Buffalo Almanack, Issue No. 7 by Buffalo Almanack

March 2015

I s s u e N o. 7

Maxine Allison Vande Vaarst

Katie Morrison

John Gummere

Copyright ÂŠ 2015 Buffalo Almanack. All writing and photography property of their respective authors. Cover art by Justin Hamm. Buffalo Almanack is a non-profit publishing outfit founded in 2013. New issues are released quarterly, on the 15th of March, June, September and December. Inquire online for submission guidelines. www.buffaloalmanack.com Like us at facebook.com/buffaloalmanack On second thought, social media confuses us and we are people who are old.

For Bob Howe, 1928-2015 40 years a trainman on Indianaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Monon Railroad, a hard worker, caring husband, father and grandfather, loved by many.

Fine Art – “First Snow”

“First Snow” Mia Avramut Wax on clayboard

Mia Avramut

“I come from two worlds, which some insist on calling ‘Old’ and ‘New.’ My visual work — in acrylic, encaustic, ink, or mixed media — is an amalgam of recollections, glimpses, and observations of each. This particular work, which I call ‘First Snow,’ is a European memory, born out of my fascination with encaustic, the ancient medium of wax: The way it flows, captures the moment as if in amber, and ultimately reflects the light in a unique manner. The suggestion of tree bark stems from a dream of birch trees in the Ruhr valley, and from an affinity for Russian literature and film.

I used layering, carving, and scraping techniques to render the fragmented image of a landscape behind the curtain of snow. The resulting atmosphere and texture illustrate how versatile a vehicle wax can be, and how powerful in preserving and revealing images that would otherwise remain unseen.”

Buffalo Almanack

Fine Art – “First Snow” Mia Avramut

Editors’ Note Maxine Vande Vaarst Katie Morrison

Photography Eleanor Leonne Bennett

Fishtown, Down Michael Deagler

Woodshop Talk An Interview with Michael Deagler

Featured Comix Devon McFarland

Comix – “Two Birds” Peter Witte

Quo Vadis Jacob Michael King

Call for Submissions – “Where Thou Art”

Photography Justin Hamm

Woodshop Talk An Interview with Justin Hamm

Issue No. 7 - March 2015

Pressure Flaking Eric Boehling Lewis

Featured Photographer Frank Hallam Day

107

The Rendezvous Makenzie Barron

117

THE TAIL END (Presented by Midwestern Gothic) Dispatches from the Artistic Frontier

133

Interview Loli Kantor

135

Interview Ravi Mangla

149

A Selected Reading from “True Trans Soul Rebel” Maxine Allison Vande Vaarst

157

Review: Love Me Back Kelsey Osgood

163

PAST PERFECT Review: Maggie Cassidy Bridey Heing

167

Appendix

171

Buffalo Almanack

Are you ready!? Are you reaaaaaaaaaady? Are you reaaaaaaaaaady for some incrementaaaaaaaaaal improooooooooovements!? (Activate Halloweencolored strobe lights.) (Activate fog machine.) (Activate boom box containing CD [Jock Jams, Vol. 2], taking care to skip voice track of ESPN personalities Dan Patrick and Chris “Boomer” Berman, moving directly into hour-long loop of 2 Unlimited.) Yes, Buffalo Almanack continues to get a little bit better by piecemeal, just like last issue! Much like rust, we do not sleep. Sometimes literally so. Because it’s 6am on release day and we’ve been slapping this thing together for so long now that the anchors on the TV news are already calling tonight “yesterday.” What can we say? The best things in life are those that happen at the latest possible minute, to the direct detriment of your physical and mental health. Never forget that.

Right, the improvements. Best one’s got to be our new Woodshop Talk

feature, in which we interview our two Inkslinger winners about the very stories and photographs they’ve published in this issue. Michael Deagler and Justin Hamm, our two masters in Creative Excellence, have so much goodness to offer on pages 31 and 73. Or, if, you know, words aren’t your thing, we’ve got comix now! The ever-spectacular featured artist Devon McFarland gets the ball rolling on this brave new medium with his deliciously fucked series “Boo Hoo” on page 35, followed immediately by Peter Witte with his grand minimalist one-off “Two Birds.” Remember: Buffalo Almanack is nothing if not a friend to all visual art forms, no matter how many colors, panels or fair use-protected Garfield cameos

Issue No. 7 - March 2015

they contain! Well, except sculpture. How would we even publish something like that? Fuck sculpture.

Perhaps most exciting of all, we’re also opening a public Call for Submissions

for our first-ever theme issue, “Where Thou Art.” We’re looking for short stories, creative non-fiction essays (another first!) and visual arts that represent your hometowns, home states, home countries and general happy places...and we’re offering cash prizes for those homely enough to step to the plate. Skip on over to page 61 to learn more!

Speaking of pages, you’ll also notice that this issue is basically 200 pages

long. That’s insane. Consider it a benefit of our online-only publishing platform. Consider it also the reason we haven’t gone to sleep yet. Let our insomnia become your satisfaction with expanded interviews starring photographer Loli Kantor and author Ravi Mangla, globe-hopping and eye-popping photojournalism from Frank Hallam Day and – as always – four of the best short fictions you’ll ever read, courtesy of Jacob Michael King, Eric Boehling Lewis, Makenzie Barron and the aforementioned Mr. Deagler.

It’s going to be one incredible issue – the best since the last and the best until

the next!

Y’all ready for this?

All the best, Max and Katie Editors

Eleanor Leonne Bennett

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I took this photo I wanted to embrace the texture of a food stuff as a medium. The little dots are just cous cous. I think it works to make a slightly unsettling image.â&#x20AC;?

Photography

Eleanor Leonne Bennett

Michael Deagler

Fishtown, Down

Mangan had stayed for the funeral and two nights of drinking after, but

then had flown to Texas and a new sort of life. He left straight from the bar for the airport, or so Monk seemed to remember it: Mangan standing in the double doors of the tavern’s entrance, shrugging his shoulders into his suit jacket, saying that the old times had ended and that they all might as well get started on the new ones. “There are slow transitions and abrupt transitions,” he said. “This was an abrupt transition. Terribly fucking abrupt.” Like that.

Monk spent one last night alone in the empty rowhouse. Mangan’s things

were gone, and Denhelder’s had been picked up by his brothers or left out on the curb to be rifled through by the unwashed. Monk had looked on numbly as a fiend shuffled off in a pair of his friend’s sneakers. He thought about going out to stop the man but could think of no real reason to do so. Monk had few objects of his own in the house. He had never officially been on the lease and, as a result, had never officially moved in. Not that he ever had much to move, anywhere he lived. Each passing year out of college seemed to winnow away at his possessions, and by now he no longer needed boxes to contain them. When he left early the next evening, after locking the door and dropping the keys in the mail slot, Monk walked off with only a canvas grocery bag and a chipped coffee mug, appearing to all the world like he had spent the day in the dumpster of the local NPR affiliate.

It was June in Philadelphia. Kensington sat muggy and still along the

Delaware. Monk had the last pulses of a hangover rolling like a swell from the front of his skull to the back, the sort shaped by troubled sleep and a strong injection of caffeine. Normally he would have had a few drinks by now, but the refrigerator had been empty and he had superstitiously avoided Denhelder’s

Michael Deagler

remaining bourbon. He left the bottle alone on the kitchen counter when he locked the place up. A mistake, perhaps. But the late hangover was tolerable, the way rare sensations, even unpleasant ones, can be tolerable. In a way, he enjoyed it. The heat, fatigue and chemicals had engendered in him a complacent, end-ofthe-world buoyancy. The sky was clear and he felt inclined to find it beautiful.

Monk turned off small, crumbly Amber Street onto broader, crumbly

Frankford Avenue for what would be, he noted mawkishly, the last time. After all, no gentrifier can ever inhabit the same street twice, for it is not the same street and it is not the same gentrifier. Monk had few concrete plans for the future. Rather, he knew only that it lay before him in the same manner as the Philadelphia skyline: startling and brilliant, but obscured from view by many blocks of rowhouses. His docket for the evening contained only a drink at the Hall in Fishtown with the owners of a local film production company to discuss a possible writing gig. The meeting was a final gift of sorts from Mangan, who seemed to feel slightly guilty about leaving Monk jobless and homeless at the same time.

“I told them you write,” Mangan had said. “They’re good guys. They get

stuff made. And they’ll pay for drinks.”

Mangan had also said, when Monk promised to visit him in Austin, “Not too

soon. Don’t take this the wrong way, Monk, but I’d really love to see you again a year or so from now.” The comment had colored their farewell a bit.

The Hall was about twelve blocks down Frankford Avenue. Monk had made

the walk, drunk and sober, often enough that it felt like an easy distance. To take the El would be a waste of two bucks, the way a cup of coffee was a waste, or a Bic lighter. Impecunious times called for the sacrifice of conveniences in favor of necessities: booze, cigarettes, rent. And it had been a while since he had made

Fishtown, Down

the full rent. Anyway, Monk understood austerity. He was a man of simple tastes, when it came right down to it. He was a writer, and though he was not starving, he thought it wise to remain broke and generally malnourished. For the art.

Kensington became Fishtown south of York Street, and the shift was

demarcated by the first appearances of the fish-adorned address signs. Just as Christians had marked their tombs in the catacombs of ancient Rome, Fishtowners marked their houses with the fish signs as a way to assert their continuing residency in the face of the young, upwardly-mobile horde that swarmed into their borders from trendier, southerly neighborhoods. It was the profile of a blue-backed shad. The founding fish, John McPhee had called it, and it had lent its name to the neighborhood because, historically, the local economy was based on catching the fish. Or canning it. Or selling it, or something. Monk wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a hundred percent on that. Monk was only vaguely aware of the shad, in the way that he was only vaguely aware of most things. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he needed to find somewhere to sleep that night, and that, sooner or later, he would also need to find employment, a fixed residence, a topic for his first book, love, enlightenment, etc. He had been hashing most of this out with Denhelder over the past few months, but they had never come to any hard conclusions. Life is a tough shad to lure, as the local saying probably went. But what Monk needed most was a very large beer.

From the outside, the Hall resembled the street-facing wall of any shuttered

industrial building, though one into which someone had cut large modern windows and a cavernous glass entranceway. The interior had the effect of a monastic cloister, with a ring of galleries surrounding an open beer garden,

Michael Deagler

anchored by rows of picnic tables and lit by saplings spangled in strands of soft electric bulbs. Monk was impressed. The Hall was new, an expensive first experiment by Philadelphia’s primary restaurant baron to expand his fiefdom into the river wards. Monk was a progressive cynic in that he was cynical of progress. He wanted to the hate the place, and yet it was so inviting and cheerful he decided to withhold judgment until he was drunk, in another bar and in more radical company.

The Hall was not crowded, and the filmmakers made themselves known to

Monk as soon as he wandered into the garden. “Mangan said you’d be wearing a truly ugly teal guayabera,” said one of them, offering Monk his hand. Monk silently cursed Mangan, who by now was probably safe on Texas terra firma. Monk was going through a one-shirt period of his life. Mangan knew that.

The filmmakers each had ten years on Monk, and yet they came across

boyishly in their topsiders and plaid shorts. The man who had made the shirt comment was called Giallo. He was the director and did most of the talking. The other was called Cronin and he seemed to be the money man. He also seemed rather humorless and ordered only a water when the waitress appeared. Giallo order a lambic in a small Belgian goblet. Monk ordered a liter of dunkel, which arrived in a cartoonishly large stein that he managed to mostly empty before having to say anything.

“Mangan told us about your friend,” Giallo was saying. “Dennis, was it?

That’s terrible.”

“Denhelder,” said Monk, trying to catch the eye of the waitress again.

Denhelder would have ridiculed these bastards back to Center City, with their shorts and their sunglasses. “It’s just something that happens sometimes, I suppose.”

Fishtown, Down

“That’s the sad truth,” said Giallo. “My aunt—”

Cronin interjected, his eyes like a tired jurist’s. “So you’ve worked on some

films before?”

“No,” said Monk. “I was almost in a porno once, but I left before they started

shooting.”

Cronin frowned. Giallo, electing to take Monk’s answer as a joke, continued.

“Mangan told us you had written a few shorts.” “They were more sketches than short films. Comedy sketches, you know, for the Internet. That was back at school, when we all had a sense of humor.” Monk smiled the waitress over and ordered another liter.

“So what is it that you do, mostly?” asked Cronin.

“I write. I write and I jaunt.” “Jaunt?” asked Giallo. Monk nodded. “I go on jaunts, you know, to meet life and take it in. Mostly

I jaunt around Kensington. Tonight I’m jaunting in Fishtown. Who knows? Someday I may even leave these streets and jaunt in faraway places where they serve exotically-spiced chicken platters and cocktails with lychee nuts as garnish.” “You can get those in Chinatown,” said Cronin. “Can you?” said Monk. “You writers, you’re eccentric,” said Giallo, grinning as though he believed his teeth were lighting the whole garden. “But that’s how you do it, right? We need a good writer, Monk. There are so few of them in this city. Don’t ask me why. Maybe they think they have to leave.” “Not me,” said Monk. “Philadelphia is muse enough for me. I don’t need anywhere else.”

Michael Deagler

“Have you been anywhere else?” asked Cronin. “I don’t need to go anywhere else,” said Monk. “Well, we’ve been everywhere else,” said Giallo. “And you’re right, Monk. Philly is muse enough. All art is localized now: film, television, music, theater. It’s the new regionalism. Go local. It’s the same as produce from the local farmer’s market. Or beer from the local brewery. Artists must be ambassadors for their corners of the empire. We’ve heard enough New York and Hollywood stories. We need to tell our own stories. Let me tell you about our plan for our first feature, okay? We’ve worked on other people’s projects as they’ve come to town, Gray and Russell and Shyamalan, but we’re finally ready to do our own original thing, our first big thing—” “This won’t be our first big thing,” said Cronin. “This is too ambitious for our first big thing. Too expensive. Too many boat scenes. All set at night.” “We’re going to go big with it,” said Giallo. “Film is about going big. Bigger than appears possible, really—” “Period specific costumes, sets,” said Cronin. “It could be our second big thing, maybe, depending—” “Will you relax, Kevin?” said Giallo. “We’re not at work. Dream with me for a minute. Listen to this, Monk. It’s the height of Prohibition, right? 1933. We’re also four years into the Great Depression. Talk about soul-trying times, you know what I mean? So we open on the Delaware Bay….”

Giallo proceeded to describe what was, as best Monk could tell, the story of

a group of Delaware fisherman conscripted by a local mafia don to work as rum runners. There was no real order to it, and it veered from moments of extreme plot specificity to lists of abstract thematic nouns. Monk’s mind drifted away from the conversation more than once, fixing instead on his new beer, then

Fishtown, Down

his empty glass, then another new beer, then the firefly-like lights on the little trees someone had planted in the pebble-covered earth of the garden, and then to speculation of what those trees would look like fully grown, in some future decade when Monk was dead and the Hall was long established and Fishtown was irrevocably changed and Philadelphia was only slightly older and no less indifferent to the schemes of her children.

Monk refocused on Giallo. “And there’s probably some religious symbolism

there,” the man was saying. “Since Jesus was a fisherman.”

“Well, no, he was carpenter, traditionally,” said Monk. “Peter and Andrew

were the fisherman. ‘I will make you fishers of men.’”

“That works even better,” said Giallo. “Yeah, you can write that into it. This

is going have layers to it, Monk. It’s about friendship. It’s about integrity. About a man forced to chose between honor and survival. It’s a period piece, right, but it’s also a timeless piece. The way the ocean they sail on is timeless.”

“The bay,” said Cronin.

“The way the bay they sail on is timeless as the ocean,” said Giallo.

“Right,” said Monk, shifting the pebbles beneath his shoes. “Not to interrupt

you, but how much does this pay, writing a script? I mean, I’ve got some other things in the works, so I need to know it’s worth setting aside the time.”

“Well,” said Giallo, his face falling a bit. “That depends, really—”

“We can’t pay you anything now,” said Cronin. “You write it, we take it, we

form the corporation, we shop it around, get names attached, find the funding. We get to that stage, we can give you something.”

Giallo’s smile returned. “And of course you’d get some gross points—”

“Net points,” said Cronin.

“Net points on the film,” said Giallo. “Since you’d be with us from the

Michael Deagler

beginning.”

Monk knew nothing about points. “Hey, no offense,” he said, “but this

sounds like maybe money a year from now. I need some definitely money, you know? As soon as I can get it.”

“Well, maybe we can do something sooner,” said Giallo. “Do you think you

could work on this? Do you have ideas?”

“Loads of ideas,” said Monk, wanting to believe himself. “I’m made of

ideas.”

“Well, send us what you’ve got. Whatever you think of.” Giallo took a

business card from his wallet and slid it across the table. “Here’s the email address.”

“You’ve never sued anyone, have you?” asked Cronin.

Monk stuffed the card in his pocket. “No. Have you?”

“Great,” said Cronin, standing. “This was productive. Have another beer.

We’ll take care of the tab. Leave a tip if you want.” He glanced at the canvas bag by Monk’s feet, then added, “You know, I’ll just leave the tip.” He threw down a wad of bills and walked toward the entrance.

“This will be great, Monk,” said Giallo, shaking his hand again before

following Cronin. “It’s the movies, man. What’s better than the movies?”

Monk ordered a final liter and drank it alone at his picnic table. The sky

above the garden had darkened in the hour or so that he had sat there. The beer was doing its work, both on his blood and on his bladder. He wanted to piss and also to step back out onto Frankford for a cigarette, but, if the liters were as expensive as he guessed they were, he knew he would not return to the Hall anytime soon. He wanted to sit and enjoy it for a moment longer. The place had begun to fill up with people: attractive, fit people dressed for a night out

Fishtown, Down

in Fishtown or a drink before heading down to Center City. The air was warm and the scent of wursts and schnitzel filled the garden, and he wished it was his friends that had been there with him: Denhelder with his booming laugh and Mangan with his sly derisions. He wished it were a month earlier, or a year, or five years for that matter. He finished his beer and picked a ten out of Cronin’s tip money. He left his chipped coffee mug in its place and went to look for a urinal.

Coming out of the bathroom he ran into Hector Villona on his way to the

kitchen. Hector was dressed in an all-black server’s uniform, with a black cast covering his right hand and forearm. “Hector,” said Monk. “You work here?” “For now,” said Hector, slapping the cast against Monk’s shoulder blades. “Sorry about Denhelder, pally. I was working Saturday or I would have been there.” “Yeah, well,” said Monk. “How’s the gig here? Think you can get me a job as a barback or something?” “I can’t help you,” said Hector, shrugging. “I vouched for Ivan O’Reilly last month and that turned into a shit-and-vomit festival. Figurative shit. Literal vomit. I’m not vouching for anybody else. A server’s word is bond, Monko. They were already pissed at me about this.” He held up his cast. “There’s a certain aesthetic they’re striving for here, and it ain’t brawler chic. And that’s another thing. You’re probably twenty pounds too heavy for this place.”

“I’m too fat?” asked Monk. “This is a beer hall in Fishtown.”

“This is a beer garden, and Fishtown is hip, man. No beer bellies here,

only beer flowers. Have you seen the pretzel girls?” Hector started back for the kitchen. “I’m off in an hour, man, going over to the Brenda’s. Quizzo. Do yourself a favor, pally, check out those pretzel girls.”

Michael Deagler

Monk stepped out into the warm night of Frankford Avenue, a cigarette in

his lips, patting his pockets in search of some complementary matches. He gave up and bummed a flame from a bouncer, then followed the old industrial wall south to the intersection with Girard and watched the people as they jogged to and fro across the trolley tracks. The crowd was not dissimilar to the one he had just left: youngish and handsome in their trendy hats and boots, with only the occasional representative of the homeless and damaged classes that were inescapable almost anywhere in Philadelphia. He spotted an old woman across the street, seated at a card table set up beneath the edifice of a long-dead bank. She seemed to be selling buttons: I Heart America and that sort of thing. For a moment he pictured the young peasant Christ in the streets of Sepphoris, hawking fish to Hellenized urbanites in his rough pidgin Greek. Then he heard the trolley coming and tried to time it so that he flicked his cigarette onto the track just as the carâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s concealed wheels rolled over it.

He crossed Frankford and entered the Brenda, perched tall and loud on the

corner, its large TAVERN sign illuminated over the intersection. The interior was a series of rooms of various sizes, decorated in a style that seemed to be half fifty-years-ago and half fifty-years-before-that. Quizzo was coming undone in the largest of the them, where a tall, bearish man with a curly, black beard was speaking into a microphone attached to a small, portable amplifier. His face was flush and there were already a few empty pint glasses at his two-top, and he seemed to be naming all the countries that shared a border with Austria. Monk spied Boodle and Kinsella huddled at a small table in the corner. Kinsella seemed content with a handshake, but Boodle made a big show of standing up and embracing Monk, laying his small red head against Monkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Fishtown, Down

chest. “Friends hug,” he said into Monk’s guayabera. “We all need to be more open and honest about expressing how we feel toward one another, while we still have time.”

Kinsella had not come on Saturday, but Boodle had purchased a suit, shaved

his ridiculous orange moustache and stoically stood and kneeled throughout the funeral Mass. He had also caused a minor stir by phrasing his condolences to Denhelder’s mother as, “Jesus, ma’am, what a game changer.”

Kinsella was already making excuses before Monk could sit down, shaking

his head, saying, “Yeah, man. I can’t do stuff like that. I can’t do friends in boxes. That’s too much for me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Monk. “It doesn’t matter. How’s the game

going?” “I don’t like this quiz master,” said Boodle loudly. “He editorializes.” Monk picked up an answer sheet. Its heading read, Monday Night Quizzo with Sam and Colleen. “I take it that’s Sam. Where’s Colleen?” “He says she left him like an hour ago,” said Kinsella. “He won’t stop whining about it.” “Hungary,” the quiz master intoned over his crackly sound system. “Now there’s a country where love goes to die.” “Get to the next round!” someone shouted, and there were rumbles of agreement. The quiz master looked like he might start to argue, but then plowed ahead, working from his laptop screen. “This round is sports. That should appease you guys, huh? Bread and circuses, that’s what you like, don’t you, Fishtown? Well maybe you can tell me who was the only Phillie to play in both the 1980 and 1993 World Series?”

Michael Deagler

“Darren Daulton,” whispered Boodle. “Write that down.”

“I’m gonna get a drink,” said Monk. He walked into the front room with the main bar and sat on a stool. It was

cooler in there, with fewer lights and fewer people. The Brenda was the sort of bar that served locally made craft beer at locally made craft prices. Monk ordered a lager brewed two blocks from his recent Amber Street address and paid twice what it should have taken to ship it to the bar by mail. “You know,” he said to the bartender, “this town used to pride itself on having a city-wide special of a beer and a shot for three bucks.”

“What would you like me to do with that information?” the bartender asked

and walked away.

Monk sipped his beer. He felt the manic urge to chug it down, but he was

running short on cash. He was glad to have run into Boodle: he could spend the night at Boodle’s place up on Jasper Street, where there would probably be a horrible handle of something or another in the freezer. He regretted, momentarily, his superstition regarding Denhelder’s bourbon.

“How’s it going in there?” asked a woman sitting a few stools down. At first

Monk thought that by in there she meant his head, but then he realized she was nodding in the direction of the Quizzo room.

“Not great, apparently,” he said. “Word is, Colleen left Sam, and he’s pretty

broken up about it.”

“I didn’t leave him,” she said. “Not yet, anyway. Not for good.”

“Are you Colleen?” asked Monk. He held up the answer sheet. “Colleen

of Monday Night Quizzo fame?” He moved down to the stool next to hers. She looked to be in her late thirties, attractive but with an aura of fatigue. Like a lot of the women he met. Most of them, really. “Will you sign this for me?” he

Fishtown, Down

asked her, wagging the sheet.

“Funny,” she snorted. She sounded like she might have consumed as much

as Monk. “But you have an ugly shirt. Why are you in here? Don’t you like Quizzo?”

“It’s alright,” said Monk. “It’s just that it feels kinda….”

“Trivial?” she asked.

“I was trying not to use that word,” said Monk.

“Hmm,” she made her face serious. “Doesn’t everything get that way?”

“I hope not,” said Monk.

“What’s with the sack?” she asked, nodding at the canvas bag.

“These are all my worldly possessions,” he said, patting it with his palm.

“I’m a man, you know, so I’ve put aside childish things. But it turns out that, after childish things, there’s not a whole hell of a lot left.” He tipped his glass to her.

The woman peered at him as he drank. He felt as though she were trying to

look into his mind, as if she could figure out its make and the type of fuel it took. “What are you?” she asked. “Thirty-three?”

“Twenty-three,” he corrected.

“Whoa,” she said. “You need to slow down there, hon. You’re living too

hard.”

“Thanks, Colleen,” Monk said, and he downed the rest of his beer, cash be

damned. “I think you look young as a sorority pledge. I hope they carded you when you came in here.”

“No, I didn’t mean you look all raggedy,” she said, patting his arm. “You

just have sad eyes. Or not even sad, but...bleary. Like you’ve already given up all hope. But you should have a few more years left of stupid hope, at least.”

Michael Deagler

Colleen’s turned mouth seemed to contain several complementary emotions

that Monk could not fully identify. Amusement, maybe. The mildest kind. “To tell you the truth,” said Monk, “one of my buddies died last week. I don’t think it’s really hit me yet. But it’s making things weird.” “That is sad,” she said. “Was he a good man?” It was not the question Monk was expecting. “Of course,” he said. “Well. I don’t know. As good as I am. And I think I’m mostly good.” “Not that it’s only sad if he was a good man,” said Colleen. “It’s sad either way. But it always seems like the good people leave your life faster than the regular people. Don’t it? Almost like they all have inside information on some better place to be, like they all know something you don’t know about.” “Well, you and me can’t be very good, then,” said Monk. “If we’re still here.” “But that’s just how it seems,” said Colleen. “That’s the inherent problem with subjectivity. It’s always separating you from everything else. You’re on your side of the wall, and they’re all on the other side. So there is no we. We’re not still here. You’re still here, from your perspective. And I’m still here, from mine. And all the good people, from their perspectives, who knows? Maybe they’re not so good. It is a lonely way to experience the world, though. I do take issue with that.” Monk didn’t know how to respond. He could hear the Quizzo answers being read in the next room. He heard the voice of the quiz master say, “Larry Andersen,” and then, clearly, the voice of Boodle shout, “Mother fuck!” “So why did you leave the quiz master?” asked Monk. “Is he not one of the good people?” Colleen exhaled deeply, flaring her lips out like a duck. “Good as is left, I

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guess. I didn’t leave him yet, though. Not for good.” She finished her drink and stood up, wobbling. “We’ll see if I meet anyone on the walk home, though. I’d take you with me, but you’ve got those eyes. That’s not something I’m up for right now.” “Fair enough,” said Monk. “What’s your name?” asked Colleen. “Monk,” said Monk. “Well, Monk,” she said. “You’re still here. And if you’re here, then your life is always worth salvaging.” She started for the door. “I’ve been trying,” Monk called after her.

“And how is it going?” she asked, and moved through the tavern’s entrance

and out of his life. Monk looked at his empty glass. “Terribly,” he said. “Terribly, terribly.”

In this way, the quiz master came to be assaulted: Monk went outside to smoke a cigarette. Next to the door was a trash can

and, without taking another look at its contents, he dropped his canvas bag into it. He breathed in deeply to get a sense of possessionlessness, then ducked into the alley off the street to be alone. He was sick of looking at all the pretty, happy people. They had been alcoholics together: Denhelder in the cheery, garrulous way, which never looked like alcoholism, and Monk in the maudlin way that looked like alcoholism even back when it wasn’t. Even though it always was. More than that, they had been true Philadelphia jaunters together. They would go down Fishtown, down Northern Liberties, down Center City where the whole goddamn country was born, down Pennsport where the mummers

Michael Deagler

kept their club houses, down Whitman where they would eat roast pork sandwiches with broccoli rabe and the sharpest provolone alongside the unfriendliest people. They would be unfriendly right back and it was all quite neighborly. It was all so goddamn friendly out in America: Heartland friendly, Walmart friendly, Mormon friendly, and all of it completely disingenuous. Philadelphians would be unfriendly as a sign of mutual respect. They didn’t want anything from you and so had no reason to smile at you all the goddamn time. Go Birds, go fuck yourself, get home safe. Philos in its purist form: the love that the rest of America forgot. Denhelder had understood all that, as much as Monk did. Whether or not Denhelder was a good person, Monk couldn’t say. Goodness seemed an illogical metric for describing a man. But Denhelder had been a real person. And an ingenuous person, despite his best efforts to the contrary. And he had been Monk’s friend. Monk heard a familiar string of curses and saw Boodle and Kinsella shuffling down the alley toward him. Boodle fumed quietly, while Kinsella’s mouth jabbered without cessation. “Rigged, bro. He doesn’t want people to win. I’ve never seen a quiz master with so much malice for the players. And zero respect for the game, when you get right down to it. This guy, he gets his cash payment, he gets his free drinks, he’s got pre-researched answers to questions that he came up with, and so he thinks he’s a big mahoff. Thinks he can shit all over the sport. I don’t care if your wife leaves you, takes the kids, and sets the house on fire, you gotta have some professionalism, am I right?” Monk heard a door open on his other side and turned to see the quiz master leaving through the back exit. He was carrying his little amp in one hand and his laptop bag in the other. Kinsella spotted the man just as Monk did.

Fishtown, Down

“Well speak of the devil, it’s the inquisitor himself. Hey, Sam, got any more box office gross figures you’d like us to guess? Cause that’s not trivia knowledge, buddy, that’s just estimation.” The quiz master’s shoulders tightened, even as he swayed from the pints he had drunk. “Alright, fellas, I’m sick of this shit. I get to pick the questions. And I had shitty day today, so I’m sorry if they didn’t live up to your expectations.” The quiz master and Kinsella squared off in front of Monk. Boodle loomed over Kinsella’s shoulder, an unsettled look in his eyes. “Oh, did you have a bad day?” asked Kinsella. “Well welcome to the world, pal. Maybe I had a bad day. Maybe I’m trying to unwind, drink some beers, answer some trivia questions, maybe try to win a gift certificate.” The quizmaster put down his amp and took a pen out of his pocket. “Fine!” he shouted. “Where’s your answer sheet? You want me to put a star on it for you, you whiny sonsabitches?” Boodle suddenly had a steak knife in his fist. It was as if he had summoned it out of the darkness. He grabbed the quiz master’s collar, held the blade to his bearded throat, and shouted, “Darren Daulton, motherfucker! You wanna die tonight?” The quiz master bellowed in response, but ceased abruptly as a black-casted fist darted out of the air and struck him in his sweaty temple. The whole huge mulch bag of a man fell splayed out on the asphalt, unconscious. Monk stood looking on, his expression unchanged, feeling that he had been denied the necessary time to appropriately react to any of it. “Whoa, what the fuck, man?” said Kinsella to Hector, who now stood beside them in the alley. “He pulled a knife,” said Hector.

Michael Deagler

“He pulled a pen,” said Kinsella. “He’s the quiz master.” “Yeah, I pulled the knife,” said Boodle, holding up the knife. “I was just spooking him with it.” “Shit, really?” said Hector. “Well, fuck you, Boodle, you sociopath.” “Man, he’s out. You’re fucked, Kinsella,” said Boodle. “Why am I fucked? I didn’t hit him,” said Kinsella. “Yeah, but you’re the one he’s gonna remember,” said Boodle. “Fuck,” said Kinsella. “Goddamn it.” “If he remembers anything,” said Hector. “Well, check his pockets, at least,” said Boodle, kneeling down. “See if he’s got that Quizzo cash.” Hector stuck out his cast, shaking it. “Come on, don’t rob this guy, pally. He’s definitely calling the cops if we rob him.” “No, you weren’t here. He was a dick. And he’s wasted,” said Kinsella. “Anything he remembers, they’re not gonna believe it.” “This is stupid,” said Hector. “This is unseemly.” Boodle was rifling through the quiz master’s pockets. “Look, all I know is, my friend died last week, and I’m trying to get some rounds with my friends that are still alive. Let’s get some fucking whiskey. You guys all so rich you’re gonna turn down free money? Cause that’s a sin in and of itself.” Boodle looked up at Monk. “You got cash, Monk?” Monk looked back down the alley. He could see the young, well-dressed, no-problems people walking up and down the street beyond its entrance. They all seemed to be laughing with each other, holding hands or jostling each other playfully, calling out to each other, smiling, at ease. If they noticed that down in the alley there was a man lying on the ground, with four other men looming

Fishtown, Down

over him, they didn’t seem to care. Maybe they didn’t want to ruin their night with intervention. Or maybe they truly thought there was nothing amiss. Maybe they figured that, in any group of five men, four of them would eventually knock the fifth one down. Even if they didn’t mean it out of malice. Even if they were all the best of friends. “I don’t,” said Monk. “Check his pockets.”

They went down Frankford a few blocks more, to the Berbery, which sat almost by itself on a street of former factories that had all either become lofts or were becoming lofts or aspired to become lofts some day. Inside, it was Eighties Night. The music was loud and the dancefloor was full of what seemed to Monk to be very young people. They were dancing like club kids, drinking nonspecific cocktails out of clear plastic cups, just whatever alcohol was available with whatever was sweet enough to wash it down. Boodle danced wildly among them. He had taken the quiz master’s amp and microphone, and as as he danced he screamed into it, volume spun all the way up, competing with the tracks on the speakers, singing along if he knew the words and shrieking his own if he didn’t. There had been almost three hundred dollars in the quiz master’s wallet, and Hector seemed set on spending every penny of it on bourbon. He kept bringing shots over on a tray that he had borrowed through some benefit of the service fraternity, and he would set them down in front of each of them on the table at the small booth they had commandeered. “Cheers, boys,” he would say, “to Gregory Denhelder, our brother. We’ll never see the likes of him again.” Then, “Cheers, boys, to Sean Mangan, our Texan. We never needed him anyway.” Then, “Cheers, boys, to Dennis Monk, our homeless, jobless, bookless writer.

Michael Deagler

You don’t need a home, Monk. All of Philadelphia is your home.” At some point it became too much to bear, as it always did, every night, because Monk could never stop until it became just a little too much. The beat became oppressive and his guts were in rebellion, and the company of other people felt like a crowd of strangers haggling over his bones. He stood and beelined for the door, out into the air again, and walked away from the heat and sound, along the last patch of Frankford before it hit Delaware Avenue and ceased to be. Across the wide arterial was the casino that the state had erected a few years earlier, before anyone knew that Fishtown would be reborn through migration, when the thought went that the only way to save the neighborhood’s economy was to offer one more vice to lure in those last elusive shad. The complex was bright the way that no day was ever bright, brighter than any real thing, the sort of bright that can only be a trick for the lonely and the lost. Monk threw up in the street. “Pussy,” someone said. Monk looked over and realized that Kinsella had stumbled out after him and was now pissing on a concrete median that had been installed to block off a lot where they were either building a gas station or tearing one down. “Christ, what time is it?” Kinsella asked, his head bent back, his eyes closed to the sky. It made Monk think of days on Amber Street when the house was still stuffed with furniture, when life felt so crowded that the very notion that it could ever be emptied out again seemed mere millenarianism. And it made him think of nights — not the night when Denhelder dropped soundlessly to the pavement because he had a bomb in his blood that no one knew about, not the night when Monk and Mangan joked another minute before they turned around with their mouths still full of laughter — but of normal

Fishtown, Down

nights walking home along Amber Street with dawn only an hour or two away, with the city quiet like it got sometimes, with Monk sucking down the last cigarette in his pack, with Mangan stumbling like he did when he got that gone and Denhelder fumbling with his key in the door, asking, “So, boys, when we gonna knock this shit off?” And Monk would say, “Tomorrow,” like he was saying it now, looking across the avenue at the casino that was lit up as if electricity was brand new and free and forever, and at the blackness beyond it that was the Delaware River, and at the deeper blackness beyond the river that was New Jersey and a whole other entity entirely. “Tomorrow,” said Monk. Like that.

Woodshop Talk

Michael Deagler is the author of the short story “Fishtown, Down,” winner of this issue’s Inkslinger Award for Creative Excellence. Here we chat with him about his process and his story. This is Woodshop Talk.

***

BUFFALO ALMANACK: Hi Michael, thanks for taking on our first

Woodshop Talk like this. It’s very cool to have you on board. I want to start by saying that “Fishtown, Down” is an intensely cool piece. Where did it come from? Monk is such a caricature in many ways of the dour, sardonic

An Interview With Michael Deagler

twentysomething drifter. Is there anything autobiographical about him or the story at large? Have you ever threatened a quizmaster with a knife over Darren Daulton?

MICHAEL DEAGLER: Thanks, I’m just honored to be included. I have

never personally assaulted a quizmaster, though it is a recurring fantasy of mine. Monk and I do share some similarities, but Monk is also definitely a fairly common type of young person. There are a lot of Monks out there, in every city. Certainly in Philadelphia. Our generation — or at least the members of it that I know — tends to be overeducated, underemployed, artistically-inclined and enamoured of city life. To an even greater extent than previous generations, I think. And that’s pretty much who Monk is. He’s got vague ambitions, abstract obsessions, mundane deficiencies, and no clear path ahead of him. His world is changing more quickly than he can react to it. Which is a problem that often besets me, as well.

BA: For as much of a ramble as this story is, it is clear that its heart, like the heart of Monk himself, lives in the bones and bruises of Philadelphia. You’ve got this movie director Giallo championing “the new regionalism,” in which artists “must be ambassadors for their corners of the empire,” and that’s a belief which has underpinned Buffalo Almanack from its outset. You can see it right now in the scope and aims of our “Where Thou Art” contest. In literature and in life, what is it that makes a place home? How do you find your corner of the empire? MD: I’m very much an advocate of regionalism. Particularly Philadelphia regionalism, since our best and brightest tend to move away and spend their gifts in the service of other cities. But I don’t think everyone has to be a

Woodshop Talk

regionalist. There’s no correct way for a writer to establish a relationship to place. We live in a time when people chose neighborhoods with the same selfawareness that they chose eyeglass frames. All residences are equally fertile. All residents are equally righteous. That said, my favorite writers tend to be the ones who build their myths out of their native locality: Irvine Welsh, Roddy Doyle, Daniel Woodrell, Donald Ray Pollock, anyone from Florida. Every place needs a few artists to celebrate it and criticize it and help it to shape its vision of itself. I’m not saying artists should stay home and never move to Brooklyn, but you should realize that Brooklyn probably doesn’t need your art. That place where you used to buy beer underage and loiter in parking lots: that’s the place that probably needs your art.

BA: We’re calling this bit our Woodshop Talk, right, so let’s get into making-of type business for a question. Is there anything you’d want to tell us about how this piece came together – where or how or when you wrote it, or where or how or when you think you do your best writing? How does the facture of your storytelling play out for you? Share as much or as little as you like. MD: This story was written as part of a linked collection that shares characters and locales — it was actually written to fall in the middle of the collection, spatially and temporally. I originally envisioned it as being a bit like “After The Race” from Dubliners: short, frenetic, buoyant, a story about money misspent and problems ignored. Some of that influence remains, but as I wrote the story it became longer-winded, more despondent, a little more blatant in its attitude. The toughest thing about this story is that it’s a young-men-drinkingin-bars story, which most people (rightly) despise. On top of that, it’s a story

An Interview With Michael Deagler

about grief, which is also a heavily travelled avenue in fiction. So I had to work doubly hard to make it palatable despite its genre, to keep it engaging, dynamic, and as original as possible.

BA: The story is over, but it’s clear that Monk’s jaunting days are nowhere near an end. If you had to keep writing, if you had to see the character through the next month or year or the remainder of his lifetime, where do you think Monk goes from here? What does “tomorrow” look like? MD: There are other Monk stories, which may or may not make it into print. I do hope things work out for him. He’s young enough that he has ample time to clean himself up, figure himself out, and even move to a different place, should he chose to do so. But I can’t say he’ll be alright. Unfortunately, a lot of people are never alright. I’m not wholly convinced any Millennials will be alright. I have difficulty imagining what “tomorrow” looks like for any of us, economically or emotionally. I think Monk’s main problem (besides the alcoholism) is the same problem that a lot of creative people have during that transitional phase between school and whatever’s next: he needs to find his project. It’s easy to stagnate when there’s no clear path forward. I’m optimistic for Monk, though. He’s still alive, which is the most important thing. The living tend to figure things out, given adequate time.

Featured Comix

“The most important aspect of Boo Hoo as a story is that you can literally read it anywhere – downstairs, upstairs, without stairs, while on stairs, you really don’t have to be moving at all to read it either – this is a huge plus for people who like to stand still or stay in one place.”

Devon McFarland

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Devon McFarland

Featured Comix

Devon McFarland

Featured Comix

Devon McFarland

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Devon McFarland

Peter Witte

“We all seek to be loved, to connect with other beings. It feels good to be loved. Rejection, though, is also a significant part of life. It’s a significant and painful and sad part of life...”

Comix – “Two Birds”

“...In ‘Two Birds’ I examined rejection. I’m not sure how birds actually feel about rejection, but I’d guess that they experience it as a kind of sadness in the same way as you or I do. And even if I learned that birds don’t feel sadness at being rejected, I would feel it for them.” Peter Witte

Pen on printer paper

Jacob Michael King

Quo Vadis

He had Bob Ross hair, but I let him fuck me. Maybe thirty-eight, with a paunch and a button-up jean shirt. Also: cowboy boots, and he wasn’t kidding about them. He had soft eyes and big hands and he wanted me. After the week I’d had, I needed it. Afterwards, we were drunk and climbed to the roof of his shitty apartment building. We smoked cigarettes in the pre-dawn and leaned back in the lawn chairs he’d set up. Fuchsia clouds scrolled down the purple firmament, starless. He asked me, “So what was your name at first?” I asked him what he meant, though I knew. I looked at him. Flushed, he leaned back and said something about how light pollution was beautiful. I didn’t want to talk about light pollution. I told him my birth certificate said “Joseph,” but that Joseph had drowned in a sea of eyeliner and hormone patches and resplendent wigs. I told him that I had washed up. “My name,” I said, “is Themis.” “Themis,” said Bob Ross Hair. Then he smiled and, fidgeting about in his lawn chair, ended up hunching forward. “Where’d you come up with that?” he asked. “A peacemaking impulse,” I told him. He wanted more but I didn’t give it. Instead I said, “I’m an abortion driver.” He looked punctured. I said, “I mean I drive girls to the clinic. I volunteer.” He mumbled something about how gratifying that must be. “Not really,” I said, and now he looked annoyed. “Okay, so then why do you do it?” he asked. Like he knew where I was going.

Jacob Michael King

Like I was being a difficult woman. Like he’d seen a lot of difficult women in his day. “I’m not being a bitch,” I said, which somehow shook him. “I saw the play last week.” He looked at me like I was full of shit, like how are you still alive, then? But he didn’t say it.

These days, the theater was precarious and aggressive. Like a mass shooting or a car bomb. The setting was always somewhere banal: a shopping mall, an office building, places where people would suddenly stop and form an audience. Actors (dreadfully warped in appearance or vibe or both, often self-mutilated) were appointed. Perhaps they picked themselves – none were available for comment. Anyhow, they’d start performing. Sometimes there was a kind of dream-narrative to the pieces, and sometimes they’d just spit these oblique little aphorisms. Whatever route was taken, the conclusion, inevitably, was the same: actor and audience would drown in a fatal madness. Everyone, or nearly everyone, would be dead before the curtain. It was a nasty new way to expire. You didn’t know whom it would hit, or when. For a year, you might find yourself etching patterns into your stomach with a pen-knife. You just wouldn’t think about it. But then your time on stage would come.

“I was far enough away,” I said. “But barely. I made it. But I haven’t slept... I mean, if I wasn’t fucked up enough already, right?” I pinkened as the words escaped me. He’d gotten me to spread my legs

Quo Vadis

without knowing my name. How gauche, to bare myself like this. It painted me as a pouty type, an attention vampire. But still I kept talking. “Apparently,” I said, “I can’t seem to talk about anything else. So you might as well hear it.” For a while now, there had been people screaming a couple blocks away. He’d left the windows of his apartment open, and the sound had leaked in during our little rendezvous. It sullied the mood, such as it was, but only slightly. Obnoxious, but not alarming. A gaggle of bums having a fit. Now the gaggle was closer. We could hear what they were saying. Different voices, the same refrain: “Who is the man with no face? Show me this man with no face! Where is the faceless man?” they called. He stiffened like someone stuck a finger in him. He leaned back and nodded and his eyes went from almonds to thumbnails. He looked serious, and I felt a pinch unnerved. “Got any faceless friends you can send their way?” I asked. “I think I know what they mean,” he said. I laughed, he didn’t. “Don’t bother about it,” he said. “Just tell your story.” “This was last week,” I said. “This was my first day on the job.”

There Queen Themis stood, leaning against her shitty car, smoking and just generally looking hot. Attire: Leopard tights hugged thigh and calf to meet matching maryjanes that clicked subtly, like fingers snapping. An alligator cover-up over a pink spaghetti strap

Jacob Michael King

over a C cup bra over breasts full and soft that even the cis girls envied. Then that explosion of pink hair (monstrous and fabulous, positively regal) which she’d bought last week and wore for the first time today. Sure, they looked. The shopping-bagged Goodwill demographic with its unwashed hair. One man was hunched over a bench, jeans bowed in a grinning crescent, teasing his fuzzy ass. He’d finished his microwave burrito, was kissing rice from his fingers when he dared to scoff. Then the bus pulled up. Something tiny and scared stepped off: Latin, with long black hair and black eyes; sneakered, with nice jeans and a t-shirt that had “Go Girl!” written on it in sequins. If she was seventeen, she looked young for it. And so Queen Themis, maryjanes snapping and pink locks bouncing, walked right up. “I’m Themis,” she said. She extended her arm to an elegant sickle. Go Girl met it with a touch limp and brief. Well, this was unpleasant. Themis knew you didn’t meet girls like her every day, and her skin had thickened accordingly. She’d become inured to the open mouths and stammers, even to the occasional, misplaced gender pronoun. But Go Girl looked at Themis like she had something in her teeth. “I’m your driver,” Themis said, and waved to her car. They started walking. Go Girl asked for a cigarette, so for a minute they leaned on her car and smoked. From her handbag (which was blind-you shiny, dreadful) she drew a phone and started texting. Now Themis, not a nosy woman, was looking at the phone because it was a nice one. She suspected that Go Girl was blessed with affluent parents and the plebeian taste of the nouveau comfortable. But, during this briefest of glances, she did happen to see the word “tranny” being typed.

Quo Vadis

“I like your lipstick,” said Go Girl like she was looking at some shit drawing by the daughter she wouldn’t have, telling her it was beautiful. Themis wanted to read that bitch like a priest reads the liturgy to unwashed pagans. She wanted to take the bitch to school and fail her so she’d repeat the grade and learn some more. But Themis held her tongue. Instead, she said, “Thanks,” and fingered lips glossed with a glittery emerald. She took a deep breath and another drag and glared bullets at the burrito man with his ass hanging out. He looked Themis over with lust and hate commingled. This is what she got for leaving the house.

Go Girl dissolved when they got in the car, collapsed into Themis. And the car was hot, but Themis would feel weird – what with Go Girl’s little nails, their polish chipping, digging needily into her alligator cover up – shifting about to grab the keys and turn the engine. Queen Themis felt her anger supplanted. Not by pity, but by awe: she felt affectation in the girl’s display, the niggling itch that she was performing. Go Girl’s desperation was secondhand, cribbed from television and YA novels. But then she told Themis she’d been raped, and Themis melted. And Themis cried too, because she knew what that was like. Many times. Once she’d been held down as a gang of ballcapped animals kicked her ass and knifed her jeans open and tore her panties and breached her. The blood, the shit, the way they’d stomped on her cock. One had cut her face but his hands shook from conscience or innocence or both. He was as gentle as someone cutting your face could be. Scabs for a couple months, but no scars.

When I told Bob Ross Hair, I would of course reign in this autobiographical

Jacob Michael King

flourish. I’d just say, “I’ve been to that rodeo,” take a drag and sigh like I’d lived too much to look this good. His intensity was unnerving. He blinked about once a minute. And the bums, or whoever they were. They sounded like they were right outside, still screaming for the man with no face.

So Themis hugged Go Girl tighter, chiding herself for her bitchiness. Go Girl said she was embarrassed and Themis said no and petted her hair. They started driving, and Go Girl was quiet. Themis said she could smoke in her car, so Go Girl rolled down the window. Themis gave her a cigarette. “It’s all my fault,” said Go Girl. Queen Themis, having heard that one before, called bullshit. “It is,” Go Girl said. “He has a girlfriend and his girlfriend’s a cheerleader. He plays football. He’s like Mr. High School. He’s Mr. Perfect and nobody would believe it but we were in his room and he came on to me. He kissed me and I turned away but then he started kissing my neck. I said no but he said he couldn’t stop, that I was so pretty that he couldn’t stand it. He told me he’d been in love with me, like, forever. Like he knew me since middle school and he’d always been in love with me. He was giving these compliments but his hand was over my mouth and he was pushing my head into the floor. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t even say anything. Like I wasn’t even that scared yet because I was, like, just shocked. And then...” Go Girl started misting up again before the final “he raped me.” She drew a soiled kleenex from her purse, dabbed her eyes and hunched. Then came more sobs. Queen Themis felt her bitch light glow red-hot. Poor Themis. Her heart was an island in a sea of sarcasm and piss. Now a

Quo Vadis

turd had washed up on its tender shores. As the turd could speak and weep and smoke, she mistook it for human and let it dry on her beach. But now the turd had lied, and this Queen Themis could not forgive. “What were you wearing?” Themis asked. “What?” said Go Girl. “I mean when you got pillaged. I was wearing a miniskirt the last time.” She was quiet for a second. Themis wondered if she’d bite back. “Just shorts,” she said. “No shirt?” “I mean, yeah,” she said. Now a pinch (but just a pinch) of frustration. “I mean, I had on a sweater.” “Must’ve been the shorts. I bet they were tight. You’re pretty enough, you should watch what you wear. At least for a few more years.” Themis combed through her pink wig, grinned and kid-punched Go Girl’s shoulder. “Chin up, honey,” said Themis. “Nobody’s perfect.” Silence all the way to the clinic. Queen Themis wondered if this whole volunteer bit was an attempt to understand a paradox of womanhood. Themis had a cock, and it was poison to her. It dangled like a tumor between her legs. She remembered being a teenager, splaying scissor blades on either side of it, hating herself for not going through with it and wishing her bulbous deformity (and it was growing) would just fall off. What she wouldn’t give for an ovary. But here were women who’d have the miracle of their sex scraped from them and lobbed in a biohazard bin. Oh, she knew they had their reasons. But she would’ve whored herself or robbed banks to hold a baby that was hers. She knew this was selfish. In

Jacob Michael King

moments of self-reproach, she wondered if her chromosomal affliction wasn’t just. They came to the clinic. Go Girl opened the door before they stopped moving. Themis would probably get a talking-to later: Go Girl pretty much ran her lying ass inside. Not a curtsey, not a “thank you.”

Bob Ross Hair was all enraptured. It got me a bit queasy. What, with the gaggle outside and all, screaming (and now it was pretty much a chant, horrid and guttural) for the man with no face. “And then you could just feel it happen,” I said. “I was okay and the people in the clinic were okay. I was still at the edge of the clinic’s parking lot. Maybe by like a foot.”

Queen Themis sat for a minute with the engine running and the passenger door open. A mood had fallen. Oh, it was sweet, and she swam in it. She must’ve been hexed. She felt a spell worm its way inside and pop her volition. She walked from her still-purring car. There was a park across the street. If dirty needles and used condoms got your slippers twinkling, this was the place for you. But something was happening. Cars were stopping and people were getting out. The street between the clinic and the park was clogged. So were the sidewalks, but there was a space cleared in the middle so Themis could see. Themis saw a woman in a bathrobe. Older, with a thick chin and a round frame. The severed snout of a cow was mounted to her forehead, perhaps by superglue. Viscera dangled in her eyes like bangs. The woman said, “I am not myself.”

Quo Vadis

A man stood on either side of her. The man to her right faced her, and the man on her left faced away. “I am burdened with your nagging, and by the rhythms of your body. The disgusting particulars of your humanity diminish you,” said the man to her left. “I am enraptured. The droop of your eyes, the flat uncomeliness of your breasts, they sing to me. You are not poetry: you are the source of all poems,” said the man to her right. “I can never be seen,” said the woman. “I am unknown. I am recognized only by what I am not.” The woman undid her robe. She knelt. She was naked underneath, and a string was stitched by an amateur hand from her vulva to the top of her sternum. The wound puffed. Blood seeped. A sewing needle, still threaded, glinted on the end of the string and hung just below her chin. “I have no other means of seeing,” said the man to her left. “Perhaps there is an inner light,” the man on her right said. “And the body, a collusion of accidents, serves only to obscure it,” said the man to her left. “Find my substance,” said the woman. Now Themis noticed the fingernails of the men. They were long and whittled to sharp points. They must have taken years to grow. They dug into the woman’s meaty trunk, and before long she was disemboweled. Her intestines spilled onto the sidewalk. She did not move or blink. The men stood. The woman slackened and fell forward. “Lord, where are you going?” Asked the man on the left. “Your substance eludes me,” said the man on the right.

Jacob Michael King

Among the spectators was a police officer. He moved through the stopped cars and people and stood facing the men. He drew his pistol and the men knelt. He shot them both in the head, and turned to the crowd. “Find my substance,” he said. He took the gun in his mouth and fired. Then there was frenzy. The crowd tore and bit at each other. They disrobed and mounted one another on the backs of cars or on the pavement. One man had opened the gas cap of his car and put his mouth around it. Three men were on the other side, tipping the car until his mouth was filled and he stood and spat gasoline on them and on himself. Someone brought a lighter and fired them up. The burning men disrobed and fucked until their muscles were burned away. Others went to them and caught fire themselves. They walked through the crowd, spreading it, until everyone was burning.

I told him that I’d spent the last week recovering. Drinking cheap brandy, pretending to read. I told him I had stared absently at so many walls or windows and that, tonight, I figured a plowing might do me good. I sighed, and hoped he’d make a joke or get heated for a second round. Just below us, the gaggle was sounding. “The man with no face! Who is the man with no face?” one yelled. A wispy smile from Bob Ross Hair. I felt something clever coming. “Makes you wonder,” he said, “you know, when the play really started.” I said it didn’t, really. “If you think about it, that little girl you drove to the clinic was acting the whole time. Just like a play. And you were her audience. I mean, we’re all acting. You wear your hair and your make-up and shit. You use your voice in a certain

Quo Vadis

way. I do, too.” “Have I told you that I think you’re brilliant?” I asked, hoping he’d find his way to the nearest gasoline orgy. “All that bitterness? That’s just acting, too. You’re acting right now. The play goes on until you die. I mean, really, what’s the difference? That the actors in those plays...that they die? I mean, don’t we? Don’t we just take longer? At least with them things are, well, I guess ‘cathartic’ is the word I’m looking for.” “I’m certain,” I said, “that ‘cathartic’ is the word you’re looking for. Now that you’ve found it, I hope you don’t mind me stepping out.” I touched his leg, but Bob Ross Hair was stiff. He’d suddenly paled. He looked like an exorcist might do him good. Sirens. Muffled, distant, and then closing in. The sirens stopped, but the lights still spun. The sound of a car door opening. And then, from the megaphone, “Would the man with no face please step out of the building? Please. Would the faceless man come?” “I think I know what they mean,” said Bob Ross Hair. He was glazed over, taken. “I do,” he said, “I think. Like those nails on the men. They’d been growing them for years. It was a preparation, in itself a performance. But when did it begin? Does one prepare, or is one prepared by something backstage? What distinguishes an actor? I think... I think I know what they mean. Look.” He turned his chin up. Under his beard there was stitching sewn from jaw to jaw. In the darkness of his room I had not seen it. “Feel free to fuck off anytime,” I said. “I’ve stopped lying,” he said, and now it was my turn to look punctured. “You,” said Bob Ross Hair, “you condemn the liar when you were born a lie.

Jacob Michael King

You, a woman: your body lies to you. It says that you are a man. All flesh is yolked with untruth. A foul hallucination... a collusion of accidents...” He stood. He started tearing at the stitching, muttering all the while, “I think I know... I think I know what they mean...” Blood fell from him, and I started walking. A girl like me always knows where the exits are. There was a door on the far side of the building, well-lit, with no gaggle. This was a show I didn’t care to see.

Quo Vadis

Buffalo Almanack

Home. It’s where “your story begins” and where about a statistical third of Americans wind up dying. Home is “where the heart is;” home is the “nicest word there is;” and home is “wherever I’m with you.” Home is also one of the few true universals in a world constructed on difference and division. Everyone is from somewhere. Every life that takes place on this earth must also by necessity ‘takes place’ on this earth. We are all just chapters in the greater

Issue No. 7 - March 2015

ongoing stories of our homes. So why not share your story of home with our readers? And, better question, why not cash in on it? Buffalo Almanack is excited to announce and open submissions for “Where Thou Art,” our first theme issue! Where thou art...that’s a double question when you think of it. Not only do we want to know where you come from, what’s it like or why you love it/hate it, but we also want to know how your connection to that place informs your artistic vision today. As such, we’ve expanded our horizons to include creative non-fiction in addition to our usual fare of short stories and the visual arts. From flag-bunted photos of main street that would make the Chamber of Commerce proud to charcoal sketches of the neighborhood cemetery where you and Melissa Adams used to smoke pot after geometry – from subtle fiction that speaks to the essential Ohioness of Ohio, or a documentary essay that explains precisely where Schenectady is and why we’re all pronouncing it wrong, there are no wrong approaches. Nor are you limited to the United States! Curse our Americentric arrogance – we want to hear about the places near and dear to you, even if they’re thousands of miles away from us. What’s in it for you? Well, why don’t we sweeten the pot a bit and double those Inkslinger payouts – $100 apiece to the best work of writing and visual art – and a $50 consolation prize to a third runner-up of either genre? Sounds good to us! Everybody on the planet is eligible, no entry cost is required, and you have plenty of time to prepare – subs will remain open from March to November of 2015. Be sure to visit www.buffaloalmanack.com for further rules and details, or email us at editor@buffaloalmanack.com with any questions you might have. Welcome home, dear readers...it doesn’t matter where you are, because you’ve never really left.

Justin Hamm