pauses just long enough for me to order a Cape Cod. Richard smiles at me.

“Shut up,” I say. “You’re such an ass sometimes.”

“Andy,” Richard croons, his face drawn in mock-sadness, “I order your favorite shot and that makes me an ass? Fine,” he reaches for the shot, “then I’ll take it.”

I snatch up the So Co and laugh, rocking back on the stool. “Fuck you, it’s mine.”

Richard smiles at me and takes a sip from his green Heineken bottle. He tips his head down and scans the club crowd over his shoulder. “A lot of fuglies tonight.” He looks down the bar. “And they don’t even have the strobe lights going to mask it, just those multi-colored pieces of shit that every fifteen-year-old acid head has in their room.”

I down the shot and feel my face contort. It’s good, but it’s nasty. The bartender places a clear plastic cup filled with pink liquid in front of me. “Thanks,” I say, hunching my shoulders forward like all those classic pictures of Alana Turner. I imagine my skin immaculate, my lips full and round, and wink at the bartender. He turns to the drag queen beside me and listens intently as she orders. Well, then, fuck you too.

My pocket starts vibrating as I take a sip of my vodka and cranberry and I pull my cell phone out to read the text from Katie. I tap Richard’s shoulder, distracting him from the shirtless stud on the dance floor whose muscles are gleaming as he writhes to some random remix. “Katie said she’s about to head over to Jason’s. Do you want to come, or should I tell her it’ll just be me?”

Richard rolls his eyes. “Tell her it’ll just be you, Andy. I hate that place.” He looks back to the man on the dance floor.

I text her a quick reply—that I’ll be leaving in five and she should meet me at Jason’s. I take a gulp from the Cape Cod. So much smoother than So Co. I tap Richard again. He turns to me, his jaw jutting out. “I’m leaving in just a minute, as soon as I finish this. Do you need a ride, or are you good?”

“I’m fine, Andy.” He looks back over at the shirtless man, who’s panting and walking toward the bar as the song changes. “Besides, I think my ride is coming right now.” He smirks.

“You’re such a slut,” I laugh. I raise the Cape Cod to my mouth and swallow the rest, then pull a ten from my pocket and toss it on the bar. “Here,” I say into Richard’s ear, “give him my seat.” He nods and we hug each other quickly. “Bye.” I slide off the stool as the man walks up and grins at Richard.

“Bye,” he says, not even looking at me. Whatever, I’ll see him tomorrow after I finally get off from the glamorous world of Kinko’s. I shift aside so the sweaty man can sit and then I squeeze my way through the people crowding up to the small bar. When I finally find a space to walk to the door, I let my hips move loosely side to side with each step. My head is slightly down, my eyes open wide and flickering to each man’s face as I imagine Ms. Turner’s would.

As I reach the front door and push down on the metal bar, I glance back at the throngs of men staring at the guys who are staying at the bar and ignoring the one who’s leaving. Well. Fuck all of you, then. I press my weight against the door and slouch my shoulders as I take the first heavy steps out of the safe-zone of the club and into the sticky air of a summer night.

***

As I go back down the stairs to the party, Jason’s footsteps pad along behind me; he taps my shoulder about halfway down. “Hey,” he says, his lips closer to my ear than I realized, his breath moving humid and hot on my neck, “can I ask you about something?” His words are a little slurred, but he seems pretty coherent.

“Yeah,” I say, “can we go into the kitchen?” I look down to the opening of the stairs, where the hip-hop is inspiring a dry-hump party between three girls and two guys. “It’ll be quieter.”

“Yeah,” he says as we descend the last few steps.

I try to make sure my hips aren’t swinging as I lower my head again, glancing up at the boys as I pass, smiling at the girls I’ve met before. I always wonder why more straight guys don’t realize the amazing networking opportunities I could open up for them.

In the dingy kitchen, I lean my lower back against the metal edge of the counter in front of the sink and fold one arm over my chest as I look at Jason. “What’s up?”

“It’s that,” he says, his eyes moving across the nicotine-yellowed cabinets, “I mean….”

I move my head forward, trying to coax him further, but he just looks around the room and then takes a sip of his Pabst. I straighten my back, my eyes on his face. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” he takes a shaky step back and slowly moves his hands back and forth in front of him before gesturing toward me, “but there’s something I need to tell you, and you can’t tell anyone.”

No way. No way is Jason about to say what I think he is. I lean forward a little bit like Alana Turner would and square my feet on the faux tile floor. “Sure, I promise. What is it?” I take a sip of my beer. Oh please, oh please, oh please say what I think you’re going to say.

Jason glances back down the short hallway to the living room. “See, it’s…just that,” he looks back at me, those big sad brown eyes looking straight into mine, “I’m gay.”

Thank you God, thank you Jesus, thank you Buddha and Allah and anyone I forgot. Thank you. I promise to be at church this Sunday—early, even—and to pray to each of you before bed from now on. I drop my arm from across my chest.

“Really?” I ask, knowing full well that no heterosexual male in a Bible Belt town would ever confess to homosexuality unless he was sure.

Jason looks down at the floor. “Yeah. I haven’t ever told anyone. You’re the only person I’ve felt comfortable enough with who I thought would understand.”

A little quiver starts in my chest as I take another sip of beer, my eyes still on that lean, masculine face. “I’m glad you did, Jason. Thank you.” I reach forward and pat his shoulder.

He looks up at me and smiles shyly.

“Does it feel better to tell someone?”

“Yeah.” He grins.

I stand up straight, a few inches closer to him, close enough that I can smell the soft heat of his cologne. I glance down at my beer can. “Now can I tell you something?”

Jason’s face scrunches but he keeps smiling. “Sure. What is it?”

Well, can’t stop now. “Jason, I kind of…well.” I pause and then lean forward and kiss him. Like, straight up on the mouth kiss him. Every muscle is screaming with tension and I almost forget to hang onto my beer, but the quiver in my chest is suddenly still. I wonder for a second if it’s what a heart attack feels like.

I feel the pressure of his palm flat on my chest—he doesn’t press hard, but enough to move me—just before my back strikes against the metal rim of the kitchen counter top.

Published by FRXTL (October 2013).

‘Dying Galaxy Found’

“The astronomers liken these bright blobs of gas, lit up by newly-formed stars,
to the last drops of blood from the dying galaxy, draining out into space.”
Andrew Fazekas for National Geographic,
“Dying Galaxy Found Bleeding Out Into Space,” June 3, 2013

Morgan’s grandson was one of the first to see dwarf galaxy IC 3418—that ultraviolet image of “impending death,” a wide trail of gases swirling into fireballs like pain searing beneath an open wound—while Morgan lay in a hospital bed across town, his organs torn as easily as tissue paper, insides aflame like the galaxy aching 54 million light years away.

Icey—as the luminous cluster was affectionately nicknamed, called so for the bright blues trailing for thousands of light years behind her—had spent her immeasurable life churning out new stars, spinning solar systems like tiny eddies in her wake, spilling out her inner light as she traveled across the skies. Morgan had spent his life teaching high school science, measuring variables in order to mix the right elements in the right conditions, propel them across young minds in such a way that knowledge could take root, blossom and evolve. Both she and he had exhausted themselves in their work, dedicating every moment necessary to what they now considered—as they each felt weaker, each one flickering rather than shining—the reason they had come into existence, the “why” others ask about, the source of those crackling sparks that pull one out of bed on restless nights.

One stormy afternoon as his grandson watched the twinkling cosmos flare and recede on his computer screen—witnessing the beginning of Icey’s slow struggle, the process she now felt come to a shuddering, shadowed end—Morgan dimmed, his head tipping to the side on the pale hospital pillow. As his mind flitted to images of his family, the glossy portraits his grandson had shown him of Icey and her astral train, the last graduating class Morgan had seen across the stage, he felt on his unshaven cheek the soft, warm glow of a woman’s face, her radiant eyes revealing nebulae, her glittering mouth sighing into a smile as she slipped her azure fingers around his trembling hands and led him out into the blinding, infinite light of the stars.

Published by FlashFlood National Flash-Fiction Day Journal (UK) (April 2013).

Comfort Food

Grilled colby cheese sandwiches on homemade sourdough like Dad would make whenever I was sick as a kid; Mom’s baked chicken, lightly browned and flecked with herbs, crisp sheen of fine oil on the skin; cobbler made from the wildberries my sister Naomi and I used to pick in the shallow woods behind our childhood house; either a venison steak with mashed red potatoes on the side, venison sausage with stout biscuits sopping in gravy, or venison stew every single night through the middle of the frosty deer season, Dad smiling about his trophy at each gamey bite; the soft, fudgy pot brownies my bunkmate smuggled into summer camp when we were 15; green peppers, carrots and snap peas crunching sweetly as Mom and I stood over the kitchen sink, wiping dark soil from our hands and looking out the window at her backyard garden; a dab of cream cheese icing on my lips like the one from my first real boyfriend’s thick fingers, crumbs of devil’s food cake clinging to the sugary surface; Grandma’s green beans, cooked with ham hock and then steeped in the juices like a jar of sun tea; the soft spice of shrimp stirred into red beans and rice like I took to Mom on her first night in the hospital; an olive’s salty bite after bathing in a Bloody Mary with extra Tabasco; ham biscuits, cornbread and chicken-fried steak made just like at Mom’s funeral; char of a dry jerk rub, dimples from the sea salt pressed into the chicken’s blackened skin; the tart burn of wine that soured just the night before; the blackberries Naomi and I used to crush into fresh syrupy jam on Sunday mornings, Mom’s robe cinched at the waist as she stirred moist scrambled eggs and diced red potatoes in cast iron, telling Naomi and I jokes we’d already heard while beside her Dad dipped heavy slices of sourdough in yolks, flipped them in a pan, his laughter bright and magic as he acted out the funny papers spread before Naomi and I, or snuck up behind Mom to kiss her neck, then pull her away from the stove’s aura of warmth, Mom’s eyes smiling into his as she turned, her fine hands reaching, running along his shoulders, clasping together behind his broad neck.

Published in Gone Lawn 10 (Summer 2013).

Dreams Without Sleep (Notes)

I.S.O. Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“And I will always feel, like those great damned souls,
that thinking is worth more than living.”
Fernando Pessoa, Always Astonished: Selected Prose, 1988

1.
Immediately, I notice how big the sky is: so wide, and eternally deep. On mornings like this, when I notice things like these—the yellow that reflects in the fountain, the grey-green of trees at dawn—I often feel more vibrant, my fingertips cool but my core smoldering. But on today’s morning walk, after having slept for twenty minutes just before the sun rose, the people seem uniquely shadowed, their features blurring into monotony before my steady eyes; the leaves, however, the appearing sun, even the lampposts lining the blocks and roads gleam in a way that only I can feel.

2.
One often wonders, when caught in streams of thought so unprovoked that they must be followed, how exactly the eagle—which dropped the fatal tortoise onto Aeschylus—mistook his bald head for a jagged rock in the first place.

3.
Where else in the world could I ever conceive of being except where I wish I was? My ordinary surroundings are so repetitious that they are ingrained in my mind—therefore, however—disappearing from my mind’s eye. The few postcard pictures I do retain—filed away together in a far-off corner of my consciousness—are of places I have heard of where I will never walk: long-destroyed cities, the scorch of leather sandals under my feet, volcanoes and icebergs which shift and change, islands that exist only on ancient maps. No life exists in daydreams—nothing more real than this clay and flesh—but the only thing left in my waking life is dreaming.

Even the stars change over time, maturing like we do: growing brighter and duller until we fade, our glow only seen light years away from our remaining substance.

4.
I spend hours in front of a mirror: one hangs above my desk, crisp and lightly dusted, the depths of which contain shapes I can never seem to find on the opposing walls. I stare behind myself, thinking of where these stains, visible only to the mirror’s eyes, may have come from: the wallpaper is smooth and clean.

More often than not, I resolve to take a walk after this mirror business ensues, pursuing the same route on which my mornings take me: past the bus station, the power plant’s chimneys, the darkened downtown buildings—all locked. The world seems hidden behind a veil of dust, catching light in ways that it usually does not; I walk with the same heavy, lucid eyes as in my dreams, trying to discern the stains lining the sidewalks.

5.
There is an intensity that lives constantly in the present moment when one has lost the time for dreaming and those stories begin to steal your waking attention: the mind’s survival games….

My dreams are easier to translate than reality. Isn’t it only normal that they would bring more comfort?

6.
A strange heaviness is resting in my belly, stretching its long legs, rubbing its swollen stomach. It spreads to my head, a hazy recollection of what I have not done: the scattered stones that should be resting securely in concrete along with the others I have stacked, and not in the wet dirt where they still lie. There is a tightening deeper in my gut that twists my torso and hollows my legs, immobilizing my terrified aspirations before they have a chance to take breath….

An impending beginning is tiring: the suffocation of ambition by the bony hands of fear.

7.
Wherein

I have found the beginning; now I must dig up the rest of my ripening words.

8.
An air of mischievous glee always accompanies me to a friend’s house, when I get to experience a new place for the first time. I will wait until I have entered the house: from there, I begin to plan out the rest of their abode—down to the trim color—before I have seen even another doorway. I walk through the rooms just before we arrive in them—on the “official tour,” of course—and try to fix arrangements done incorrectly, each wall erected in the wrong place, pictures which don’t suit the colors in my head.

A certain delight finds its way into my fingers and I touch objects that I like, labeling them mine—by the rule of finders-keepers—even if I allow the objects to stay with their now-former owners. Just before the front door is again opened and closed for me, I look around and imagine my things—the ones formerly theirs and currently mine—clearing the floors, brightening the walls, filling the rooms.

I always leave smiling—my vision crisp—at having found a new place for my restless dreaming legs to roam.

9.
When I wish to sleep, my eyes never tire; when I must forge ahead, my mind decides to hastily fade: before I notice, I am waking up, minutes or hours later, panicked, work still to be done—as there always is, threads left unwoven, paths never sojourned.

Something magic rests in the moment of tired realization, though—something that presses its warm neck against our hanging hand, rubs its calico face against our cheek—when I can feel my dreams swelling within my mind, pushing lean fingers into my attention span: disabling it. I often catch myself with my eyes averted, bleary with thought, my pen hovering above the page, until I realize my unconsciously-conscious state; I sit sculpted: a bent, distracted tree.

I clutch those moments of tired erasure—internal, expansive nothingness—as if my arms are spread and I feel no barriers, just a low, steady breeze that is cunning and warm touching every part of me. Just when I sacrifice my remaining mind to the tired intrusion, my eyes brighten, thoughts lucid, the zephyr having grown and moved the fog from those reaching arms, closed eyes: a dream begins, the dreamer building as he goes.

Published in Cleaver Magazine Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 2013).

On Lux

Janene stood watching the swinging light bulb that hung in the unfinished laundry room of her empty little house, the pull-chain that released volts into the socket clinking against the burnt out bulb’s brittle glass with each sideways motion. In her left hand, she held a new sixty watt bulb, one which could replace the one still hanging, and solve all the problems she’d been having lately with her laundry: when she accidentally dropped a single red shirt in with all her whites, which dyed her work blouses, socks and white dress pants a dull pink; or when she folded clothes together because she could not see that she held both a pair of jeans and a t-shirt in the dark warmth just in front of the dryer, and then searched for half an hour before unfolding and refolding everything in her drawers; or, more recently, when she pulled from her pant pocket the piece of paper, now sopping and illegible, on which she had written the time of a job interview with a research facility looking for candidates with B.S.’s in Physics, and realized that she perhaps shouldn’t have screamed at the visiting district manager before walking out of the bank earlier that day.

Janene knew that these events could be avoided and that all the effects—the frantic shopping trips just before running to the office, tags still hanging off her clothes; the time spent redoing chores; the stress of trying to explain to a very skeptical and probing graduate assistant that yes, she was responsible and a good candidate for the job, she simply wanted to double-check the appointment date—all of these could be eliminated, or at least lessened, if she would just change the bulb. But every time she reached up toward the rocking socket with her right hand, a blue flame would ignite in her chest and illuminate her stomach, lungs, esophagus, heart, while images of Davis changing that same light bulb would project in her mind—that one day, as the plaid button-up shirt she loved lifted above the jeans that had worn spots on the pockets from his wallet, keys, cell phone. She had been leaning in the doorway, studying the image of his thick knuckles and splayed fingertips in the curved surface of the glass. He had turned and smiled at her when he was done, greyed bulb in his hand, and had kissed her forehead before turning to the bin to throw the old light bulb away. Janene had stepped into the room and watched him leave as she turned the picture of him changing the light bulb over and over in her mind, imagining the tiny packets of light—the “potons,” as her Laotian professor used to say—immersing Davis from the new light bulb, flooding down his arms, over his clothes and the slight paunch of his belly, right down to that patch of luminous skin over his hipbone. After that, her mind hadn’t been able to help but pull up the pictures of Davis that she held closest: the images she retained from the first night she met him, his profile haloed by headlights reflected in the cab’s side mirrors; his shaggy hair and thick arms bathed in fluorescent light as he cradled her hands in the E.R. the night Janene broke her leg after she slipped on a spilled drink and down the front stairs of a bar; the streetlights and stars reflecting off the snow all around them and shining in Davis’s eyes the previous New Year’s Eve, when they’d taken a walk after watching the ball drop and ended up drinking a bottle of cheap champagne by the river until they were both too cold to stay out any longer.

Davis had moved out within a month of changing the light bulb, but Janene as yet hadn’t cried once—not even to her mother over the phone—because, she said, when you expect something for long enough, its arrival should come as no surprise. “After all of the arguments, the broken dishes and other women,” Janene sighed to her co-worker at lunch one day, “how could I ever think we would stay together?” When, two months after he left, the same light bulb he had replaced burned out, Janene had shrugged in the sudden darkness, folded the shirt she was holding in half, and mumbled, “Things come, things go.”

Three long months after that shrug, Janene scuffed her foot on the carpet and shifted the light bulb in her sweaty left hand so that she held the metal threads rather than the slick glass. She closed her eyes and huffed, ashamed even in solitude of her desire to wait, of the temptation to never replace the bulb, despite the consequences. Janene reached up again—this time quickly, as if she could race the reflection and not be faced with the image of Davis, that crescent glimpse of his waist as his solid arm lifted—and even as she told herself it would be the last time she would go through this, the back of her mind wandered to the delicate cardboard box the new light bulb had come in, sitting daintily in the bottom of a fresh trash bag, and how easy it would be to retrieve, even in darkness.

Published in Cup of Joe Flash Fiction Anthology (April 2011).

Smell of Rain

“There is no evil that has no remedy, and the remedy for sin is repentance.”
-Midrash Tahuma, Medieval Hebrew, trans. 1917

Noah crouches at the water’s edge—in the lush little place sculpted by the river’s steady hands—filling the last gritty ceramic jar to follow his laden sons home. A woman he does not know approaches and kneels in the grass beside him, her jar—glazed intricately in purple, even lines spelling the laws of God—catching the wild rush of water.

Noah hefts, stands—thick hemp cutting into his shoulder, the jar’s swing and thump against his rib—and she turns to him, her knees bent against the soil as she speaks, “Noah.”

Pausing, he focuses on her voice, watches the river’s thin waves as he listens.

“You are needed.”

The jar under Noah’s arm shifts—he grips the dusty clay as he begins walking toward the path, veins running like wide scars across his hands.

The woman’s dark features grow soft in silver light—the expansive, blinding light of stars—and in a thousand tiny voices she moans, “Cain.”

He feels something like ice spread just under his skin, and the muscles of his feet and legs become infantile, unsure of footing. Noah drops his jar to the ground—rupturing the sides—as he turns back to her, his vision centered on the vessel hovering above her outstretched hands, the script now aflame.

The angel’s voice again fills the green, shadowed space. “Though you may wander until the End, you will not find Death until your debt is repaid.” He steadies his legs by flexing each muscle in turn and spits on the dirt. She sighs again like splintering glass, “Your task is at hand,” and it echoes, flooding the trees and pushing the leaves into waves.

Noah looks back at the clear water swelling against the grainy shore and asks, “Am I responsible for them all?”

The angel slowly nods, the light of her face shimmering and refracting against each blade of grass, each wave’s crest. Noah squints as he gazes across the desert—toward the thick forests of the West where his sons will gather lumber, the plains of the South where they will collect the fauna—before turning back to the broken walls of clay and rivulets of water slowly muddying a path toward the source.

Published in Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine 3.1 (April 2010).

The Importance of Experience

In the middle of the empty bar, the place where they play the Coasters at full volume and already know me ‘cause I have to drive Dad home sometimes, Starla—at least that’s the name she told me—gripped the empty neck of her brown bottle behind a shield of red fingernails. She had told me her name three Buds earlier, before she started analyzing the reasons someone sixteen-years-old would be at a smoky bar just off the highway. “You already told me you have the money, but all kids your age wanna do is treat me like shit,” she leered, and tossed her stick-straight blonde hair over her shoulder.

Heat rose up my throat from my chest, and as it stung along my cheeks I looked down at the wooden bar, at my water with lime, and pulled a Camel from the pack my brother bought me. He had told me it might be a little tough to convince one of them, but he’d never said I’d get embarrassed, or that she’d know the nasty things I’d want to try with her. I pushed the barstool back, across the uneven floor, as I lit the cigarette with matches the bartender had given me.

“You promise to?” She winked, the bottle on her outlined lips, and tipped it up until it pointed down her throat, her dark eyes still on me. I thought of pinning her down, fingers wrapped on her neck, and nodded as she wiped her mouth on her wrist—leaving a delicate stain of pink lipstick and beer foam—and tossed her purse over her shoulder as she stood and took my arm.

Published in Diverse Voices Quarterly Vol. 1, Issue 3/4 (December 2009).

Hazardous Conditions

Jason met me at a coffee shop—that Starbucks on 12th and Hull—because it was a public place and I was hoping we could both let everything out and be done with each other. Neither of us really took any time after we split; we just fell right into it with somebody new, and I’d had some feelings brewing that I couldn’t shake—the hurt and all. He was only with me for two years, but it was one of those first-time-feeling-this-way, toppling-head-first, can’t-even-think-when-they-aren’t-with-you, have-two-fights-and-three-fucks-in-the-same-day kind of relationships. We tried to be friends the first few years apart and hang out or drink together, but we’d always end up screwing, even if we were dating other people. Then we’d get mad at each other for a few weeks because I wouldn’t leave Aaron or because he was still pulling that I’m-too-sensitive-to-let-go bullshit. The past year, we hadn’t really talked, but when I saw him in the grocery store last week, we’d both agreed there were still things we wanted to say.

So I told Aaron—that’s the guy I started dating right after Jason—I had to go back to the office to finish customizing a PC for delivery before Christmas Eve, and then I rode the bus to town. Aaron was more of the stay-at-home-to-decorate-the-guest-room kind of guy, while I’ve always had to get out of the house sometimes so I didn’t go crazy. I loved Aaron—not the same way I did Jason—but every once in a while I’d get to feeling like there was something in Jason that I missed. Like, Aaron would laugh at a movie or flick the hair from his eyes or run his tongue along my earlobe and I just couldn’t help but think of the way Jason used to do that same thing. I’d make do with memories most of the time, and I never told Aaron I thought about Jason, but I’d wonder, standing in the shower or doing push-ups on the rug in the living room, if Jason ever thought about me. Kind of at the same time, you know, like there was something that still attached us.

At Starbucks, Jason paid for my coffee, but he’s always done that, and we sat by the bathrooms where there weren’t many people and talked about the election a few months back and the ad he’s working on for some chip company. I was the one who brought up why we met.

He looked at me. “I know, Damon. But isn’t this how we work things out? By just talking and acting like friends?”

I shrugged. I really wasn’t sure. The most closure I ever got with an ex was when I set fire to the front porch of a guy’s trailer because he stopped answering my calls and then cleaned out our joint bank account. He had run out through the back door while I watched the molding on the front door melt and that was it. We never saw each other again. He didn’t even press charges. His neighbor—the son-of-a-bitch who introduced us—told me that he spent a month and a half building a new porch, and in the meantime, had to wade through the poison ivy that grew in back. I figured he deserved it.

Jason was looking at me across the fake wood table, his head to the side. “How do you suggest we do it, Damon? We could go to a movie or a museum, if you want, but I’m not sure how that would help.” His foot bumped mine under the table as he took a sip of coffee.

I pushed a hand through my short hair and looked down at the table. “Oh, I almost forgot.” I turned and reached into my bag—the over-your-shoulder kind that bike messengers carry that I had hanging over the back of my chair—to pull out his copy of Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. It looked worse than when he gave it to me because it fell in the tub once—accidentally—so the pages were wrinkled and black from mold, but I told him thanks for letting me borrow it. “I liked it.”

“Did you?” He held the book with his fingertips, looked at it out the corner of his eye like he used to look at the home-style dinners I’d cook, and set it on the edge of the table. “What did you think of the ending?”

“It was good. Kinda unexpected. But at the same time, you could see it coming, you know?” I had really only gotten half-way through, because that’s where I was when he called to break up while I was running a bath, but he probably won’t know the difference. I almost looked up SparkNotes on the ending before I came, because I knew he’d be a smart-ass and ask, but I was running late. I smiled at Jason and took a big drink of my coffee. It scorched my tongue—they always brew it too god-damn hot.

We sat there for a minute, him eyeing the book and me thinking about what Aaron was going to have ready for dinner. While I rubbed my raw tongue on the roof of my mouth, Jason looked at me, one of his eyebrows pulled up. “So I thought of you the other day.”
My heart picked up a little bit because I remembered three days before, when I’d thought of him while I was feeding the puppy—his name’s Brutus and he’s one of those always-all-over-everything-in-reach dogs. Jason squinted. “You still read about government conspiracies, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, I found these crazy videos online about fluoride in our drinking water and how it’s really killing us while it’s whitening our teeth.” He grinned. “I only drink bottled water now. When I saw it, it made me think of how you used to rant about those things.”

Just then, a friend of Aaron’s walked up, threw her arms around me and asked about Aaron and the puppy. We got the puppy a few weeks ago—it’s a Beagle-Great Dane mix—you know, to kind of see how we do before we look into adopting in a few years. He and I are going on four years, so I figure once this stuff with Jason is all settled—the emotional stuff, I mean—Aaron and I can settle down and give our moms some grandkids.

“Aaron’s good. The puppy’s growing fast, so we have to keep an eye on him.” Brutus loves to chew this damn ottoman that she gave Aaron, and I had to plastic wrap the legs so she wouldn’t come over and see teeth marks in it. I didn’t tell her that, though.

She looked over at Jason. “Who’s your friend?”

I stared at Jason and shrugged. “Just a friend of mine, a coworker—”

“Oh, hi,” she said, and smiled. She threw her long red hair over her shoulder as she shook Jason’s hand and looked back over at me. “Is Aaron here? I know he doesn’t like coffee.”

“No, he’s at home, but he knows I’m here,” I lied.

“Oh, okay.” She paused, took a heavy breath and looked around the cafe as I stared at her, trying not to blink. “Well, I have to run, but be safe, okay? It’s starting to snow.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder again. “Tell Aaron I say hi,” she said. Then she turned and walked to the coat rack by the front door.

I looked out the windows in front. Just flurries, nothing serious. Cabs definitely run in worse. I turned back to Jason and we just looked at each other. Then Jason went to stirring his coffee. I stared down at the floor tiles and let my mind draw lines between the brown dots.

“So I was thinking,” Jason said, his hands on the table in front of him, “that if you want to swing by my place after this, I could show you those videos and you’d have a cheaper cab fare. Plus, the traffic here is going to be killer in a few minutes.”

I looked at him, wondering if he was up to something. But then I figured if he was going to bring up cheaper cab fare from his place and all that, he must have known I was going home and not to his bed. Besides, if I went with him it would give me a chance to find things about the apartment that were better when I lived there—somebody told me that helps with closure.

The cold outside hit me hard, so I dug my stocking cap out from my bag and pulled it down over my ears. Jason just huddled his head down and took big steps through the flakes of snow, all the way down the ten-block stretch to his apartment.

When we got to his front door, I couldn’t feel my toes or fingers and if I crossed my eyes, I could see how red my nose was. I hopped up and down to try and get more blood into my legs. He pulled his keys out.

“Cold?” He looked at me and laughed.

“A little.” I kept hopping.

“Come on, let’s warm up.” He swung open the door and flicked on the lights to the front room. It was that same old apartment, same ratty green couch, same god-damn pictures of fruit hanging by the door. I peeked my head into the bathroom as he hung up his peacoat—yup, those same ugly-ass towels. The apartment was cleaner without me in it, but from what I could see, that was about it. He even had the same little TV set, one of those old ones with the knobs and no remote. As he fiddled with the heat thermostat, I thought about how he wouldn’t even get the local news after the HD switch-over in a few months and figured I’d ask Aaron if we couldn’t give him the set we have in the kitchen—we never use it, anyway.

“Not much has changed,” he said, “but I do have a new computer.” He sat on the couch, in the spot where I always used to sit when football was on, and picked up a new HP notebook laptop, one of the so-light-you-barely-know-it’s-in-your-hand ones. He set it on his legs and started typing. I pulled my bag and coat off and tossed them on the floor by the door, but kept my cap on. Wasn’t going to stay long, no reason to get settled in.

“Here, I pulled up those videos.” He pointed at the laptop screen.

I came over and sat on the couch beside him—not right beside, but close enough that I could see the screen. When Jason hit play, this angry-looking man started talking about fluoride and how in the twenties scientists discovered that it kills germs but it takes down your IQ, so it’s really not that good, but they put it in tap water anyway. I was getting real into it when the guy started talking about how in ’93 dentists all over the country ran studies and decided that it didn’t help your teeth that much either, when I felt Jason’s hand on the couch cushion by my thigh.

“Sorry,” he said, all soft, and looked over at me. I just kept watching the video, trying to read the statistics as they went across the screen, but they were scrolling so fast I couldn’t really catch them. I reached over to pause the video and take a look at the numbers—I guess I leaned into him a little bit, but not much—when Jason kissed me on the cheek.
I looked at him. “What was that?” My mouth went dry and I almost walked out, but I didn’t want to give him any excuses to talk bad about me. A thought of Aaron flew into my head—him back at the house, probably beginning to wonder where I was, and me here, not even on the god-damn way yet. My chest ached a little bit.

“I’m not sure.” He tilted his head down. “I just miss you.”

He looked real down-and-out right then, chewing on his cheek in the glow from the laptop. I guess I felt bad for snapping at him, so I put my arm around his shoulder. “I miss you, too, Jason.”

He turned his head and looked at me, and I was going to go on, about how just because we missed each other didn’t mean we could bust in on each other’s lives, but then he leaned in and kissed me full on the lips. I just started kissing back. By the time I stopped and realized, we were lying on the couch with his shirt off, and my cap and shoes were on the floor. “Wait,” I said, and sat up. I looked out the windows and saw spots of snow passing by, those big flakes that mean it’s sticking.

Jason looked at me like he had just woken up, blinked a few times and pushed at his mussed up hair. “What?”

“Hold on a sec.” I walked to the window and the snow was coming down hard—I mean hard. You could barely see the streets anymore and it looked like restaurants were closing early—at least two had those won’t-be-back-‘til-this-is-done signs on the doors, and I saw the owner of the Greek place locking up and running to his car. I thought about Aaron out at the house, and pulled my cell phone out of my jeans pocket as my stomach did a little somersault.

“What are you doing?” Jason sat up on the couch and stared at me.

“Just hold on.” I dialed the ABC Cab Company and the woman on the line told me that all the city’s cabs were on lockdown, the buses, too. The weather was supposed to turn to ice any minute, she said, and if I had any sense, I’d just stay where I was. I hung up the phone as Jason got up and came over to me. He set his hand on my waist, right on my hip like he always used to. I dialed the phone again while he started kissing my neck, up that tendon near the back. I stepped away from him, folded my arms in front because my hands were shaking, and held the phone with my shoulder.

Aaron answered on the other end. “Thank god it’s you, I was just about to call. Are you on the way home? Where are you?” Brutus barked in the background and Aaron said a quiet “Hush, dog.”

I looked out the window again, at the buildings across the street that looked fuzzy from the snow falling in front of them. “I’m still at work. I tried calling a cab, but they’re shut down because of weather.”

He sighed.

“I know, hon,” I said, “but I’m just going to slip over to the motel a few blocks away, walking there won’t be that bad, and then I should be able to get a cab home in the morning. I don’t want to chance getting someone to drive in this.” I couldn’t have walked to the motel by the office if I’d wanted to in that weather. The snow swirled in front of the windows, spinning up into the air and then dropping back down.

“All right. That’s fine. Just be safe.” Brutus barked again, the I-need-to-go-out-right-now bark, but Aaron didn’t say anything.

“I will, don’t worry.”

“Then I’ll talk to you tomorrow. But call me if you get lonely tonight.” I could hear the smile in his voice, so I grinned to make mine sound the same way.

“I will. Talk to you soon.”

Brutus howled and I could hear Aaron turn from the phone and say “What in god’s name do you want?”

“Bye,” I said, as I pulled the phone away from my ear.

“I love y—” The phone was already half-way shut when I heard him say it, and I figured he knew I loved him, so I just left it at that. I’d apologize for that mistake the next day and everything would be fine.

I turned from the windows to the empty couch and slid my phone back in my pocket.

“Jason?”

“In here.” His voice echoed down the little hallway that connected the front room to the bedroom, but his voice wasn’t soft anymore—like that I-never-have-to-ask-twice tone kids use in the toy aisle. I looked down at my shoes and cap on the floor by the couch and pushed the rough spot on my tongue against my front teeth. I thought about leaving Aaron at home so I could run into the city and the icy-white streets outside, about the puppy and that dent on the couch where I used to sit. Then I walked across the room in my sock-feet, past my coat and bag, and stepped into the dark bedroom hallway.