Jack With a Beer Back

“Alright. Maybe a bar was the worst place in the world for me to be at that point. It was late, real late, and there were only shambling bar wrecks there. And me. Me, with a Modern Lit paper hanging over my head—remember, I was actively striving toward a degree back then—and no idea, no idea at all, how to do it.  Except that I figured on doing Kerouac or Fitzgerald because I liked drinking. 

“So I got to talking to Kevin, the bar-keeper, about it. Mostly about Kerouac and how it was impossible to know the real man from the lines of all the books and biographies. I railed against the biographies in particular.  Telling Kevin about how they were written in such adulatory states that all the grit of the man seemed to be cleaned away and replaced with some sani-clean aura that no linger smelled of old kitchen tables and Benzedrine sweat. 

“I was really adamant about it. As adamant as a half drunk sophomore can get. Drunks shuffled by. More beers came and this guy sat down across from me.”

I waited a moment. For effect.

“He didn’t look like much to me. Big homespun face, boilermaker slack, hanging pale and vaguely ham-like above an old faded red-flannel shirt. His hands were swollen, his eyes were sort of half shut. He looked like every hero of every Bukowski poem ever written. He leaned over the table that divided us—an old, beery, dinged-up wooden table with the shellac coming off—and he whispered:

“‘I am the grit that lies in all the gutters of all the streets that sprawl crazy over the earth. I am the old beer and creepy graveyard dim cold blast of smelly sweaty workingman’s bar that hits you BAM! in the face when you walk by and some crazy old bum opens the door.’

“He breathed his drunk’s breath on me during this.  Beer, spit, germs of uncoughed coughs, old sour teeth. That breath came over the table. His face leering closer and closer, mine leaning further and further back against my chair. I didn’t want to MAKE him go away, I wanted him to just FORGET ME and drift away. To leave me alone. To zero in on some other sucker.

“He inhaled. He put both hands—big fleshy hands, the hands of a gone soft drunk—on the table and sat back. Quiet. Looking at me. Then, with that exaggerated dignity drunks assume when they feel patronized, he said:

“‘Ask me some questions.’

“And he put his hands down on his knees.

““Ask you what?” I was tired. Too tired for what looked like an alcoholic sermon on life’s lessons and grand schemes gone bad.

“’You wanted to know me. Smell me.’

““No, I can’t”, I said “I’ve got a really—“

“’Smell me!’ He pushed forward in his chair. ‘Kitchen tables. Benzedrine. Old typewriter ribbons. Smell me.’

“That tooth-beer-spit breath combo hit me again. I picked up my lighter. He grabbed my hand. I jerked. He lurched forward into my face.

“’It’s me.’

“’Okay.’

“’You want to know me? Ask me.’

“He sat back suddenly, his eyes steadier than his hands.  He turned to Kevin.

“’Two Jacks with beer backs.’

“’You buying?’

“’I know what you’re thinking. You’re looking at me.…and you think I’m just another bum. Just a bum with broken down shoes and stinking breath.  A stinking breath drunk that sits in bars and breathes his stinking breath…’

“He was getting loud.  I didn’t want him to know that I had been thinking about his breath. So I quickly disagreed.

““No. No. I didn’t think that.”

“And I smiled warmly so I’d look honest.

“He waved his huge hand in front of his chest.

“’S’okay. S’okay. S’long as you find out. …you find out who I am.’  He coughed, and stopped talking—politely—as Kevin put the drinks on the table and dumped the ashtray. Kevin moved on.  The guy picked up the shot glass and raised it. Not a tremor. He said:

“’This is to me. This is to all that is left of me. Jack with a beer back.’

“He laughed a sort of snort/chuckle/cough laugh and he threw back the shot.

“’Benzedrine and wine bottles and little dead cats in Mexican streets and now…now here….here it is.’

“He slapped the shot glass down.

“Then he started talking slow and started to sway. He pushed at the little glass in front of me.

“’C’mon. Drink. Drink it in. Jack with a beer back…’

“He burped. Rubbed his lips with the big knuckles of his hand. And then he threw up. Threw up stuff that looked like rotted baby food. Clots of phlegm. Beer yeast. I don’t know what it was. And the smell. The smell of it coming up past the rotten mouth, over the rotted teeth… It was like every bad smell molecule in the world coming together to tug at your stomach’s pit and test your gag reflexes. It smelled so bad it hurt trying not to throw up, not to look, not to breathe…

“Instinct carried me up and away. I was at the far end of the bar—by the jukebox and the popcorn machine where the other bums were—before the first drops hit the floor. Most of the bums didn’t notice, but a couple of them looked at me. I pretended I had no idea why.

“Kevin was throwing bar towels and disinfectant over the bum and the table. The barkeeper looked over my way, held up my beer. Not the shot, the beer, I don’t even want to know what happened to the shot. And he said:

“’Do you want this?’

“He was being serious. My throat pulled with a gag jerk.

““No.” I said.

“A little after that I went home.”

Jo lit a Marlboro, dragged at it and exhaled.

“Jack with a beer back, huh?”

“As God is my witness,” I said, “Do you want another beer?”

Meet Me in Hvammsvik

It was a midnight flight to Reykjavík and right before take-off the man from Seattle announced he was bit. It was enough to kill Zach’s buzz.

The reveal of the wound came almost comically. Through a tangle of airplane policies and bureaucratic loopholes, both Zach and the Seattle man had to change seats and come forward to the emergency row. As it shook out, they were the only two on the flight that spoke English and, apparently, that was a requirement to pull the big red handle on the exit door. It seemed like a bizarre oversight for an international flight but in a world where most people spoke a little English, it was probably a safe bet. Most of the time. This time, however, the flight was 90% Chinese tourists, 9% firm Icelanders (proudly not speaking English), and then Zach and Seattle.  When the stewardess begged if anyone spoke English, Zach, eager to redeem his day drinking, raised his hand and shambled from the back. After she ran through the instructions he nodded and said “Yes” aloud and took his seat in the empty row. The same rigamarole happened for Seattle which was when the stewardess pointed at his bandaged hand. It was reddening, still, and the man kept it in his lap.

“I think just another Band-Aid will help,” he said, shrugging.

“Did you cut it on something?”

“No, somebody bit me. In the bathroom.”

It was Zach’s big travel day, and the drinking had started that morning when he woke up in Flåm. After two trains to Bergen, another to the airport, and then a flight to Denmark, the journey had two more legs: flying to Iceland and then driving through the dead-of-night to the Hvammsvik Hot Springs & Resort. That’s where Jessie was waiting for him. Zach had never travelled alone before and while it was superficially freeing, every activity grayed with the absence of his wife. Two tickets for the funicular? Just one. Two spots in the cold plunge? Sorry, she couldn’t make it. Reservation for two at the fjord sauna? You can give up a spot. They had planned the vacation for years. A week in Norway and then three days in Iceland. They had been married for five years, had no kids, made reasonable money, and a week before the trip she admitted to cheating.

At first, Zach was proud of himself for taking it in stride. He did his box-breathing and didn’t lash out (although he really wanted to). Instead, he made her promise to answer all his questions truthfully, which, to be fair, was itself a cruel and demeaning bargain. But crying and puffy faced, Jessie promised, and then Zach asked a variety of questions that, for any man, was the equivalent of putting a loaded gun to your own head. The interrogation started Normal: Who was he? How many times? Where did it happen? And then went into the Guilt Trip: Does he have a wife? Was it worth it? Are you proud of yourself? And still unsatisfied, he plunged into Lunatic Mode: Was he bigger than me? Did you cum? How many times did you cum? And did you cum harder? She answered the best way she could simultaneously sparing details but sounding truthful enough to fulfill her bargain. It didn’t matter though. Despite the setting she tried to paint (not without her own cliched lines of course, “It didn’t mean anything” and “I was just lonely”), Zach still scripted, directed, and shot his own pornographic series of events. Jessie and this guy, rutting in a Hyatt hotel, her losing her mind in ecstasy and him, cumming so much his warm, strong seed spills out of the condom and so, fuck it, they take off the condom and go again. After a day or so when the porno ended, Zach indulged one more severity: kicking her off the trip. “I’m doing Norway alone. You can meet me in Hvammsvik.”

Of course, traveling alone was just depressing. In his Uber to Newark Jessie texted him. “Have fun. I love you.” And Zach scoffed. The lack of emojis, the militant punctuation. It was clear that the mending of this marriage, and the subsequent solo trip, was perfunctory. Less ‘find yourself’ and more ‘waste your time.’ But to be honest, it couldn’t be any other way. Zach was a straight, white guy. The romance of “Eat Pray Love” didn’t extend to him. Frankly, he was too ugly to get laid and too depressed to try. Double frankly, he still loved Jessie, which only added a poignant misery to all the sightseeing, not so much elevating the experience, but flattening it. The majestic fjords, the towering waterfalls, and the high-end cuisine all held the same attraction as the lesser events – the McDonald’s, the busses, the pints of Hansa, and even watching Fight Club in a hilarious Norwegian dub. So, he drank, and he got maudlin. But he also kept all the reservations and tours. “Have fun.” She had said. Yes. Will do. “I love you.” Ok. Period.

“Fuck, I don’t feel good.”

Zach looked at Seattle. He was seated across the aisle, next to the door. It was just them two with four empty seats between them. And Seattle was looking green. 

“Are you okay?” Zach asked.

“I’m so hot, I’m sweating through my underwear.” Seattle shifted in his seat and extended his legs along the empty row. Then, still uncomfortable, he re-arranged himself and buried his face in the blue pillow the stewardess gave out.

Zach tried not to stare. There had been grumblings of these bites happening all over Europe. By most accounts, the end result was that the fever either killed the virus or killed you. And the biters didn’t seem to act with the rage induced, red-eyed sprint for brains you’d come to expect from movies and TV but, rather, a more simmering anger that built into a lash out. A small disagreement somersaulted into a loud argument, then a screaming match, then a fuck me? fuck you! and take this too: Chomp! In other words, the bite was deliberate, but it was easy enough to avoid. Especially if someone was vocally pissed off and noticeably sweaty. Still, the proximity made him nervous.

Zach snuck a glance. Seattle fidgeted like someone under too many blankets. In short time, he’d be angry. A part of Zach envied him. When was the last time he was angry? Actually angry? It seemed like never. He was an educated, liberal salaryman who was dutifully trained in the useless art of self-reflection. Any ‘anger’ – foreign as it was – was immediately analyzed to death and dispelled. The emotions of his life were always under a self-imposed magnifying glass. How ‘angry’ was he allowed to get with Jessie? Was it more noble to see her perspective? To put himself in her shoes? Was he expected to pivot on a dime and immediately understand that his wife had needs and her cheating wasn’t really cheating at all but a larger symptom of some bigger, more boring marriage drama, and that, itself, part of an even larger tableau of capitalism in the west and the corporate creep of spiritual ennui? What did bell hooks have to say? Who gives a shit? He thought of his father, a republican. Voted for Trump twice. Now there was a man who got angry. Allowed himself his anger, indulged it in like a whisky or a good cigar. What a treat for Seattle, honestly. Some guys got all the luck.

He thought back to the setting where Jessie told him. It was a Sunday and there was nothing to do. They were overcaffeinated and restless, pinballing around the apartment from the couch to the tv to the office to the kitchen, reading, watching, scrolling, making another cup of coffee, both of them silent. She was avoiding him, but he didn’t notice. Not until he offered her a refill and she cracked. Why didn’t he get angry? He wanted to. He wanted to so badly. When he was a kid, he’d watch porn and fight the erection. Let his dick twitch with excitement as he’d try to re-interpret the sex on screen. He doesn’t know why he did that. Maybe he thought he was better than his base instincts. If he could control what turned him on, he could control what made him angry. And, moreover, he could be a role model of society. A good man who didn’t partake in the misogynistic industry of pounding tight teens. And when Jessie confessed, it felt the same. The rage fluttered but he denied it. Maybe he was already in the future, imagining Jessie (fat now, a huge slob) telling her friends that, “No, he didn’t raise his voice once.” He was trying to show that he’s so progressive and cosmopolitan and has such a grasp on his emotions he would never be someone to get cheated on. Yes. The twitching. But now on the flight, the blue balls were there. And Seattle groaned.

“Goddammit, I’m so fucked up.”

Zach looked around to see if anybody could help. Also, he wanted another drink. In a moment, the stewardess came down and looked at him, perturbed. She was the one who had rearranged the seating. Her Dutch Blonde hair fell straight. She didn’t look at Zach like he was a hero anymore. Rather, it was clear she didn’t want to turn her back to Seattle. He wasn’t yet restrained. 

“Can I get a rum and coke?” Zach asked.

“We haven’t started our drink service yet, but we will soon.”

She shimmied off back to where she came and spoke in Dutch to another attendant. Somewhere behind him he heard Chinese. The news of the bite was traveling languages; such was the polyglot of gossip. 

At 30,000 feet the captain finally made the announcement. In his own euphemisms, he touched on the sick passenger and stated that despite there being empty seats in the cabin, it was paramount to stay in your assigned seat. That was where the trouble started.

Before, when the Dutch Blonde made the big fuss that the exit row needed to have English speakers only, people got displaced. Namely, a Chinese lady in an orange hoodie. She kept showing her ticket to the stewardess and the stewardess kept nodding while ushering her to another seat. This caused some laughter among the Chinese tourists who teased the Orange Hoodie with some inside joke. Now, with the flight in motion, the Orange Hoodie got up, snuck down the aisle, and reclaimed her assigned seat. Right next to Seattle. Now the seating chart went: Zach at the emergency door, empty seat, empty seat, aisle, Orange Hoodie, empty seat, Seattle, now groaning. 

It was clear she wanted the extra leg room, and he tried to alert her.

“I wouldn’t sit there,” he whispered.

But the Orange Hoodie had no interest. Nor could she understand him. Instead, she spoke the universal and pulled her hoodie down to get some sleep. Zach’s eyes shot over to Seattle, pressed against the window, already getting sweaty. If the stewardess didn’t return fast to redirect the Orange Hoodie, to send her to the safety of the back of the plane, then something was going to happen. The entropy of it all started to form. Zach could hear it, even, thumping overhead in the luggage bins.

Looking back, he regretted the Hvammsvik rendezvous. What was the point? Now neither of them would enjoy the stay. They’d turn the matte black cabin into a domestic dispute, but worse, a dull one, full of therapy speak and validation, the signature of these new wave relationships. In college, he dated a girl that slapped him.

He regretted the rendezvous some more. He wanted Jessie to stay home. He didn’t want her flying alone. He didn’t want her driving to Newark. She always got nervous at the turnpike, and the parking lot came so abruptly, too, a sharp turn that careened into a bright yellow overhang. If you braked too fast you were rear ended, and if you didn’t then you blew right past it. She’d be nervous making that drive. He didn’t want her to feel that. 

“Ma’am, you can’t sit here. Ma’am.”

The Dutch Blonde was back, and the jig was up for Orange Hoodie. Laughably, she kept her head down, feigning sleep, but the stewardess wasn’t buying it. Next to the window, Seattle muttered. Zach was worried the fever was already blossoming. He was gonna be mad soon. He could see the slurs forming on his lips.

“Ma’am, now.”

Some Chinese folks joked in the back. Someone else teased. The Orange Hoodie got up and shuffled back to her new seat and the others laughed. Zach couldn’t tell if the bite was being taken seriously on the plane. Zach couldn’t tell if he himself was taking it seriously.

“Can’t she tell I’m fucking sick?” Seattle growled.

“I’m sorry, sir. Just let us know if you need anything else.”

“Water. Ice water. Please. I’m on fire here.”

He took off his Mariners cap and wiped his brow and Zach saw his face. Woof. He had already gone pale. His small beard was sweaty, and his lips were this sickly pink, like an open scab.

“What the fuck are you looking at?”

“Sorry,” Zach said.

“No – I’m sorry. That was – just – ugh.”

Zach turned back to his window. He needed that rum and coke. He didn’t want to be sober at the Hertz. He didn’t want to be sober for the night drive to Hvammsvik. He didn’t want to be sober when he opened the door and saw Jessie’s luggage on the ground, neat and tidy like she didn’t plan to stay.

He liked being married is the truth. He liked being married to Jessie too. But he could never talk about her the way everyone else talked about their wives. They said words like smart, brilliant, my best friend. Really? Your best friend? He supposed she was, but the competition was light. No, Jessie was a hard ass. But he liked that. She was loyal too, at least she was. At least he thought. And what was loyalty anyway? She could be faithful for five years and then cheat once, did that make her unfaithful the entire time? He loved her still. Oh God. He needed a drink. He didn’t want to fold. He didn’t want to lighten up. If he lightened up, if he just forgave her, he’d have nothing, no hand, no integrity, no agency at all. When did he get so castrated? He loved her. He loved her. She was kind to her parents. She was politically active. He loved her. She never missed a protest, a march, a petition. She was a bad driver, but a great traveler. He loved her. But he had to get angry. It was all he had.

He played back the porno tape he imagined. Her on all fours like a dog. He felt his dick twitch with excitement. What a funny reaction. He looked around to get a drink.

Orange Hoodie had returned.

“You can’t sit there,” Zach said. But even as he said it, he knew it was pointless. She didn’t speak English. She didn’t care. She waved him away like he was a gnat. And people snickered in the back like perhaps this was a bet. Zach grew nervous. Something bigger was happening. The entropy thumped again. No, now it was turbulence. They were over the Atlantic, shaking about, and the stewardess was gone.

“He’s sick. Lady. Hey.”

She waved him away again. Someone else laughed. This was actually great. He could get angry. A test run for Hvammsvik. He closed his eyes and tried to be racist. Tried to conjure up some good ol’ xenophobic vitriol. After all, here he was trying to help. And she waved him away. She thinks she’s the queen of the plane with her bag of boiled peanuts and her Alipay. He imagined the lot of them touching down in Iceland with their GoPros and selfie sticks, moving like locusts, knocking over everyone and shouting. No, no, this anger was not his style. Still though. 

The plane shook again. 

And then she screamed.

Zach’s eyes shot open. 

Seattle was biting her.

The following events happened quickly. The Dutch Blonde and another stewardess (a Frumpy one) came hustling down the aisle. People in the front stood up and turned. Others shouted. The plane bumped again and a container up ahead popped open. Bright colored luggage tumbled out onto an old man’s head. He screamed too. Sadder.

Zach pushed himself against the wall. The emergency exit beckoned. Was now the time? Of course not. But what if? What if? He could pull it open and have everyone sucked out into the black sky. All of this chaos squashed like a bug. That’ll teach Jessie. Should he reach?

Orange Hoodie yanked her arm away. She stood up, stumbled, fell back. Her arm was bleeding through her sleeve. Seattle looked thrilled and then suddenly ashamed. He clapped his hands to his mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, she wouldn’t go back to her seat!” He cried. Blood poured off his beard and colored the collar of his shirt. Some of it sprinkled the little TV screen. On it, their digital plane limped to Keflavik.    

When the moment was over, Seattle was restrained in his seat and his face bounced between embarrassment and shame and pure, unfettered rage. Once again, Zach was jealous.

As for Orange Hoodie, she was rushed to the back of the plane where she was restrained as well. There was no more laughing, and the plane shook itself out of turbulence and the rest of the flight was promised to be smooth.

“We need everyone to stay calm and collected,” the pilot said. “We cannot turn around and we cannot land anywhere else. We’ll be arriving at Reykjavík in one hour. Thank you for your patience and your resilience.”

Resilience. What an odd word for the pilot to use. Who was being resilient? Everyone was tearful and horrified. Two people were bleeding and others were screaming. The old man up ahead was still spinning from when the hard-shell suitcase clapped him on the skull. Resilient?

Seattle was now taped to his chair, and his mouth was taped too, a silver strip against his bloody beard. His Mariners cap was on the ground and the image was depressing. Zach studied him and then looked away.

In the past, the few times he did get mad, he reminded himself of his father. His racist, republican father. Hell, going on the Chinese rant was almost a tribute to his old man, come to think of it. Oh brother. The only difference was the end. Whether Zach was ranting, picking a fight with his cousin, or flirting with a little road rage, he always ended up apologizing. Apologizing with his tail between his legs. His dad never did though. He couldn’t tell which was better. God, to be a republican. What a dream. To have that liberating, self righteous anger. To be completely detached from civil society. Rather than what he was now, a capital L loser who wanted the best for people. A hangdog humanitarian cuck.

But why didn’t he follow his father’s path? Maybe because he saw his mother grow hollow. Maybe he loved Jessie because she was the antithesis of his father. Because she called him ‘self-congratulating’ when he called her ‘performative.’ Because both of their opposed furies let Zach live in the gray neutral where he could repair his mom in silence. And all of it, to still be cheated on. Oh, man, if his father knew. He’d have a field day.

And there it was. 

The math on the chalkboard finally made sense, and the revelation was bright. Zach wanted permission to be angry. Needed it. If Zach could be angry at Jessie and be, not necessarily justified, but excused, then he could extinguish this fire in him, this anguish. Maybe Zach always knew this was where the flight was headed. From the moment Seattle confessed to being bitten, Zach was jealous. Why? Because he was allowed to be angry. And Zach wanted that.

When their descent was announced, Zach kept low and shimmied across the aisle into the seat next to Seattle. He reached down and grabbed the Mariners cap and put it on Seattle’s head and Seattle’s eyes darted around in confusion. 

Zach couldn’t get too big of a bite. Otherwise, there’d be blood, shouting, and he probably wouldn’t make the drive. It had to be small enough, delayed enough, that it really kicked in right when he met Jessie. He rolled up his sleeve and pulled back Seattle’s tape. He breathed heavily.

“Leave me alone,” he growled. “Can’t you see I’m fucked up? You fucking faggot.”

“It’s okay,” Zach said. “Just do me a small one.”

He offered his wrist. Seattle took his pinky.

The snap startled him. It was like separating a wing flat. A tiny pump of blood shot out before Zach even registered what happened. Only when he saw Seattle chewing on his digit did it all make sense. Why his hand felt so weird. Why his hand felt so wet. And then there was the pain. He gasped, and fought a scream, and scurried back to his seat. Quickly, he kicked off his shoe. With his other hand, he pulled off a sock and wrapped it around his wound. He tucked the whole mess into his mitten and sat on it. Then he grabbed the sanitary bag and vomited.

Things got worse before they got better. In his painful scramble, Zach forgot to put the tape back over Seattle’s mouth. And when the Dutch Blonde came to prepare for landing, Seattle lunged and got her too. That one hit a vein, and the blood was bad and by the time they touched down and skidded to a halt, it was bedlam. A riot was forming, and Orange Hoodie had started cussing.

The Frumpy Stewardess came over in a tizzy and told Zach that they weren’t going to make it to a gate and that on her say so, he should open the exit door. Zach felt thrilled. But his hand throbbed.

“Everyone please remain calm,” the captain announced. “We are forgoing the taxi process and finding a place to stop. There will be medics on the ground ready for you.”

After a long moment of anticipation, the plane stopped rolling. Frumpy came and looked at him and nodded, “Please, sir, open the door now.”

And he did. The sky over Keflavik Airport was dark black and freezing, and for a moment, he couldn’t be sure if he had opened it over the Atlantic like he first wanted to. Then the big yellow tongue flopped out and hit the tarmac with a slap and before he knew it, he was helping women and kids down the vinyl slide, all while his mitten filled with blood.

At the car rental he was nauseous and leaving the airport he was sweaty. The fever settled in around the second or third round about and he peeled off the mitten to better grip the wheel. Blood poured out onto his lap and his vision swam. He wasn’t drunk anymore, but he certainly wasn’t sober. And the black night of Iceland was impenetrable. An esoteric billboard displayed a church of elves, all of them leering. Another round about came and he went in circles. The final stretch was an hour up and down one mountain, and to his left the water of Hvalfjörður was a listless black, like a paste or a Velcro. Something sticky and inescapable. By the time he saw the glowing huts of Hvammsvik he was smiling. The anger was there. Ready for him. It was pure and bright and without any shame. Just look at his hand. There was the proof. He was bitten! He wasn’t in his right mind.

He parked the car and approached their hut. Their couple’s hut. Warm light came from the small windows. Elves chittered and laughed at his back. He spun around but the terrain was black, black and loud with a howling wind. His hand dripped blood onto the snow. He marched towards the cabin, fuming.

When he opened the door, he was greeted with a smell. Something delicious. Was Jessie cooking? A midnight meal? For her pussy husband? He stepped inside. Her luggage was open on their bed. Her clothes all around. She was planning to stay. And that pushed him over. He went into the kitchen to show her how angry he was. Finally. 

Attack of the 50ft Stalker

“Don’t call. 
Don’t text. 
Don’t write!”

Greg told her, which he’d demanded countless of times over the past few months, but it wasn’t sinking in, no matter how much he screamed it in her face or bellowed it down his mobile phone. Bailey, his ex-bae and current, fuck-nut stalker, had given him weeks of hell: He’d blocked multiple phone numbers, Facebook accounts, Snapchat usernames and Instagram identities. Yet, she kept coming, like a lovesick Terminator. 

To make matters worse—a living-fucking-nightmare of a situation—was the fact they worked together, too. There was no escape. She was there. Always. However, the situation had now hit its crescendo, its summit, as she went full, stage-five-clinger and erupted ‘at the office’. She stood before him now, ranting and cursing, having previously kept all arguments, threats and belittling comments and abuse to the shadows, away from work and hawk-eyed, eagle-eared colleagues, friends and managers.

“You bastard. You never loved me. You used me. Fuck it, I really am going to do it this time. If I can’t have you, then I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Huh?” he said, her screechy voice reverberating around inside his head, sending icy, clawing talons down his back. His eye began to twitch. How the fuck did that noise not turn me off to begin with? he thought, drinking her in, fixing his eyes on her. Between that, her bullfrog-like neck, caked on make-up—half of which was always on her collar—itsy-bitsy tits with inverted nips, bland personality and the mindset of a child, I must have been thinking with my prick. Oh, yeah, I was. Fucking idiot. Well, I didn’t think she’d go all Play Misty for Me. Yep, got a regular Glenn Close on my arse.          

“Are you fucking listening to me, Greg?” Bailey clicked her fingers, stamped a foot, causing him to take a step back, away from the psycho, wannabe Barbie.  

Customers in the shop—standing on the outside of the in-store bakery—stopped to look and listen. To whisper among their numbers as the domestic unfolded. Along with the shoppers, colleagues and managers had also affixed themselves to their spot, mouths agape.

Fuck. This is bad, Greg thought, looking out at his chiefs, hoping his face looked pleading enough. “Well?” he said, thrusting a finger at Bailey. “Aren’t you—”

“Sod this,” Bailey said, cutting Greg off. 

Out of his peripheral vision, he saw her hand dart for something. 

A knife? he thought. With neck-cricking speed, Greg turned his head to look at her, seeing her reaching blindly for the rat poison the Rentokil guy had brought in earlier that day, ready to lace the traps with.  

“No!” Greg said. “Do—,” he trailed off, words giving way to laughter, as Bailey picked up a handful of raw yeast and shoved it into her mouth, going back for more. Before realising her mistake, she’d consumed over half a block.  

His giggles caused her to look, in horror, with particles of munched bread-riser falling from her drooping gob, and squeal. “What have I done?” she gagged, holding her gut. 

“You’re in for some painful diarrhoea, babe,” he said, chuckling some more.

 Customers to join in.  

However, their supervisors did not see the funny side of things, causing Greg to wipe the smirk from off his face, as they moved through the throng of goggling shoppers, inching towards the bakery’s entrance. 

“I feel awful,” Bailey said, clutching her stomach, moving towards Greg, stumbling and collapsing against the door to one of the walk-in ovens. 

“Right, that’s it. Enough of this bloody nonsense, Bailey,” Florence said, the shop floor manager, entering the bakery. “I’ve just about had it with the both of you, to be honest,” she snapped. “The tension in here the last few months has been palpable.”

“What’s a palpable?” Bailey said, her arse squeaking. “I thought it was a plant.”

Greg slapped his face and groaned. It’s that intellect that kept me around, he thought, turning to Florence. “Had you taken my complaints about her stalking and harassing me seriously, then it wouldn’t have got to this stage, now would it?” Greg said, puffing his chest out, towering over Florence. 

A loud grumble, followed by a second fart, rocked the bakery. 

“Oh, fuck,” Bailey said, putting a hand to her arse. 

“Do not use profanity whilst on duty,” Tomasina—acting store manager—said, filing in behind Florence. “You’re in enough trouble, both of you, as it is, young lady.”

Outside the bakery, Greg heard a couple of other managers trying to disperse the shoppers. 

“It’s under control now, people,” someone said. “We’re sorry you had to witness that.” 

Another loud rumble sounded out. “I think I’m dying,” Bailey said, doubling over, as liquid shit began sliding out of her trouser leg, pooling around her feet.  

“Oh, God!” Greg said, holding his nose. “That stench.”

“Right,” Florence said, gagging, grabbing hold of Bailey’s arm. “It’s the training room for you.”

“Greg, I love yooou!” she said, latching onto the oven’s door handle. “I can’t live without you. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. Please!” Tears flooded down her face. “I promise I won’t be needy. I’ll give you space. You can fuck other women… Whatever it takes.” 

“Shhh!” Tomasina said. 

“Let go of the oven,” Florence grunted. 

“In any other situation, this would be comedy gold,” Greg said, about to give his superiors a helping hand.  

“You’re coming upstairs too, Greg,” Tomasina said, snarling, trying to pry Bailey’s fingers free of the handle.

“Hell did I do?” Greg said. 

More shit splashed out of Bailey. “I’m bleeding,” she wept. “The pain!”

“Will you help us get her out of here, for God’s sake!” Florence said. “This place will need fum—”

Florence’s rant was derailed, her hands flying off Bailey’s suddenly bulging forearm, smacking her in the face, sending her backwards, reeling, and smashing into the wall. Her skull connected with a sickening thud. 

“Uh!” Florence said, sliding down the brickwork. 

“What the?” Tomasina said. “Did—did you strike her?”

“Nooo!” Bailey wailed, Tomasina sent flying, her other forearm ballooning in size, followed by her hands, arms, shoulders, neck and every other inch of her. 

Greg, in fits of uncontrollable laughter, stopped, the gasps and screams around him jolting him back to reality. “Jesus Christ,” he said, watching as Bailey grew a dozen feet or more within the space of sixty-seconds, going from a petit five-four to gigantic seven-four, and beyond. 

Her clothes tore asunder, akin to the Incredible Hulk’s.  

You won’t like me when I’m angry, Greg thought, lifting his head up and up and up, seeing her grow at an incredible rate. This is how Jack must have felt after selling his cows.

Bailey’s body filled out. Her arse became curved and plump, thighs thick, tits stout and pendulous. 

“Why don’t you love me?” she continued to bawl, her expanding body crushing everything around it. When her head and shoulders crashed through the ceiling, raining chunks of plaster and board down on those below her, Bailey realised what was happening.  

“Greg?!” she said, her voice breaking, tears dropping like individual waterfalls, whistling like Doodlebugs as they cut down through the air, washing Greg, Tomasina and Florence away, out the bakery and onto the shopfloor. 

It was biblical. It was Noah and his fucking arc. 

“We have to get out of here,” someone said. 

Shoppers jammed together as they tried stampeding towards the exit. 

Within the bakery, more ceiling collapsed, as spider-web-like cracks raced in all directions, causing the staff canteen on the second floor to fall through. Tables, chairs, Jill from checkouts and Dan the trolley boy, tumbled out of the spreading hole, along with fridges, ovens, chest freezers and other apparatuses and workers.  

Customers were crushed and splattered. 

Puddles of blood, piss and excrement spread along the floor in lakes. 

Clean up on aisle six, Greg thought, climbing out of the tear pond, pulling Tomasina to his feet as he did so. “We have to move, before the place buries us alive,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the crumbling building and hysteria. 

“Greg?” Bailey called, her voice making the ground and shelving tremble.

When he looked, he saw Bailey raise her one exposed hand up through the hole in the roof her head and shoulders had create, and use it to smash away at the structure that trapped her. The back half of the bakery closed in on itself. Stone, plaster and board buried the large mixing bowls, bread and roll plants, tables and friers. 

Screams rang out from above, as more bodies rained down, necks, arms and legs snapping on impact. 

Greg saw blood streak and seep across what was left of the ceiling.

“Fuck,” he said, moving backwards, pulling Tomasina with him, as desks, chairs, cabinets, PCs, laptops, and other office equipment crashed from the heavens. 

Sprinklers burst to live.

Alarms blared.

Pipes exploded. 

“Where are you, handsome?” Bailey continued, her both hands now pulverizing the shop’s construct, freeing her body, like Kong breaking his chains.  

“Holy fucking shit,” Greg said, looking at her. “She must be 50ft tall.”

“At least,” Tomasina said. 

“Run,” Florence said, “before we’re—Oooph!” she cried, as Bailey’s enormous hand enclosed around her and squeezed. “Ugh… B-Bailey, you’re killing me…” she wheezed. “My ribs.”

From where Greg stood, he heard Florence’s ribcage, hips and other bones snap and disintegrate, before Bailey opened her gigantic maw and scoffed her down, grinding the manager to a bloody pulp.

“Mmm,” Bailey said, moving forwards, raising one foot and bringing it down on a group of gawking shoppers, some of which took selfies and photos of the sci-fi freak. 

“Arrgh!” they said, before Bailey turned them into a puddle of sticky crimson. 

“Come here, baby,” Bailey growled. 

“Bollocks,” Greg said, turning to run, slipping on the wet, teary floor, causing him to collide with a display table filled with packets of hot cross buns. When he saw Bailey’s hand swipe for him, he commando rolled over the Jesus buns, avoiding her grasp. “Sorry, bitch, but you’re not my type. Too tall!”

Greg glanced over his shoulder as he ran down an aisle, gaining on the shop’s exit, seeing her come after him. 

“You can’t get away from me.” Bailey swatted shoppers, staff members and managers out of her way, some of which were thrown through windows or into shelving.

“I don’t mind a tall girl, but a 44 foot difference is a bit much,” Greg said, exiting the shop, finding his car in the car park. When he reached the driver’s side door, Bailey come crashing through the front of the shop, demolishing the sliding doors and foyer, as the building’s centre fell through. Bailey stopped looked at Greg, roaring as she did. 

In the distance, Greg fumbling with his keys, he heard sirens, followed by a monstrous groan and the shredding of metal. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said, watching Bailey tear up a trolley bay and hurl it in his direction.

Greg ducked, as the missile flew overhead, and crashed into the first fire truck on the scene. 

“Move,” he told himself, slotting his key into the door, unlocking his car. Behind the wheel, he started the engine and threw the car into gear, stomping the go pedal. “Screw you, Bailey,” he said, giving her the finger in the rearview mirror.

“Go, car. Go, go, go,” he said, moving his battered Pinto out onto the main road.

All the while, Bailey’s image filled his side mirror, as she gave chase, gaining, her impossibly long arms stretching out, her fingers grabbing for his car…

Sugar In The Well

The drink was so good it reminded me of nothing else at all. I had no frame of reference in either smell or taste for how to log it. It took me away from both time and pain. Too, it reminds me that I could go a long long time wearing the heat of many words and ancient beautiful nothings inside me. Ages for keeping my mouth shut. 

Hindsight afforded me the notion that if I had showed up to the rescheduled potential second date, he would have lost respect for me. So much had been cocked-up in the lack of translation between our communication styles by now I wasn’t sure either of us wanted to enlist our interpersonal clean up crews to make it right. Would we only create more of a mess?

Then the future comes and there I am: Las Vegas, Day 3000 — all the west side apartments I used to inhabit are gone and now I live in a part of town far flung from them at the end of a street in the vintage city proper.

My backyard scintillates by day with early light and wind turning suncatchers and spinning bees. By night with the glistening backs of stray cats, black and calico, who leave the feathers of their prey askew by the back door.

Everyone has been telling me lately that I look different. That something has changed. But really I think my hair just went thru a growth spurt.

Sitting there with that cocktail in a moment that becomes a meditation I bring him in. What if we had that promised date?

Inside my imagination’s hotel I embrace him and hold him fast. I kiss him and touch his head and move my palms over his shoulders. I keep kissing him in different places as I let the desire build inside my body. Fluids rushing like a dam break.

His hands are across my ass. They bunch my skirt and expertly interpret the shape of my underwear. In a flash his shirt is up and I am inhaling the warmth radiating from his chest. A perfume uniquely masculine, undeniably his. My shoes come off. My bra undone. Stockings tugged away. Breath growing fast. Panting as his erection drops out. My lips part to what I can’t look away from. Hungry to taste and swallow precum from the throbbing head of it.

Inside a break in the action we can hear soft moans from the next room over. A woman cries out as her orgasm builds. He closes his eyes and sighs — the sound makes a warm hum in the air which has deepened his fantastic pleasures. As if inside a movie and from behind the camera of my eyes I watch. I say nothing. I don’t move. 

Well Earned

It’d been about six weeks since the day they’d run into each other at the downtown library. Grace supposed they were seeing each other now. It’d happened quickly, the weeks passing without her even really being aware. 

Grace liked the way Adrian held doors open for her. He teased her about her white-knuckled driving. He was smart. He had what turned out to be a very good job as a industry colorist. She could overlook the way he seemed to occasionally disappear, zoning out staring at mirrors or streetlamps and during movies and even sometimes in conversation. He seemed to want a companion he could relax in total silence with, and she was used to filling this silence, in any way possible. She equated this to the awkwardness of their first date last summer—they’d been mismatched because she was so frazzled, being new in town, and he was so gentile. It’d unnerved her at the time. But things were different now. Her various liaisons had made her brave. Grace felt she’d completed a step, been allowed to move up: she liked having someone real to go out with on a Friday night now, getting out of the Valley and away from her computer screen. 

A weekend in late March, or was it early April? They had a good time. He took her to the Catalina Jazz Club on Sunset. They ordered steaks and watched a pickup band play Oingo Boingo songs and he let her finish the chocolate pot de crème, scooping the graham cracker dust from the corners of the plate. Grace got buzzed off three glasses of Sonoma Coast chardonnay. A warm wind pushed her into him on the street, and they kissed for the first time: his lips were soft and determined pressed against hers. She didn’t dislike it, feeling oddly helpless in his arms. He grabbed her by the back of the head, forcing her into place. It hurt a little, but she let him. The thrill reminded her of her long-term penpal, GHOSTLOUPE. She imagined that was how he’d kiss her. This bled one fantasy into another, and she was beside herself by the time she got home, aching down there for hours. Very quietly in her bedroom, after midnight, Grace masturbated, her mouth dropping into an ah of shock at her body’s hasty, shuddering response. She felt less ashamed afterward, now that there was a real person involved. 

Her first time at his apartment, they’d had a strange conversation. She’d been admiring his vintage cameras. He had three or four on the side table next to the door: she recognized a 35-millimeter, a cracked rainbow strap curled around it; a vertical folding camera, and an old Kodak brownie from the 70’s. 

“Have you ever shot anything on these?” She asked.

“Oh yeah,” he nodded, moving forward to touch the lens cap of the 35-millimeter. “This one is a family heirloom. I’ve shot all over the city with this one. And the brownie I like to take out sometimes. Developing is a bitch though, I need to do it at work.”

“What do you like to take pictures of?” Grace asked.

His face seemed to cloud instantly. She was starting to notice it a bit, like a curtain falling, whenever something came up he didn’t want to talk about. 

“People, mostly.” He said this curtly. “Do you want me to take your picture? I could do that right now. Here.”

Grace blanched. “Oh no, I was just curious, I wasn’t—”

“I think you may need to earn it first.”

“What?”

“You haven’t earned it.”

She faltered, staring at his grave face. She’d suddenly lost points somehow. “I—okay, if you say so. I didn’t, like, mean anything by it.”

“No.” He was agreeing, but it felt like a condemnation. His gaze dropped from her to the cameras on the table. Then something seemed to change, a beat passed, and he was back. 

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just—this equipment is delicate and very old. And I have a—I guess it’s a sense of privilege, when it comes to capturing a subject. It’s a very vulnerable thing. It’s very intimate.”

You brought it up, she thought, nodding her head sagely, backing away from the table. 

“But,” he was saying; his voice changed and it was suddenly loftier, happier. He grabbed her by the hand, twirling her around with his arm extended. “You, my dear, may have earned other things.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” She asked, mimicking his playfulness, trying to lighten her own heart. Hoping for a kiss, anything to sweeten up the moment. 

“Follow my instructions,” he said to her pointedly. He was grinning, but serious. 

“Okay.”

He dropped her hand, and she stood there stupidly, waiting. 

Adrian smiled, enjoying her visible awkwardness. When his admiration had waned, he said:

“Remove your clothes, please.”

Grace made a face. “Here?” She asked. She looked at the couch, turned around to glance at the TV, then back to Adrian, who was nodding, stony-faced. She remembered she was supposed to follow instructions. Right. 

She sighed loftily, partly to curb her beating heart. They hadn’t yet slept together. They’d only made out on the street and in his car a few times—and to her surprise, he hadn’t even tried digging his fingers into her underwear then. Their knowledge of each other in these details was still unexplored territory. Her face was on fire as she sunk to the ground to remove her shoes.

“No,” he said. “Stand up.”

She eyed him silently, and stood back up. She kicked her shoes off, not bothering with the laces. He watched, one hand on his chin, as she wriggled out of her jeans and, sighing loftily again, lifted her arms to take off her t-shirt, draping both on the end of the couch. 

She hesitated in her bra and underwear. 

“Both of them,” Adrian gestured. 

Grace’s eyes had lost some of their brightness. She stared at a spot past his head as she slipped herself free of the bra—a little mesh thing he liked quite a lot, light violet, with halter straps keeping her nipples pressed tightly against the fabric. 

The briefs, navy blue, were opaque and covered both cheeks, giving everything a wide berth. Angles and cuts and nothing else to see, really, other than the tiny, wedged impression of her sex in the fabric. 

A roll of flesh dimpled together sweetly at her waist as she curled to ease the underwear down. Muscles reflexed as she curled back up, and he could observe where baby fat had given way to cellulite, and where she’d remained lean. She was shorter than his Arctic Fox. Her body was, broadly, a pear: her breasts, freed from the mesh bra, were small and white, pale nipples inverted on her chest, her waist narrow enough for him to wrap both arms around and have overlap. Her hips widened out from here, surprisingly so—into a large ass which was wide and shapely, practically an entire ocean’s surface he could imagine resting his head on. 

She held her powerful thighs together stiffly. The little triangle between them was clustered with a soft swath of brown hair, a flesh-colored slit in the middle. He wished he could put his tongue in it right then and there.

“Good,” Adrian said. “Very good. Now—turn to the wall, please.”

Grace looked as if she were starting to disassociate: he knew the expressions. As long as she followed his voice, it was fine for the time being. He’d get her out. He was very happy with her. She turned slowly from him and faced the gray wall. 

“Put your hands on it.”

Her palms sought the gray, flattened out. She stared at this, concentrating on the color. Grace imagined living inside an entirely gray world. She was suddenly chilly, and tried not to shake. She wasn’t sure what was happening down below, the sensations were confusing, and so she kept her legs together. She felt oddly hungry, a grumbling erupting in her stomach. 

“Spread your legs, please.”

She’d been afraid of this. As she readjusted against the wall, taking a spread-eagled stance, she felt air reaching new parts of her in the front and back. Out in the open like this, helpless, all she could do was wait for whatever was going to happen next. 

He came up behind her. She could feel his breath on her neck. Her ear. His lips seeking her hair. He kissed her neck. He breathed through his mouth, forcing warm air into her hair which sent quiverings up and down her spine. She felt drugged as he crawled her this way, taking in the poison through his breath, saliva, and she almost cried out when a hand also suddenly sought her ass, gripping tightly, digging the nails in. 

He kept his hand here, on her ass, in an expert hold the entire time, while his other hand began to explore her. Tentatively at first, until it began to use the moisture provided and seek out a wider, sweeping gesture. 

Grace was in a state, a place she’d never found herself. She couldn’t move. Sensations were beginning to rise—ones she’d brought herself to before, of course, but never in the presence of another and never upright like this, arms taught and trembling, as she struggled to control the rocking rhythm of his hand, which had grown enormous, and a terrible pulsing, like deep vibrating velvet, which also grew until she was gasping and squeezing her eyes shut and the word “No,” escaped her lips. 

The moment Grace whispered “No,” he knew she was starting to come. He held onto her tightly, as she was trying to get away from him, drooping and sinking towards the floor, her legs like wet clay collapsing. When she cried out it was cough-like: not the sound of someone mimicking pornos or movies they’d seen, but involuntary. This pleased and aroused him, the authenticity of it. He liked how she naturally fought it, too.

The release had triggered something in her legs, and Grace stood there, her body curling inward, hot hands sliding against the wall, trying to keep herself vertical. She breathed in loudly through her nostrils, feeling like a winded rhino and wishing he weren’t there, wishing she could just go to the bathroom and get herself together for a minute. She concentrated on the gray world two inches from her face.

“Good,” he whispered in her ear, finally releasing his grip on her ass. It was stinging a bit. The room was eerily silent. 

***

Fifteen minutes later, Grace was sitting in her car on Franklin Avenue, trying to light a cigarette. Her hands kept shaking, but after a couple of tries, she got it. She pulled away from the curb without thinking about where she was going, her mind blank, one hand resting lightly on the turn signal switch. 

It was late, not many cars on Barham. Her left hand, holding the cigarette out the window, was sturdy only by the time she’d descended back down into the valley, bottoming out at the Forest Lawn and Pass Avenue intersection. She was rounding the corner at the Warner Brother’s buildings, glancing at the familiar tan gates, the Hot Dog Haus across the street where she’d once gotten sick outside. 

He hadn’t offered to let her spend the night, but she wouldn’t have accepted, anyway. The evening seemed over, at any rate. He’d watched her closely as she pulled on her jeans, leaning against the arm of the couch. There wasn’t much said between them, and Grace felt strange, almost frightened of him as she gathered her things. Her crotch was still pulsing like a beacon, a humming filling her body which was not unlike the need she’d cultivated online with GHOSTLOUPE. 

But that had all been fantasy. This was real, and she felt a new humiliation in it, that she’d come so hard and fast, as if this cheapened her, made her slutty. It’d felt forced out her, the pleasure itself incidental. She couldn’t read where his true interest lay, exactly, in regards to her. 

This thought popped out in her head as she sat at the light on Olive Avenue. She was surprised it hadn’t occurred to her before at some point. 

He hadn’t thought it a good idea to try and get her to stay. He knew her discomfort well, and watched calmly as she avoided his gaze, grabbing her things. He was used to women not looking at him afterward. He was reminded briefly of the previous girl’s last path through the apartment. But Grace wasn’t angry or hurt, she was confused. Wrestling between pleasure and fear. It was best to let her go. He downplayed his goodbye, smiling sleepily at her, standing in the open doorway. Despite a growing fondness, or perhaps exactly because of this, he closed it in her face. Through the keyhole, he watched as she turned and, as if in a trance state, walked to the elevator alone. Turning back to the living room, he raised his fingers to his nostrils. The smell of her lingering effluvium was practically a drug; he felt woozy for a brief moment, standing there with his eyes closed. 

Adrian knew the drive home would probably be enough, but if not, he’d hear from her in the morning. He was pleasantly surprised when about two hours later, while he was reading an article on the toilet, she texted him. He clicked over to the message, eyebrow raised. 

-I had a good time tonight. 

She was sitting on her bed as she sent this. Safely bathed in the soft orange lighting, returned to an adult womb, where her parents slept soundly down the hall and, cautiously, she’d made herself come again. Lying on top of the covers, breathing heavily, Grace asked herself what had been so frightening about the evening, after all?—he’d wanted to please her. That was nice. The separation and the time to think had made the eerie feelings she’d experienced in his apartment fade away. Or maybe she’d just deleted the shame, purposefully, all of it—the strange sense of unease which had followed, the feeling she’d been violated somehow, like something had been involuntarily taken from her. 

It’d been surprisingly easy, standing in the kitchen in the stove’s half-light (which her mom left on whenever she was coming home late), absently eating chips from the bag on the counter and going over the scene again. She’d enjoyed fighting him. That was what had made it so intense. He’d known this all along. 

When she woke up the next morning, Grace was absolutely starving. Her mother found her at the kitchen table, reading an article in Entertainment Weekly about Jennifer Lawrence’s favorite swear words, and eating an enormous bowl of Cheerios. 

“How was your date last night?” Her mom moved around the kitchen, jiggering the coffee pot, dabbing at her eyes with a paper towel she ripped from the holder.

“It was nice, actually,” Grace said brightly. She was in a good mood. She preferred talking to her parents in the morning to all other times of day. The sun threw a transparent yellow angle on the dining room table, and she thought all the sudden how easy, how beautiful everything was. 

She pulled out her phone to show her a picture of Adrian. It was his main photo from the app.  

Her mother wrinkled her nose from over her shoulder. “He looks kind of like an actor that could play a vampire on one of those Gen Z shows, doesn’t he?”

Grace couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing, and couldn’t stop; she inhaled a cheerio, and started coughing. Her mother slapped her on the back a few times, frowning pleasantly. She moved Grace’s braid back and forth a few times, as if playing absently with her own. 

Daiquiri

The music pounded through the floor. It was a constant. Up through the floor, down from the ceiling, 1990, Seattle, Casa del Rey, Broadway, Capitol Hill. I was fresh as a steaming a.m. turd, relocated from San Fran, 24 years virile and ready to fuck the world. Tats on the fingers and all. I’d been inhabiting the studio apartment all the way in the back on the first floor with avocado green walls and view overlooking the building’s garbage receptacles and the Seafirst bank parking lot for several months – with time being non-linear and such, the struggle to differentiate is palpable – head in the clouds, or buried underground – brain like fried fish, or submerged in a public toilet… I only knew a couple people in the building. Cheap rent, wastrels, subverts, a carnival lodging splat in the thick. The I-don’t-know-who up there hammering at his drum kit day and night, like a series of earthquake tremors… I run up the stairs ready to raise hell, bam-bam-bam! on the door, which after a beat flies open with a Rastafarian linebacker filling up the doorframe, and I’m all, uh, yeah, so you’re a drummer, huh? Cool, like, holy shit and stuff, you hit really hard, man, like John Bonham on steroids, I mean, uh, y’know? Shaking a bit, I must admit. The dude was a fucking leviathan. But apparently with the power of Jah coursing through him. Yah, man, no problem, I can tone it down some. Peace. And he closed the door so gently you’d think a little infant baby was sleeping in there. Well fuck me, I thought. I went back to the avocado walls and the desk scavenged from the alley behind Broadway. And my ancient 1940s-in-the-Bowery manual typewriter. Because I was a poet and I had to make my own noise and as unmusical as it was clack-clacking away like a tiny locomotive in my head it calmed the demons and lubricated my ego like Crisco on a stale biscuit. The swish across the hall aptly cracked, oh, that’s just Monsieur Ivan hard at work on the next Great American Novel. That’s ATM, girl. Party every night at mi Casa es su Casa, ATM the unofficial aficionado. A tall thin Greek specimen with the blackest, longest, curliest tresses I’d ever seen on a man. Oh, honey, they’re not real, he lisped. They’re extensions!It’s what he did, his active career. Apparently, a vast percentage of the coifs of the early Seattle grunge movement were the product of ATM’s hair-tying abilities. You actually make money doing that? I make bank, little man, as he reached out to finger my side-locks appraisingly. What I could do with your pe’ot, sweetie… Dude! Get the fuck! ATM whinnied. I vowed to shave my head as soon as I could get my greasy Sephardic hands on some clippers. Later in the night, after several beers and multiple hits of pot, I asked ATM why his parents named him after a cash machine. You poor thing, he pouted, it’s Etienne, EH-TEE-EN, get it? En francais. You vulgar little man you. Etienne had a nice friend that lived in the basement apartment right beneath mine, under the stairs. Her name was Daiquiri and in the same sentence with the straightest face imaginable Etienne added, and her sister’s name is Brandy. You gotta be fucking kidding me I said. Welcome to Seattle, Monsieur! Daiquiri was the first bona-fide grunge groupie I’d come across. Repurposed print dresses from Betsey Johnson’s, honking Doc Marten’s, kinky hair past her waist of every conceivable tint and pigmentation, expertly tied by the deft digits of St Etienne. Not to mention generously doused from head to toe with patchouli oil. Daiq, hot street-smart cross between Raggedy-Ann and Goth Barbie. I didn’t want to love her because she stank and treated me like a little brother when really, I was probably 3 or 4 years older. Oh Eye, she sighed, oh Eye, you’re such a good friend. She’d try to read one of my skittish ditties, her eyes attempting to focus with great pains. She simply couldn’t. I’d read it out loud while she, happily relieved of the effort, smoked a cigarette. She’d light a joint. She’d sip a fruity concoction. She’d light a pipe. Several pipes. Weed? Kif? Dank? Why not? But Daiq preferred crack. Her patchouli aroma was amply spiced with acrid permeations of tart, chic, swank, chi chi, decay, decomposition, death. Oh Eye, she’d sigh. Up on the roof, on dilapidated lawn furniture, we partied through the summer – in the pit of the avocado, at Etienne’s pad – the replica of a Salvation Army thrift store’s window display – spilling over onto the granite stoop of the Casa del Rey – the carnival of our nation’s happening musical hub bop-bopping by on Broadway. I was the good friend who naturally wanted to fuck my good friend Daiq who was, naturally, a fucking junkie. But did I really want to fuck a junkie? Granted, Daiquiri had all the requisite hotness covered: length, curves, youth, hipness, surface gaiety, childlike naïveté – attributes to exploit and annihilate. Such traits in the female species, presented on a silver platter, perhaps in a state of delirium, or altogether unconscious… I could just… I would just… ahem. But to repeat. The music pounded up through the floorboards, up, through my thin futon mat, into my earholes and sonically attuned body, with a thick thumping bass that vibrated my bones. I leaped up despite the time – day, night – I was as unaware as a temporarily unemployed person could be, attuned not to the Gregorian but to depths of shadow, incomparable values, black ‘n fucking white, drunk-ass plaid, bleak and snap, dying, crying, wiggling, jerking, spurting, bleeding, vomiting, dreaming. I leapt up across the room out the door down the stairs. At Daiq’s door I pounded. If I couldn’t pound Daiquiri I sure as shit could pound on her door. Daiquiri was dead to the world. I tried the knob. Unlocked. Well, shit. I pushed it open and entered, shoving aside piles of clothes, shoes, a smorgasbord of bric-a-brac, made my way to her bed, a Victorian wrought-iron contrivance. I spied a naked, pale white foot with toenails painted canary yellow. I clutched. I pulled. I yanked. I shook. Not dead. Undead. I mounted the bed and crawled across Daiq’s inert form to the headboard shelving where the boombox was booming. Daiquiri never knew I was there. What did you expect, darling? Etienne simpered – a come-hither invite to dip into her Victoria’s Secret-clad honey-pot? You silly little man you.

I’m A Writer

Howdy. How you doing?

I guess okay. Just wanna have a couple drinks before I haveta go.

You from around here? I don’t remember seeing you before.

Listen, I’m not into conversation. Just wanna drink in silence. I had a rough day.

What is it exactly that you do?

Really? I’m A Writer.

So you’re a writer huh?

That’s what I claim to be on Facebook. And my name is on a couple of books.

What kinda shit do you write about? Maybe I’ve read some.

I seriously doubt it. I write about a little bit of everything I guess. 

Do you write any dirty stuff? You know like write about sex?

Sometimes I write about sex.

Then you write about people having sex?

Usually there’s always people involved, especially when I write about sex.

Anyone I’d know?

Ya, your wife.

down the bermuda highway

thumbin’ my way down the Bermuda Highway, chip on my shoulder, grave dirt on my shoes. sun’s gone n gone. ne’r to be found—neither hide nor hair—‘hind burdensome clouds that bruise god’s baby blue. clouds black like tar, black like pitch. fire-crested seams holding day’s woeful tapestry—tender, ephemeral like blazin’ cigarette drags from god’s hot cherry mouth. but m’eyes stay fixed yonder past vaporous heat of I95 and the gravity of Texas noon, where roadkill feeds asphalt and wheels, and tumbleweeds embark ‘pon their journeys to nowhere. hey, buddy, can I hitch a ride?

heat sticks heavy like a tick, like oil. slip slip slide and awaaay. so heavy it’s hard to      b   r   e   a   t   h   e (just ‘bout, but i do). sweat’s salty streams sting my eyes, vision turns green, hazy like dreams o’ yesterday n yesterday n yesterday. but i walk on, wander-weary, future bleary, highway hot, burnin’ souls, burnin’ time.

black car emerges from liquid air, stops, and trails me like a lonesome shade. 

“goin’ my way?” he asks from cracked, tinted glass.

“you tell me,” i return.

door opens. i step in, into black—black ice shadow. he just smiles, n we drive. dark eyes. dark skin. black like tar. black like pitch. fingers snappin’, ra-ta-ta-tappin’ the steering wheel to the tune of a silent dirge.

death in the driver’s seat, suitcase in the back wantin’ for a soul, i miss the fire under my feet n the hazy days of home n yesterday n yesterday n yesterday…

Terrence Underhill Before the Tsunami

“It’s there,” Jessica said, not quite looking at it. She rifled through my purse, pulled out a half-empty roll of breath mints, and toyed with the ragged edge of wax paper. The acid in my stomach churned. She dropped the mints back in the bag without taking one and stared out the passenger window. 

The Eureka Inn waited for us at the end of the street, hulking and squat, a beast with its scabrous back pressed up against the low, grey clouds. Beyond that was the sea, leaden as the sky. The tide was far out and the traffic-like drone of the surf was muffled by distance. I’d never seen it that low.

The Eureka Inn had 103 rooms, but every window was dark. All but one. 

Dan was standing outside the front doors, his fists pushed down hard in the front pocket of his hoodie. His feet were uneasy as he watched us come up the drive.

“You ready?” He asked when we were close enough. When Jessica laughed she sounded like she was choking.

“No,” I told him. He nodded once, like I’d said yes, and wiped his mouth with the back of hand, not quite looking at us. After a long minute, Jessica pushed past him.

“Fine, let’s go,” she said. She moved with purpose, head down, shoulders forward. Inside, the faded carpet smelled musty and the walls were nicotine stained. Ronald Reagan grinned down from above the grand fireplace, but there was no one else in the lobby to greet us. Jessica made it all the way to the lift doors before she stalled.

“Let’s have a drink first,” she said, spinning back around. 

“Okay,” I said before Dan could object.

Kate was behind the bar, her hair parted neatly down the middle and coiled up into two tiny buns like cat ears. She frowned.

“Double Clan McGregor,” Jessica said. Kate poured it with a look of disgust. 

“Can I just have a glass of water?” Dan asked, sounding sorry enough for all of us. Jessica swallowed noisily. 

“Vodka.” I told Kate. She poured a meager draught into a smudged glass, no ice, no lemon, no nothing. I drank it anyway, not quite looking at her.

Jessica called for another round. Kate poured her a single this time.

“That’s enough,” she said, putting the bottle away and glaring around at us.

“Let’s go,” Dan urged. Jessica ignored him and sipped her scotch. 

“We have to,” he whispered.

“We will,” I said, wanting him to shut up. 

“They’ll be pissed,” he said.

“You really know how to ruin a drink,” Jessica muttered, swallowing the last of her scotch. “All right, let’s go.”

I thought about letting them go on ahead. I’ll be right up, I could say. I could sip the last of my warm well vodka, then saunter out of the Palm Lounge like I couldn’t feel Kate’s disapproval burning through my back. I could slip right out the front door. I could run. I had an almost full tank of gas and a hundred bucks hidden under the front seat. I could get pretty far on that. Far enough anyway. 

Jessica was staring at me. I could tell from how she was looking she knew what I was thinking. “I’ll be right up,” I said.

“Finish your drink.” When her voice got low like that it meant she was getting ready to throw a punch. They had her kid in a room up at Joe’s place. There was no running for her.

Kate was staring at me. So was Dan. He got this coiled up look when he was getting ready for a fight, like a snake in a tight corner. 

“All right,” I said, the resistance draining out of me. It’s like when someone too big takes a swing at you, or when you crash a car. You can see the impact coming and you know it’s going to be bad, but there’s nothing you can do. You get really calm on the inside and you tell yourself this is going to hurt, but you’ll probably live. You try to get ready for it, even though you know when it hits, you won’t be ready at all. 

Jessica put her arm around my shoulders. It might have been to keep me from bolting, but I don’t think so. We’d fucked everything up together. Now we had to clean up the mess together. More than anything I wished I had a little crank. I could get through anything when I was geared up.

Our footsteps were muffled by the threadbare carpet, then the soft woosh of the lift doors. We all stared down at the floor. Dan was the first one out and set a quick pace down the hall. But once we were there, we huddled outside room 44, trying not to hear the sounds on the other side of the door. This isn’t real, I thought. 

Jake opened the door. It wasn’t just the smell; the air in the room was warm and moist. It had a terrible intimacy about it. Most of Terry was sprawled on a blue tarp between two twin beds. He was still wearing the Elvis costume he’d had on when we killed him, except the white jumpsuit was soiled with troubling stains. 

Jake went back to the frying pan he had over a camp stove set up on the bureau. He pointed to the awful red meat sizzling in the pan. 

“You’re welcome,” he said. Ginny held out three forks.

“You better get started,” she said. “It’s going to be a long night.” 

When I looked down at the fork in my hand it looked far away, as if my neck had grown taller. This isn’t real, I told myself. You’ll probably survive. 

Outside a siren began to sound, a loud, long wail that didn’t quit. 

“What the hell is that?” Jake said, looking out the window.

Hidden Tabs

“They’re ‘un abomination, Andy. A god damn abomination,” his brother Joe said. They were sitting outside drinking their cans of Lone Star by the fire pit. Joe’s wife Jill helped Andy’s wife Tricia put the kids to bed and clean up after their crawdad boil. 

“Yeah, if any one of them she males tries to come near me with a hidden dick. I swear I’ll kill ‘em,” Andy says and takes another swig of his beer as if to bring home the point. His brother, satisfied with the answer, sits back in the lawn chair, his salmon-pink short-sleeved angler’s splaying open on each side of a notable beer belly.

Ding!

Andy’s phone lights up with a social media notification. @hotgrrrll694eva has sent you a message. Intrigued, he flicks his finger across the screen and unlocks with face id. 

“Just had to say…you’re so sexy. I love a guy who hunts. Wouldn’t mind being your prey in my bed tonight.”

Andy’s face flushes and he looks over at Joe who is just mindlessly staring up at the stars, an uneven Winnie the Pooh grin settled on his face. He should just delete it. He hovers his thumb over the message to do just that, then instead decides to click on the profile.

A bleach blonde with gigantic fake boobs and the most gorgeous slender face he’d ever seen. Just his type, a little sleazy but coquettish, heavy on the makeup. The complete opposite of his wife Tricia, plain, mousy brunette, small boobs and a shapeless rail, aside from the kangaroo pooch leftover after kids. They’d dated since high school, and he kept her around since. Although, he always had the strongest inclination that he could do better. This latest message was just additional reinforcement.

He continues to scan her photos and thinks it’s a shame he isn’t alone right now. He scrolls back up to her bio, the first time he even thinks to look. A secondary concern. There he sees:

Lola Jane 

🏳️‍🌈 | trans | she/her

His stomach drops for half a second. Not in disgust. Just in that sharp, electric way you feel when you realize you’ve stepped somewhere you swore you never would. Maybe a little fear. 

He glances over at Joe again. Joe’s still staring at the stars, scratching his belly and looking like he might fall asleep in the chair, his arm dangling off the side of the chair, the beer can precariously dangling from between his thumb and index finger. 

Andy scrolls back through the photos again. The pictures don’t change, the trans woman’s body doesn’t but the electricity in his does.

He swallows.

Ding!

Another message.

“Don’t get shy on me now, hunter.”

His thumb hovers again. You should block her. He types instead.

“How’d you find me?”

Three dots appear almost instantly. He feels a cold stone in his stomach that contrasts with the hot spark in his frontal cortex. 

“You pop up in my feed a lot. You like what I post,” Lola responds.

His throat tightens. Confusion takes over the excitement. He doesn’t remember liking anything.

But maybe he did. Maybe late at night. Maybe drunk. Maybe half asleep.

He switches apps. Opens his browser. Incognito mode. Types in words he knows by muscle memory now. Words he never says out loud. Words he clears from history before he closes the tab. 

The images flood the screen. His pulse kicks up. Back to the message. He sees the three dots appear again. Then her message flashes again on his phone.

“You into girls like me?” she types.

He stares at the fire pit, at the coals collapsing inward.

Before his brain even knows what his fingers are doing, “Maybe,” he types.

Joe laughs at something in his own head. Andy angles the phone away from him and waits. He sees Joe looking at his phone now, “Oh, look at this. This dude’s launching bottle rockets out of his mouth. HOLY SHIT! Shit’s hilarious!”

Andy holds back a sigh of relief and chuckles, “Oh, yeah, reminds me of Fourth of July this year when Dallas launched them out of his butthole.”

“Ha! Yeah, that was funny as hell. We should start our own Ticky-Tock if it weren’t for the Chinese watching us,” his brother responded. Andy didn’t want to point out that his brother was watching the very app that was potentially spying on him. He wants to get back to his conversation. He’s itching to get back to it.

“What’s maybe? Are you scared?” she had replied.

He feels that little rush. That stupid boyish one he hasn’t felt since high school, before Tricia, before the mortgage, before crawdad boils and matching Christmas pajamas, even before whiskey girls (what he is supposed to like) and smoky bars and men being men (the way he was supposed to be). When there was Shawn. 

“I ain’t scared,” he types.

“Prove it.”

His breath comes shallow now.

“What you want?”

“A picture.”

He hesitates.

He hasn’t done that before. Not really. Not with someone real.

“You first,” he writes.

A pause.

Then an image loads.

She’s on a bed. He? Red lace. Hair spilling over one eye. Perfect lighting like a damn magazine shoot. Too perfect maybe. But he doesn’t linger there. He zooms in. His mouth goes dry.

“Your turn,” she writes.

He looks at Joe again.

Joe’s humming some country song under his breath.

Andy stands up.

“Gonna take a leak,” he mutters.

He walks around the side of the house. The yard dark, cicadas whining in the trees. He leans against the siding and unbuttons his jeans. Snaps a quick photo. Not artistic. Not posed. Just enough.

He stares at it.

You’re not that kind of man.

He sends it anyway.

The three dots appear immediately.

“Soooo much better than I imagined.”

His chest expands at that.

“You trust me?” she writes.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, she does.

“Tuesday. 11:42 PM. You searched ‘motel trans fantasy rural.’”

The blood drains from his face.

He didn’t tell her that. He never told anyone that.

He types slow now.

“What the fuck? How the hell you know that?”

“Don’t get nervous,” she replies. “I pay attention.”

A breeze lifts the edge of his shirt. He suddenly feels watched. Like the dark itself has eyes. The cicadas feel louder in his ears. His breath hitches painfully in his lungs.

He goes back to the browser. Checks his history.

It’s empty. Of course it is. Incognito.

Ding!

“You look good,” she writes. “But I want more.”

He’s breath is hot, his head feels ready to explode. “No, I want to know how you know what the fuck I’m looking at. Who are you?” he types.

“I want to see you how you really are.”

His stomach flips.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know.”

He stares at that for a long time.

The house behind him is quiet now. Kids asleep. Tricia probably done rinsing dishes at the sink, sitting on the couch now drinking Moscato with Jill bitching about their husbands and talking about the next gymnastics meet for the girls.

“You ever wonder?” she writes.

He does.

He always has.

Late nights when the house is still. When he scrolls through profiles he’d spit on in daylight. When the shame burns but the curiosity burns hotter. 

“I ain’t like that,” he types.

Three dots.

“Then prove it.”

Another image comes through.

This one closer. More intimate. But something’s off. The background repeats faintly at the edges. Like the wallpaper loops wrong. Like it was stitched together. 

He ignores it.

“What you want me to do?” he writes.

“Put something on,” she replies. “Let me see.”

He almost laughs.

“You’re crazy. I’m done with this shit. BYE!”

“Are you scared?”

That word again.

He isn’t scared. 

“Hey man, Jill and I better get on outta here. Gotta go meet a guy who wants to buy my trailer tomorrow. You good?”

“Yeah man, cool, sounds good.” He walks back inside and he and Tricia say their goodbyes. The living room dark. Joe and Jill gone. Tricia looks at him, “You coming to bed?”

“Yeah, babe. In a sec. Be right there,” she gives him a skeptical look. “Promise,” he says and lifts up his pinky finger giving her the sly good-ol’-boy look that always charms her.

“Alright, see ya up there,” she says and walks up the stairs. 

He moves quietly to the laundry room. He knows where her things are.

He shouldn’t do this.

But he does.

He grabs a blouse. Soft blue. Smells like detergent and something faintly floral.

His hands shake as he pulls it over his head. It hangs wrong on him. Tight at the shoulders. Loose at the waist. He stares at himself in the mirror hanging on the back of the laundry room door.

There’s something in his eyes he doesn’t recognize.

He takes the picture.

Deletes it.

Takes another.

Sends it.

The dots appear instantly.

“Beautiful,” she writes.

He exhales, long and slow. Then:

“Go out like that,” she types.

His heart stutters.

“What?”

“To the bar. Tomorrow. I’ll be there.”

His first instinct is to laugh it off. But the idea lodges itself in him like a splinter. All night he dreams in flashes. Red lace. Neon signs. Then nightmares: Joe’s face twisted in confusion.

The next evening he drinks before he leaves. Two beers. Then a third. The blouse again. This time a pair of Tricia’s jeans. Too tight. He shoves his boots on anyway.

In the mirror he looks ridiculous. He feels exposed. He doesn’t recognize his face. Not only that he used Tricia’s makeup doing his best to emulate what she does and settling on a YouTube tutorial. Tricia was going to a Colleen Hoover book club, his kids were at the grandparents, he told her he’d just take it easy at home and watch the game. 

His phone buzzes as he steps outside the car in the bar parking lot. “The Klamshell” glowing neon above the door of the dive.

Andy no longer feels like he’s controlling his own body any more. He’s not commanding this ship any more. He thinks about getting back into the car and driving himself to the nearest state mental hospital. But, his logical Andy brain is completely dissociated from this new persona.

“I see you,” Lola writes.

He freezes.

The street is empty.

“You’re brave,” she writes.

The bar’s neon sign hums like it’s telling him, “Yes, over here sweetie.

Inside it smells like beer and grease and sweat.

Conversation dies the second he walks in. His brother Joe is at the pool table.

Joe turns.

The silence is a living thing now.

“Andy?” Joe says.

His name sounds wrong in his mouth.

Someone coughs. Then laughs. Not kindly.

Joe comes over, his startled expression gives way to a furrowed-brow and pursed lips. He sounds out of breath when he says again, “Ah-Andy. Wh-what’s going on? Does Tricia know you-you’re here?” He then smiles hesitantly, “Wait, is this a fucked up joke?” He looks at his buddies giving them an it’s-okay-guys nod.

“I’m not Andy, I’m Angela,”

Joe’s face shifts from confusion to something harder.

“You sick son of a—” another man behind Joe’s shoulder comes forward.

The first punch knocks him sideways.

The second splits his lip.

Boots. Fists. Shouting.

He curls in on himself but they keep coming. He hears Joe at first, but then the tornado of denim and cowboys boots crunching in his face and crushing his ribs takes over.

He tastes blood. Metal. Dirt.

Somewhere in the chaos his phone skitters across the floor.

The last thing he hears before everything goes dark is someone saying, “Abomination.”

***

When he wakes up, everything hurts. Fluorescent hospital lights buzz overhead. His jaw is wired. One eye swollen shut. Tricia isn’t there. Joe isn’t either.

There’s a phone on the tray table. It’s not his.

He reaches for it slowly. One notification displays. The phone opens to his face id.

From: Lola Jane
Subject: Welcome Home.

His vision swims but he opens it. Inside is a list.

Username.
Password.
Backup codes.
Recovery email changed.

“All yours,” the message says.

He scrolls down. There’s one more line.

“You wanted to know who I am.”

He sucks in a breath. His ribs scream.

Another message appears.

“It’s you.”

He opens the social media app.

The profile loads.

Lola Jane.

🏳️‍🌈 | trans | she/her

No new posts.

No new messages.

Just waiting.

His reflection in the dark screen looks unfamiliar. Bruised. Split. Lips swollen and red.

He types with clumsy fingers.

He changes the profile picture.

Uploads the one from the laundry room.

He edits the bio.

Deletes everything except:

she/her

He sets the account to public.

Then he closes his eyes.

And doesn’t switch back.