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Library Locks of Honeycomb

 

She can hear voices from the inside of her greenhouse-library. They’re quick and fast, as if they’re arguing, and it makes her smile. Young people keep the space alive; she knows.

It’s in their energy—it’s in the way they move their hands. It’s in the way they’re always fighting. Fighting each other. Fighting God. Fighting to be. It’s the way they’re always fighting, and Louisa Marie can hear their voices from the inside of her sanctuary.

And she wants to know more.

Louisa Marie hasn’t had a glimpse of her greenhouse in years, and she’s missed it dearly. Now, she stands in front of its aged glass and domed top. She takes a breath as memories come flooding back. This place feels like praying. It feels like washing your face with warm water after a long day. It feels like a living, warm thing.

Baby’s breath greets her at the entrance, their tiny white heads swaying in the wind and bending to kiss her ankles. Bees and butterflies sing to her around her body; their buzzing chorus brings her back to when she was young, when her hands plunged into deep ground. Louisa Marie sighs again, remembering the way damp earth felt around her fingertips, and how green vines gave life to pink goodness. In front of this patch of land, she once grew strawberries.

A light goes on in the greenhouse, and Louisa Marie looks up. It’s nearing sunset, and indigo is moving across the sky quite comfortably. Louisa Marie can see the shadows of their bodies against the orange-green glow of the windows.

It’s time to go in, she thinks to herself, aware that her time is limited. She can’t remain rooted in this spot forever, she knows.

The door isn’t quite shut all the way, and Louisa Marie eases it open with the toe of her sandal, a movement that’s muscle memory by now. In her right arm, she holds an armful of eucalyptus, and the smell of it wafts around her so pleasantly that she sighs wistfully. Eucalyptus has always been a calming scent of cool mint and honey that could lull her to peace. In her left arm, she holds an old, wrinkled leather journal, stuffed to the brim with yellowed newspaper and sticky notes. The newspaper has words written in watery red ink between the lines. There’s so much runny writing between the columns that the color has slipped from the page and stained the corners pink.

She knows her comments will still be legible, though, wouldn’t be magic if they weren’t.

As she walks into her greenhouse, she mutters, “Now is the time for this,” and doesn’t doubt herself one bit. “There’s a necromancer here, so this must be the time.” That was part of the curse. After all, why else would she feel called back to this space after all these years? This has to be right.

A newly realized necromancer appears in the town of Old Meridian almost every twenty years, and thus, will either fulfill or commence the curse. The curse says that the necromancer will form a coven, and that coven will receive a book of spells from someone with whom the curse had once affected. Louisa Marie. This is why she is back.

Louisa Marie knows that this is how karmic cycles work; she just wishes that her grandchild didn’t have to be part of it.

She enters the greenhouse undetected. Her grandchild and their friend are busy trying to figure out the universe, or at least, the town, and she can understand the concern that lays under their tongues, and she can understand the fear, too. She can hear the stress in their voices from the doorway.

She quietly moves further into the greenhouse and lets her eyes rest on the scene. Mica is holding an aloe vera leaf in their hand and is waving it around as they talk. There’s a knife—one of her old ones—resting on the table, covered in plant gel.

Louisa Marie smiles at the sight of Mica. She hasn’t seen them in almost four years, and my, have they grown. They’re all long limbs and brown skin. All tattoos and angles. Their eyes are dark and sharp, with eyelashes so heavy that Louisa Marie is surprised that they can keep their eyes open. But they’re focused. They’re studying the other one, the one that’s called Abel.

But Louisa Marie can’t focus on that one quite yet. She’s watching Mica. Watching how their cheeks fill with pink. Watching how the light hits their gold cross earrings. Louisa Marie even notices the beginnings of curls—they’ve shaved their head again—but she can see the kinks forming in acts of resistance. They smile at Abel, and Louisa Marie can see herself, and her daughter, in them.

For a second, she is terribly sad and terribly nostalgic. Blue washes through her like she’d just walked through a rain cloud. She misses her grandchildren. She misses teaching them. She misses loving them. She misses being alive.

And she misses her books. All around Mica and Abel are stacks and stacks of books. There are books sitting on the countertops, in piles on the chairs, and stacked on the floors. It looks like they’ve been left open, some leafed through with vigor, but some have never been open. In the back of her greenhouse, she notices gaps on the shelves where these books had been taken, and they’ve amassed throughout the greenhouse.

“It’s not this one either,” Mica says, pointing at a book with a tip of the aloe plant. They sigh, dropping the plant atop the book and turning to pick up another, a larger one bound with green lokta paper. Louisa Marie remembers binding that one herself and knows that it is not what they’re looking for. “And Cleo hasn’t had any luck either?”

“No,” the other one, Abel, says, waving his cell phone vaguely. “She’s been texting me.” He laughs then, mid-sentence, and Louisa Marie watches a dimple appear in his left cheek. “She keeps complaining about all of the eerie antiques in her grandmother’s reading room. She says Bee’s no help—she passed out on the couch.”

Mica rolls their eyes and grabs another stack of books. “It’s not funny, Abel,” they say. “None of you understand this. None of you have heard the things my grandmother told me about this town. We need the spell book to protect ourselves. Are you sure your mom doesn’t have any books like these?”

Abel shakes his head, the smile sliding off his face from the hardness in Mica’s gaze. It was then that Louisa Marie got to take a good look at him. He’s got deep brown skin and browner eyes to match. His eyes are keen and focused on the material in front of him, but every couple of minutes he has to pull a short brown dreadlock from out of his face.

“My mom doesn’t know anything about this kind of stuff,” Abel says. “She probably doesn’t even know what a necromancer is.”

Now, this is a boy. This is a boy with a gift, she thinks. Abel sits in her wooden chair with his leg propped up on a stool and several books on his lap. His eyebrows come together to form a tiny ‘v’ on his forehead as he flips through pages. He shakes his head when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. Mica puts another book in his lap.

They’ve been searching quite some time, Louisa Marie thinks. She wonders how long. She wonders why it’s now that she’s been called to pass on this knowledge. Finally, she places her belongings down on the table to make her presence known.

Abel looks right at her.

“Hello, Abel,” Louisa Marie says, smiling. When she does, she feels her dreadlocks begin to grow down her long, straight back. They twist and turn into each other, falling a half-inch longer than they had before. Her timer has started—she hasn’t much time.

Abel doesn’t move or make a sound. His eyes dart suspiciously between Mica and Louisa Marie, his brows furrowing even more. Louisa Marie thinks that he looks like a young doe, standing in the middle of an intersection, and it almost amuses her. On the counter next to her journal, the eucalyptus plant begins to grow toward the ceiling.

“You are Abel, right?” Louisa Marie repeats, ages of wisdom and patience behind her voice. Her voice feels scratchy in her throat, and she realizes that this is the first time she’s spoken in years.

Abel looks down at his chest as if to say, who, me?  When he looks up again, his owlish gaze doesn’t leave the sight of the top of her head. Louisa Marie has a silver crown of wispy hairs and curls that frame and brighten her face. She looks as if she were lit by a halo.

She feels her locks loop together. They grow in waves down her back. She doesn’t have time to think about this. Louisa Marie picks up the journal with an old, wrinkled hand, and holds it out to Abel. “You must be the necromancer,” Louisa Marie states, holding the journal out with one shaky hand. It’s her bad hand, and whenever she holds it out for too long, pain begins to shoot up her wrists and veins like tiny firecrackers going off inside of her. An old, magic-related injury. “I’ve been made to bring this to you.”

Abel doesn’t move from his spot. “Been made?” he repeats.

“What?” Mica cuts in, their voice like a rusty blade slicing through a sheet of crisp paper. Louisa Marie almost forgot that they are there. There’s a wiry crack in Mica’s voice that makes it painful to hear. “What are you looking at?”

Louisa Marie turns her head slightly to the left to catch a glance of her grandchild again. Mica is standing next to Abel with a deep frown painting their face pink. Their knuckles are squeezed tight around the spine of a book—so tight, their knuckles go white. They stare forward into the shop, looking right through Louisa Marie.

“There’s a woman—” Abel starts.

But Louisa Marie cuts him off. “We don’t have time for introductions,” she says, trying to be gentle, but she can feel her locks growing and knows that the honeycomb that lives in her hair is starting to drip. She can feel the honey slide behind her ear and run down the back of her neck. This isn’t good, she thinks. A eucalyptus leaf floats to the floor. She uses her left arm to thrust the journal out again. “Take this.”

Louisa Marie has been summoned from some of her favorite things: eucalyptus, warm things, and bees. So when bees begin to manifest from her fingertips, she knows that time is ticking away faster than she had expected. They zip around her outstretched arm, all the way to the journal that Abel is refusing to touch. Louisa Marie lets it drop back onto the counter.

“A woman?” Mica has turned ashen pale, hands outstretched, palms up as if waiting to receive something or surrendering. “Describe her to me.”

“She’s got deep brown skin,” Abel says. He’s turned away from Louisa Marie now and is focused on Mica. “So dark—almost blue-toned. She has round small eyes . . . kind of like yours, but darker brown. And these long, long dreadlocks that go down her back.”

Louisa Marie feels her locks grow just past her butt, and the eucalyptus on the counter crawls to join them. A golden bumblebee rests, for a moment, on her nose before she wrinkles it. When it flies away, Louisa Marie takes a step forward to get Abel’s attention.

“They know who I am,” Louisa Marie says, trying to get this out of the way. She doesn’t have much time. “My name is Louisa Marie. Tell them that.”

Abel looks lost between two competing thunderstorms brewing in the same room. He turns to Mica. “She says her name is Louisa Marie.”

Mica takes in a hasty breath through their teeth, but they don’t seem unbelieving. They drop the book they’d been holding and turn to Abel, eyes like steel. “What does she want?”

Abel is thoughtful before remembering the journal Louisa Marie had shakily held minutes before. He seems to jump a little when he notices her keen stare at him. How he forgets about spirits so easily.

“She wants to give me a book.” Abel says this like a question.

“A book?” Mica repeats. “A book,” Louisa Marie confirms, even though she knows that Mica cannot hear her.

Abel nods feebly, looking between the two of them. He’s unsure what to do next. Mica’s face is strained and pinched as if they are in pain, and Louisa keeps staring at him from across the room. Her eyes are dark and boundless. Her hair grows and grows around her shoulders, in wisps, toward the floor.

“Take this,” Louisa Marie says, taking a step forward. Abel isn’t moving or even reacting, and she knows that she doesn’t have much more time. She can feel the honeycomb beginning to gather behind her ears and around her hair. She can hear the bees gathering—hurry up! they say. “Quickly, child. I don’t have much time with you.”

Abel rushes forward as if compelled, stumbling over his own feet, and tripping over strings of eucalyptus. His breath leaves him when he stands in front of Louisa Marie. She stands there like an ancient deity, tall and proud. Old, but not in a delicate way. Somehow, he knows that this is the clearest sight of a spirit he will ever get.

Louisa Marie holds the book out to him. Her wrinkled fingers are adorned in gold rings with symbols on them, like the ones that Mica has tattooed on their body. Abel reaches to grab the book, but Mica intersects, grabbing his wrist. On their fingers are the symbols reflected. He looks between Mica and Louisa Marie again. The journal hangs in the dead air between them.

“Wait,” Mica says, and eucalyptus curls around Abel and Mica’s ankles in a slow wind, looping into their shoelaces and tightening the strings. “How do you know it’s her?”

“What do you mean?”

Mica doesn’t let go of Abel’s wrist. Their eyes are sharp when they stare ahead. They look directly at Louisa Marie, but Abel knows Mica still can’t see her. “There are false spirits, Abel. I know you’re still learning, but spirits lie. They can be deceitful. They can be vengeful. How do you know that what she’s saying is true?”

Louisa Marie clicks her tongue against her teeth in a manner Abel knows well from his own mother. The sound disturbs the bee resting on her cheekbone, and she says, “Who made them so distrustful?” It sounds like she is fussing, like this had been a common problem between the two of them. “If we had the time, my child, I’d tell you the entire history of me. But we don’t. Look at how the honeycomb drips—time is running away from me.”

And the honeycomb drips, and the hair grows, and Mica grabs Abel’s shirt like their life depends on it. Louisa Marie says, “Make them see what you see.”

“She says we don’t have time,” Abel whispers to Mica, turning his head so he can see the way that Mica’s jaw tenses. “She’s got this honeycomb falling from her hair and there are bees¾you see them right? The bees, at least?”

Mica nods minutely. There are bees, yes. Many of them. They had come between the cracks in the windows and squeezed through the bottom of the front door. They had flown around Mica’s bald head and rested on their shoulders. They had buzzed in their ears and had given them goosebumps from their sound. Now, they rest in the crevices of Louisa Marie’s hair, Abel tells them.

“Fine,” Mica says, stepping back. They let go of Abel’s shirt, but they still do not look trusting. “But only because my grandmother used to keep bees a few yards from here.”

Dreadlocks join eucalyptus on the floor of the library, the ends of each intermingling. Abel watches the strings of the plant twist around Louisa Marie’s solid gray locks.

“Quickly, child,” Louisa Marie says, gesturing toward the journal in her left hand.

Abel rushes forward to grab it from her shaky grip. For a moment, both of his hands rest on the thick leather and he feels power surge through his fingers, up his arms, vibrating all the way to his collarbone. For a moment, the book seems to vibrate. Then it feels as if it weighs nothing. And then it explodes in his grip.

“Fuck!” Abel drops the journal like it had caught flame, but when he looks down, he sees that it’s still completely intact. Its pages are unbothered, and the leather is still sturdy.

Mica is next to him again with a frown creating deep lines on their face—lines that didn’t seem quite right for someone so young. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Abel’s hands are red and angry and burning. He waves them as if trying to cool them off. “Fuck,” he repeats. “I need some water or something. I feel like I just touched an open flame.”

Abel looks from his hands to Louisa Marie, who, has a swarm of bees fluttering around her gray head like a storm cloud. Her eyes are wide with shock, her hands shaking at her waist. “That’s not supposed to happen,” she says. She shakes her head, and honeycomb falls to her feet. On the ground, her hair wraps and twists with eucalyptus. Abel knows that they only have a few more minutes together.

“What is supposed to happen?” Abel questions, hands throbbing. His throat feels tight.

“Not that,” the old woman says, suddenly looking very tired. Her frown weighs her face down with lines like Mica’s. She narrows her eyes at him. “You were supposed to be the one.” She shakes her head. “The one who sees spirits is the one who receives the book,” she says, as if quoting a passage, she’d once read. “That’s how it’s always been.”

Abel’s heart seems to ram against his ribs. It suddenly doesn’t feel as warm in the library, and the sun has gone down early. Mica seems far away, even though they’re only feet away. “What do you mean?”

“I mean something’s been undone,” Louisa Marie says, eyes wide. She looks up at Abel, and with every movement, something comes apart from her: a piece of honeycomb dwindles, a dreadlock grows detached from its root, a bumblebee falls from the air. She looks at Abel and doesn’t let her eyes leave his. “You’ve got to find someone who can open this book.”

“You can’t do it?” Abel asks, staring at the book that now sits atop a pile of Louisa Marie’s hair. He’s anxious now, and he feels his heartbeat in his throat, almost forgetting about how his hands flash with pain.

“No, not me,” Louisa Marie says. “It was never me. It’s got to be you—or someone like you. Tell me, are there any other necromancers in town?”

Abel shakes his head profusely, his own short dreadlocks bouncing against his forehead. When he reaches his hand up to move them away from his eyes, he finds that his forehead is sweaty. “No—I mean, not that I know of. I don’t know anything,” he admits hastily. “I don’t know anything about this town.”

Louisa Marie appears to be fading. Having given the book, time is running out; there is nothing else she is meant to do. “I’m afraid I don’t know what to do,” she admits. She drags her hands through her hair, and when she pulls her hand away, dreadlocks, honey, and honeycomb follow. She shakes them off her hand, and they land atop the journal. “There is one thing,” Louisa Marie says. “Find Qweli. She’s worked in this town for years. She may know how to get this book open. Bring it to her, if you can find her.”

But Abel is uninterested in another long game of hide-and-seek. “What’s so important about this book, anyway?”

Louisa Marie smiles then, gently, but with a certain type of hardness that reminds Abel, again, of his own mother. “This is the town’s oldest spellbook. It’s meant to help you survive Old Meridian’s Curse.”

Abel’s hands burn and burn. “But what is the curse?”

Bees surge around the hands and feet of Louisa Marie. She shakes her head sadly. “This town just takes and takes and takes,” she says. Her white robe drips with honey as eucalyptus climbs up her sleeve. “You know Old Meridian was started by a woman like me?” she says laughing. “And that was stolen from us, too, so the town wants revenge. There’s a pain here, Abel.”

“But what does that mean?” Abel cuts her off, his pain and his fear forgotten. This doesn’t make any sense. He can’t figure out what she is saying.

“Pain and fear made this town want to eat itself!” Louisa Marie exclaims, and suddenly she goes blurry. Bees rise from the ground and begin to envelop her completely. Eucalyptus, hair, and honey all join forces to twist around her body. Abel can only see yellow and green and brown, and nothing more. “The book is supposed to help you put the mournful souls to rest—it’s supposed to help this town find peace.” Louisa Marie’s voice cracks at the end, and Abel hears a sound like thunder.

There’s roaring in his ears as bees fly in circles around the woman’s body, faster and faster until they become a loud, yellow blur in the middle of the library. He kneels by the counter and covers his eyes until the noise stops. He enfolds his arms for what feels like years.

When the buzzing fades, an eerie quiet fill the library. Abel slowly lifts his head and finds that Mica is kneeling beside him, holding a glass pitcher of water and some bandages. They have their hands on Abel’s shoulders like they had been comforting him—as if he’d been crying.

“What happened?” they ask. “Is she still here?”

Abel shakes his head back and forth before looking up. “Look,” he says.

In the place Louisa Marie once stood are thousands of dead bumblebees, all crumbled around the leather-bound journal.

___________________________

Talia Wright is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist and writer. She has been published in In These Times and Poynter Institute. She is a 2019 Pink Door Fellow. 

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Backwoods

 

Jay’s got his rough and calloused left hand wrapped around my throat, shoving me into the wall. There ain’t much air left in me as my muscles curl under his grip. His right forearm with the winding snake tattoo cracks my sternum. Ma’s behind him, clawing at his dirty t-shirt, using all of her five-foot three-inch body, trying to pull him off me. He’s spitting curses into my face, his hot whiskey breath stinging my nose. He squeezes my throat and our cramped, musty living room behind him starts to blur. I hit the floor and hear a thud. Slowly, feeling comes back to my body, limb by limb, aching like hell. I look up to see Jay holding his nose with blood spurting out.

I know it wasn’t me that hit him. That’s when I see Ma rubbing her knuckles with a panicked look in her eye. Not one of us say a damn word for a good while. Ma’s never hit Jay like that—I didn’t know she had it in her. She backs away, trembling with fear and keeping a close eye on Jay. I pull myself up off the kitchen floor, steadying myself on the dining table, and stagger toward my bedroom. I’m shaking, each muscle sore and vibrating with anger. The front room of our apartment feels like it’s closing in on me.

“Get your stuff, you’re outta here.” Jay slurs, wiping his bloody nose on a dish towel, the dull fluorescent overhead light bouncing off his shaved head. I can’t think of a damn thing to say, my fists balled so tight that my nails dig into my skin. “You heard me, now get the hell out of my apartment.” Ma’s stone silent with her arms crossed, just staring at the ground, like she got nothing to do with it—all of a sudden it ain’t her problem. I bite my lip so hard I taste metal—then everything is hurled out of me again. I storm back to him, anger fueling each piece of my body. The palms of my hands slam against his chest, jolting him back.

“This is Ma’s apartment. If anyone needs to go, it’s you.”

He yanks me up by my collar. His fist grinds into my already raw Adam’s apple. My toes just barely drag on the floor. The muscles in his face are tense, his skin sweaty with hate.

“Listen here, boy, I’ve been around for two solid years now. Kept the bills paid and your ma happy, and I don’t give one damn if you don’t like it. Last thing we need is a drug-addict dropout taking up space.” He throws me down. My spine slams against the tile. Ma sobs in the background. Jay takes three heavy steps toward me. He lifts one dirt-caked work boot and drops it down on my chest. “Don’t you ever talk to me like that again.” He presses his foot into my chest further, and my ribs crunch. He gives me one last red-hot snarl, his nose crusts up with blood. He slowly takes his weight off me and turns to the refrigerator to grab another beer. I scrape myself up again, my entire body pulsing with pain. My eyes burn at Jay’s back. I’m so sick of this jackass. I think ’bout grabbing that bottle and smashing it over his bare skull.

But Ma finally breaks her silence. “Baby, maybe he’s right.” She stands up from her spot on the couch, where she’s been slinking away like a hurt animal. She holds her tears back in, wiping at her blotchy face. Her dirty blonde hair is piled up on her head. She looks tired. She takes both my hands and rubs her thumb up and down, hoping to calm me down. She won’t even look at me—just got her wet eyelashes gazing down as her thumb traces my skin. “Maybe you should take some time away. You’re growing up now, you’re almost eighteen. You need to get away from all this.” She feels guilty, but that ain’t enough. I’m so mad and so damn confused I can barely see, but it’s like the rage doesn’t have any more fight left—so I just stand there with this rumbling hate and listen to her. “You can go stay with Grandma, get some peace and quiet in the country.”

I yank my hands away from hers. “Ma, you telling me to move to South Carolina and live in Grandma’s double wide? The hell do you think that’s gonna help?” Ma wipes her tears, turns away, and lights a cigarette. The apartment seems very small, more sunken in on itself than it ever. The drywall in the kitchen is cracked and there’s blood on the tile. Jay plops down in his recliner in front of the TV and sighs like he knows it’s all over. My gut thumps with unease.

I stare at Ma, noting every sign of seriousness on her face. Her thin plucked eyebrows are stressed into straight lines, eyes deep and sad. She glances over at Jay, nervous as she flicks her cigarette. She steps into the back hallway and nods me over so that we’re just out of view from Jay. Ma talks real low. “Baby, you can’t stay here—it’s not good for any of us. You’re doing drugs, getting in fights, and failing classes. I didn’t raise you like that. You got a good heart, better than most of us. You’re gonna do real good, I know it. But, I’m not gonna let you you’re your life away. Sarasota seems to be turning you rough. A new place would be good for ya.”

There’s a hint of doubt to everything she’s saying, but I know there ain’t no changing her mind. If Jay’s behind it, then it’s sure as hell happening. Ma trying to be nice is just making me angrier. My breaths are shallow, whipping and rattling against my bruising ribs. “You just want me gone, admit it. You don’t care about the dope or the grades; you’re just tired of me. I’ll pack my stuff right now and leave. But don’t you fucking call me when Jay goes too far next time and swings at you. You know damn well he’s gotten close enough.” My words fall hard and cold into the space. Ma looks defeated, her lips curling into a whimper.

I’m packed up in an hour. Ma comes to my room, hands over directions to Grandma’s, and tries to force some mushy goodbye, but I don’t want to hear it. As I leave, I see Jay slumped in front of the TV. Ma stands behind him, rubbing his shoulders, as if he was just on the receiving end of a chokehold. I slam the front door behind me. There’s so much racing through my mind that I feel like I can’t get out of town fast enough. I toss my last duffel bag into my truck. The lady from across the hall is outside, yelling on her phone, probably to her roommate who sells dope and oxy out of their apartment. She must’ve heard the whole fight, ’cause instead of ignoring me like usual, she pauses, holds the phone away from her and shouts, “Take care, kid.”

I got my tan pickup truck from Ma’s old boyfriend, Rick, who was a little less of an ass than Jay. It’s a piece of shit but it drives. I roll down the windows to smell the salty air of Sarasota one last time. As I drive further Florida, the salt fades away and I’m left with the throbbing pain in my throat and chest. The dank scent of swamp and farmland leak into the truck, and I think of the friends that I’m leaving behind. I think of the hours we spent driving up and down the beachfront, leaning our torsos out the windows, hair and baggy band t-shirts blowing in the wind, the salt breeze and crashing waves yelling back at us. I should’ve gone and said bye to Grant, at least. We’ve known each other since we were ten, lived two blocks from each other, and spent all our time getting into shit just ’cause we could. Our group of friends always hung around, never did much, but never anything good. Not one of us ever thought we’d be leaving town. Now here I am, kicked out on my ass, beat up by Ma’s boyfriend, about to spend my senior year in some nowhere, nothing town.

If my dad were around, could I be driving to his house right now instead of Grandma’s? When I was eleven, Ma finally told me he was in prison, and I started writing letters to him. She never would tell me where he was, or how he ended up there in the first place, so I kept all the letters in a shoebox. It doesn’t make much sense to write to someone I’ve never met, but sometimes it’s all I can do when things start going to shit. My first fight, the screaming matches with Jay, all my questions about love and anger—it’s all in the letters. Sometimes it just feels like my dad is the one I should be talking to. Ma usually cries when things get bad and Jay ain’t anyone to confide in. I try adjusting the radio so I can listen to something other than my spiraling. But there’s only static and a late-night preacher. Everything happened so quickly tonight, and I can’t help but get stuck on how. By the end, Ma was sulking back to Jay like always. The morning sun is poking out on the horizon, and I got hours left of driving, telling myself that leaving is good for me somehow.

 

I pull into the dirt road of Grandma’s trailer park around 12:00 p.m. the next day. I spot her trailer right away from the tacky plastic animal lawn ornaments she sold while she lived in Florida. The flamingos, tigers, and fish crowd the patch of grass that make up her yard. I haven’t seen Grandma in years. She moved back to South Carolina when I was three or so, and Ma has only brought me to visit once. From what I can tell, they don’t like each other too much. Or at least don’t care to see each other. I hear Grandma’s a hard-ass, especially to Ma, but hell, ain’t everyone a hard-ass compared to Ma?

I get out of my truck, stiff from sitting down for ten hours. Before I’m even on the little add-on wooden porch of the trailer, the door opens. Grandma stands there, barely taking up the doorway. She has her blonde, graying hair twisted back in a knot, a thin flannel tucked into jeans, finished off with hiking boots. Her hound dog pushes out from inside, sniffing all around me, and starts to growl. Grandma is only fifty-six and she has the same high cheekbones and rounded face as Ma. She looks at me carefully, her small features and wrinkles form a stern look. Her eyebrows raise as she lingers on my neck, and I know she’s looking at the bruise from Jay. “Well, look at you. Your Ma said I’d be expecting you this week, but you sure as hell didn’t waste your time. Don’t mind Rufus, he’s getting arthritis, so he won’t do much harm.” She waves me into the trailer.

Inside it smells like saltines and gun smoke. Two rifles sit up on the wall that’s covered in cheap floral wallpaper. “Now let me give you the tour. My room, your room, kitchen, bathroom, living room.” Her finger follows her words in a quick circle, and she wheezes at her own joke. “We can talk tomorrow, go get settled in. I got my shows to watch. And remind me to teach you how to use a damn washing machine.” She wheezes again. I look down and realize Jay’s damn boot left a dirty shoe print on my shirt. I shake my head but smile for her anyway.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I drop my two bags on the floor of the spare bedroom, fall down onto the bed, not bothering to get under the thin quilt, and pass out looking at the beige, gloss-finished wall.

 

My eyes shoot open to the sound of banging. The door swings open and Grandma walks right in, hollering for me to get up. The alarm clock reads 6:30 a.m. Grandma pulls open the blinds, letting the cold morning light in. “Come on, we got a lot to do today!” I get dressed as quick as I can. I go to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. I take a good look at myself in the mirror. Feels like I haven’t seen myself in years. The blue and gray bruises on my neck from Jay’s chokehold are twice as dark as they were yesterday. I look like hell with my hair lying flat from sleep, and gray, heavy circles under my eye. I pull my white t-shirt back to cover my bruises, so no one starts asking questions.

When I get outside, Grandma is already in her Honda, putting on brown sunglasses and driving gloves. She adjusts the strawberry tree air freshener hanging on the mirror. “Oh good, you’re done primping.”

As Grandma drives us through town toward the high school, we pass acres of farmland and strips of sad, broken shacks. The past two days have left my head buzzing. I know my friends are gonna give me hell for living in the country, not that any of us had nicer plans. I already miss the beach. This side of the state is landlocked, and it makes my breathing shallow to think about it.

Soon as we check in at school, a woman in a sweater vest hands over the paperwork and smiles wide. “Jessie! I spoke to your mom a few weeks ago, and we’re excited to have you join us next week when the fall semester begins!” I start getting mad. I tap my foot and my knuckles tense to white. This wasn’t just some snap decision ’cause Jay felt like it; this whole damn thing has been in the works. Anger starts brewing inside me, like the whole ocean is churning in my stomach and veins.

Grandma leans over and whispers, “Boy, you better pull yourself together.” I’m not less mad, but I close it off somehow. Grandma kinda scares me. I’ve heard stories of how she used to chase off Ma’s old boyfriends with her shotgun. I wonder what she thinks of Jay. I’ll bet she’d have no problem pointing that gun at him.

Every piece of Pickens that I’ve seen while driving around looks like a back road, like a shortcut through the shitty part of town. All of it overgrown and unused. Grandma pulls up to this car shop on the other side of town. She doesn’t bother to park, just pulls her Honda across parking spots, in front of the gray garage with a small, glass room attached. A red, rusted sign hangs over the building and reads: Pickens Car Repair. “Go ask for Hurley—he’s got a job for you.”

“I don’t know anything about cars, though.”

“Well, you’re gonna learn. Listen, this is how this is all gonna work. You’re gonna live at my trailer and you’re gonna go to school. You’re gonna pass your classes, you’re gonna work at the shop with Hurley, and you’re not gonna screw around. Now get out of my damn car so I can get back to Rufus and the wrestling match.”

I want to argue, but I see right into that hard expression and I know she ain’t bluffing. I guess I expected all this. And I ain’t worried about school, never had much trouble doing the work; I just didn’t want to. I feel a little sick with all the change. But I know sitting here won’t help nothing. I get out of the car and walk over to the faded glass doors.

 

Hurley’s a small, squat guy who always wears gray coveralls and has a flushed tone to his face. Somehow he looks goofy and tired in the same breath, like a Christmas elf serving a life sentence. I work at the shop on the weekends. When I get in, he’s at his desk doing paperwork, drinking instant coffee with his feet propped up on the metal desk. He likes calling me James Dean. He teaches me a new part of a car every day. Pretty quickly I can change AC belts, brakes, and tires. While we work, he wipes the grease off his forehead with his red bandana and tells me town gossip. He’ll ask about school and I tell him the truth—I just do the work, stay quiet, and the teachers don’t mind me at all. I don’t tell him that I feel restless all the time, miss my friends, and wish there was something less sad looking about this town.

In October, this new family moves into the trailer just down the slope from us. From what I can tell, it’s a dad, a kid my age, and his little sister. They seem real down on their luck, but hell, ain’t everyone in a trailer park? The dad is this real big guy, round beer gut, rough around the edges with a red face. The girl looks about five or six, energetic, and runs around in circles in the yard. They live in an old, faded trailer right by the creek bed, where the kudzu vines hang over the trees. Within the first week, I hear the dad holler real harsh at the kid and his sister. I bite my lip, drive off toward work, and keep out of it. But I keep thinking about the hollering and how it sounded whiskey-infused, just like Jay. Most of all, I think about how I didn’t hear anyone yell back.

A few weeks go by, and one day I see the kid walking toward the school bus stop, and I don’t know what gets into me, but I slow down and roll down the window.

“Hey, you headed to Pickens High?” He’s got his hands in his pockets, clothes hanging off his bones. His eyebrows furrow while he gives me a skeptical eye over. “Don’t worry man, I’m not some creep, I’m headed there too. Figure you might not wanna take the bus.” He loosens up and laughs a bit.

“Yeah, alright, thanks. I’m Logan.”

“Jessie.” He walks around the front of my truck to get in. We drive off toward school making small talk. Turns out, that’s his uncle Ben and his cousin Leslie. They moved here from Tennessee after some money problems. His parents ain’t around anymore. He doesn’t go into much detail. By the time we’re at school, we’re talking about music and movies. Other than the few times Grant’s called, I haven’t talked to another teenager like this since I moved.

I start driving us to and from school, and we hang out a few nights a week. I can finally relax and have someone to kill time with. I ain’t just waiting for the next class or shift or meal. Logan’s calmer than my friends in Sarasota; he doesn’t mind sitting in the quiet for a long time. He’s got this light blond hair that falls into his face that he twirls at constantly. There ain’t much to miss out on in Pickens, so we spend our time at my place or sitting in the lawn chairs outside. Logan says his place ain’t too hospitable, and I don’t ask what he means, ’cause I’m sure it’s gotta do with his uncle Ben. Trailer parks are strange like that, the engineering doesn’t keep sound in too well, so most of the time you can hear everyone’s business, but you just pretend you don’t know a thing.

 

It gets to a real hot day in early November. I make my way toward my truck in the student parking lot. Logan is home with some flu and I’m heading off to work, already making a list of things to do. Karl, a loud, patriotic jackass with cut-off sleeves and camo pants starts hollering at me.

“Hey, you ain’t deaf, are ya?” I try to swallow my frustration as I hear him walk up behind me. He yanks me back by my backpack and I spin around to face him. His Mountain Dew and chewing tobacco breath smacks me right in the face. “Aw, looks like you finally got some balls.” He takes a finger and pushes hard at my chest. My chest stiffens, like Jay’s boot is right back on it. “Guess the Florida boy ain’t shit then.”

As I pull my fist back to swing, a familiar feeling rushes in. This is just like any fight at South Sarasota High. Once I hit him, I clock him again. When I fight, the first punch breaks something open in me; the rage built up from all the bullshit floods out and becomes uncontrollable. This wave of sickening, relentless rage overcomes me from everywhere at once. Back in Sarasota, my buddy Grant would be by my side. Once we got to high school, there was always some anger hanging inside us. The fights weren’t serious—just dumb kids stealing a wallet or yelling nonsense at us. But we’d be in it together—Grant swinging at the other kid, getting out whatever frustration he needed to. And he’d always be ready to pull me back when I got too mad and couldn’t stop. Right now, I’m alone with my anger. The sun beats down in the lot and my rage surges through me as my knuckles crack against Karl’s ribs. The anger has washed over me and nothing else matters. Karl hasn’t gotten in one hit. He starts looking smaller and smaller. I grow tired in the heat but keep swinging. His friend with the empty gun holster slides in and pops me in the eye. I give him a quick punch and both of them slowly back away.

I’m shaking the whole drive to work. I only made it three months at Pickens before getting into some fight. I’m so goddamn mad. First, that Karl even looked twice at me, but really, that I got mad enough to hit him. I look in the mirror to see my eye already bruising up. Now I’ll have to explain it to Hurley. I smack the steering wheel. I feel trapped in the damn truck. I roll down the windows and smell manure. I was expecting to smell the salt water of Sarasota. I get angrier missing the beach. When I finally get to the shop, I’m all worked up. I jump out of my truck and slam the door. I take a deep breath and swallow the hot air and all the rage, and hope somehow it will just disappear, like my stomach acid will just break it all down. Guess that’s what I’m always hoping for—for the anger to shut itself off.

 

I walk in and Hurley doesn’t miss a damn beat. He glances up from his clipboard, to give me a look over—frowning at my eye. “What in God’s name happened to you?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I try walking past him. He’s at his desk and the low hanging tile ceiling seems closer—bringing the smell of oil and dirt right to my nose.

“Like hell. I know damn well you didn’t do it to yourself. Luanne’s gonna rip you apart.”

“Fine. That dumbass hick Karl, the kid with the American flag on his truck. Well, he pissed me off and I hit him. His friend hit me. That’s all. It’s over with.”

“Sit your skinny ass down.” I inhale sharply, trying to cool the residual anger, and sit down on the folding chair across from Hurley at his desk. He snorts and shakes his head. “Well, Karl is a little shit—but you can’t be swinging at every dumbass in the county. Luanne is gonna come after you like hellfire when she sees your eye. I sure as hell won’t be gettin’ in her way.” He pulls out a bag of almost frozen peas from his mini-fridge. He tosses the bag across the desk and I just barely catch it. I fumble with the plastic bag of peas, slick with wet, cold frost. Hurley nods. “Come on, it ain’t gonna heal itself.”

I slowly press the bag against my burning eye. “You’ve seen her go after somebody before?”

“Boy, I’ve known Luanne since she was in high school. When she met your grandpa, she had a softness about her, but she was still tough as nails. They got married and she found out about his drinking problem real quick. He came from a real tough mining family, ain’t nothing but hate in his childhood. He wasn’t much different. He started getting into fights around town and pushing Luanne around. When your ma came into the picture, Luanne had enough.

“One night, Randy, your grandpa, came home with blood all over him. Stunk of whiskey. He’d gotten blind drunk at the pub and beat this kid within an inch of his life. When Luanne asked what the hell happened, well, he was enraged. Started going at it with her, trying to deck her. They fought back to your ma’s nursery. Randy was belligerent, tried to rip the door off its hinges. Luanne grabbed the rifle and aimed it right at him. When he didn’t stop, she fired a warning shot.” I can see Grandma, under the weight of her rifle, in the middle of chaos. A raging drunk rattling toward her daughter. I wonder if that was the first time she had to use that rifle.

Hurley continues on, “That was the end of that. Luanne called the cops, and he’s still locked up. First off, for beating that kid, then a few years ago, when he beat up someone while on parole. Some just never change. Luanne wasn’t around for his parole; she knew better than to wait around for him. Now, I know all that ’cause I used to live in that same park. But don’t you dare ask her ’bout it. Luanne ain’t screwing around. She’s seen a great deal of angry men in her life and she ain’t afraid to fight back. She’s all into that tough love. But the woman has had enough shit. All that with Randy, then of course what your dad put her through.”

“Wait, what do you mean? You know my dad?” I shift forward.

“Well yeah, your ma and him were high school sweethearts. He didn’t stick around too long after she got pregnant. But that wasn’t his fault—well, not entirely. He had all that rage, just like you. Went around getting mad at nothing, raising hell. Luanne didn’t want that around her daughter in the first place, and she got her way in the end.” Hurley takes a sip of instant coffee.

I adjust the peas. “I never knew anything about him. Just knew he’s in prison. Ma won’t say another word about it.”

“Well, kid, this really ain’t my place. Luanne would kick my ass just for talking ’bout all this. Go on, get to work.” He waves me off and spins his chair around to his filing cabinet.

I sit there in disbelief for a minute. Never thought I’d know much of anything about my dad or grandpa. I have this tight feeling in my gut, like something is about to happen. All that rage, just like you. Hurley’s words are stuck in my mind for the rest of the shift.

 

When I get home with that big ole black eye Grandma lays into me. She doesn’t yell or cry like Ma would’ve. She just talks harsh and stern, her voice unwavering. She goes on about consequences and restraint. Her face is hard as stone, but I feel a sort of worry in her, like she’s staying quiet about something. She looks me real deep in the eyes. “Listen, Jessie, you ain’t gonna go down this road. I don’t want to see you behind bars—I’m just not doing it again. And I sure as hell ain’t seeing your ma go through it again.”

The mention of Ma brings a wave of frustration. “Ma couldn’t care less, she hasn’t checked on me since I got here.” Grandma’s eyebrows arch at me, and I feel a sliver of regret.

“Jessie. Your ma ain’t heartless, so stop acting like it. She calls me every few weeks, but we all know you don’t wanna talk to her. There’s no need in getting you up in a fuss, so I kept it to myself. She sure ain’t winning the mom-of-the-year award, but she loves you.” Grandma wipes the kitchen counter with a dishcloth. No matter what she says, I know Ma doesn’t wanna talk to me neither. She gave up on me. Grandma stops wiping the counter and looks at me. “You know, all of this anger and these fights, they ain’t all about you. People gotta watch you turn your life to shit.” She doesn’t say anything else, just walks back to her chair and turns on the TV. I stand in the kitchen for a moment, a splintering guilt filling inside me.

I go back to my bed and fall onto my back. The left side of my face and my knuckles burn. I got so many questions about all this, about my dad, and why everyone knows more about him than I do. I think back to what Hurley told me, and how Grandma doesn’t want to see me in jail, even Ma, in her own twisted way worries about it. They all seem like they’ve seen the future, like they know where I’m gonna end up. I feel like I’m falling into a hole with all these thoughts.

I rip a page out of my world history notebook and start writing a letter to my dad. I tell him how I got kicked out, how I live with Grandma now, about working with Hurley, and that today was shit. I start rambling toward the end. “I used to be so worried about what Ma thinks of me, now I know it ain’t going to change. She sees me as a lost cause. I know I don’t have to end up in a cell. But I bet you thought the same thing.” I stop myself before I get too deep in thought. I tell him to take care of himself and seal up the letter, adding it to the shoebox.

 

As the months go by, Logan and I grow to be real close. He’s one of those people that’s easy to talk to, maybe ’cause we both got our own personal problems to focus on. We don’t get into much trouble. We keep our heads down at school, don’t act up¾just get in and get out.

Sometime in January, we’re sitting out front on the lawn chairs. The sun has just gone down and it’s getting cold for the South. Logan’s been more skittish lately; he’s picking at the skin around his nails. His gaze is glued looking down toward his trailer. Through the blinds, we see Ben chugging a bottle of rum. We’ve been sitting in the quiet so long, I don’t remember what we were talking about. Finally, Logan speaks, “Why’d you get kicked out of your ma’s?”

I’m thrown off by the question. “Uh . . . well, I ain’t really sure. I got in this fight with Ma’s boyfriend one night. She said it was the weed and trouble in school, said ‘change’ would be good for me. But they’d been planning it. Ma had called the school weeks before the fight. I don’t even care what her excuse is. She watched me get beat on and kicked out by her lunatic boyfriend. My guess is Jay’s got more to do with it than anything.”

He keeps his eyes on Ben stumbling back and forth. “What do you mean?”

“He’s just got this way with her, like damn mind control. Even when he’s beating her son and heavy with whiskey, she’ll still come out and defend him. It pisses me the hell off.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it before.” He clears his throat. “My dad’s a real ‘man of God’ type. Tries to convince everyone he’s violent for a cause. The dude lives for the power of invoking fear.”

            His voice is solid, smooth, and there’s almost a smirk on his face. I want to ask him more, but I stop myself. Something about how we’re tucked into our hoodies, leaning back far into the lawn chairs, reminds me of the guys in Sarasota. How we’d lounge around, shit talk each other, and smoke out by the shore. Tonight’s different though. The air here is musty and dense; there’s no wind to release anything. I’m stuck on why Logan is bringing all this up now, but he always has something more serious to say than any of my old friends. He opens his mouth to say something, but Ben comes out and yells for him to get inside. He gets up quick. “I’ll catch you later.” He’s got this sunken look to him as he hurries down the slope. I sit there and a thick twinge of anger and worry starts bubbling up.

I hear the door to Grandma’s open behind me. “Come on now, that ain’t your business. You’re just asking for trouble.” I hesitate, but get up from my chair anyway.

Once we’re inside, she goes back to the kitchen to start dinner. I sit down at the dining table, my jaw clenches as I stare off toward the window, listening to the faint sounds of Ben. Grandma sees my foot tapping and shouts at me from the stove. “Cut it out boy, getting mad for other people ain’t gonna do anyone any good. You know how that turned out for your dad.” I finally stop looking out the window, turn to her, and sit up straight.

“What?”

“Well, that’s what landed him in jail. Your ma never tell ya?”

“She doesn’t like talking about him.”

Grandma thinks for a second. She’s got her lips pursed and she’s shaking her head, annoyed with Ma, I assume. She sits down across from me, settles back in her chair, crosses her arms and looks at me so long it makes me nervous. “Your dad always had this switch in him, you hit that switch and bam¾anger pouring out of him. He met your ma after he got out of juvie for smacking up some teacher. I didn’t like him one bit, he had a bad attitude and a violent way about him. He was always getting mad on your ma’s behalf. Well, when he got your ma pregnant we thought he might be over all his outbursts. But one night, your dad and ma were pulling out of the gas station down on Greenview Road, right at that four-way stop. Some teen was speeding down the road, not paying any attention, and crashed right into your ma’s side of the car. Your dad was livid, he dragged that kid out of his car and beat him until his face was a bloody pulp. The kid died in the hospital that night from a brain injury. The parents had money for lawyers, so your dad got locked up for twenty years.

“Your ma was shattered, losing her wits. I decided we should move to Sarasota. There was no point in sticking around here. She was seven months pregnant. She visited your dad in jail right before we left and told him, through the plexi-glass, that we were moving and he wouldn’t be in your life. Now, I didn’t last too long in Florida. I got you and your ma settled and moved back home. Of course, your ma started right back up again dating men who had tempers. I kept in touch, mostly to check on you. I knew she was stuck in her ways already.”

This is the most I’ve heard of Dad, and there’s an overwhelming darkness to knowing he killed a kid. I hate thinking it. I try to move away from it, but my mind keeps falling back on the blind rage and the brain injury. I don’t know what to say, but I’m not sure when Grandma will feel like sharing again, so I start asking. “Has Dad ever tried to find us?”

“It doesn’t matter, hon. He ain’t worth the trouble. If he did, he’d probably just be trying to make selfish amends, healing his own guilt.”

“So, you know where he is?”

“Yep. But like I said, you don’t need to know. There’s no good in finding him. Listen, just keep your head down. If you got a temper, best thing to do is stay out of the way.”

I go back to my room and pace around. I think back to everything Grandma told me. I see Ma going to visit Dad in jail before we moved. Her wearing her pink yoga pants and flip-flops. She sits down in front of him, already crying. I bet the fluorescent lighting of the visiting room is bothering her. Dad, on the other side of the plexi-glass, trying to be sweet and careful. I see him the only way I know him. From the only picture I’ve seen, as a seventeen-year-old at the state fair with Ma. I see him young, blond stubble poking out, just like mine. The orange jumpsuit swallowing him. I bet Ma blamed it all on Grandma, bet she told Dad she didn’t have a choice. When she tells him, he slams his fist. His eyes tear up while he yells. The anger overflowing.

I get out a piece of paper and start writing to Dad. But this ain’t the regular catching up talk. This time I ask questions. I ask him about Ma, if he loved her. I ask if he’s ever tried to contact me. And if he ever figured out how to control the rage. I write so fast my hand cramps. I just keep going until I’m done.

 

A week goes by and the letters are still sitting on my bedside table. It’s an oddly breezy night, as if the waves are so big off the coast that they’re blowing all the way across the state and into low-lying Pickens. I go outside to meet Logan. I stand on my side of the dirt drive with my hands tucked into my pockets. Trees rustle overhead and shadows reach across the dark sky, the porchlamps leaving the only light for the moths to flail around. I look at Logan’s trailer sunken down the hill, waiting on him to walk out. Instead, I hear crashing and Ben’s slurred hollering. I step closer until I’m just a couple yards away. I watch through the blinds in the living room as he’s thrashing after Logan, who’s carrying Leslie. My chest tightens as they disappear from view. For a moment, I can’t hear much of anything. I gulp down the quiet air and it lands heavy in my gut.

Then Leslie’s sharp scream comes out of the trailer, slicing the air. The whole world is deathly still for a moment. A surge of blind energy takes me right up to their front step. But before my hand reaches the door handle, it opens and Logan comes out from Ben’s thrashing grip. He tumbles into the yard, his body kicks up dirt as he lands on his side.

Neither of them pay any attention to me. Logan picks himself up quick and I get a glimpse of his face and know something ain’t right. His face is cold and fixed on Ben, a red-hot glare coming through his eyes. I’ve never seen that look on him. Ben starts hollering again, his lips loose and skin flushed. “See, you ain’t got a damn strong bone in your body. No wonder your dad lost his goddamn mind and dropped you off with me.”

I see Logan’s jaw tremble with hate and a wall of energy builds up through him, and charges Ben, smashing him into the side of the trailer. I step back, I can see the relief falling out of Logan, but the hate in his eyes is radiating. After another hit, Ben’s on the ground, sluggish with liquor, just barely shouting curses. Logan shifts his weight back and goes to kick Ben in the gut. I recognize each move of his muscle, the rage coursing through his leg as his foot cracks at Ben. Each collision another discharge, and the adrenaline cycling and recycling into an uncontrollable storm. The cold white of Logan’s skin tells me he doesn’t feel it anymore, his mind has disconnected from everything. Ben lies on the dirt sputtering. Logan contracts, ready for another kick, and I get a real good look at him. His eyes reflect the yellows of the porch light. He looks real young, fresh-faced, just like my dad at the state fair.

I snap into action and push Logan back into the yard.

“Hey! Cool it.” I grip him by the shoulders, holding him in place. I feel his bones fighting against me as he thrashes toward Ben. Each push and jolt grows weaker. Slowly, he loses momentum and every rigid muscle melts. A familiar calm creeps back into his eyes. He finally looks at me and I watch the anger recede back into himself. His shoulders drop, and he steps back from me, faintly shaking his head. He seems like he’s about to explain himself, but he doesn’t need to, I been there too many times to count. “You good?”

“Yeah, uhm . . . I . . . I don’t know what happened, I just¾I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“I know, but you can’t beat it out of him.” We stand there in silence in the sloped yard, looking at Ben who hasn’t bothered to get up. He looks sad and weak down on the ground.

“I gotta go check on Leslie.” Logan walks to his door, but before he disappears into the trailer he turns back to me, “Thank you.” I give him a half smile.

There’s a warm, calm buzz through my body as I walk up to my trailer. Grandma is standing in the living room, blinds pulled back, with a softness in her face. “You did good, hon.” I nod and start toward my room, but she hands over a piece of paper. On it reads the address of a South Carolina state prison. She looks at me with watery eyes and walks off to her bedroom.

            The next morning, I comb my hair back to get a good look at my jawline and I wonder if I look like my dad. I sit down and write to him again.

Last night, I watched my friend nearly beat the life out of his uncle. This kid, who I’ve not once seen angry, turned red with hate. And I knew it wasn’t right, Logan wasn’t gonna do anyone any good by fighting. So, I held him back and I felt the rage leave him. For once, I felt like I did something about the anger, even if it wasn’t my own. Recently, I stopped picturing you in a jumpsuit. I think of you, with Ma, at the state fair with that real honest, crooked smile, and I see a piece of myself. I know there’s a better side to all of this.

I seal up the letter and put it with the rest. I call Hurley and let him know I’m gonna be fifteen minutes late. I leave and take the shoebox with me.

___________________________

Natalie Benson-Greer lives in Chicago and is an undergraduate student studying fiction at Columbia College Chicago. “Backwoods” is her first published work.

---

À Maman: Make Believe

 

n 2009, you and your mom leave your abusive father. You are ten, and you won’t remember much about this day besides shouting, some hitting, and muffled struggles—it’s not the first time this has happened. You try to distract yourself by hiding in your room and keeping your head buried in your book, hoping the words on the page will take you away from the moment, into a warm and bright and safe place where no one gets hurt. Eventually, your mother screams, louder than she ever has, and it snaps you out of your fantasies. It sends a cold chill down your spine as you hear thumping along the walls; your heart races, and you panic because you don’t know what to do, when finally, your mother barges into your room and slams the door shut. Her hair’s frizzy and there’s tears in her eyes. Your little heart breaks because you’ve never seen her this bad, this weak, and vulnerable and scared, and you wonder if she’ll lie to you again when you ask if she’s okay. Before you’re about to speak, she whispers for you to get up and pack your bag—but not with school books and notepads and pencils and other stationery things; she wants you to pack some clothes and your toothbrush and other bare essentials, and tells you it’s because “we’re going to stay somewhere else for a little bit.”

“Why?” you ask her.

“Daddy needs to be alone for a while.”

You don’t question anything else after that. Because with the tears in her eyes, with the bruises you see around her neck, with how tiny and frail she looks in front of you, that’s all it takes for you to know that maybe you’re never going to see your father again, but also maybe it’s for the better. And so ever since then, you’ve kept the idea in mind that it’s just going to be you two in this world.

 

It’s a struggle at first, between jumping from relative to relative for a roof over your heads, and trying to go to school at the same time—both you and your mother. She is trying to finish her college degree all while taking care of a child, and it’s because of this that you admire her, despite seeing her get sad occasionally. She won’t directly say it, but you can see the pain in her eyes even though there aren’t tears anymore; she is lonely.

By 2012, you can say you both finally settle down. It is the fall of freshman year and you are going to a five-star school in the Western Suburbs of Chicago. Your mother has a decent job in the city, and you think things are now turning for the better. You truly believe that it’s just you two in this world, and for you, that’s actually good enough.

 

She doesn’t tell you when exactly she met him, but from what you gather, you think it had to have been over the summer through one of those dating sites. Now, instead of going to the library to get English books, or helping you with math homework, or practicing badminton with you to prepare for tryouts, she’s on the phone for the majority of the time, laughing over cheesy jokes, and dressing herself up a little more to take pictures.

It wouldn’t have been a problem had you not felt like you were getting replaced. It wouldn’t have been a problem had she not suddenly told you she was engaged after meeting him only a couple of times. You have a weird feeling about him, but you keep quiet because you don’t want to do something as selfish as taking love away from your mother, even though you thought you were enough for her.

He’s from Florida and says that he’s a doctor. He says. But, when your mother called the local hospitals down there to see if he had any records that would transfer over for when he moved in, she saw that they didn’t have any. Turns out, he was in school for medicine, but never actually completed, and he spends most of his days working at a warehouse. That’s the first strike. Your mom waves it off by saying, “At least he has a job.” You turn your head back to your books.

The second strike is when you find out he drinks. Not just occasionally or socially, but daily. He craves a bottle of beer every morning after he wakes up, and he can’t go to bed without one either, and it wouldn’t have been a problem if it didn’t disgust you so much. Because you later discover Tymothy Monroe isn’t the sad drunk who sits in the corner and thinks about his previous relationship or his kids, nor is he the angry drunk that gets heated quickly and becomes aggressive. He’s just the drunk—the loud, obnoxious kind who talks and talks and talks and likes to add his two cents into everyone’s business because he suddenly thinks he’s got an IQ of 180 and that he’s always right. He is cocky and arrogant, he is rude and ignorant, and here is where you see his true colors.

Your mother does, too, but for some reason, she defends him each time. She defends him even though she really does hate it when he drinks, when they argue about stupid things and he refuses to see her side. You think she allows this because she thinks he fills the void in her chest, and even though you’re pretty sure he’s not Mr. Right, to her, having someone is probably better than having no one. Because of that, you deal with him. For four long, consecutive high school years, you will deal with him, you will accept him, you will brush off his actions and comments, and you will keep quiet all your inner feelings—all because you want to make your mother happy.

 

You’re in the living room one day, staring blankly at them on the opposite couch. There is a Victoria’s Secret bag on your mother’s lap, and she looks at you with a disappointed expression. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Tym trying for a pokerface while pretending to play on his phone, but you see right through him.

 “Mags,” your mom sighs, her tone strong. “I know you’re getting older. You’re becoming a young lady now and you’re growing, but you’re still too young to be buying these things.” She holds the lacy strap of a black lingerie piece with two fingers, as if it’s got germs, but what she doesn’t see is Tym’s secret glance between you and the garment. She eventually drops the piece back in the bag, and you watch as it sinks into the pink tissue paper until you hear something that catches your attention.

“If it weren’t for Tym, I’d have never found out about this—”

That’s strike three. Something clicks in you, and you jump up off the couch you’re sitting on, to tower over him. “What were you doing in my room?!” you shout, and instantly, your mom stands in between you both.

“Don’t raise your voice at him!” she demands. “Have some respect!”

“Then what was he doing in my room?!” You turn to her now while he continues to hide behind his phone with that stupid smirk.

“It doesn’t matter!” your mom tells you. “What are you doing with this?” She holds up the bag for emphasis and expects you to answer, but you just stare at her like how you did in the beginning. There is no point in answering her. There is no point in telling her that you weren’t the one to buy it—that Julia bought it as a joke when you were both at the mall the other day, and you specifically hid the bag in the very back of your panty drawer because you were too embarrassed to look at it, let alone wear it. There is no point in saying this, because your mother won’t believe it. She won’t see the real problem, and she doesn’t, because she had avoided your question.

So when she tells you again that you’re being inappropriate and that you need to return it, you snatch the bag away and run upstairs. You lock yourself in your room and send a text message to Julia saying to come pick you up after work so that you both can go back to the mall. In the meantime, you toss the striped bag onto your bed, pull out a notebook, and write down all the reasons you hate Tymothy Monroe.

 

The final strike, is when you’re in the middle of napping. It’s two years after he moves in, and you’re resting before your night shift at the pizza place, when out of nowhere, you can smell the odor of beer in your room. It comes from his breath, it comes from the door, and it suddenly comes close.

You’re half-awake at this point, and it only really seems odd when you feel a heavy weight dip onto the bed with you. You’re too scared to open your eyes; you don’t want to see what you think is happening, and you don’t want it to be real, but when you get the courage to look, your heart races. You begin to hyperventilate.

You see him crawling onto you like a giant bug, like a giant roach, and you shuffle around. You push and shove, but when he pins your arms up above you and locks your legs with his own, you start to cry. He shushes you with that pungent breath of his, and you try to fight some more, but nothing seems to work. Your heart races faster; it beats and bangs against your chest like it wants to get out—like the way you want to get out. It’s at this point, you know it’s not a dream. It’s not a dream when he slides his giant, dark hand down into your shorts, and you scream, “No! Stop! Please, stop!” and he shushes you like a child. It’s not a dream when he tries to stick a single, thick finger into your hole, and it’s definitely not a dream when he continues to whisper, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” into your ear, with his nose stuffed in your hair, and you can feel him inhaling your scent, feel him taking more and more away from you. It’s not a dream because it all feels too real. It’s not just something you’ll forget when you wake up, or when you’re in the shower or getting ready, or when you’re at work taking orders, or even when you’re reading books to escape from reality—no. It’s something you’ll remember every single second of your life; it will be the reason you have nightmares. It will be the reason you’re scared to come home after work, or to even be home alone. It will be the reason you can’t trust men for the next couple of years. It will be the reason you stay quiet and stay up in the middle of the night, writing over and over again all the reasons you hate Tymothy Monroe, with this exact moment at the top of the list, circled and bolded in bright red.

You kick at him, but that seems to make things worse—your shorts lower further. He pauses at this, and then looks at you in a way that makes you feel small, makes you feel weak and vulnerable and scared—in a way that makes you feel filthy and dirty and gross because you’re having someone eye you like you were a piece of candy to lick all over, and you, on the other hand, just wanted to fucking sleep.

You both hear the garage opening, and there’s a small hiatus between you. The second he looks away, is when you kick him off for good. He falls and scrambles along the floor, and you feel your chest heaving, your heart squeezing, and you’re panting. You grab your blanket and yank it up to cover your body, curling away onto your pillow, legs still alert in case he dares to come on top of you again. You begin to sob over the fact a horrible thing from a disgusting man has just happened to you.

And as he hesitates before leaving to greet your mother, you can feel his eyes linger on your curled body from the doorframe for another minute, watching you and taunting you some more, before he finally walks off like all of this was nothing.

 

Three out of the four years pass, and the weather is nice one summer weekend. Your mom asks what everyone wants for lunch, and you tell her you don’t care. She suggests burgers, hot dogs, or even both. You tell her you still don’t care. You’re broken. You’re hurt. You don’t want anything to do with him, and you know your mom can sense this change in you, but she doesn’t understand why. She tries to read you while in the kitchen, and Tym excuses himself to start the grill, but even when he leaves, you don’t feel any different. Your mom lets it go and tells you to help her set up. She begins cutting the lettuce, onions, and tomatoes, and you open the fridge to get the ketchup, mustard, and pickles. It’s going fine until she starts something. Until she sees something.

“Maggie.”

You look over, and she has abruptly stopped in the middle of her task, staring at you, your left arm in the middle of grabbing the condiments.

“What’s that?”

You instantly slam the fridge door and begin to walk away when she sets the knife down and cuts you off. She stands in the middle of the hallway and grabs your forearm, and you already know what she’s talking about; you don’t have to look at the scars that haven’t fully faded yet.

“You cut yourself?”

You don’t answer her like the first time she confronted you, but this time, she gets annoyed. You feel her fingernails digging into your skin, frustrated by your silence, and they could’ve left their own scars if they dug any deeper. “No!” she shouts at you, like she would a dog. “No, Maggie! This”—she shakes your wrist so you understand, and you understand perfectly—“you don’t ever do this, okay? Don’t ever do this again!”

You see tears brimming at the corner of her eyes, and for a second, you feel something inside of you. A feeling that makes you want to crawl back to her, like how you would when you were a little girl on a rainy night, and she would hold you and tell you everything was okay. A feeling that gets you soft, like the kisses she’d leave on your cheeks after putting your hair into braids for kindergarten, and she’d tell you how pretty you looked. It’s a feeling that makes it seem like it’s just you two going through this world again, because now all her attention is on you, and that’s all you ever wanted it to be.

Tym comes in through the backdoor, and she glances at him and he glances at you, and then it’s like everyone wants to know what’s going on.

But it’s there, you realize, there’s not enough of you to reach out and grab that feeling, to save it. Because now her attention is on him, and if only she knew the truth about that monster, and didn’t look at him like a god, like he was enough and everything for her when you thought she’d only ever need you.

“Okay,” you respond monotonously.

But that’s another broken promise to her and to yourself because later that night and all the nights that follow, when reading isn’t enough to make you forget, when writing all the reasons you hate him isn’t enough to get all these sour feelings out, you do it again and again, in your dark room with nothing but your headphones and soft music playing, hoping for better days, hoping that he would go away, or that someday, someone would save you.

 

A couple months after the incident, your mom’s had it with this change in you. She doesn’t notice the new scars anymore because it’s winter and you’re wearing long sleeves now, but she doesn’t like that you have a bitter attitude to everything. It’s actually really pissing her off. You’re in your room reading The House on Mango Street when she knocks. You get up from your bed to unlock the door, and she steps in to question you if everything’s okay.

“It’s nothing,” you merely say, and she looks like she’s going to throw a fit now.

And she does. She snaps. She tells you how she doesn’t appreciate your two-word responses whenever she asks what’s wrong, and she also doesn’t appreciate your sarcasm, your stupid remarks, every time Tym talks. She doesn’t know when it all started, but it needs to stop; it needs to stop right now, Maggie, because she didn’t raise you like this. You’re being childish. What’s your problem?

You feel something bubbling inside of you, but you try your hardest to hold it down because you have a feeling it’s not going to be good.

“Answer me!” your mother screams, and you’re shaking now. You’re just as angry as she is, but you can’t say it. You’re scared that she won’t believe you—not with the way she looks at him, with how she’s so in love with him and with the idea that he’s perfect for her even though he drinks everyday and is a slob and has assaulted her daughter. She’d give up everything for him, and you envy that. You despise that.

She sees that through your expression. Finally, something she can read. “Is it Tym?” she asks, her voice low. “You don’t like him?”

“No,” you let out automatically, tightly. Your throat is dry, and you feel your eyes watering at the memory of that afternoon before work. You want to spill it out, but you’re still holding back.

“Tell me why,” she states, and it’s suddenly hard for you to breathe. You don’t respond for another long while, and she gets furious. “Do you not understand how selfish you’re being?” she says. “I’ve been through so much with your father, and the one chance I get to be with someone, you won’t allow it. You won’t even tell me, Mags. You’re acting like a brat!” She pauses and waits for you to reply, but you still say nothing. She’s livid.

“How would you like it if Janine brought you over to her house, and all of a sudden, her dad didn’t like you? With no explanation whatsoever. He doesn’t say anything to you; he just turns his head every time you talk, says mean things behind your back, and scoffs and snickers and rolls his eyes in that same, ignorant way you do every time Tym tries to have a conversation!”

She was not going to bring your best friend into this. She was not going to use her against you, and compare her father disliking you, like it was the same thing with your hatred for this man.

“He hasn’t even done anything to you—”

That’s your next trigger. “He touched me, Mom!”

The world seems still. It’s quiet between you two, and she stares at your outburst with a horrified look on her face—like the look she had when she pulled out the lingerie from the Victoria’s Secret bag, like that look she had when she found out you self-harmed. It’s the same look she has when she catches Tym drinking again, or when he calls her a bitch, but then uses the excuse that he’s too drunk to really mean it. It’s the same look you remember her having when your father first hit her.

Now she doesn’t say anything, and you can see the information processing through her eyes, see them growing darker and darker with each passing second, and for a moment, you feel this huge weight off your shoulders. You feel relieved that she knows, that you can tell her anything again without having to worry about her turning her back on you. That she can help and that she’ll get rid of him because she finally sees how badly he’s damaging your relationship, and god, do you get that feeling again where it’s just you two in this world and nothing else matters. . . .

But then, you see the opposite happening. You see her pupils locking onto you, targeting you, and her words, what you feared the most, smack you across the face. She has the bitter attitude now.

“Why are you making a stupid story up?” she mutters. “He would never do that. Why would he ever do that?”

That, you don’t have an answer for. But it triggers something else in you, a new kind of adrenaline. So when she leaves, you lock the door again and pull out your notebook. Instead of going back to dark nights, instead of reading the problems away with a fantasy, you begin to write your own world. You write about life being fair and where no one would turn their back on you. You write about falling in love with someone who doesn’t treat you as bad as how your father or this alcoholic treats your mother. You write stories similar to Fitzgerald and Hemingway, about jazz and dancing, and about going to Paris or some other place where the sun also rises—a place that is warm and bright and safe, where no one gets hurt. You write about how you never want to come back to the West Suburbs of Chicago after graduation, and memories being alone with him again. You had it now. For three years, you waited for someone or something to come save you from this madness, but you realize now that only you can save yourself. And you will.

 

The final year of high school comes by quickly, and Tym drives you one morning. The car ride is quiet, and you’re looking out the window to avoid any conversation. The route only takes ten minutes—just ten minutes with him, and then you’ll be away; that’s all you ever want in life now.

“I’m not a pervert,” he says out of nowhere.

Your breath halts.

“Your mother told me what you said to her, you know. That’s ridiculous that you’d think I’d do such a thing.”

Both your hands clench at your sides. He had the audacity to speak to you as if you were stupid. As if you were a little girl and had just made up some sick tale, and he didn’t do any of it.

“I’m disappointed in you, Mags—”

“Don’t call me that!”

He ignores you. “I’m not a pervert,” he repeats. “I don’t know where you get these ideas, but you gotta stop that make-believe stuff. It makes you sound crazy, and it breaks your mom’s heart, Maggie.”

He makes it seem like everything is your fault. That’s your strike.

You want to shove him off like you did two years ago. You want to smack his head against the back of the seat, the window, the windshield or something, and you want to see him die. You want to see blood all over his face, gushing from his forehead, his nose, his giant lip, and you want to see it running—running, like what you’ve wanted to do all those times you were stuck in a room alone with him, and he would give you those eyes that only you knew what was meant, what was promised, and you’d want to tell, but you knew no one would do anything about it, no one would believe you because even your mother didn’t. You want him unconscious. You want him to slump against the steering wheel with his foot still pressed on the pedal, and you want the car to accelerate and swerve in different directions until you crash. You want to crash, and you want the car to burn, to inflame his body along with it until it turns to ash because you want no trace of him in this world anymore. You want him dead and gone forever so that you can finally breathe, so that you no longer have to be afraid of men, so that ugly face would disappear from your memory, and you could have your sanity again.

But instead, you say nothing. You don’t fight. You can’t fight. Because you can’t win. You’ve learned to keep quiet, and that is what you will do until you can get away from this town. You get out of the car when he pulls up to the school, and you shut the door without looking back.

In homeroom today, the counselors come to talk about colleges, and as you stare down at the list of schools they suggest, you know you want to go far. You want to get away from Carol Stream, from Wheaton, from Illinois in general because you want to get away from this man, this monster, but you know you could never leave your mom like that—regardless of the fact that she’s taken his side, regardless of the fact that she doesn’t believe you and how she probably never will.

The only thing you’re sure about is how these next four years are the most important of your life. And you don’t want to be dragged down by anything or anyone, anymore.

You settle with an art school in Chicago, about thirty minutes from home, but still far enough away.

And when your mom asks, “What did you decide?” at dinner and you tell her, she gives you that look again. But it’s now a look that doesn’t faze you, because you’re so used to it. You don’t care anymore. You’re numb. “You want to be a writer?”

“Yeah.”

She sighs loudly and begins to pull up the school’s website on her laptop to look at the tuition. “If that’s what you really want. . . .”

And when there’s nothing else for her to say, nothing else for her to do to convince you that maybe you should try something more realistic, you go up to your room, lock the door, and pull out your notebook. And you will continue to do this, continue to write and write and write—excluded from the world, in a dark room with nothing but your headphones and soft music playing—making believe, making stupid stories up, because apparently, that’s all you do best.

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Mulan Matthayasack is a Chicago-based artist whose works mainly revolve around young adult fiction and romance. Her most recent work “SunKissed” and “À Lui: All The Things You’re Good At” can both be seen in the latest issues of Mental Papercuts.

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How to Make Jell-O shots

 

Everyone loves to get shit-faced, but you know what everybody doesn’t love? Your shitty taste in alcohol. I swear to God, every time a couple of dudes come up to me and tell me they got alcohol, it’s the same damn thing every time: some Captain Morgan, a bottle of cheap vodka, and maybe some tequila. That’s depressing, especially when you have nothing to mix it with. Some people may not care, and chug whatever you’ve got, but people like me can’t stomach that crap. But you know what everyone does love? Jell-O shots. Now, I know what you may be thinking: Really? Jell-O shots? What am I, some kind of frat boy? Some kind of teen girl going to a music festival, trying to sneak in alcohol? Well, newsflash sweetie, Jell-O shots taste fucking good, and are a convenient way to get alcohol in your system. They are extremely popular at parties and people will never turn them down. They’re really not even that hard to make. I’m not even an alcoholic (though I may sound like one) and I make about two hundred of ’em for parties I go to. So if you don’t want your next party to fucking suck, follow this guide to make some delicious Jell-O shots.

Let’s start off with what you’re going to need. So write this shit down before you go to the store, or you’re probably gonna forget, let’s be honest. Just booze and Jell-O mix right? WRONG! You need the cups to put the shots in! I get mine on eBay because they conveniently come in packs of fifty along with lids. Lids aren’t completely necessary, but if you have to transport these shots anywhere, you’re gonna want lids. Or you’re gonna have a big ol’ mess of alcoholic gelatin on your hands. So you can get these online or probably at a grocery store, they’re essentially portion containers like restaurants have for sauces. I do two hundred shots, but you don’t have to do that many if the gathering is smaller. I recommend you do at least fifty or else it’s worthless. These things go fast, you’d be surprised. You will also want some kind of cooking spray like PAM—also not required. But I do think oiling the cups up first, helps the Jell-O slide out easily, just so your party guests don’t have to struggle—unless you want them to—your call. A pitcher is needed to pour the Jell-O/alcohol mixture into the cups. Don’t try and use a bowl, you’re gonna fail, these cups are small, you need a pitcher. If you have no cookie sheets at home, buy paper plates to stack your shots onto, so they can solidify in the fridge. If you have no measuring cups (why don’t you?). Buy at least a one-cup measuring cup. If you are transporting these shots, get a cooler. Depending on how many you make, get a fairly large one. You don’t want super warm Jell-O shots, that’d be fucking gross.

Now moving on to the Jell-O and alcohol part. So, for alcohol, don’t be a cheapskate and get some shitty, no-name, huge bottle of vodka. Your shots will taste like shit and you will look bad, and you should feel bad. Buying flavored vodka makes the shots taste A LOT better. Also the leftover alcohol can be used for mixed drinks! So here are my go-to alcohols, you may choose whatever fits your tastes, or if you’re rich, go ahead and buy the expensive shit. These alcohols are fairly cheap, but still flavored and get the job done: blue raspberry (UV blue), cherry (UV red), strawberry (Strawberry Smirnoff), apple (New Amsterdam Apple), and orange (New Amsterdam Mango). Orange vodka exists, but mango vodka tastes better in my opinion. Now for the Jell-O, just get the matching flavor. DON’T GET LIME JELL-O! IT TASTES FUCKING BAD AND NOBODY LIKES IT! Trust me, it is the most unpopular flavor. At Pride fest, where they were selling Jell-O shots, lime was so unpopular the volunteers started selling ’em to minors, since they were the only ones who would take ’em. Lime is just bad and doesn’t work well with alcohol either.

So most of these Jell-O flavors are pretty easy to find except green apple. It’s a special Jolly Rancher flavor and is sometimes harder to find. Flavors like blue raspberry, orange, and cherry come in big boxes. Apple and strawberry come in small boxes. So get one of each big box, and two of each small box. Lemon is an option, but I’ve found it’s not a super popular flavor. Not as bad as lime, but still not great.

Now, can you do this with normal vodka? Yeah, but if you’re going through all this effort you might as well get flavored, to be honest. So now that you got everything you need let’s start making these shots. I always do this with another person. I’ve found it’s way easier and doesn’t take as long with two people. If you’re lonely or none of your friends wanna help you (get new friends), that’s fine. Lay out the trays/plates and place the cups on them. Make sure you spray the cups with PAM or cooking oil first. Like I said before, it just makes for easy dispensing. Now you can start boiling the water for the Jell-O. I always have two pots of water boiling to make the process quicker, but you don’t have to. So for the big boxes (six ounces), you dump one box of the Jell-O mix, for the small (three ounces), just dump in two boxes, two cups of the boiling water, one cup of the correct alcohol flavor, and one cup of ice-cold water. Now, don’t try to add more alcohol. You may be thinking, Huh? If I add more alcohol, that means the shots will be more fun! No, they won’t be. They’ll taste like shit and barely have the consistency of Jell-O. If you add too much alcohol it can ruin the gelatinous state of the shots, and that’s the whole fucking point. Just don’t. So mix this little concoction up with a spoon. Try not to have it too close to your face. The alcohol fumes are a little strong when mixed with boiling water. The first time I made the shots, I inhaled too much and felt lightheaded.

Now begins the pouring process. Fill the cups as high as you can. Nobody wants to get a half empty cup, they’d be fucking pissed. Make sure you have enough space for the lid to go on top, don’t overfill either. Once you’re done and your pitcher has run out, do the next flavor. Like I said, easy, right? Once finished, you will stack your trays/plates on top of each other in your fridge. You may have to clear some space, take out anything you don’t need. Yes, that means the Chinese takeout that’s been sitting in some tupperware at the back of your fridge. I let these babies sit in the fridge overnight. I’ve never had them in the fridge for less than, like, twelve hours. So, if you’re on a time-crunch, you shouldn’t have made these in the first place.

Next morning they should be jiggly, wiggly, alcoholic Jell-O raring to go! If you’re transporting them, put the lids on ’em all and stack them in the cooler. I always put some ice packs or ziplocks of ice to keep ’em cold. So that’s it? That’s it! Every party is more fun with Jell-O shots! Even if you’re a fucking loser you can make a party fun with these! You can even sell them at concerts or festivals. Hell, I’ve seen ’em go for $3 a pop! Some people will put straws in the shots to pry them out easily, but my trick is use your finger. I slide my finger around the edge of the cup, and it slides right out! Then I just drop it down the hatch! Or you can use your tongue—apparently I’m a pussy for using my finger, but it’s way easier. That sentence sounded more sexual than I intended. Oh well!

Obviously, Jell-O shots are not equivalent to an entire shot of alcohol, but three or four of these things will get you somewhere. They’re just easy. When you don’t wanna chug, but also don’t wanna have to deal with shitty tasting alcohol, a Jell-O shot is a delicious and convenient option. Have them in between drinks. Take them earlier before drinking! Remember to drink responsibly. Or don’t, I don’t really give a shit!

 

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Kinsey Herzog lives in Omaha, Nebrasks after graduating from Columbia College Chicago in 2018. Her most recently published piece is “The Right Place and the Right Time” on Storynews.net.

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Perverse Spirits

 

The sun beat down on the corrugated, tin roof from a cloudless sky. The metal had rusted in many places, producing an overlay of new tin grafted onto old in odd patches. The heat it produced, encapsulated the two-room shack housed beneath it, transforming it into an oven that broiled the raw, pungent smell of Fannie’s sweat. It comingled with the blood, mucus, urine, and feces that lay in a pool between her raised legs, stirring into a nauseating stench. The hands of Cora, the midwife; Fannie’s mother; and two sisters strained to hold Fannie’s thrashing form still as her back arched with the force of another pain. The women looked across her body at each other, shaking their heads, death swimming in the unshed tears pooling in their eyes, preparing for the death that lingered in the fetid air around them.

Cora was a big woman, standing just under six feet in height, broad shouldered, and muscled as some men. Sweat poured from her forehead, sliding over her coarse features which contorted from the strain. Her muscles bulged and flexed as she grabbed Fannie across her back, rolling her onto her side, allowing the other women to snatch the soiled sheet from beneath her before rolling her back onto the bare mattress. Her large, strong hands began kneading the round mass of Fannie’s abdomen as it hardened with another contraction. Fannie’s heels dug into the mattress and she threw her head back, her mouth stretched wide in a scream. Cora could see the entirety of the baby’s form outlined and knew that the head was not pointing down the way it should.

“Lord,” she whispered, turning her face upward, seeking direction and solace from heaven. “Help me, Jesus. Show me what to do,” she prayed, the gentle healer’s spirit encased in her formidable body reaching out to her spiritual gifts. Beneath Cora’s skin, she felt snakes writhing in agitation, cold suddenly enveloping her, radiating from the hands that touched the baby still in Fannie’s womb and upward through her body. Her gift manifested itself in warmth and light, or cold and darkness. This was cold.

Beaulah, Fannie’s older sister, wiped a cool, wet rag across Fannie’s brow, cooing soothingly. Her mouth moved in silent prayer as fear twisted her heart, seeing again the wreckage of her sister’s body when they had found her nine months before this day.

Fannie, legs sprawled apart, the lower portion of her body torn and mutilated, her life’s blood seeping into the dry ground. Deep wounds circled her neck, dark bruising welts, her breathing shallow and labored. She had screamed until James Henry, her sister’s husband, arrived and carried her limp form back to the house. Fannie never told her sister what or who had attacked her that day in the woods. She had simply lain listless and silent for weeks, staring at the wall, while being tended to by her family as her stomach began to swell.

Beaulah visited every day, ignoring the whispers of the family and folks around her, praying with, and for her sister. Discernment was not a gift that she possessed, but anyone with two eyes could see the madness that had descended upon Fannie. 

She gazed into Fannie’s eyes, noting the same fixed stare focused on the space beyond her. Reaching out, she stroked the hand resting in her sister’s lap.

“Fannie? Fannie? I knows you can hear me.”

She waited and began again, keeping the skin-to-skin contact, her voice soft. “It weren’t your fault. This ain’t what God want for you. You gon’ keep on an’ lose that baby chile’, an’ then what James Henry gon’ do?”

Fannie slowly raised her eyes to search her sister’s. When she spoke, her voice dry from disuse, Beaulah barely recognized it.

“You don’t know, sister. You don’t know what I done. An’ this here is my punishment.”

Her eyes lowered again, and tears slowly coursed down her cheeks, dripping onto the round mound beneath the faded housedress she wore.

“That ain’t so. God don’t be like that. We all got judgement an’ that a sure thing, but he ain’t gon’ punish a youngin’. You know it ain’t nothin’ he cain’t forgive if we ask him.”

Fannie raised her eyes to search her sister’s again, a glimmer of hope sparking. Beaulah seized it, speaking rapidly as she fell to her knees, her head in her sister’s lap, forehead bumping against the roundness of the baby. She pulled both of Fannie’s hands into her own, shaping them into the familiar form of prayer.

“All us needs to do is pray. Pray wit’ me Fannie, pray wit’ me.”

Beaulah would have done anything to save her, promised the Lord any sacrifice, and that day, Fannie found God again, both of them leapt and danced with joy, shouting and praising his lost sheep being brought back into the fold. Something in God’s word had reached her, and Fannie had sobbed in Beaulah’s arms, her words incomprehensible to anyone but the God she now served.

God became more real to Fannie than he ever had been before, offering her absolution from the darkness that had surrounded her since the attack. He became her light. Day after day, Beaulah found her cradling her stomach with one hand, holding her bible with the other. And now, the baby was coming, the special son that Fannie was assured God had promised her. 

 

Looking up, Beaulah saw Cora raise her chin, motioning her and the other women into place to hold Fannie’s shoulders down. Each woman pressed one hand down on a shoulder and used the other to hold an ankle. Her mother, Corinn, stood at her head and added her hands and strength to pin Fannie to the bed.

Cora used one hand to press against Fannie’s stomach while she reached up through her vagina, pushing her hand upward, grunting in pain as a contraction squeezed her arm and wrist, making her pant until it passed. Feeling the small feet of the child, she wrapped her hand around both feet and yanked, putting all her strength behind it, and felt the body sliding forward. Turning the baby to ease out the shoulders, she pulled again until he lay in her waiting hands, face down.

Even from the back, she could see that his head was misshapen from the force of being pulled through the narrow birth canal. His blue-black skin was pale, showing no hint of blood flow, and she turned him quickly, gasping at the sight of his nose squashed into his face, his bulging eyes, and his wide, silent mouth.

But, more than his disfigured head and face, more than his large body and shriveled legs, was the darkness that radiated from him in waves as he began struggling to breathe, his body twisting with the effort. The snakes under her skin rolled in protest and Cora felt her eyes rolling upward, her body swaying unsteadily.

“Jesus, somethin’ wrong wit’ him. Look at him.” Cora hissed the urge to place her large hand over his face and deny him the breath of life rising and writhing with the snakes. Beaulah, Ethel, and Corinn shrank away from her, their eyes rounded in terror, their open mouths flapping without sound.

“Wha’s wrong?! Give him to me,” Fannie cried, having forced herself into a sitting position. Grimacing as pain tore through her body, she reached out for the fragile newborn. The smell of copper rose into the air as hot blood rushed from her, startling Cora, who blinked twice, freeing herself from her trance, and moving into action. She looked down at the baby once more, hearing the words that would end him clearly whispering across her mind. The baby’s eyelids slid open slowly and stared at her, unflinching.

Cora felt her body deflate, the ramrod steel of her determination dissolving as she stared into his eyes. Her light melted. The snakes stilled.

Hastily, she pushed the baby into Fannie’s arms and turned, moving quickly across the room to her bag, her large bare feet making prints in the dust of the earthen floor. She rummaged, hands trembling as she searched for the herbs to pack Fannie’s womb, and stop the bleeding before she lost both mother and child. On the bed, Fannie clutched the child to her chest, and from the corner of her eye, Cora saw him wriggling. He was alive.

“Fannie, he ain’t right chile, he evil; I can feels it.” Cora called up the last of her remaining courage as she walked back across the room. “You know I got the sight, was born wit’ a veil an’ I can see it. You got to let me send him back.” Her head swiveled from side to side as she attempted to catch the eyes of the other women who stood with heads bowed, each slowly making their way closer to the door.

Fannie stared down into his small distorted features, all too big, overpowering his face, with his dark skin turning purple from his efforts to breathe. She laid him in the crook of her arm and leaned her head down until her mouth covered his nose and mouth, and she exhaled into him, watching his small chest rise. She ran her fingers lovingly over the wrinkled crevices of his skull, down his cheek and across his small body, and then repeated the procedure.

She noticed the small, shrunken legs attached to his large torso and wondered if they might be able to support him. She gazed into his eyes, willing him to live, infusing him with her spirit, remembering that God had talked to her and shown her how to still the darkness she saw swirling there in the depths.

“He be alright. God, I’ll help him be alright.” She spoke against the tendrils of evil and malice, the same ones that she had seen in the eyes of his father, Charles, that last day in the woods.

 

They met at that place, deep within the trees, the one that had become their own. It had been that way for months as he had loved her the way that her husband never seemed able to, making her insides glow, praising her beauty. She forgot the hard callouses on the palms of her hands from scrubbing, washing, hoeing the yard, and always cleaning or cooking. His touch seemed to soften her.

“Come away wit’ me, Fannie,” he begged, his breathing still harsh in her ear as the passion eased from them both. She reached down to smooth her dress back into place as she turned her head away.

“You know I cain’t do that, Charles. I got them kids. They cain’t come wit’ us. I got to stay wit’ ’em ’til they get big. Then us can go.”

His body hardened against hers and he leaned back to look directly in her eyes, forcing his words through his lips. “You don’ loves me, Fannie. You loves him an’ them.”

“No, Charles, I loves you, it jus’. . . .” The words faltered, flopping around in her mind like a fish out of water, and her limbs began to tremble under his gaze.

He stood up, his body rigid, swelling with fury growing in him as she spoke, and she watched his eyes change, becoming darker, larger. Something swirled in their depths just as his hand made a fist and came down to strike her. 

Her left eye exploded with pain, her hands flew up to cover it, leaving her defenseless against the blows he rained on her. The bone in her forearm cracked from the force of the next blow, and then fell limply at her side. She tried to form words that would stop him, bring back the love between them, but nothing came through her swollen lips except grunts and groans.

He lifted and slammed her into the earth, and felt the soft grass that had been their bed a moment ago, now filled with stones and brittle branches that dug into her back. One hand fumbled with his manhood as he stretched her legs open wide, pulling and clawing at her as he tore her body. 

His face was a rictus of hatred as he pounded into her broken flesh. She remembered the raw searing pain as tissue ripped and tore. He pounded her body; his hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing until the last of his rage poured out of him with his seed flowing into her. She saw him stand and walk away, never looking back at her ravaged body while her fractured mind tried to comprehend what happened as the pain dragged her down into complete darkness.

 

She closed her mind to the memory and looked down at her son. Hers, not his. Tears slid down her cheeks, anointing his head and body. She knew that she could make her son better, fix in him whatever it was that had broken in his father that day. Her love would fix him.

“You gon’ be different,” she whispered into the shell of his ear. She would not let him die; she would not let him leave her. Only God could take him away from her, and He wouldn’t do it. He had promised her through His forgiveness that He would not. She curled her body around the baby protectively, watching the slow rise and fall of his little chest with each harsh and labored breath. Her fingers and palm continuously rounded his crown, smoothing the dented skull before moving to stroke her fingers on either side of his nose, shaping it.

Cora turned away, her shoulders hunched, her face a closed mask of despair. She imagined pulling the child from Fannie’s arms and bashing his head against the floor. The feeling in her was so strong, her legs strained to move on their own. Frantically searching for support, she found Beaulah’s eyes locked into her own, along with Ethel and Corinn. She paused, hesitating to do what, in her heart, she felt was right.

But the moment passed. She could not do it now without it looking like a murder. Sighing in resignation, she moved toward the other women, forming them into a circle as she joined hands with them. “God’s Will will be done sisters, let us pray,” she intoned. She closed her eyes and turned her back to Fannie and her son.

____________________________

Carolyn Boykin is currently working on her MFA thesis at Columbia College which had its origin in the short story, “Perverse Spirits.” In 2019 she received the Daniel Friedman Award for her story “Ugly” in Hair Trigger 41 and the Compassionate Chronicles award from Words for Charity for “Afros Bellbottoms and Bald Heads” and “Body of Work.”

---

Joe & Patricia

 

When they met, Joe had only been divorced, officially, for a year and six days. He’d been living alone in a small apartment about thirty minutes outside of the city of Atlanta. In that time, he hadn’t seen, heard from, nor spoken to his ex-wife and their two kids. He didn’t have much to say to them and neither did they. To be fair, his son was only five when he left, and his daughter just turned eight. His wife—ex-wife—and he agreed to let their kids decide whether they wanted a relationship with him or not. If they didn’t want him, he wouldn’t push it. After everything that happened, he wouldn’t blame them if they never spoke to him again.

Joe had gotten used to living alone at this point. He went to work at the restaurant up the street and came home with leftovers. He would sit in front of the TV and stay there until his eyelids covered his view. The thought of getting married again never once crossed his mind until he met Patricia Jones.

She was everything his ex-wife was not. She was taller, louder, and could handle anything he threw at her. He would dare say she was better to look at too. Unlike Rachael, Patricia was not a pushover. That was the one thing about their marriage, Rachel was much younger than him when they met. A sweet woman trying to pursue a career in education, who would do anything for anyone before doing it for herself first.

Maybe Joe admired that about Rachael in the beginning. Her submissive attitude. Her kind nature and small voice, her small frame he could wrap his arm around, and the way she always, no matter what, made sure she looked her best. Rachael’s willingness to please. Her eagerness to produce two kids for him. Her being okay with him picking their names, even though she hated each suggestion, but if he was happy, she was too. The sex was average, he always thought. It got the job done, but never really satisfied him. Satisfied. That was it. Joe was never satisfied with Rachael. He just liked the idea of her.

Patricia was a breath of fresh air for him. She was everything he wanted in a woman and then some. She was slightly little older than him, had never been married, and no kids. She knew exactly what she wanted, how she wanted it, and where she wanted it. The best part: she never, never brought up his past. He told her what she needed to know (past marriage, two kids), but nothing more, and she never questioned it or cared to ask. That’s what he liked the most, and all his uncertainty about getting married again changed rather quickly. Joe fell head over heels for her and wanted to be wrapped up in her love more than anything he’d ever wanted before. Some days, he wished she had been the woman he met first instead of Rachael. He wouldn’t have wasted his time in the first place, and he would have had a different mother for his kids. And just a short time after getting divorced, Joe found himself married yet again. This time he got the right one.

But the thing about Patricia, she was beyond curious. Sometimes to a fault. He had two children. TWO! And she never met them. That had been the part of his life she now wanted to know the most. She knew nothing about them, and they had been married ten years! The universe, though, had a funny way of working itself out. Lately she’d been thinking heavily about kids—having her own kids, and about the fact that Joe already had his own. On her way home from work one day, she thought perhaps she’d bring it up at dinner. See where his head was at on talking about it now.

Patricia stepped into the kitchen, leaning against the archway of the room. She watched as her husband paraded around, pulling items from the fridge and cabinets. She crossed her arms over her chest while watching him prepare a meal. This was the best part of the day, watching her husband in his element, doing what he loved the most, cooking. When he noticed that she was standing there, he came over and kissed her cheek, giving her a toothy grin before returning to the chopping board.

“What’s on the menu tonight?” she asked.

“Flank steak,” he said, giving her a wink.

“Sounds good to me,” Patricia said. She stepped in the room, moving closer to him and leaning her hip against the counter.

“How was work?” he asked her.

“Nothing special,” Patricia told him. She watched as the knife in his hand sliced through the red meat. There was something delicate about the way he did it that she was attracted to. “The shop was pretty quiet today.” She owned her own hair salon, one of many in Georgia. “I was ready to see you though.”

Joe smiled at her, leaning in and kissing her, when the faint buzzing noise of the doorbell sounded. They ignored it, deepening their kiss when it sounded again.

“I’ll get it,” Patricia said, pushing him away. She wiped the corners of her lips while walking to the front door. She pulled it open to see a thin girl standing before her with unnaturally blonde hair and dark brown eyes and skin.

“Hi,” Patricia greeted her with a smile. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, I . . . I was just . . .” the girl stammered. “I’m looking for Joe . . . Joseph Miller. I’m his daughter.”

“Oh, oh,” Patricia blinked at her, then turned over her shoulder, calling for her husband. While she waited for him, she scanned the girl. She looked nothing like Joe. Maybe her nose—the way it turned up at the tip. Perhaps her almond-shaped eyes and dark brown skin, but she couldn’t see him in her. She knew Joe had kids, a daughter and a son, but she had never met them. Never even saw a photo. He didn’t have any.

When her husband appeared by her side, she stepped back as he went outside. She almost wanted to invite her in, but he seemed determined to keep the girl away from her. She had the strong desire to meet his kids. That was the one thing she now wanted most of all—kids—but at her age, the chances were unlikely.

Patricia paced back and forth while her husband spoke to his daughter. She tried to fight the desire to eavesdrop, but she couldn’t help herself. She went over to the window, peeking through, seeing the two of them sitting on the bench on the porch. She was able to catch the tail end of something being said by his daughter:

“This is a really nice house. I love the flowers.”

Patricia took pride in those flowers. She smiled at herself, feeling pleased, then moved away from the window, wanting her husband to have his chance with his daughter. She wondered about his ex-wife. She hadn’t a clue what caused their relationship to end, and the only thing Joe would tell her was that they didn’t see eye-to-eye on how to raise the kids. She wondered if that would have been the case with their marriage if they would have had kids. With that thought, she was kind of glad it never came to be. Although the reality was hard to accept, Patricia always felt a certain jealously toward his ex-wife. She got the kids, but at least Patricia got the man.

She continued pacing back and forth behind the door when Joe came back in. She was expecting his daughter to be following behind him, but he was alone. He shut the door behind him and caught her curious eyes.

“What?” he asked, walking past her. Patricia followed closely behind as they headed back into the kitchen.

“What? I’m sorry, should I just ignore your daughter showing up?”

“Yeah, actually. She came for me, not you.”

“Excuse me.” She reached out, grabbing his shoulder, pulling him around. She folded her arms across her chest. “Let’s try that again.”

“Don’t start.”

“Why didn’t you invite her in?”

“Why would I?”

“She’s your daughter. Let’s start there.”

Joe rolled his eyes, turning away and going back to the kitchen. He stayed quiet and went back to fixing dinner. Patricia found herself standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Her arms still crossed, and her face twisted. He was really about to ignore this? Of course he was. Why did this suddenly shock her? He’d been pretending his other family didn’t exist since the night he told her about them. She always wondered why. That part of his life was so foreign, some days she forgot it was there. Living and breathing miles away. She thought of his daughter, then. She looked nothing like him, but there was something about her in that short time that had stuck with her. His daughter was a piece of him, a piece she’d never get to have.

Throughout dinner they didn’t bring up his daughter, though the topic was burning on her lips. While they cleaned up, she noticed how distracted her husband had become. She had only caught pieces of their conversation. She wondered what exactly happened out there. What they spoke about. After ten years and a conversation that lasted less than ten minutes, she couldn’t begin to imagine.

Later that night she found Joe in their bathroom. When she heard the faucet creak and the water splash around the sink, she knew it was the right moment. Patricia slowly stepped in the bathroom, leaning her shoulder against the door, catching the eyes of her husband in the mirror. His hands were immersed in warm water before he reached for the razor. She continued to watch him lather his face with white shaving cream. It was not long until he looked back at her through the mirror.

“You need something?” he asked.

“Are you going to continue to ignore this?” He smirked at her, grabbing the razor and bringing it up, and gently sliding it down his face. “Hello?”

“Hold on,” he muttered. He placed the blade aside, grabbing the edges of the sink with both hands. He caught her eyes again. “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

“Why would I? Ten years of marriage—and not once a mention of your kids. And suddenly one of them shows up at my house.”

Joe found the blade again, sliding it along his face before placing it back down. “So what? I told you I had kids.”

“You did, but as far as I’m concerned, they don’t exist based on the way you treat them. You know how I feel about having a family, and here you are ignoring yours,” she said. “How did she even find you?”

“How would I know?”

“You still talk to your ex?”

“No, Patricia.”

“Then how did she find us?”

“I said, I don’t know.” Joe leaned in closer to the mirror, getting a better view as he continued to shave his face. His vision of her got blurry, but he could see the folding of her arms and the way her hip stuck out of the bottom of her oversized shirt. It rose just slightly, exposing the best part of her body. He pulled back, allowing the view of her to become clear again.

“Don’t give me that face,” he commented, seeing the turned-up corners of her mouth.

“Then start talking.”

Joe wiped his face clean and turned around to face her. Her eyebrow cocked almost to her hairline. He looked her up and down before speaking again.

“You really want to talk about my daughter right now?” he asked, his voice low.

“Yes, obviously.”

“Really?” He pushed himself off the sink, walked over to her, and looked down his nose at her. “Really?”

“That’s not going to work. Not again. You do this all the time, but not tonight,” she said, pushing her hand against his chest. He grabbed it, pulling her close. She felt her face break into a smile, every part of her tried to resist it, but she couldn’t help herself. He always got her like this. She felt his hands curl around her waist and move lower.

“Joe, we need to . . .” she started to say, but was stopped by the kiss he planted on her lips. “Talk about this,” she said through each kiss.

“I don’t want to be thinking about my daughter right now.” He pushed her backwards until they fell onto the bed, laughing and ignoring everything that was just said and getting wrapped up in each other.

This was how it always was for them. Always. Patricia couldn’t understand how they managed after ten years of marriage, to go without having an honest conversation about certain things. The unknown of his life, though, that’s what she loved and hated at the same time. It kept her coming back, no matter how much she hated herself afterwards. Out of everything she wouldn’t let him get away with, this, this was the one thing she could never get a hold on.

Damn, she thought, watching him sleep next to him, how can you make me so damn weak, yet strong at the same time?

___________________________
Katori Hinton is a recent graduate of Columbia College Chicago Creative Writing department. She’s worked on Hair Trigger 42 as an editor. This is her most recent publication.

---

Winter, 2020: A Student Anthology

 

Steven Waynick

         Steel Strings

Shaniece Rattler

          Russian Love Song

Scotty Livingston

          How to Plan for a Safe Space Cruise: A Space Travel Survival Guide

Katori Hinton

          Special Friend

Aja Todd

          Into the Tides

Alexis Bowe 

          The Proof Is in the Panties

Arely Anaya

          The Safe Place

Shari Hirsch

          Beautiful Savages

Kala Wahl

          I Promise This Is Not About Sex

---

Steel Strings

 

There were two things every student at Belleview High School knew: the freshman math teacher, Mrs. Flanagan, was the most unpleasant bitch this side of Nancy Grace; and that Jeremy Steiner played guitar damn well. His close friend, Miles, liked to proclaim that Jeremy could make Eric Clapton sweat bullets.

“I’m serious,” Miles had said one day as the two of them walked home after jazz band practice. “Jimi Hendrix only managed to piss Clapton off a little bit. He’d have shot your ass.”

That got a decent chuckle out of Jeremy as he reached up to scratch the unkempt tangle of dirty blond hair. “Feel like I still got some stuff I gotta work on.”

Now it was Miles’ turn to laugh. He remembered the first day of their band auditions. It was only three years ago, but it felt like an eon separated them from that day. Into the auditorium had strolled this greasy-haired, lanky bastard, with a crooked grin, and swagger in his step. By his stride alone, you’d have thought he had memorized ten years’ worth of winning lotto numbers. Strapped to his back was a muddy-brown and dusty chunk of wood that could loosely be called a guitar. It was practically falling apart, with pieces of wood seemingly gouged from its frame. He drew more than a few curious glances from the twenty or so freshmen who had also shown up to audition. After a pretty decent performance on trumpet from a girl with blue hair, and a short, stocky boy who played sax like there was a hole in his tongue, Jeremy’s name was called.

He sauntered up to the black folding chair in the center of the room, with an off-centered grin. As he sat down, he gave the group of onlookers a quick little smirk. Miles thought he looked a bit like how Jesus must have—about to proclaim that water was no longer the only thing on the menu. As Jeremy positioned his fingers along the guitar’s neck, Miles noticed a small bandage around the tip of his middle finger.

Jeremy began to play. One by one, the jaws of each person in attendance dropped, and easily could have dented the white, linoleum floor. Jeremy’s face might have been cool and confident, but his fingers were those of a man possessed. They danced and fluttered, flying across the fretboard, untethered from the limitations of the flesh. From those steel strings flowed an entrancing melody. Some otherworldly chime that couldn’t be fully captured by human ears. He might have led the Pied Piper himself into the depths of Hell, if only he could hear that sweet song one last time.

When he’d finished, it took nearly a solid minute for the silence to be broken. Finally, Miles found his voice, croaking out what everyone else was thinking:

“Holy shit.”

Word quickly spread about the gawky-looking musical genius with the decrepit acoustic. Mike and Jeremy soon discovered that they lived within a few blocks from one another and became fast friends.

“So, where you thinking for college?”

Miles blinked, Jeremy’s voice rousing him from his reminiscence. “Me? Shit, I don’t know. Maybe . . . Emory?”

“Really?” Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “That’s a little boring, isn’t it?”

“Well, shit, we can’t all get a full ride to Juilliard.”

Jeremy laughed. “Come on man, you could get in, too, no doubt!”

“Yeah, maybe. But then I’m stuck playing trombone the rest of my life. Think I’d rather die, honestly.”

Jeremy laughed again, his hair shaking over his eyes.

“What about you, huh? Sure you don’t wanna give up guitar and join corporate America?”

Jeremy didn’t laugh quite so hard this time. “Think I’d rather die, honestly.”

Miles was fairly sure he was joking.

A month had passed since their conversation that day. The two of them were sitting in their European History class. Miles glanced to his right. Jeremy was drumming his fingers along the edge of his desk, looking about as enthusiastic as a wet sock. Suddenly, Miles frowned as something caught his eye. There were two more bandages on Jeremy’s fingers than there’d been the day before. Most everyone was used to seeing at least one or two bandaged fingers on Jeremy. He’d always said they were from woodcarving, a hobby he’d taken up when he was younger.

“Still pretty bad at it,” he’d say while smiling, twiddling his mummified fingers.

But nowadays, Miles had noticed the bandages appearing in threes and fours. Sometimes they got up to six, spreading from one hand to the other.

“Yo,” Miles whispered.

Jeremy looked up, still drumming his fingers.

Miles gestured to his hand. “The wood start fighting back, or what?”

Jeremy frowned for a second. He stopped drumming his fingers and looked down. “Oh, these?” he laughed. “Yeah, new project I’m working on. Bit of a banger, honestly.” He resumed drumming his fingers, but Miles thought it sounded faster this time. Almost frantic, like they were running away from something.

Another month passed by, and Miles’ concern for Jeremy was grew. His hands were beginning to look more like latex than skin.

“Shit, man, you need to slow down with the fucking wood,” he exclaimed as they were walking home one day.

 Jeremy shrugged and smiled, but it was a colder smile than Miles was used to seeing. “Big project, my dude. Can’t stop now.”

Miles cast another uncertain glance at his taped fingers. “Is everything okay with y—”

“Yeah!” Jeremy blurted out, his voice almost cracking with the force of his outburst.

Miles protested, but Jeremy refused to entertain the subject any longer. They were both silent the rest of the way home. When Jeremy reached his street, he turned without saying a word. Miles stared after him for a long moment before continuing his own way, a sense of unease creeping through his stomach.

The next day, Jeremy did not come to school. Miles stared at his vacant seat during history class, unable to shake a growing tightness in his chest.  

Three days later, there was still no sign.

Some part of him had hoped Jeremy might show up to band practice that afternoon. But when Jeremy did not come to fill his empty seat, Miles had to fight to keep his composure. The knot in his chest grew tighter as he absentmindedly checked his phone between songs. He’d sent Jeremy several frantic texts, each containing different variations of, where the fuck are you? 

As the afternoon’s practice came to a close, Miles felt the tightness in his chest becoming unbearable. He was having trouble taking a full breath. He didn’t know what was wrong, but the sense of anxiety that dripped down his back like freezing water refused to subside.

Fuck it, he thought. He was going to find Jeremy after practice. And potentially knock his teeth out, depending on how irritated he felt when he found him.

A half hour later, Miles stood in front of Jeremy’s house. It was fairly small, a one-story with a faded, yellow door between two equally dirty windows. Miles took a deep breath, trying to force air into his lungs. It had been quite awhile since he’d last been here, he thought, reaching out to knock on the door. Jeremy always said he preferred to spend as little time as possible in his house.

A few seconds later, Miles was reminded why. The door swung open, and a thick haze of stale cigarettes hit his nostrils. His nose wrinkled as he looked down at the tiny girl who allowed him entry.

“Hey, Carrie.”

“Hi, Miles.”

Already, Miles felt the knot in his chest throb harder. Carrie usually greeted people with a six-foot smile and a sing-song salutation.   Today, she looked about as anxious and uncertain as Miles felt.

“Is uh . . . is your brother home?”

Carrie gave a quick nod then turned to lead him inside. Closing the door behind him, he glanced into the kitchen. A woman was lying facedown over a small, wooden table. A half-empty bottle of whiskey a few inches from her relaxed fingers. Miles could taste the alcohol mingling with the tobacco that permeated the air.

“Mommy’s asleep again,” Carrie said.

“Uh-huh.” Miles turned forward as they walked through the sliding door to the backyard. It was almost entirely bare, save for a shed in the far corner. Miles was shocked it managed to stay upright. The wood was rotting, with crumbling, chipped white paint up and down its surface.

“He’s in there,” Carrie said, pointing a tiny finger.

Miles nodded. “Thanks, Carrie. You uh . . . you should wait inside.”

“Why?” She bit her lip, nervously twirling one of the golden curls trailing from her head.

“I don’t know.” Miles wasn’t sure he’d meant to say that out loud, but he knew it held at least a nugget of truth. The knot in his chest felt tighter than ever, and it screamed out a pain of uncertainty to his more rational mind. “But it’d be . . . better if you waited inside.”

Carrie nodded, casting another nervous glance at the shed. She retreated back to the house, nonetheless.

Miles approached the shed. His mind was screaming at him, he shouldn’t be here, this was wrong. He ignored it. With a single, swift motion, he reached out and flung open the door.

His mouth dropped wide open at the sight before him.

It was Jeremy. But not quite, Miles thought. This was a Jeremy he hadn’t seen before. There was a wild, berserk expression in his eyes. He was standing, hunched over his old, beat-up guitar. The guitar he’d played since the audition that day during their freshman year. The guitar that he’d refused to part with, despite the band pleading with him to use a plug-in acoustic for better sound quality. He stood there, holding a gleaming, silver kitchen knife. His arm was held aloft, pouring a small waterfall of crimson blood from a deep gash in his arm. The fountain of red fell onto the guitar. Rather than splashing and running over the sides, the blood seemed to be . . . absorbed by the instrument. Vanishing into a plain of invisible pores running along its surface, the blood seeped into the parched skin of its body, the murky brown merging into a distorted pigmentation.

“J . . . Jere” Miles couldn’t quite finish the word sliding across his tongue like a bar of soap.

Jeremy’s head jerked up. “Mi . . . Miles? Wha . . .?” The knife slid from his fingers. “Oh god. . . .”             Jeremy fell back against the wall of the shed, gripping handfuls of his hair while moaning. “Oh god, oh Jesus fuck¾.”   Miles stood motionless as Jeremy collapsed into a sobbing heap on the plywood floor.

“Oh god, I’m sorry. . . .”            

“Dude . . . what the fuck . . . what . . . what is that?”

Jeremy sniffed, clearing a glob of snot in his nose. “It’s . . . it’s the only way I can play.” He coughed out a harsh laugh, devoid of any and all amusement.

Miles was still stunned, trying to process the scene of viscera before him. But he stayed, quiet, and listened as Jeremy spoke.

It was a guitar he’d found the summer before freshman year. He’d been scrounging at the Belleview dump, trying to find a backpack that might be in fair enough condition to use for at least a few months. There it had been, lying atop a pile of plastic bottles and black garbage bags. He’d taken it home, wanting to have something to distract him from his mother, from his life, from anything and everything. He’d stayed up all night, trying to get a few coherent notes to sing from the damn thing. Although he thought it was out of tune, and beyond repair, he kept trying. Trying to learn just a few notes, chords, anything. One day, he’d played long enough that a blister on his finger broke open and started to bleed. The blood had seeped onto the neck of the instrument. As it did, a sudden warmth ran through Jeremy’s body. It was like a set of spectacles for his soul. Suddenly, he could see—the notes on the fretboard, and the rhythm he needed to follow to get his fingers to move. It was all there, before his eyes. But after a few weeks, he suddenly lost the gift. He reverted back to clunkily plunking away at the strings without purpose. Once his finger started to bleed again, the gift returned.

It didn’t take long for him to make the connection. So, he kept bleeding. And he kept playing.

“The guitar’s given me everything,” he pleaded with Miles. “Everyone started treating me like . . . like I was somebody!” He was sobbing again. “But it . . . it stopped working! I can’t get it to play for me! So I . . . I—”

“You started giving it more blood.” Miles didn’t want to believe this was real. This couldn’t be real.

 Jeremy nodded, sniffing back a fresh hunk of mucus. “I had to cut more and more . . . I thought . . . I thought I was going to have to . . .” he broke down once more, sobbing into his arms. “It won’t fucking work, Miles! I don’t have enough fucking blood!” He screamed into his folded arms, like an animal that had caught one of its limbs in a trap, and had no means of escape.

Miles had heard enough. He moved toward Jeremy, gripping his shoulders with shaking fingers. “You have to stop, man! You can’t do this to yourself.”             “But I have to!” Jeremy slapped Miles’ arm away. “I can’t . . . fucking stay here! With her!” He stared at the ground. “I know it’s fucked, but . . . I have to get out of here, man. I can’t do this anymore.” He looked back at Miles. Miles had never seen Jeremy so broken.

“Man . . . I promise you, you will get out of here.” He reached down, grabbing Jeremy’s arm, still dripping with fresh blood. “But you can’t do this to yourself anymore.” He looked at the guitar lying on the ground, still as dry as the day Miles had first laid eyes on it. “You need to promise me . . . promise you won’t use that fucking . . . thing, anymore.”

Jeremy was silent for a long time. He stared at the guitar, his expression filled with longing, a desperation Miles had never seen on anyone’s face, before now. Like a man dying of thirst staring at a puddle in the middle of an endless desert. Finally, he nodded. “Okay.”

Jeremy returned to school, much to the pleasure of his peers. He gave their director, Mr. Jameson, a message in private. He would be taking a break from jazz band to explore his options a bit more before college. Mr. Jameson had accepted this and wished Jeremy the best of luck in his search. To Miles, it seemed things were finally settling down once more.

Two days after their encounter, Miles received a message from Jeremy. He was lying in bed, nearly about to fall asleep when his phone chirped. Yawning, he propped himself up on his elbow. His eyes snapped open once he read the sender.

Jeremy: Miles. I fixed it.

Miles stopped breathing. That familiar knot in his chest returned tighter than ever, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. Bolting out of bed, he ran downstairs, taking care to avoid the creaky step just before reaching the bottom so as not to wake his parents. Slipping through the front door as quietly as possible, he sprinted down the block to Jeremy’s house. His head was pounding, blood pumping through his temples. That unshakeable feeling of wrongness was permeating his brain once again. After a minute or so, he found himself in front of Jeremy’s house. He didn’t bother knocking on the door, running straight to the backyard. He came to a stop, trying to catch his breath.  

There was a light on in the shed. His breathing quickened, air rushing through his ragged lungs. His hands were trembling, a spreading numbness flowing up from his palms. He tried to slow his breathing, fully aware that he was hyperventilating. He slowly approached the front of the shed. Before he could lose his nerve, he reached out and seized hold of the handle, flinging open the door. He peered inside, then froze. Utterly numb.

It was Jeremy, hunched over that dusty guitar, as Miles had found him mere days before. A lamp sat on the floor next to him. The same knife from that day was held in his furiously bandaged fingers. In his other hand, he held something else.

The collar of a limp, motionless body.

It was Carrie. Her bright, blue eyes stared without seeing, as a geyser of blood flowed from a gaping slit in her tiny throat. Her mouth was open, tinged with crimson, as tiny red droplets fell one by one from her cold lips. Below the flowing river of red was the guitar. Carrie’s blood flowed over its surface, splattering against the husk-like frame. But the blood never seemed to touch its form. It simply . . . vanished. Absorbed. As if the guitar were a sponge. A leech engorging itself on her blood. Miles tried to speak, to scream, to make a sound. All that would come out was a strangled gasp, tearing itself from the depths of his throat.

Jeremy looked up, a flash of recognition dashing across his face. “Miles!” He smiled, his grin surgically straight. There wasn’t a trace of life left in his eyes. They stared past Miles, as if he were blind and only sensed his presence. “I think I fixed it.” With a casual flick, he tossed Carrie’s lifeless carcass to the back of the shed. Her body slid across the floor and made a dull thump when it hit the wall. Slowly, he bent down and picked up the guitar by the neck, delicately cradling it like a newborn. With trembling fingers, he ran his hands up and down its neck, caressing the strings.

He sighed, and began to play.

“See,” he whispered to Miles, “It works again! I can play again!”

Miles said nothing, as the sound of the steel strings running under Jeremy’s fingers filled his ears. He stood there for an impossibly long time, letting the sound of the guitar wash over him, pulling the ends of the knot in his chest until it loosened into a single length of rope. He listened to the chime of the rotting, steel-string guitar, playing its unmistakable melody. Only, to Miles, this time it didn’t sound quite so much like music as it used to.

It sounded different. Harsher. Louder.

It sounded like screaming.

---

Russian Love Song

 

It’s the last day. We’ve switched from tampons to pads. The blood is starting to come out in that weird rusty color. Thank God.

I thought Blaine would beat the shit out of her if we missed another day of pay. Or he would’ve made her drink flour-water every two hours to stop the bleeding long enough for her to make him half a grand.

Her pimp comes closer. Reaches down under her skirt and pushes a gloved finger into us. Then another. He feels around. Checks me for any bumps, warts, asks if it hurts where he touches. I only feel alone and exploited.

He doesn’t look like a pimp. He’s just a white kid with a nice haircut, who wears plain white t-shirts and has no tattoos. He’s skinnier than her. He’s not that bad. He’s careful with me, which makes her trust him, because so many others haven’t been. Not even her, and she’s supposed to protect me. But we aren’t from here and we want to stay in this country, no matter how we got here.

Ahnka’s a fighter.

Back when she had us on the streets, back when I was turning at least four a night, alone, before Blaine, she kept a .22 right down the front of her thong. That was the closest I’ve come to feeling safe. And every time she switched down the block I didn’t even care if the hammer rubbed against my lips.

 

After he’s checked us, Blaine sends Ahnka to see his family’s personal doctor. He does this twice a month. He keeps his product running smooth.

He also keeps Ahnka and I in mint condition. After the appointment with the doctor, who has stuck a swab up me and tested it with a solution meant to light or flare if any infection is present, we are released and told further results will be disclosed by phone in up to three business days. But we know that I am fine. I’d burn or itch, or feel some kind of wrong if I wasn’t. I feel fine. I’m a healthy amount of moist. The discharge I produce is clear and stretchy, very healthy. I almost feel happy. I become surprisingly wet before our next appointment.

After seeing the doctor, it’s time to clean me up a bit. Blaine has an unknown driver take Ahnka to the strip mall uptown to have me waxed. Even though the hairs are growing back thinner, Blaine says too many clients prefer no grass on the field. Ahnka has no opinion. I wish she wouldn’t strip me of my natural protection against bacteria and debris.

The process lasts approximately thirty minutes. The Asian woman is small and works fast, her little hands ripping at the white sheets like lightning. Thin red dots appear over my vulva—blood from where the hair has been yanked too hard too fast. The lady grins knowingly and slathers the sensitive area with a soothing cream.

“All done.”

Her smile is cold and wide.

 

The John is nervous. He puts three hundred bucks on the table, slides his wedding ring off, and pushes it into the right pocket of his khakis.

“I’m not used to this kind of thing,” he says.

Ahnka waits. Listens as she pulls down her stockings.

“You don’t have to go so fast.”

She starts to unbutton her blouse. “What’s your name?”

Ahnka stands still. Doesn’t make a noise. She watches his motions carefully. He’s just rubbing his hands together. Anxious about what to do with them. She moves closer and places his palms against both of her breasts.

“It’s good?” she asks.

“Yes. Oh, God, yes! Of course, of course. I just . . . I thought maybe . . . maybe we can talk a little.”

Ahnka checks him up and down with her eyes. She runs a red fingernail across his chest, feels no wires.

He doesn’t look like a cop. He looks like a sad dad. He’s balding a little, right in the middle of his head. If she wasn’t taller than him, Ahnka may not have even noticed. The John doesn’t have the shape of a man who jogs around a field or jumps to high five his friends. He wears plain beige socks and underwear. A plump gut suggests he drinks beer regularly, and it shows a lack of vitality. The body of a man who no longer fucks his wife.

“I like to sing.” Ahnka starts, her thick accent dripping through her voice. I get just a little drier. There’s no need to be readied. We know this kind of John. The kind that just wants to “talk.” The kind who is probably afraid to get up inside me. The kind I’ll have to work. Why? We don’t even speak the same language.

“I sing about what it’s like to be a whore,” she says, in her quiet and unbothered tone. “Can I sing for you?”

“Yes, please.”

Ahnka parts her lips into a fuchsia-colored smile. Her voice fills up the space in the room, louder than either of them expects.

Ехали на тройке с бубенцами
А вдали мелькали огоньки
Мне б сейчас, соколики, за Вами
Душу бы развеять от тоски

Riding on the troika with the tinklers, wowAnd afar were flickering the lights
I would like, my falcons, to follow you now
From the sadness clear the soul I might

 

At The House Ahnka has her own room. The other girls share. Ahnka thinks this makes her Blaine’s bottom bitch. This, however, has never been spoken aloud. We bring in the most profits. We are for sale 24/7.

I am never not working. I am on call.

Ahnka strays into Shelly and Bianca’s room. She shuffles through Shelly’s red purse with the gold chain. She’s looking for a needle. Blaine has already instructed all of the girls to never, never, never, share needles. If one of them gets fucked, and they’re sharing, they all get fucked. If they get fucked, he’s fucked.

Ahnka is not a shit person. She sterilizes the needle before and after each use. She lays in bed and watches cartoons to practice her English. Sesame Street. Big Bird. She’s learning numbers with the Count. His teeth are sharp. She laughs. One balloon, two balloons, three. . . .

 

Next week, the John rings again. He has yet to touch me. Hasn’t even seen me all done up, waxed smooth, in crotchless panties.

“My favorites,” Ahnka says as she approaches him on the bed.

The John is sitting, fully clothed. I’m becoming moist just because we’ve looked at him. This is unusual. This doesn’t even happen with Blaine.

“Favorite. No ‘s’ at the end.”

Ahnka repeats the word without the ‘s’ and the John smiles.

“Very good.”

Ahnka sits beside him and takes his hand in hers.

“What will we do this hour? Will I sing for you?”

He watches Ahnka, helpless.

“Or will you touch?” She presses his hand against me, lets him feel my wetness. But he only pulls away. He stands up.

“I thought, this time, maybe I could play along with you.” The John walks over to his briefcase, and amidst the papers that come shooting out in all directions, there is a miniature keyboard.

Ahnka looks at the instrument strangely.

“They’re bigger in my country.”

The John laughs.

“They’re bigger here too.” He fiddles with the pink and white keys. The notes come out in light, little tones, quieter than Ahnka had hoped for.

“It’s actually my daughter’s. It was my daughter’s.”

Ahnka doesn’t need any explanation. There is no language barrier between pain.

 

Дорогой длинною, да ночью лунною
Да с песней той, что вдаль летит звеня
И с той старинною с той семиструнною
Что по ночам так мучала меня

Так живя без радости, без муки
Помню я ушедшие года
И твои серебряные руки
В тройке, улетевшей навсегда

With the road long and steep, with the night so light—moonlit
And with the song, that in the distance rings and flies
And with that old dear thing, with that seven stringThat had tormented me during the nights 

So I live without joy and torment
I remember bygone years and days
And you’re all in silver moonlit hands
In the troika, forever flown away

 

“Who uses my needles!” Shelly’s shrill voice screeches through the hallway. Ahnka struts past, tossing her purse onto the living room couch. She reaches into her bra and hands Blaine seventy-five percent of her earnings for the night. He stands propped against a kitchen stool, counts the money slowly.

Shelly’s eyes are sunken. She shakes her hand in the air and the row of fake gold bracelets on her arm jingle like bells. Her wrist is so thin, Ahnka considers stealing all of her needles, considers stealing her stash, too. But Ahnka can’t think about that now. Right now Ahnka is experiencing a feeling she hasn’t known in years. Happiness.

“It’s nee-dle. No ‘s.’ Who USED your nee-dle.” Ahnka corrects Shelly and prances into her room. Blaine watches suspiciously. I am not moist or dry. I am throbbing, beating my way up to the heart, in tandem.

Later Blaine comes into Ahnka’s room. He lays in the bed with her. Feeds her mint candies. They watch Sesame Street together.

“Is that how you learned about plurals versus singular?” Blaine watches her face. Ahnka adjusts herself in the bed. She turns from the television into Blaine’s arms, away from the light shining through the thin sheet he’s nailed to the window in place of a curtain.

“I learn from Big Bird,” Ahnka says with radiance, and Blaine, a new insecurity crossing his face, touches me. He drills his fingers inside of me and parts Ahnka’s legs. Blaine doesn’t use a condom. He humps on top of her brutishly. He plummets himself into me with all the force he has to offer. Opening the door into me and roaming inside as if I’d been unlocked this entire time. Slowly, pacing this way and that, lingering restlessly. Tilting my universe and then returning it to peace. He finishes in minutes, leaving Ahnka to watch her children’s educational programs alone.

 

Ahnka meets the John at their usual room. He has not faded into the background of a list of humdrum clients.

“Hello, Fav-o-rite.” Ahnka pronounces the word slowly to avoid adding the unnecessary ‘s.’

The John is very excited.

“You’re brilliant, you know that?”

Ahnka places her purse on the countertop next to the little microwave.

“Brilliant.” She repeats the word perfectly.

The John kisses her hand in a loveless, platonic manner that makes her feel human.

“You could apply for a visa to stay here in America. You’re smart, and I know you sing beautifully. I have a friend who owns this little lounge downtown. I . . . I really think they could use some fresh entertainment.”

Ahnka looks worried. She has been very cautious not to become too engulfed in her own happiness. It can only last one hour.

Ahnka avoids the John’s statement.

She hums to herself and then begins to sing.

Дни бегут, печали умножая
Мне так трудно прошлое забыть
Как-нибудь однажды, дорогая
Вы меня свезете хоронить

Days are running, sadness multiplyingIt’s so hard for me to forget the pastSomehow, one day, my darlingYou will take me for a ride, my last.

“Will you play for me?”

She walks over to the nervous man’s briefcase and pulls out the tiny keyboard, her long nails tapping against the keys playfully. The John’s face becomes panicked.

“Give that to me.”

“I will. I will. First, I try?”

“No. You can’t.”

Something dark begins to stir in Ahnka’s belly. A warning.

“Why not?” Her voice deepens. Her dark, sharp blue eyes narrow. She grips the keyboard harder and two mismatched notes play at once in an ugly tone.

The John jumps up.

“Because you’re a whore! I can’t let you touch her things!” His voice is all but a squeak by the time he finishes the sentence, both of their faces clouded by shock.

Ahnka feels a twinge. Something in her head begins to crack. Her heart breaks. And she let’s go of the keyboard in instant obedience.

The little pink and white toy crashes to the floor.

Double-A batteries spill from its backside. One of the keys springs loose, and another pops out and falls to the murky carpet.

I am afraid he will hurt us. I imagine him shoving the broken shards of the object inside of me, stuffing me with my own ignorance. I think we deserve it. I think thank you, thank you, thank you.

“I’m sorry,” she cries. Her mouth is wet with worry and disgust. A spit bubble pops, making her apology appear like a cruel magician’s joke. Her saliva, tears, and blurred mascara, give the illusion of sadness that suddenly turns into a round crystal ball bursting from a pretty, foreign girl’s lips shocking us all. I am quiet and still, hiding between her legs, which she keeps crossed tightly.

I want to help her. I want to invite him in, calm him, relax him, squeeze him until he’s rung and spent, a limp dog tired with age, done playing for the day. But he is so furious, for a moment I do not exist. And she is so terrified, that for a moment I am no longer a factor in the situation’s urgency. I am something below the both of them. I am not as real as this. I can do nothing for her.

The John never calls again. I have never received the John. I will never take the John inside of me.

Ahnka checks the room every once in a while. She’s only met by customers and other girls. Ahnka ponders every decision she’s ever made. Every path not taken; every turn swerved left. Ahnka does not know that the word in English for what she has done is “mistake.”

---

How to Plan for a Safe Space Cruise: A Space Travel Survival Guide

 

Good afternoon all, and welcome to Steel Aurora, home of the Megaships (MS) Verminus and Hermes. My name is Jet and I will be your safety guide for your Holiday Space Cruise aboard the MS Hermes. Now, I’m sure that you are all ready to get your party started. Safety may not be your foremost concern, but it is my duty to keep you up to speed. By the end of this how-to guide, you’ll be ready to set sail on your very own space travel extravaganza. We know you could be doing anything in the world, but we’re glad you chose us for your space travel. Welcome to the Space Travel Survival How-To Guide!

For starters, drink responsibly. As cliché as that sounds, responsible alcohol consumption is the greatest factor in ensuring that you get 100% of your money’s worth on this trip. Alcohol is a major contributing factor to personal safety incidents on a space cruise. Be aware of your limits, as well as your surroundings. There will be an abundant supply of alcohol onboard, so it is quite easy to get carried away. We do ask again that you be mindful. Also, it is immeasurably important that you be aware of who you allow to buy your alcohol. Our cruiseship will be passing through the Eastern Nebula which is known for its love of human cuisine (do what you will with that information). Regardless, however inebriated you are, don’t accept a walk back to your cabin from a stranger. If you happen to be a solo cruiser, find a friend early on, and hope your decision-making has improved since booking a space cruise alone.

Second, secure your belongings! Most doors in the cruiseship are automatic, so they will close behind you, but it is good practice to give them a little tug when you enter and leave in order to make sure the doors seal shut. All room doors have level nine security systems which include fingerprint and retina scanners. Please use them. You also want to make sure that you utilize your room’s personal safe. Although we have advised you to leave your valuables at home, we do know that you cannot go a week without your flashy gadgets and shiny jewelry. So, although we aren’t responsible for any loss of personal items, the least we can do is give you a passcode and voice operated safe. Your safe is not just there to take up room in your closet. Though often small, it can usually fit a midsized laptop, a tablet (or two), cellphone, and jewelry/watches.

Third, be sure to always have at least one form of personal identification on your person at all times. No worries, you will not be getting “carded” at the bars, ladies and gentlemen. Your personal identification is, however, important in keeping accountability in the event of any hazards or emergencies. The faster we can locate and identify our passengers, the better chances we have of keeping everyone safe. Your personal identification will also come in handy if, by chance, you were to win any of our grand prizes during your cruise. If you happen to be one of our lucky winners, we will need to verify your identity and home address in order to ensure that you properly receive your prize. Prizes will not be given out during the cruise and instead are shipped to your home address (or an address of your choosing). Shipping of the prizes usually takes four to six weeks after the end of the cruise. There will be over one million U.S. dollars in total prizes and prize money given away over the duration of your cruise. We do not want to give your local criminals any more incentive to be awaiting your return to your home planet. The holiday season brings out the latest and greatest, and we’d like to know we did our best to avert any attempts on your prizes.

Fourth, you want to exercise extreme caution while on your personal balcony. The balcony is mounted inside of a detachable, transparent, oxygen-filled Rare Earth Aluminum pod, which allows patrons to peer into the depths of the nebula with no boundaries. The pods are designed to detach from the cruiseship while simultaneously using its magnetic field as an artificial orbit. The pods can be set to detach for a specified amount of time, or they can be manually controlled. Please avoid any and all projectiles while on the balcony. Although the balconies have been reinforced for your safety, it is still wise to exhibit caution while enjoying your view. Each balcony is fitted with a personal wet bar and a swinging loveseat for your relaxation, as well as an exhaust system, which allows you and your guests to smoke “outdoors.” Please note: illegal substances are strictly prohibited, and if found, will result in the Sector Sheriff being notified and your removal from this cruiseship. The balcony pod can stay detached from the rig for up to eight hours and can be redeployed within four hours of being docked in its station. Each individual pod’s polarity prevents them from coming within a specified distance of one another, but by request, cruisers can link up to ten balconies together for epic parties in the depths of space.

Fifth, our vendors accept cash from all worlds, using the Galactic Exchange System. However, it is important to keep cash on hand to a minimum. Even if you are a gambler, there is no reason to bring a lot of money onboard. All onboard transactions can be carried out using your personally customized biochip. The biochip is the safest way to pay and receive funds while onboard the MS Hermes. Wearing it is as simple as wearing a watch, and its operation is synced to your biological signature, linking it to whatever bank or prepaid account you’d like to use. If lost or stolen, the funds can be returned to your personal account, or transferred to a new biochip. Please visit the Customer Care Center in any of the sectors with comments, questions, and concerns. Although we advise against carrying large amounts of cash, there will be automated tellers (ATMs) available in each sector of the cruiseship. When out on your adventure, be sure to take out only what you need, but don’t advertise it.

Sixth, let’s discuss the crew of the MS Hermes. The ship has a crew of nearly eight thousand space sailors, including but not limited to, engineers, servers, bartenders, firefighters, security and police, and seven pilot teams, to keep this adventure going smoothly. Each crew member is here for your comfort and safety throughout the duration of this cruise. At no point is it appropriate for crewmembers to partake in any party-like activity onboard the MS Hermes. Offering crewmembers drinks, drugs, and/or leisure time detracts from their duty onboard the ship and could lead to their dismissal, your removal from the cruise, and possible prosecution under interstellar law. Also, do not enter crew quarters under any circumstances. Any attempt to enter and extract information or details about the cruiseship or its crew will be treated as high treason, as you are onboard an interstellar spacecraft with the lives of over thirty thousand individuals (including the crew). Any individual found wandering around crew quarters shall be escorted to the Sector Sheriff immediately.

That being said, therein lies the distinct importance in getting familiar with the crew in your sector. Ask for names, and try to establish yourself with those who will be working with you directly. A bit of familiarity can go a long way concerning your personal safety. Crewmembers can, and will, defuse any situation in which patrons find themselves in harm’s way. They may notice if someone who isn’t you, tries to get into your room, or walks out of your room at odd hours. Also, as a friendly reminder, crewmembers outside of the Customer Care Center will never ask you for your personal information, so be mindful of that when traveling and interacting with people around the cruiseship. It is not unlikely for scammers to be aboard the cruiseship as anyone who can afford such luxury makes for a high-quality target. Our security teams are specifically trained to track and deal with these types, but we still ask that you stay vigilant and report any suspicious people to your Sector Sheriff.

Last but not least . . . follow all instructions during an emergency! Before your adventure began, you attended the Space Occupation Academy’s safety course for space travel. There, you learned what the specific alerts onboard the MS Hermes were, where your Sector Sheriff’s station is located, how to put on and operate a spacesuit, and the basic evacuation drill for the cruiseship. While we’re sure that most passengers listened attentively, there are always the few who did not. In the event of an emergency, please leave the saving to the crewmembers. Study the evacuation routes illustrated in your manuals as well as in the corridors of your sector. In the event that you witness a petty crime of any sort, DO NOT attempt to save a stranger or apprehend a thief at the cost of your own life. Even if you have been in similar situations before, we ask that you allow our crew to do what they are paid to do. Don’t see it as an inconvenience, but rather as an important part of preserving your cruise experience. . . .

Watch out for space cats! Safe travels!