The Next Great American Fiction

The Next Great American Fanfiction

To my friends I love you!

I humbly present my little stories

Words by Erin Satterthwaite Illustrations by Emily Leclerc

Your Romantic Rendezvous with Timothée Chalamet!

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Bethlehem

8

Buzz In All You Want You’re Not Getting Into NightMoves, Ugly!

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Summer of Sweet Sweat

14

Hey Party People :/

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1

Your Romantic Rendezvous With Timothee Chalamet!

You stand stiffly in the corridors of the trust fund brat’s apartment whose name you don’t really remember. You want to say it’s ‘Tim’ because you once called him ‘Tom’ and he furrowed his brows at you but carried on the conversation about 20th Century Women color scheme, so you must have gotten it sort of right. He has one of those myspace-esque names on Instagram so you don’t even have a reference point.

It’s an expansive three bedroom Ridgewood loft filled with the conversation and laughter of fellow blue bloods, ex-Parsons students with dyed hair, and hot kids that learned ukulele in 2011 when being “indie” started being cool in their upper-middle-class suburban towns.

Of course, you are having a bad time. Regardless if your heart raced with anticipation when you got the invite three days before and ended up stress buying a $350 SSENSE linen bodycon dress that was so see-through it showed the color of your areolas. Of course, you’re still having a bad time. This is the life you wanted, you thought.

Surrounded by beautiful and interesting people in a beautiful and interesting city. How cliché to have everything you wanted and to still be filled with despair.

“Those who run from their problems don’t run far enough,” read your Instagram caption from when you first moved to Brooklyn. Rooftop on your friend’s LES sublet. Golden hour. Your TopShop gingham dress hugging your curves. You have a coy smile spread across your berry-red lips. How candid! How pure! What a fucking idiot.

Some guy you kind of know in an ironic Garfield shirt talks to you about the dirtbag left as your eyes glaze over. He’s using complicated sentence structures in an effort to sound intelligent.

“Spiritually barren blah blah blah It’s disheartening blah blah.” He says as his bleach blonde middle-parted hair bounces with each

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movement.

“It sucks because I actually really like Garfield.” You blurt out.

“Uh what?” He replies.

“Yeah, man, I uh…” You couldn’t think of an excuse, so you frantically pivot away, darting down the hallway.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! He’s gonna tell everyone you’re a weirdo. He has a rose emoji on his Twitter profile and 5,000 followers. You look wistfully down at your phone to calm yourself down. No texts.

Maybe you should be more “fun” and be more self-obsessed like them. They know every buzzword, every right opinion to have, what blurry target security check-out photo to post on their Instagram (tenderboi69 and butter___baby.jpg), and what words to tweet (TFW when neoliberals…) to construct their palatable, digestible existence. You’re only different because you can’t manage to achieve this. You yearn to be seen as an alluring and interesting person like them. You yearn for someone to just see you.

You grab a loose handle of New Amsterdam and wander into a room.

Well, you’re alone again. Such a pity this is always where you end up. No coy flirting or passionate rendezvous.

Though, you could stand to calm down on the romantic front. Your roommate looked blankly at you when you vowed celibacy a week ago. You remember that the gynecologist didn’t laugh when you said, “Just sew it up!” after she diagnosed you with chlamydia.

You sit down on the mattress tucked away in the corner of the room and look down at your phone. Now you have one notification from Starbucks. It’s double star day tomorrow, still no texts. Your heart starts beating and you feel the tears begin to burn your eyes. You lay down and play a song you heard once when you were high to calm yourself down. It reminds you that life isn’t always anxious and cruel. You lay down on the bed with your eyes closed.

3

“Oh sorry,” you hear a voice. “Wait are you dead?”

“No!” You say defensively as you perk up.

“Oh um...good.”

“You literally sound disappointed- oh,” you turn to face the tall figure that stood before you. His messy dark waves danced upon his head.

His brooding hazel eyes meet yours.

“It would have made the party more interesting.” He shrugs.

“Haha, I guess I’ll just slit my wrists right here.” You say while tucking your hair behind your ear.

“Oh um-” “Nevermind.” You quickly redact “Hey, what song is this?” He says as he begins to sway to the moody synths.

“Oh, it’s called ‘In Your Eyes’ by the system. Do you like it?”

“Yeah, I really do.” He says. “You’ll have to send me this.”

He hands you his cracked Rose Gold iPhone 5. Your hands briefly brush as you hand him his phone back.

“So what are you doing in here, is this your room?”

“No, I guess I just had to step out for a second. I guess I get a bit overwhelmed at these things.” You say as you stand up from the mattress.

“Oh how the youth is wasted on the young,” he says to you and smirks, “Foucault said that.”

4

Ok, he 100% did not. This guy didn’t even quote it correctly. Where did he even get the idea that Foucault said this? Did he just want to say something french sounding? But, you just smile instead of correcting him.

“I feel like everyone else is so much better at being young, I must have done something horrible in a past life to feel this kind of angst.”

You say.

“You and me both, to us.” He says as he hands you the bottle.

“I guess I just feel out of place at these things,” you say, taking a swig, “but I could just be dramatic or whatever.”

“I feel out of place… everywhere,” he turns to look at you. “You have a great taste in music.” He says as he leans against the wall browsing your phone.

“Haha, don’t look at my Spotify it’s so embarrassing!” You say covering your eyes with your hands.

“I think we’re gonna get along,” he said, smirking. “My name is Timothée… there’s an accent mark over one of the e’s.”

“Oh, cool.” You say.

You stare into each other’s eyes. Your heart starts beating as he stares seemingly into your soul. There’s no way he is about to kiss you right? This is eleven-dollar vodka plaguing your mind with crazy thoughts. You should save yourself from the embarrassment.

“Maybe I should head back.” You say as you reach for the door handle.

He places his hand upon yours on the knob. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

His hand gently brushes your cheek as he leans in for a kiss. You grab his wavy locks as he moves his hands down to your waist.

5

He guides you towards the mattress as you passionately embrace each other. His hands begin unbuttoning your linen dress.

He lightly pushes you on the mattress as you fall back like a lifeless doll. He slowly climbs on top of you and removes the Branch Crêpe De Chine button-up shirt (retails for $398 at Bodee, showroom appointments only!). Your hands move up and down his pale, visible rib cage. You’ve only known him for a few minutes but, it just felt so natural. Your embrace increases in passion as his hand meets the band of your Free People grey lace thong (retails for $3.98 at the Nordstrom Rack).

It was more than just a fling, you tell yourself. We like the same music. This will surely last forever. He eagerly goes down on you, but he’s just ok at it. You get bored after five minutes but still do your performative breathy moans.

You felt the cosmos align. A cure for your loneliness, a kindred spirit who understood you on a level to which you didn’t even understand yourself.

6

You lay there next to the beautiful boy himself and play with his dark curls.

“Wait, shit.”

“What is it?”

“I am so sorry you like might have chlamydia...” You say wincing.

“WHAT!” He shoots up immediately.

“Ok so, the Azithromycin I took told me seven days, but I think it’s only been six. I have no symptoms anymore like the fluids are done.”

“FLUIDS?!” He exclaims.

“Alright, first of all, yes. Fluids! Discharge! You might be overreacting here. I said you ‘might’ have Chlamydia.”

“Oh God, no, no, no.” He frantically reaches for his clothes.

“Um,” you say as he hikes up his gray wool pants, “so like in seven days when you’re all cleared out you should hit me up.”

He looks at you incredulously and storms out of the room.

You lay back once again wondering…. Hmm did I “ruin” that?

You hear another voice.

“Did you just have sex in my room?!” Todd yells.

You will not be invited back.

7

Bethlehem Absolutely nothing about Aunt Nora’s house was comfortable. The couch consisted of a rubbery leather material that stuck to your skin and the only other alternative in the living room was a stiff wooden chair with a single seat cushion. The room was somber as a chill air entered the old American craftsman.

“She told me she saw dad in a vision before she died.” My mother said wistfully.

“Maybe Mom is too busy with Freddy, he came to me in a dream recently…” Aunt Nora responded as if divine inspiration was a competition.

My Grandmother and Grandfather had lived in this house. They died before I was even born. They were originally from Brooklyn and Queen’s, respectfully, but my grandfather’s job and the eight children they had together led them to move out to the suburbs. My grandmother hated moving. She said Bethlehem was a “small town with people with even smaller minds.” She won best dressed at John Adams high school for the class of ‘50. She was also a habitual smoker, which ultimately led to her demise.

Her children would go on to live and die in Bethlehem. They worked blue-collar jobs and voted red. I am the most like my grandmother, but my aunts would never care to admit that. I am odd and openminded. I also am a Leo with huge perky tits, but no one seems to enjoy it when I point out this very simple connection.

Aunt Keely was simply different from the rest of my Mom’s sisters.

Like my Grandmother, she was also the most similar to me.

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Her costume jewelry clinked when she would move her arms and speak in her breathy voice. People couldn’t even attempt to hide a smile when she would do her witch-like cackle for a laugh. She loved to read books at the beach wearing an enormously large sun hat.

She took in any stray dog or cat that would wander onto her lawn.

She was immersed in a world of creativity and imagination, which unfortunately also made her constantly worry about things that did not exist.

9

I felt the sweat from my thighs drip underneath my black tights.

Aunt Keely requested for no funeral to be held, but I dressed for one anyway. I remember so vividly walking through the aisles of T.J. Maxx and giggling at our stupid jokes last winter. A year later, she would be dead. Before she died, she told me Bruce Springsteen hit on her in the late 70s and told her “nice ass,” thus confirming that Bruce Springsteen was a “butt guy,” which was excellent celebrity gossip for me.

The boiling sensation from my thighs crept up into my head. I sprung up from the leather cushion; I didn’t bother offering an explanation or untangling my headphones which had autonomously formed a knot near their right earbud before I scurried out the door.

I looked out to the abnormally bright winter sun as I stomped on the earth that laid upon Bethlehem. I think of the steel stacks and the decaying factories with broken windows where I imagined my grandfather must have worked. I don’t know about anything that he actually did. No one’s ever told me. I then realize that I simply don’t know anything, really. All I have is a story or two.

I don’t know what happens when you die, but I know the hollow emptiness of someone being gone is filled through the stories we tell. You forget the stories of scream-crying on the floor over misplaced keys or getting fired right before Christmas. All that’s left is the dreamy mythos we become through the stories told by people who love us.

My Aunt’s story will be stroking my tangled hair and dancing in retail stores to top 40 songs from three years prior. She will continue to live on through the polaroids stuffed into an overflowing storage bin in my aunt’s garage that will make you say, “oh remember when...”.

She will continue to live on through funny quips we tell while lounging and sipping on an Aperol spritz. She will live on through the memories I tell to others, “no, no, you don’t get it. Not like anyone else you’ve ever known. If you talked to her at a grocery store, you would remember it for days.” I’ll tell them.

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11

Buzz In All You Want You’re Not Getting Into NightMoves, Ugly!

There you find yourself, feeble and shivering, standing outside the illustrious nightclub you told your friends ever so confidently about, “Haha yea, James Murphy opened a nightclub. We should all go!”.

You trek through the terrain of Williamsburg, clenching your teeth as you bear the harsh February winds. You see clusters of people wearing layers of impractical athleisure like they all stopped changing midway after P.E. class.

But who are you? You’re a suburban transplant who moved here three months ago. These “friends” you’re referring to are people you met a week ago on the dance floor of Mood Ring that you manically DM’d on Instagram to hang out in an effort to broaden your social circle.

But, that being said, you’re confident you’re getting in. James Murphy is above elitism and exclusivity. He would hate all these wannabes buzzing outside. He told us this in New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down, “where the boring collect and I mean all disrespect.” Oh, and how could we forget Losing My Edge! He’s a kindred spirit. Lonely and insecure. Just like you. Just like you.

You wander down the long sterile hallway outside of the venue to buzz the doorbell. A handsome blonde answers the door. He looks you up and down with an expression that says, “we don’t let in people whose dads recently signed up for Cobra insurance you little twerp.”

“Sorry, we’re all full capacity.” He said in an apathetic voice.

You stand there dumbfounded.

“Try again at like um, 12:30.” He says and shuts the door.

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So what? You’re not an upper echelon with connections that allow you to flounce in without a care. You are still going to get into that stupid bar. For the story, if for nothing else.

You pass the time sitting at the second rate and self-proclaimed local “skater bar” drinking a shitty glass of beer.

You try again. The handsome blond looks sympathetically at you this time.

“Yeah, buddy it’s just not happening.”

You stand there shivering. You turn to your equally disappointed friends, who all silently decide to just go home. You spend the rest of the night alone watching Youtube videos. Just like the suburbs.

Just like the suburbs.

13

The Summer of Sweet Sweat I lay there on my back while sweat accumulates on my forehead.

His breath is heavy and exaggerated. My eyes glaze over. I clench my teeth at each thrust that ignites a stabbing sensation. I picture a woman getting stabbed in the stomach over and over again. Wait, don’t think about that.

Why would R. Budd Dwyer kill himself on live T.V? But then again, why did I watch it? My mind flashed the images of the grainy golden tinted film, his chubby fingers fumbling with the envelope to reveal the revolver. Why not leave a note and a swaying lifeless body hanging from the ceiling? I thought about panic and chaos. The gasps from the audience as he spoke his final words. He thought of himself as the victim of a witch hunt. He wanted autonomy over his story. He spoke calmly in midst of confusion and shouting—then a passionate and zealous gesture. I could have stopped watching. His body becomes limp.

I’ve tried listening to my Summer 2017 playlist in an attempt to have the hypnotic pop beats erase the scene from my memory. It didn’t work. He thinks he died a martyr, and maybe he did.

My Grandfather believed nothing happened to our souls after we died. Just suddenly, one day, we cease to exist. “Oh, I’m a goner,” He cried in the parking lot of the New Jersey highway pit stop.

I quickly turned away from him, fearing I was much too young to deal with the reality of his fleeting mortality. I think I agree with him. Our eternal resting place can’t be the ethereal celebration in the clouds that my priests claim it is. It feels like a foolish child’s fantasy. Like, that famous kid who allegedly went to heaven with the dumb name.

Heaven is not for real, you fucking twerp. I wish I could beat that kid up. Fuck Tim Allen too, is he in that movie? I don’t know.

14

I watch the blood gush from what used to be the back of R. Budd Dwyer’s head and think about how my Grandfather died alone with no control over his speech and limbs.

I can’t believe I ever say I want to die. I want to hold my mother’s cold, clammy hands. I want to go to the grocery store and surprise my friends with a freshly baked baguette. I want to read a nice book under warm covers. I want to tell everyone I’ve figured it out, how I am going to live.

Suddenly, he lays beside me.

“Oh, wait, are you done?” I ask.

“Yea.” He replies.

“Oh, cool.”

I lay my arms across his chest and close my eyes.

15

Hey Party People :/ I see the bugs crawl on the window sill outside my room. I know they’re plotting their way to get in and eat my decaying body as I spend another day lying in my own drool.

Did I live enough? Was I ever really there?

Standing on hot pavement, picking at scabbed knees, tangerine peels on my thigh. Shutting my eyes tight and hanging my head down.

“Wake up, wake up!” I beg myself.

This flesh I wear is the only one I get.

Be free, go forth! The world is yours, it’s all yours!

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