Riding Light Summer 2015 by Cyn Bermudez

Riding Light

Summer 2015

Riding Light Summer 2015

The Riding Light Review

A sixteen-year-old boy once imagined riding on a beam of light, and his simple thought experiment played an important role that would later change the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;it ushered in the age of modern physics. This boy was Albert Einstein. Einsteinâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s use of imagination fueled his work in physics, which eventually lead to his famous 1905 papers on Special Relativity. Riding Light emerged out of a desire to push the boundaries of creativity through language, ideas, and story. We believe in the power of imagination, the fuel for our ideas and innovation. This notion inspired the name of our magazine.

Masthead Editor in Chief Cyn C. Bermudez Senior Editor Taylor Lauren Ross Associate Editor, Fiction and Nonfiction Melissa RaĂŠ Shofner Associate Editor, Poetry Kara Donovan Readers Jamie Hoang ÂŠ 2015 The Riding Light Review ISSN 2334-251X This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from individual authors or artists. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission of the author(s) or artist(s) is illegal.

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EDITORIAL Art COVER ART & INTERIOR HEADER ART Allen Forrest LA Kathy Rudin PHOTOGRAPHY Tom Darin Liskey Fiction THE MISSING PIECE Erin Cunningham LIVING Erin Darby Gesell AN OTHERWISE SENSELESS ACT, AFTER ALL Noah Milligan DEADBEAT Edward Hagelstein THE NOTE Grant Sorrell WHERE IS CENTRAL PERK? Jim English Poetry WHITE MONARCH Harika Kottakota PASSAGE & IN THE AFRICAN WOODLANDS Peycho Kanev KILLING THE POETRY PROFESSOR Doug Draime

EDITORIAL I am pleased to present The Riding Light Review‘s fifth issue, our first issue from our second volume. We‘ve completed one year in print and that calls for a celebration. This little labor of love was not an easy trek to make. As each issue came together, I felt humbled by the generosity of our staff and contributors. And I‘m incredibly grateful. I‘ve said it before in a previous issue, but I‘d like to state it again: RLR is a collaborative artistic venture—writers, artists, and editors coming together to contribute a quality work, to establish our voices among the larger landscape of literature and arts throughout the world. The summer issue features amazing artists, photographers, and writers. Allen Forrest contributed the cover and all the interior header art. Mysteries in the City also features art and photography by Tom Darin Liskey and Kathy Rudin, fiction by Erin Cunningham, Jim English, Erin Darby Gesell, Noah Milligan, Edward Hagelstein, and Grant Sorrell. And poetry by Doug Draime, Peycho Kanev, and Harika Kottakota. Thank you for your support. Sincerely, Cyn Bermudez

ARTISTS Cover Art and Interior Header Art by Allen Forrest Graphic artist and painter Allen Forrest was born in Canada and bred in the U.S. He has created cover art and illustrations for literary publications and books. He is the winner of the Leslie Jacoby Honor for Art at San Jose State University's Reed Magazine and his Bel Red painting series is part of the Bellevue College Foundation's permanent art collection. Forrest's expressive drawing and painting style is a mix of avant-garde expressionism and post-Impressionist elements reminiscent of van Gogh, creating emotion on canvas. LA by Kathy Rudin Kathy Rudin is an artist from New York City. Her work has been published in, OUT, Genre, Wilde, DUM-DUM, RIPRAP Journal, The Sun, The Boiler Journal, and Bop Dead City, among others, and has been exhibited at galleries in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles and Vancouver. She also volunteers at an animal shelter, and she likes cheese. Spotlight: Photography by Tom Darin Liskey Tom Darin Lisky spent nearly a decade working as a journalist in Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil. He is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi. His fiction and nonfiction has appeared in the Crime Factory, Driftwood Press, Mount Island, The Burnside Writers Collective, Sassafras Literary Magazine, Hirschworth, and Biostories, among others. His photographs have been published in Roadside Fiction, Iron Gall Press, Blue Hour Magazine, and Midwestern Gothic. He lives in Texas.

THE MISSING PIECE Erin Cunningham That day started off like any ordinary day. Customers drifted in, found their piece, signed their slip, and drifted out again. The shop sat directly in the middle of the busy market street across the large bridge. Customers never spoke to Mirabel as she ticked off their slips to sign, or even said hello, because no one realized they‘d stopped by at all. It was a necessity of the store: it didn‘t really exist except for the moment you needed to retrieve an item. This store was no ordinary store. It was all in the name: The Missing Piece. It wasn‘t really a store at all. It was where all the missing things were collected and distributed back to their owners. One could say that the store itself was a missing thing, since you could never find it if you weren‘t missing something in the first place and once you

left it you wouldn‘t be able to return, because you‘d never know you‘d been there at all. The shop was quiet and smelled of the sweets from the stores on either side, two competing confectionaries: The Best Sweets and The Worst Sweets. The wind had picked up and Mirabel liked the low whistle it made on the windowpanes. A faint familiar wondering at the world beyond the windows fluttered inside of her. She watched the crowds bustling along the bridge outside the front windows and listened to the wind. The sound broke as the door opened and closed. A customer entered the store and walked directly to the counter. Mirabel stood shocked. This situation was entirely new to her. She simply had never seen someone at the counter before he had collected his item. There was nothing here for them to retrieve; there was just the counter, the slips, and Mirabel herself. She was not sure what to do. The man in front of her did not move to the shelves to pick up whatever it was that had led him inside. He stood staring right at her, seemingly as lost for words as she was lost for explanations. Mirabel had never helped anyone in the store before; no one had ever needed assistance. She had seen her grandfather help someone once. It was when she was first beginning as an apprentice—she had mixed batches. One person‘s missing piece was with another person‘s lost and found location and it left a bubble of nothingness to both parties. A customer had come for one of the two items but when he reached the spot to which he had been called, there seemed to be nothing there. 9

When Mirabel walked over, she heard her grandfatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s low whispers, friendly and calming, sounding very like those of any sales clerk in any regular store. Mirabel had also been taught that most people would become somewhat alarmed, ranging from mildly perplexed to absurdly enraged, if they were to discover that such a store as theirs existed. Something to do with the meaning of life and the order of the universe. Her grandfather was explaining some of the items on the shelf to the man as though he had been asking about them, and he was dropping small hints as to the bridge they were on while keeping the exact location along the bridge very vague. After he had escorted the man to the door and let him out into the street with a friendly wave, he turned back into the store. Closing the door behind him and stooping a little further down so that his face was close to hers, he explained that that was how to take care of a Blank. A Blank was someone who entered and then his mind went blank. Apparently it happened once in a while. The purpose and promise of the shopkeeper was to protect against Blanks: all items meticulously placed and all transactions carefully tracked. Still, it happened when an item was misplaced, and it happened if someone came for his item and somehow left without removing it. Once someone came in and left without his missing piece, that item was lost to him forever. It was up to the shopkeeper to dispose of the left-behind losses. As important as the placement, the disposal was rare but serious. Immediately her grandfather took the two mixed items and walked them ceremoniously to the back door. No one ever opened the back door. It opened up to the edge of the bridge. He opened the door only a slight crack. Below was 10

a long drop to the river. Holding out his arm at full length, he opened his fist and let the two items fall. The man standing at the counter and his insistent stare made Mirabel feel ruffled. She could hardly swallow as she thought of the possibilities: this man was a Blank, and perhaps he was here for something he would never be able to find. But he had not gone to a shelf. There was no indication of a misplacement. And he didn‘t look familiar—she felt sure she had not seen him before—so he could not be someone who had come and left without taking his item. His handsomeness was somewhat unusual; she thought she‘d remember if she‘d seen him. Deep, vibrant blue eyes and lips slightly crooked over the even line of his chin. She felt the warmth spreading on her cheeks and tried to push it back, tried to think of what to say. ―Can I help you?‖ she stammered, quiet and hesitant, as she pushed her heavy hair off her hot face. ―I… I‘m not sure. I‘m not sure what I‘m doing here.‖ He laughed a short, confused couple of breaths. She smiled. A feeling of being pulled toward him overwhelmed her. His voice was low and soft. ―I‘m sorry, I must have just lost my way. I should get going.‖ He stepped toward the door. ―Could you come with me?‖ The laugh was a little louder this time. The question seemed to have confused him as much as her and he stammered quickly, ―Maybe we could have a coffee, or just…‖ His question seemed to lure her. The taste of caramel pie crept onto the tip of her tongue. No matter how much she wanted to go, she knew she could not leave the store. She 11

remembered the warning from her grandfather. Once we leave the store, it becomes what it is for everyone else outside: nothing at all. The thought terrified her; the store was everything she knew. It was her home and her family, it was her everything. Mirabel was shaking her head, unable to move or to answer, but answering nonetheless: she had said ―no.‖ ―It really is a very beautiful shop. I just don‘t have anything I…thank you.‖ The words came out all rushed and jumbled and he stepped sideways toward the door and rushed out. Replaying the encounter in her head, she stood there for some time. He had clearly been a Blank, but how and why she couldn‘t figure out. She felt she had done something wrong, had failed in her shop-keeping somehow. The low shelf just to her right caught her eye. It was dulling with dust. She went for the feather duster. As she tended to the shop, she kept returning to the question of the Blank. Perhaps something had gotten turned backward and he would return eventually. She realized that she really wanted him to return. She was knocked out of her reverie by the door swinging open. Catching herself, she scuttled forward a few steps and looked up at the incoming customer already walking down the left center aisle. Mirabel stepped back over to her counter and tucked the thoughts away. It was not without disappointment that she turned the blinds and locked the front door that night. The Blank had not returned. 12

The next morning, Mirabel fluttered about the store attempting to focus. She was still bothered by the Blank. Intrigue kept springing up in her belly, a tiny gurgle, an image of the strange man from last night stepping into the store again today. She pressed it down and went on with her work while the rumbling continued inside her. Her first customer slipped in with the little tingle of the bell, a small woman in a pink scarf and billowy pants. She took a small chess piece from a shelf and approached the counter. Mirabel started to type up her slip but her hand flipped the stack of papers off the counter to the floor. The woman was startled and stepped back with a small yelp. She looked from the chess piece in her hand to the paper on the floor and up to Mirabel. Grabbing the slip, Mirabel hurried to finish the transaction, and she seemed to have succeeded as the woman signed and walked out without turning back. The papers crinkled at her feet and she bent down to pick up the pile of scattered slips. They all dashed away from her as a breeze from the opening door swept in. A tall stooped woman stepped gingerly inside. She slowly retrieved a broach from the lower shelf. As she approached the counter, Mirabel sorted the pile of slips and tried to stamp out the new transaction quickly, but the delay took too long. The woman was shaking her head and departing without completing the final step. Mirabel cringed. She seemed unable to do her job. A new customer, a man with long tousled hair and a tan corduroy blazer, quickly entered and snatched up a cigar clip and stepped up to the counter. She typed in his 13

transaction and slid it to him on the counter when she realized that she had no pen to offer. The man pursed his lips, picked up the slip, and slipped it into the pocket of his blazer. Mirabel gasped as the door closed behind him. Her job seemed to be deliberately eluding her on this day. With a little shudder she wondered if maybe the store could go on without her. The items could find the way to their owners and the retrieval could take place without her collecting signatures. All day she had been botching up the process, but patrons were retrieving items regardless. A whiff of sweets from the surrounding sweet shops made her recall the man from the night before. He had been very direct as he walked into the store. He seemed to be sure that he should be at the counter, right with her. And he had asked her to go with him. Thinking of caramel pie, she pictured his face. Stunned, she realized she did recognize him. How could she have missed it? Years and years ago, before she was an apprentice at the store, that man had been the boy at the pie stall at the market. She had seen him there. Cloudy recollection spun around inside of her. There had been an afternoon that they were inseparable. It was shortly after that day when her grandfather had come to take her to the store. Mirabel had spent most of her life in the store. When she was young sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;d follow her tall, stooped, smiling grandfather around the shelves watching his every move and hanging on his every word, proud to be his apprentice. Now she felt as though she were failing. Sharp little prickles ran down her skin, and she stood looking around the store. Just then, a plump man wearing 14

very small glasses entered the store and went to the back aisle. Instead of reaching for something, he started pacing back and forth. There was a thud and a giggle. He was bending over something on the ground and looking down at it and then up at the shelves with confused bewilderment. As he continued to giggle, another man entered the store, light brown hair swept back off his face, a veritable lion‘s mane extending from his high forehead. He breezed into the store and seemed solidly set on his path. Hopeful that here was something to do, proof she was needed in the store, Mirabel stepped behind the counter ready to type transactions. The lion‘s mane man swooped through the aisle. Striding down every aisle, he was traversing the entire store. His dry, groping hands reaching onto every shelf, fingering every item, and—to Mirabel‘s horror—displacing many if not most. And with that, Mirabel‘s hope vanished with a tiny pop. As she stood motionless, she watched as the giggly man looked at the newly poked and prodded shelves in front of him and plucked up a small glittery tie clip. He skipped out of the shop followed closely by the lion-man, who was pawing a scarf he had swiped from a shelf. A feeling of invisibleness came over Mirabel. Her heart dropped to the floor and she was sure she heard it thunk. Her life had been, since she was only slightly older than twelve, to care for the customers of this shop. Now they seemed to be coming and going without any help from her. Again she thought of the Blank from the previous night and the boy she remembered him as from her past. 15

A big sigh startled Mirabel, and then she realized it was she who was sighing. Heat wrapped around her as she realized: she was his missing piece. She felt squeezed and out of breath when she knew. It all seemed to come clear. He had gone straight to her. She was there for him to find. Now that he had come and gone, she was officially a left-behind loss. As the shopkeeper, it was up to her to dispose of the left behind losses. Her breath caught inside her and her gaze went to the back door. She thought of the last few customers in the shop. Her work now was clearly pointless, or simply finished. The shop had a place for her as long as someone was missing her. Now that he had come and she let him leave without her, she needed to be disposed of for the store to go on. The vast void of forever seemed to come up from below and threaten to trip her into a never-ending darkness. An image of the over-crowded bridge floated in her mind. The two towering candy shops dwarfing the tiny store and making it all but disappear. No one would even notice if she was gone. Her eyes came back into focus as a figure appeared through the window out in the street. Without noticing what she was doing, she went out onto the street. She was standing mere inches away from him, her heart racing. Words poured out of her. ―I‘ve been wondering if you‘d come back, I hoped you…or I mean I didn‘t… or if…‖ She stuttered and stopped, almost mentioning pie. He was still staring blankly past her, or through her, a slight squint of confusion in his eyes. He rubbed his head and looked 16

down at his feet. His hands searched through his pockets and he seemed at a loss. Once again she felt her heart drop. This time it was soundless as it slipped into the abyss. He was now a Blank and she was lost to him forever. Her arms felt leaden and her jaw would not close. Everything was too heavy to move. Something fluttered behind her and she turned to see. Someone had dropped a small paperback book. Instinct propelled her over to pick it up and she found herself back at the entrance to the store. She wasn‘t lost after all. Maybe she would never leave. Before stepping in she glanced back for one more look, and there the man stood. Only now he was looking right at her. He took a step toward her. She was sure he was looking at her and stunned that he seemed to be really seeing her. The smile that slowly scrunched up her face seemed to come from somewhere else, somewhere bigger than inside of her could hold. Somewhere hidden that would show up for when it was needed, and then never be seen again. Erin Cunningham is a Michigander living in Brooklyn. A graduate of NYU‘s Tisch School of the Arts, Erin has retired from acting to focus on writing, but still enjoys appearing in independent films. Her most recent acting endeavor, a sci-fi feature, recently won the U.S. in Progress Award in Paris. She is currently writing a children‘s fantasy novel. Her work has appeared in The Greenwich Village Literary Review.

LIVING Erin Darby Gesell I didn‘t realize I‘d gone invisible until automatic sinks stopped working for me. I, Abel James Johnson, had always been quiet, a loser. Then, it seems, my entire body faded away along with that lack of voice. I quit going to work at PayPal. I wandered. Then the bank where I‘d had my loan sold my condo and all of the things in it. I needed somewhere to sleep, so I followed people home and slept on their couches. The people didn‘t notice me any more than they had when they could see me. I didn‘t mind. I‘d hated my job and had no problem sleeping on couches—leather ones, lumpy ones from Good Will, ones that smelled of cigarette smoke, ones covered in dog hair—they were all the same to me.

I didn‘t eat a whole lot either, but my favorite new thing became walking through restaurant kitchens and trying bites of everything. I also found that I enjoyed jogging—it fit well with the restaurant grazing. That‘s how I knew I was still alive. When I ran, I heard my heart beat. Being invisible was going very nicely for a year or so, until I saw McKenna Wildman. She had me at, ―I will not fucking tolerate celery in my veggie burger.‖ She wasn‘t very pretty; she was neither particularly tall nor did she possess an amazingly hot body. I was just so taken by someone who actually cared that much about something. And something as lame as celery at that. I imagined what she might be like in the face of a real problem. Passionate. Concerned. Fiery. Swearing in public was a bit of a turn on, too. At first I didn‘t follow her into her apartment. I would just walk her home. Then I‘d go to someone else‘s house or apartment and lie on his or her couch wondering what McKenna did after she shut that red door behind her. Once I‘d determined we were at the point in our relationship that I should go over for dinner, I slipped through the doors behind her and trailed at her feet into her small studio on Farnam. I sat at a barstool while she poured a glass of wine and warmed up leftover Thai food. I was too nervous to eat, so it was OK she didn‘t offer me anything. She sat beside me on the other stool. I could smell her. Lilacs and sweat. She talked to the TV while she watched the news (―Damn right, this city has a pothole problem‖) and ate dinner. She called her mom and they talked while 19

McKenna did her laundry. (―No, Mom, I‘m not worried about being alone for the rest of my life. I‘m only thirty for Christ‘s sake.‖) I was just happy to sit and listen to McKenna‘s voice. I would‘ve helped her fold her laundry if she‘d asked. When McKenna went to bed, I lay down on her couch wondering what it would be like to go to bed with her. McKenna‘s couch was a simple love seat, just room enough for two, but not necessarily the best for a man to sleep on. I curled into the fetal position and fell asleep. That night, I dreamed of McKenna. McKenna and me going to the beach. McKenna and me jogging. McKenna and me eating a fancy dinner. McKenna and me making love. I woke to a scream. ―Who the fuck are you and how did you get in here?‖ McKenna yelled. Her brown hair was matted from sleep. She still had mascara around her eyes making the anger in them pop out all the more. I jumped up from the couch, heart slamming against my chest. I held up my hands showing her I meant no harm. ―Answer the questions, asshole.‖ She waved a broom in my direction. I was certain she‘d use it. ―You can see me?‖ ―No. You‘re invisible. An invisible stranger was sleeping on my couch and I am not alarmed.‖ She gripped the broom in one hand and placed the other on her hip. She was wearing boxer shorts and a baggy white t-shirt. Her

arms were small in the sleeves, and it was all I could do to keep myself from gathering her little body into mine. *** This is where we begin, right? This is where I can tell her I love her and maybe things will be different. Maybe she‘ll look past the weird way we met and love me back. Maybe we‘ll have three kids and a dog and I‘ll have a job I actually like and we‘ll be happy. I open my mouth and shut it. Open it and shut it again like a fish out of water gasping for air. Waiting for my answer, McKenna stands with her broom ready to smack me. ―I‘m sorry,‖ I say. I keep my hands up in surrender as I walk out of her apartment. I look for myself in the mirror of the elevator, but I‘m nowhere to be seen.

Erin Darby Gesell is a writer, personal trainer, triathlete, yogi, and lover of chocolate, dogs, and all things fictional from Omaha, Nebraska. She obtained her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Antioch University in 2014. Erin's short story "Good Boy" will be published by The Magnolia Review summer 2015, and she is currently working on a novel for teens.

WHITE MONARCH Harika Kottakota I imagined the mahogany casket Sheltered a shriveled prune of a man As I harbored one corner upon my Padded shoulder and began Scraping my leather soles down Some pathetic ghost of a boulevard I still remember that mute Stream of black satin, tuxedo cologne, And dread ebbing towards an Eroded cathedral I never prayed in My peripheral vision caught a Toddlerâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s ample hands reaching for A white monarch, fluttering above Plush strawberries and oranges I tracked the white monarch 22

Towards a slender woman, strolling Beneath a frilled umbrella Her eyes, the color of a lion‘s mane, Brimming with pride, Bore into mine The white monarch dissipated Against her smooth, opaque gown She didn‘t gasp She didn‘t smile She didn‘t blink But just like the passing city The blackness stole her from sight My shoulders jolted backwards And a thundering clash Swallowed the silence I stared at mahogany splinters Amid the pool Of white roses A pair of white monarchs Escaping into the moon-less night Harika Kottakota is currently a student at Burbank High Schoo, striving into the literary scene. Harika has a passion for reading poetry of all kinds while sipping chai. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Canvas Literary Journal, Whirlwind Magazine, JUST Poetry, Parallel Ink, Periphery Magazine, and Right Hand Pointing. She is currently a poetry reader for The Glass Kite Anthology and Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things.

AN OTHERWISE SENSELESS ACT, AFTER ALL Noah Milligan When Adam stuck the knife into Truck‘s temple, I, surprisingly, felt nothing. I didn‘t panic. I didn‘t run. In fact, it didn‘t even seem real. The knife looked like a prop in a movie, or maybe a Halloween costume, a rubber knife sticking out of an unruly teenager‘s head, and it could‘ve been shock or fear or denial or just being a stupid kid, but it wasn‘t until much later that it really sunk in: we‘d witnessed a murder. We were hanging out in this empty lot behind Truck‘s apartment complex. It was almost pitch black; just a slight glow reached us from the streetlights. From where we were at, I could make out the complex swimming pool and traffic going past on Memorial Drive, but no one knew we were out there. We‘d stolen a case of beer and taken it out there to drink and do stupid shit, and then all of a sudden a fight broke out and one of us was dead.

―Oh God,‖ Adam said. He was straddling Truck‘s body, and he kept clenching and unclenching his hands. He had this look about him: part shock, part panic, part awe—like he couldn‘t believe how easy it was to kill somebody. ―What the fuck?!‖ Bitsie said. ―What the fuck did you do, Adam?‖ Bitsie was relatively new to the group. A band geek turned goth, she‘d started fucking Truck about a month prior, and ever since, she would randomly show up when we hung out. She was a nice girl by all means, but I was uncomfortable around her, acutely aware that I shouldn‘t be attracted to her. ―I don‘t know,‖ Adam said. ―I didn‘t mean it. You have to believe me.‖ ―Fuck,‖ Bitsie said. ―Fuck, shit. Jesus-fucking-Christ.‖ She was trembling and hunched over and gagging like she might vomit. ―What do we do?‖ he asked. ―What do we do now?‖ I suppose I shouldn‘t have been surprised that Adam ended up killing someone. If it hadn‘t been Truck, it probably would‘ve been some frat boy in a bar fight a few years down the road or maybe his father. Adam‘s father was a real prick, always smacking him in the back of the head, telling him how stupid he was in front of his friends and little sisters. I don‘t know if he felt like he had to prove something to his dad or what, but Adam always ended up doing stupid shit, like throwing lit Blackjacks at postmen or vandalizing houses that were under construction. Every chance he could, he had to break something or hurt somebody. This time, though, even he knew he‘d gone too far. He kept staring at Truck and shaking his head like he was telling the whole situation no,

like if he believed hard enough, he could make it all go away. ―We‘ve got to get rid of the body, right?‖ Bitsie asked. ―Bury him or burn him or something? Destroy the DNA?‖ Adam started to cry. ―I‘m sorry,‖ he said. ―I am so freaking sorry.‖ ―Pip,‖ Bitsie said. I ignored her. ―Pip. Hey?‖ She tugged on my sleeve as I bent over Truck‘s body. He had this weird expression on his face. His lips were puckered and his brow was furrowed and his nose was scrunched. It was like he was faced with a problem that he desperately needed to but couldn‘t quite solve. ―You got a shovel, man? In your car or something? Maybe a lighter?‖ ―We can‘t do that,‖ Adam said. ―Don‘t you fucking touching him!‖ He stood and pushed his way in between Bitsie and the body. ―You touch him, and I‘ll kill you, too.‖ I wondered what Truck had been thinking about right before he died. It didn‘t look like he‘d been afraid. Instead, it was like he was trying to figure out why Adam would do such a thing. Was it a momentary lapse of judgment? Repressed anger? The premeditated crime of a sociopath? It was like that was his most vexing problem: not if he would live or die, but rather what drove his friend to do what he did. So odd, I thought—to be moments before death and to look perplexed. ―What the fuck do we do then, man?‖ Bitsie asked. ―Call the cops? Do you want to go to jail for the rest of your life?‖ ―Fuck,‖ Adam said. ―Fuck, fuck, FUCK!‖ 27

I backed away to get a better view, to take the whole thing in: Truck‘s body, a pool of blood, Bitsie yelling at Adam, and Adam blubbering like a baby, begging to go back in time, please God just let him go back in time. I thought I should be stricken somehow, distraught by life‘s transience or the loss of my best friend or the unforgiving nature of violence. Instead, though, I was calm—I knew that even if I wanted to, I couldn‘t change a thing. *** Adam was charged, booked, and released on bail. Bitsie and I went home as persons of interest, to the funeral and then after a couple of weeks, back to school. The district had hired counselors to speak with the kids about what had happened and everyone made this big production. There was a candlelight vigil and an assembly complete with slideshow and multiple eulogies given by kids who‘d hardly even known Truck. We had it in the gymnasium, and I was about halfway up the bleachers sitting next to Bitsie. She held my hand squeezing it every time they showed a different picture of Truck, and I couldn‘t help but get aroused. Hoping she couldn‘t tell that I was getting an erection, I grazed the jagged nail on her left pinky and her thigh just above her knee. I knew it was stupid and wrong, and I felt pretty bad about it, but I couldn‘t help it. She just smelled so damn good—like Blow Pops and deodorant. To keep from getting hard, I concentrated on the assembly. It was set to some sappy song I didn‘t know, and all the kids were fake crying and sniffling in the dark. The slideshow pictured Truck with the French Club, and one slide where he was lighting a Bunsen burner and another of his yearbook picture. In each of them, he had the same expression on his face: his brow furrowed, lips puckered, 28

nose crinkled in confusion. It was the same expression he‘d had when he died. In fact, now that I thought about it, it seemed to be his go-to expression, as if he wandered through life perpetually confused. I remembered this one time, Truck, Adam, and I‘d been in Oklahoma history class, and Mr. Knox, a young, squarejawed football coach, asked us to characterize Andrew Jackson‘s policies toward the Native Americans, and, of course, no one offered him an answer. Giving up on a voluntary response, he called on Truck: ―Mr. Maunk,‖ he said, ―you seem to be in deep thought about the issue. Could you please give us a characterization?‖ Truck took a moment as if collecting his thoughts, but then said, ―Aggressive, sir.‖ ―Aggressive?‖ ―Yes, sir.‖ ―Would you care to elaborate?‖ Truck paused, the same expression on his face, and said, ―Excessively aggressive?‖ as if asking a question. The entire class burst out laughing, even Mr. Knox, and Truck just blinked at all of us, his cheeks burning red and he on the verge of tears, confused as to why everyone was laughing at him. I couldn‘t help but now realize that this interaction seemed to sum Truck up—he‘d been just a baffled, scared kid, unable to understand much of anything going on around him. Like the rest of us, I‘d say, though most of the time it seemed we were better at hiding it. I suppose that was one of the reasons why we‘d ended up friends in the first place. Ever since I could remember, I‘d 29

always felt protective of Truck. He was small for his age, and younger than our classmates, having skipped the second or third grade or something like that. As a result, the other kids often picked on him, calling him ―ginger balls‖ because of his red hair. What had started out as pity turned out to be perhaps the greatest friendship of my life—one of those rare relationships where you can allow yourself to be truly vulnerable. I knew his secrets and he knew mine: how my mother had once caught me masturbating and how he thought one day he was going to be someone important. But it was okay we knew—we didn‘t feel the shame we often felt with others, and this, at least for those few awkward years we‘d known each other, was reason enough to be best friends. The slideshow ended, and Mrs. Applebury, the principal, began her own eulogy. She said how close Truck was to her heart and how she admired his thoughtfulness and his politeness, how he‘d hold the door open for her and call her ―ma‘am‖ and shake her hand. ―A lot of us could learn from Truck in that regard,‖ she said, and I couldn‘t help but laugh a little at this thought—Truck had done these things not because he‘d been polite, but rather because he was deathly afraid of authority. He‘d once admitted it to me, that he had this irrational fear that if he weren‘t cordial toward Mrs. Applebury, she‘d hold him back in perpetuity and placing him in some strange high-school purgatory. Now here he was being remembered for it. It was sad, really, when I thought about it. ―And I think we‘d be remiss if we didn‘t honor Truck for this,‖ Mrs. Applebury continued, ―with an act that will grant his memory a lasting legacy. To do so, I propose we set the world record for longest handshake chain.‖

Bitsie let go of my hand and her palm met my thigh. I jumped a little, surprised. When I did, she glanced in my direction and cut me a sly smile before running her hand further up the inside of my leg. I started to get aroused again, and this time I knew she could see my erection. It kept growing and growing and growing, and the entire time she kept grinning at me, Bitsie reaching down until she held all of me in her hand, and I couldn‘t help but think how stupid all this was, all of it—Bitsie and me and Mrs. Applebury and the Guinness Book of World Records—the stupidest motherfuckers that ever walked the face of the earth. *** Bitsie and I got caught fucking the way teenagers do, all elbows and grunts and toothy kisses. She kneed me in the groin and charley-horsed my thigh. I head-butted her jaw and humped her head into the roof of her car. She yelped every time I hurt her, and I bit my tongue trying not to cum too quickly. I did anyway, though. I was too embarrassed to tell her that I‘d come inside of her even though she had to have known. She didn‘t look scared, though, so I tried not to be, too. ―Want to go again?‖ she asked. I nodded, and she took me in her mouth until I was hard again and then climbed back on top. That was when someone knocked on the window. Bitsie jumped and screamed and covered her tits with her hands, and I just sat there, trying to peer around Bitsie‘s hair to see who had knocked. It turned out to be Mr. Knox, and he looked like he couldn‘t believe what he saw. Dumbstruck. That‘s what he looked like.

He took us to the principal‘s office and sat me on one side of the room and Bitsie on the other and told us not to talk or to even look at each other. Mrs. Applebury showed up about fifteen minutes later and took Bitsie into her office and left me out in the lobby. The whole time she was in there I couldn‘t help but wonder if we were a thing now, Bitsie and I. Boyfriend and girlfriend or fuckbuddies or whatever. How are you supposed to even know? I‘d slept with a couple girls before. Both were fat and ugly and not worth talking to, so I didn‘t afterward, and I would‘ve felt bad about this, but if they were hurt by it they didn‘t show it. I‘d see them in the hallway at school and they would keep on walking past like I was the janitor or something. Our disinterest seemed mutual. Me and Bitsie, however, just felt different. For one thing, we were sober when we‘d fucked. That had to mean something, right? And second, we‘d hung out beforehand. Granted, she‘d been with Truck at the time, but she knew me and I knew her. We were, if I thought about it, on the same social level. When she left Mrs. Applebury‘s office, though, she didn‘t even glance in my direction. She just walked out of the lobby and didn‘t even acknowledge the fact that I was sitting there with my thighs sticking to my underwear. And for some reason I couldn‘t help but think about right after Truck had died, when she was trying to convince Adam and I to bury the body and to never speak of it again, that it all would be that much easier if we acted like it never even happened. Mrs. Applebury called me into her office and told me to sit. Her office was small, and everything smelled of lemon Pledge and Febreze. It sort of reminded me of a hospital in that regard, as if the cleaning products were just masking the stench of human waste and death. Mrs. Applebury sat with her elbows on her desk and her fingers interlocked. She leaned forward and gave me this 32

sympathetic look with her bottom lip puckered out like she felt sorry for me. ―You were best friends with Truck, weren‘t you?‖ she asked, and I couldn‘t help but feel annoyed. She paused for a moment waiting for me to respond, but I didn‘t. ―You‘re not in trouble if that‘s what you‘re wondering,‖ she continued. No answer. She sighed. ―I can‘t imagine what you must be going through. To lose a friend like that. To see it happen. Another close friend the perpetrator.‖ Silence. ―I‘m just trying to say I understand the urge to feel something else. Anything else. And sex feels good. Don‘t get me wrong.‖ I tried not to look directly at her. I stared at her shoulder, her boob, the little soft spot at the bottom of her neck. ―But you have to understand what is appropriate. Right?‖ she said. ―There is a time and place for sex and there isn‘t a time and place for sex.‖ She had this little birthmark at her neckline, the shape of a bell. I had the urge to reach out and ring it. ―And this, today,‖ she said, ―was definitely inappropriate. Don‘t you agree?‖ ―Hmmm? What?‖ I asked. ―It was inappropriate, right?‖ ―Yes,‖ I said. ―Inappropriate.‖ 33

*** I found Bitsie at her house. Her parents were gone, so we went to the garage and huffed paint and ate Double Stuf Oreos until I thought I was going to vomit. It looked like the set from Texas Chainsaw Massacre in there. There were meat hooks and power tools and a bloody butcher block and right in the middle of it all a dead deer hung from the ceiling with its rib cage ripped open. I thought the stench would be something awful, the way Truck‘s body had started to smell when we‘d been giving our statements to the police, but it wasn‘t. It was a mixture of copper and sawdust and cold that seemed addicting in a way, like flicking a canker sore with your tongue. ―Dad killed him this morning,‖ Bitsie said when she caught me looking at it. ―I could bring you some venison jerky once it‘s done.‖ ―Sure,‖ I said. ―It‘s pretty good, actually. You think it‘s going to be gross, but it‘s not.‖ ―Yeah, sure. That‘d be great,‖ I said, even though I didn‘t mean it. For a while we were quiet and just got stoned, huffing paint until our sinuses bled, but then Bitsie brought up the handshake thing, saying how stupid it was that Mrs. Applebury thought it would mean a damn thing. She called it selfish, the embodiment of a survivor complex, putting something so violent and strange and terrible into this cheerful frame like they were actually accomplishing something.

―They‘re turning this whole thing into something about them,‖ she said as she picked up an electric drill. ―Makes me fucking sick.‖ I didn‘t disagree, but I couldn‘t help but feel a little hurt that she hadn‘t broached the subject of us fucking. I thought maybe she felt guilty since she‘d been Truck‘s girlfriend and everything, which, if I was honest, I sort of felt, too—but I‘d expected some sort of acknowledgement, for her to maybe kiss me in greeting or to just give me a knowing look, a gaze that said, ―Yeah, you were inside of me yesterday.‖ Instead she acted like nothing had happened between us, as if I were still just a friend of her boyfriend. This hurt more than I cared to admit—it was like I‘d been used just so that she could, for a moment anyway, feel something other than the pain she felt from losing Truck. And I didn‘t know if I should be happy or sad about that. She did, after all, choose me. ―My dad said that Adam might even get off. He said the cops charged him with the wrong crime. Should‘ve been second-degree homicide, not first-degree. The prick could walk on a technicality, and all everyone wants to do is shake fucking hands?‖ She pulled the trigger on the electric drill, and the bit spun in a buzzing blur. I grabbed the paper bag from the workbench and sprayed some paint into it, pulled it around my mouth, and took in three deep breaths. My sinuses started to burn, and my mind went all wavy. A thumping started in my eardrums that I could feel down in my chest. I‘d never really liked huffing paint—it just made me nauseated and dizzy most of the time—but I didn‘t want to decline when Bitsie had offered. It seemed like it would just be rude not to. To balance myself out, I ate a couple Oreos and took a swig of Mountain Dew.

―Somebody ought to just kill that motherfucker,‖ she said. ―Do to him what he did to Truck.‖ ―What did you have in mind?‖ I asked. ―Go to his house. You hold him down. I stick this little thing into his ear.‖ She held the electric drill back up. ―Easy-peasy, Japanesey.‖ ―Not really a great plan,‖ I said. ―Don‘t you think we‘d get caught?‖ ―You got a better idea?‖ ―Never really thought about it before.‖ ―Well,‖ she said. ―Think about it now.‖ I recalled all I could from movies and TV shows over the years. More often than not, the killer made some silly mistake. He would leave a piece of hair behind or a key witness. He‘d use a weapon that easily traced back to him or was tracked using GPS on his phone or something. If we were to get away with this, hypothetically speaking of course, we would have to be smart. We would have to have an alibi. ―We should log onto Facebook and check in on our phones at the movie theater and hide them in a plant or something, and then we should get one of those prepaid cell phones and text Adam to meet us someplace and not tell anyone. It‘ll have to be some place secluded like behind Truck‘s apartment complex. We‘ll need latex gloves and hairnets and clothes we could burn without anyone wondering why they‘re missing. We can‘t use your dad‘s drill—we‘ll need something we don‘t own, something

nobody owns. Just like a rock or something. Bash his head in.‖ Bitsie smiled at this thought and stuck the tip of her pinky into her mouth. ―We could do that,‖ she said. ―No problem.‖ *** We paid for all that we needed with Bitsie‘s babysitting money: a prepaid cell phone, a couple shower caps, gardening gloves, and tickets to The Evil Within, some horror flick about a demon-possessed child who murders her entire family. The whole time we shopped, Bitsie touched me: at the checkout at Home Depot, while getting on the bus at Western, when we planted our phones in the dark theater. I couldn‘t help but think about all the things I could do to her, perverted stuff like sticking my finger into her butthole, stuff that made me ashamed and excited so that I felt like a walking hard on. ―It was right here, wasn‘t it?‖ I asked. We stood out in the field where Truck had died, and Bitsie tried to think of the perfect text that would lure Adam while I looked for a bloodstain on the ground. ―Do you think an emoji would be suspicious?‖ Bitsie asked. ―Like a winky face or a heart or something to let him know we aren‘t pissed?‖ ―Do you think they hosed it down?‖ ―What?‖ ―The crime scene. Would they hose off all the blood?‖ She blinked at me. ―I‘m serious here.‖ 37

―Oh,‖ I said, unsure how to respond. She held the phone in her hand and was squinting at me because the sun was going down behind my head, and I couldn‘t believe that she was actually going to go through with this. At first, I‘d thought she was just venting the way pissed off teenagers will whenever they can‘t do anything about what has happened to them. But then we‘d kept buying stuff and buying stuff and the whole time I thought, well, she‘ll stop at the next store or at the theater or on the bus ride over here, but she didn‘t and instead she grabbed my ass and held my hand and licked my face and I got hard and finally here we were trying to lure someone to their death, and I didn‘t want to be, but I was turned on by the whole thing. ―We need to say something that won‘t scare him off,‖ she said. ―Give me the phone.‖ She did, and I typed, ―Meet me out back of Truck‘s apartment. Fifteen minutes. Come alone and don‘t tell anyone – Pip,‖ and handed the phone back to Bitsie. She took one glance at the screen and looked back up to me. ―That‘ll never work,‖ she said. ―Not in a million years.‖ Adam responded after about ten minutes, the word ―sure‖ popping up on our new phone‘s screen. All Bitsie had to say when he answered was ―Huh,‖ like someone had just informed her that her purchase was a buck cheaper than she‘d anticipated. We then hid along the tree line and waited for Truck to show. I‘d found a rock about the size of a baseball, hard and jagged and easy to grip, and held it in my right hand, ready to pounce as soon as he showed. Bitsie and I hadn‘t spoken about who would do the killing, 38

but I just assumed she‘d meant me—she was, after all, small and frail and a girl. It just seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do. So we sat there and waited and waited and waited. The whole time I was excruciatingly aware of how close she was to me. I should‘ve been thinking about how I would surprise Adam, sneak up behind him so as to avoid a struggle, but instead I thought about: How she smelled of hand sanitizer and cigarettes. How she would look naked and tied up with a ball gag in her mouth. How I‘d like to fuck her someplace I knew we would get caught, like in the middle of a Toyota dealership showroom. I tried to tell myself not to be ashamed by these thoughts—they were, after all, in my own head and no one could hear them but me—but I was. I could even feel my cheeks turning red. We heard him before we could see him. It was dark out there, but we could hear his footsteps coming from the apartment complex. At first, I wasn‘t sure it was him, so I stayed put. I was aware of Bitsie‘s breathing—short, sporadic—of a static electricity emanating from her, and then I saw him. He took out his phone and the screen illuminated his face, and then I was sure. It was him. It was Adam. I didn‘t hesitate. I jumped up and ran toward him, and he turned in my direction, but he couldn‘t see me. I could tell by the way he looked so scared, squinting his eyes and panning the darkness for what was coming for him. It looked like he clinched every single muscle in his body. I 39

was getting closer and closer and closer and I raised the rock to my side, ready to crash it into his stupid, scared face, when I heard Bitsie‘s voice ring from behind me. ―I was kidding!‖ she said. ―Stop. Please. I was just kidding!‖ When I stopped, I was only a few feet away from Adam. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and then he saw the rock in my hand. ―Hey,‖ was all he said. *** The day of the world-record-setting handshake chain was sweltering hot. My armpits and neck and face were covered in sweat and so was everyone else. They wiped their palms on their cargo shorts, leaving behind these dark streaky stains, and everyone looked embarrassed even though everyone else was sweaty and gross, too. We all lined up in the school courtyard, all 3,746 students, faculty, staff, and administrators, wrapped around in a spiral. I tried to find Bitsie among the crowd, but I couldn‘t. After we‘d met up to kill Adam and she told me to stop, she wound up running off, leaving me there looking like an idiot. I‘d dropped the rock, and Adam, surprisingly, said that he understood, that he probably would‘ve done the same thing if the roles had been reversed. Then we just stood there looking at each other for a while, until finally he just said, ―Well, I‘ll see ya,‖ and he walked off, too. Afterward, I tried calling Bitsie, but she never picked up. I didn‘t leave a voicemail—I just called and called and called but eventually my calls were blocked, and I was told they couldn‘t be completed as dialed, that I needed to check the number and try again. I was pretty pissed and hurt and confused that she‘d blocked me, but there wasn‘t anything I could do about it.

Mrs. Applebury stood atop a ladder in the middle of the spiral and held a megaphone up to her mouth. She explained that someone would come by and tape a number on our shirt and that once all the numbers were distributed, she would count to three and that we were to cross our arms and take our neighbors‘ hands and begin to shake. We had to shake hands for at least five continual seconds for the world record to count, and then once it had passed she would tell us to stop and we would all be world record holders and the recipients of new, shiny plaques with our name on them and with the date and the record and in large block letters at the top would be ―In Memoriam – Truck Maunk.‖ A couple of the counselors who had been talking to the students about Truck‘s death passed out the numbers. As they did, they placed a hand on our shoulders and gave us these knowing smiles like they understood what we were all going through. A woman handed out the numbers in my section. She looked tired and hot and between each kid she showed exactly how exhausted she was. She‘d stand in front of a student and smile and nod and touch our hand or shoulder and let us know just how sorry she was, just so sorry, but as she shuffled between the students her face would droop and sweat would drip from her nose, and she‘d arch her back and rub her neck and pop her knuckles. It was an odd thing to see, sincerity and superficiality separated by only a few inches, from standstill to motion, just depending on when you looked. When she stopped in front of me, she did her routine— she smiled and patted me on the back and told me that everything would be all right, that she knew exactly what I was going through—and I couldn‘t help but get a little pissed. I wanted to tell her that no, she didn‘t know. I wanted to tell her that I‘d been there when Truck died, I had, not her, that I knew what happened, that I was his 41

friend and he was gone and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do about it now. But instead I just took the number, number 2,781, and pinned it to my shirt. After the handshake was over, everyone hugged and congratulated each other like we had accomplished something important. And perhaps we did, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t know, but I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t join in their celebration. I just went home and locked myself in my room and waited for my plaque to come in the mail like everyone else. Noah Milligan's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Empty Sink, Storyscape Literary Journal, MAKE Literary Magazine, Kindred Magazine, Santa Clara Review, and others. He's twice been nominated for a Pushcart, and his manuscript, An Elegant Theory, was named a semi-finalist in Black Balloon Publishing's Horatio Nelson Fiction Prize.

Kathy Rudin is an artist from New York City. Her work has been published in, OUT, Genre, Wilde, DUM-DUM, RIPRAP Journal, The Sun, The Boiler Journal, and Bop Dead City, among others, and has been exhibited at galleries in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles and Vancouver. She also volunteers at an animal shelter, and she likes cheese.

PASSAGE Peycho Kanev Walking at night in an empty city watching the black eyes of the windows thinking the lonely thoughts â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the pendulum in the dark sky swings cutting the last pieces of sleep Rage and the tint of time and grey houses hushed dogs under extinct stars Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s only one God of light living in my eyes who began his existence every morning anew.

IN THE AFRICAN WOODLANDS Peycho Kanev The bang of the shotgun is so powerful that it can lift an elephant to the sky

Peycho Kanev is the author of four poetry collections and two chapbooks, published in the United States and Bulgaria. He has won several European awards for his poetry, and he was nominated for the Pushcart Award and Best of the Net. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Hawaii Review, Cordite Poetry Review, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Two Thirds North, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review, and others.

DEADBEAT Edward Hagelstein I climbed up from the basement to my mother‘s agitated knuckle-rap on the side door and her face at the window. Never the front, always the driveway door, like she lived there. Mom used to walk in, even after she got an eyeful of us having breakfast nude one morning, complete with Penny‘s breasts seductively almost grazing her eggs. I started locking the door after that. Mom didn‘t like it much. I barely had it unlocked before she twisted the knob and pushed herself in. Ambush, the golden retriever, whacked the floor with her tail but didn‘t get up. She knew from experience my mom doesn‘t throw the slimy tennis ball 48

that‘s her main joy in life. Mom looked around, registered the single cup of coffee on the counter and dinner dishes still in the sink. ―Where‘s Penny?‖ ―I don‘t know.‖ She paused in her scan of the kitchen and looked at me. ―I knew something was wrong.‖ ―Vamoosed,‖ I said with more casualness than I felt. ―When?‖ ―Last week.‖ ―Where?‖ Like a veteran detective, she could ask the same question until she got the desired answer. ―I don‘t know.‖ I was immune. ―What happened?‖ ―We argued.‖ ―About what? You being unemployed?‖ ―Bagels.‖ She gave me another look. ―How to cut them properly,‖ I said. ―It was Saturday morning.‖ ―It‘s never just about bagels.‖ 49

―No shit.‖ She paused and then said, ―Where did you learn to talk like that?‖ ―From your wino mother.‖ She looked over my shoulder for a second, into the past. ―That‘s right. So did I, now that you mention it. She always had a nasty mouth.‖ ―She taught us well.‖ ―You anyway,‖ she said. ―I tried to forget.‖ I knew how to short-circuit her interrogations. Mom had a ―Friends of the Library‖ meeting to get to and didn‘t stay long. She warned me with a stern look she‘d be back tomorrow, glanced at the open basement door, and didn‘t ask if I was eating and looking after myself. *** The next morning an officer knocked on the front door, early. He was young and cocky, with hairless muscular forearms that he rested on his gun belt, and gnarly elbows. His squad car was askew at the curb. I could barely take my eyes off his elbows. ―I‘ve got a possible missing or endangered person report relating to Penny Snorlon.‖ ―That‘s my wife,‖ I said.

Ambush slipped out the door and circled him on the porch. Muttering and yipping around the tennis ball, she tried to get him to take it. The officer watched her with no expression for a few seconds then came back to me. ―My mother called that one in,‖ I said. He looked at me some more and said nothing. I assumed it was a technique to make me fill the empty space with incriminating words. I didn‘t bite. ―Did she have a reason to?‖ ―My wife is gone.‖ I left it at that and let him fill his own void. ―Gone where?‖ he said after a moment. ―She‘s staying with a man named Victor Denilson.‖ More silence. ―He sells major appliances,‖ I said, immediately irate with myself for filling his void. ―Can you get ahold of her so I can close this out?‖ ―She doesn‗t answer my calls.‖ I hadn‘t even tried. ―I‘ll give you her number and you can call her.‖ ―That‘ll help.‖ ―What happened to your elbows?‖ I had to ask. The officer grinned, his first show of emotion. Proud of his gnarly elbows. 51

―A lot of mat work,‖ he said. I didn‘t know what mat work was. Obviously I‘d never done any. ―Any particular reason why she‘s at this Victor‘s?‖ he asked. ―Because he‘s not me.‖ *** I hadn‘t worked steadily in a while, mostly some substitute teaching. I was okay with that, Penny not as much. I didn‘t mind the extra free time. I‘d take Ambush to the park and throw the grimy ball until her tongue dripped and she couldn‘t run anymore. That ate up some time each day. I didn‘t even look for work. When I ran into Emma at the grocery store later that day I wasn‘t looking for something to do. I never wanted to play detective. I suppose the parallels in our situations prompted me to take an interest. Or some other psychological factor to which I wasn‘t privy. Emma‘s husband, Gregor, had bailed on her and their two boys after a decade of marriage. After almost a year, he hadn‘t paid any child support and she didn‘t know where he was living. The county process servers couldn‘t find him despite their access to Big Brother databases and myriad sources of information. I assumed she was having a hard time making the mortgage and car payments and everything else you need

to pay to keep a family afloat, especially on a teacher‘s salary. Emma and I used to teach at the same private school until my contract wasn‘t renewed at the end of the year. Apparently a couple of parents had complained about me giving Bs for good work, Cs for average work, Ds for poor work, and so on. That, coupled with my brusque personality and tendency to mutter curses under my breath in the classroom at the stupidity of some teenagers, spelled the end for me when the doctors and lawyers became concerned their kids might not get the grades they were supposedly paying for and might miss the cut for the college scholarships they expected. The school administrator didn‘t take kindly to me pointing out that scholarships were meant to benefit needy children, none of whom were let within sniffing distance of our school in any case. By the time I met Emma at the shopping carts we hadn‘t seen each other in months, so we deferred from shopping, retreated to a coffee shop next door, and took a half hour to catch up. After the preliminaries, she told me about her situation. Emma had been one of the few colleagues I became close with. We were always able to talk with each other honestly the way some men and women can, so it wasn‘t embarrassing for either of us. ―Does he see the boys at all?‖ I asked. She was a handsome woman approaching forty, but the strain was showing around her eyes. 53

―They‘ll call him and he‘ll take them to soccer games every once in a while,‖ she said. Emma used to be coffee-andcreamer. She drank her coffee black these days. Cream cost extra when you bought groceries, I supposed. ―He doesn‘t come to the house. He has me meet him in the Target parking lot.‖ ―Can‘t you follow him home afterward and give the address to the county?‖ She made a face. ―That‘s not me. I wouldn‘t feel right.‖ ―Where‘s he working? Can‘t the county find that out?‖ ―He subcontracts,‖ she said. ―They say it takes a while for his social security number to get into the system, and if his employer is small enough they don‘t have to report his earnings to workers‘ comp or something like that. Plus he‘s usually working for someone else by then.‖ Gregor was a kitchen-counter installer—a granite specialist—and did work for various builders. Apparently he could go for a while before they would catch up with him. In that time she could lose her house and be in a financial bind. ―If you need money…‖ I said. She shook her head. ―It‘s not that bad yet. It‘ll all come around eventually.‖ ―Why doesn‘t he just pay you?‖ I said. ―They‘re his kids too.‖

―It‘s like a game to him. He used to say he would go back home rather than pay something he felt he didn‘t owe,‖ she said. ―Gregor‘s always been one for beating the system. It‘s the way he grew up.‖ *** We finished our coffee and exchanged numbers. She didn‘t seem to want to get all trailer-park wife about it and start tailing him around. I could appreciate that. My dad did almost the same thing when I was ten. He took off with one of his assistants and holed up somewhere in town. Although he paid child support and we weren‘t hurting for money, my mom took it personally, as spouses tend to do. It was a smaller town then, and whenever she saw my dad driving his Cadillac, she‘d follow him and yell into the back seat for me to hang on while she tried to track him to whatever bachelor pad he was shacking up in with ―that slussy,‖ her non-foulmouthed attempt at a contraction for ―slut‖ and ―hussy.‖ I banged my head on the window of her LeSabre more than a few times careening through a parking lot or over speed bumps whenever we caught sight of his car. I‘d be back there immersed in a Superman comic on the way home from school and the next thing I knew I was thrashing around in a Tilt-A-Whirl piloted by a madwoman who thought she was doing me a favor by making up her own curses instead of rehashing the old standards. I never cared much for Gregor from the few times I met him, not that I had any valid reason back then to dislike 55

him. He was always a little too cool for school, took a little too much care with his appearance—like dressing too nicely for a kid‘s birthday party. And he always wore pristine white sneakers fresh from the box—probably had a closet full. He was from some former Soviet satellite country and had lived in Germany before moving to America. We talked a few times in a general way about Germany. I had been stationed there for a couple of years and liked it. He gave the impression of being one of those people who preferred Europe, or anywhere else, to the US, and was here temporarily until something better came along elsewhere. I suppose that extended to marriage as well. *** When I saw Gregor coming out of a package store near my house a few days after my coffee with Emma, I pulled over to the curb without thinking about it. I watched him get into a pickup, and when he pulled out and drove past me, I followed him, again without pondering it much. Never having followed anyone before I tried to stay close, but not too close. Gregor led me to an apartment complex less than a mile away. I drove past as he parked his truck and let himself into a first-floor apartment with a key, his brown bag in one hand. Gregor never turned around. My success in tailing Gregor for five minutes may have gone to my head. The smart thing would have been to note his address and apartment number and pass it on to Emma. I didn‘t do that. What I did was sit on the information and see what else I could dig up. I decided to go back the next morning to see if I could follow Gregor 56

to work. That way, I could give Emma a nice tidy package of information to pass on to the process servers. Here‘s where Gregor lives and here‘s where he works. Go serve him. You‘re welcome. *** I followed Gregor‘s truck out of his complex at 6:45 the next morning, promptly got stuck behind a school bus that stopped for some kids on the corner, and lost him at 6:46. So much for that. I still held off on calling Emma. I wanted to give her more. I don‘t know why I cared. He might be seeing someone. I didn‘t know if I would tell her that, but there seemed to be more to his defection than mere disaffection with the marriage. I decided to go back by his place that night, and if I didn‘t find out anything else, I would call her from the parking lot. I waited until dark and parked where I could see Gregor‘s apartment door. His truck was there and his apartment lights were on. I slumped in my seat and tried to appear invisible to the evening dog walkers. I‘d never done anything like this before, but it felt almost natural. It was Friday and there was a relaxed air to the night. Sometime after eight a man walked up to Gregor‘s door, knocked, and was admitted. At least it wasn‘t a woman. By nine at least three more cars filtered into the parking lot and five more men had entered, all younger and slimmer than me, all carrying bottles or bags. They all kind of looked like Gregor, foreign and well-dressed. Maybe I was wrong about Gregor. He was just having a get-together to watch a soccer match or something with his friends. There was

something else about them I couldn‘t place, though, aside from their foreignness. Then two women did come, in a taxi. They were big and appeared a little drunk already from the way they tottered up the sidewalk. Nothing like Emma at all. Maybe Gregor really wanted something different, or maybe they were there to see a couple of the other guys. I wanted to find out more, so after sitting in the car for a while and hearing the party get louder, I decided to get a better look. I wished I‘d brought Ambush, a built-in excuse to be walking slowly in the vicinity of Gregor‘s apartment. A door to his small porch was open and party sounds drifted out through the closed curtains. I was about to climb the porch rail and try to peek through the curtains when another car pulled into the parking lot. A man got out and, carrying the ubiquitous brown paper bag, he walked straight up the sidewalk to Gregor‘s door. I leaned against the rail and crossed my arms. I wasn‘t sure what the man would think. He wore very tight white jeans and walked like a dancer. The man glanced at me, nodded, and knocked on the door. ―Who‘s your friend?‖ he said with a Spanish accent to whoever opened the door. I was about to shrink away into the dark when Gregor stuck his head out and saw me. ―Come on in,‖ he said. I figured this was my chance to really see what was going on at Gregor‘s and stepped into the light.

It took him a second to recognize me. When he did, it was like we were old friends. ―History teacher man! Come in. What you doing here?‖ He didn‘t give me time to answer. ―You follow Mario, no?‖ Mario, the tight-white-jeans guy, was removing a bottle of wine from his bag. He paused and smiled at me. ―You not the first. Mario has such fine buttocks, many women and some men follow him places.‖ When I started to protest, Gregor put a hand on my back and ushered me into the apartment. ―It don‘t matter. Come in, have fun. Drink wine.‖ The apartment was full of the people I‘d seen go in. The drunken women were sitting on a sofa with their shoes off and strangely, didn‘t appear to be so drunk now. The rest were men. Gregor led me into the small kitchen and poured me a glass of red without asking. ―How‘s history teaching these days?‖ he said. ―I don‘t teach anymore.‖ ―Good for you.‖ He handed me the glass and turned conspiratorial. ―Emma tell me years ago she think maybe you enjoy the company of men more than women.‖ ―What?‖ ―Is true, no?‖ 59

―I‘m married.‖ ―She say this before you get married of course. Which was big surprise for her.‖ ―Really?‖ I drank some wine, out of the need for something to do. Gregor looked around. ―Most of us here married one time. I decide it not for me anymore.‖ He started pointing at men. ―Rogerio, same thing. Martin, married twice, now totally gay. Mario marry for green card. Only men for him.‖ Now I was getting the picture. It had taken me long enough. Gregor nudged me. ―You too, no? You have European attitude about these things. I sense that when we talk about Germany,‖ he said. ―You have open mind. Maybe you stay married and still enjoy men, no?‖ ―No,‖ I said. Gregor frowned. ―You divorce?‖ ―No. I don‘t enjoy men.‖ ―I no divorce either.‖ Gregor tapped his chest, above his heart. ―Still married.‖ This was my cue to bring up child support for his kids, but Gregor was pulling me into the living room, where he announced my presence and I tried to hide behind the

wine glass. ―Everyone!‖ he said. ―This my old friend the history teacher!‖ Men raised their glasses at me politely. A couple of them gave me the once-over. I realized Gregor didn‘t remember my name. That was okay with me. I knew what was going on; I was ready to leave. But Gregor was pulling me over to the sofa now and catching me up like we were old friends. ―Maybe I spending a few months cruising the Mediterranean soon,‖ Gregor said in a breezy way. ―Christoph‘s daddy has a yacht.‖ Christoph was perched on an arm of the sofa, one leg elegantly crossed over the other. He smiled. ―Nice father.‖ ―Oh, not father. His daddy.‖ Looking around, I felt like I was backstage at a performance of Cabaret. ―Are these theatre people?‖ I asked Gregor. ―Some are wearing makeup.‖ ―Just friends,‖ Gregor said. ―My friends for my new life.‖ I looked at him. He had changed since I‘d last seen him. He was still well-dressed, but was looser now, more comfortable in his skin. And his eyebrows were groomed. Shaved, shaped, whatever. Poor Emma. Gregor was definitely gone to her. 61

Then he was leading me to the two big women, who gave me the same appraising looks. I felt underdressed in jeans and a t-shirt. I thought about saying I had to go home and feed the dog. ―This Tangelina Betty,‖ Gregor said. He was introducing me to the biggest one, who had orange hair and wore a fuschia, skintight leotard. Tangelina waved her purple nails at me. Her nose looked like it had taken a fist in the past. They both had on a variety of garish makeup, the likes of which I‘d never seen on anyone, man or woman. ―And this Paprika.‖ Paprika was the skinnier of the two and no amount of makeup could conceal the fact that she hadn‘t been born a woman. She was more conservatively dressed, in a halter and jeans. I nodded weakly at them both, and then Gregor was making Paprika move over so I could sit between the two. I didn‘t know if this was his attempt to make me feel at home or if they were supposed to keep me from bolting at the first opportunity. Tangelina patted the sofa and spoke to me in an accent I couldn‘t place, but in a voice that was also a man‘s. ―You keep us company for a while, honey-bun.‖ I slumped into the cushions and looked up at Tangelina. I felt like a boy visiting two crazy aunts, or uncles. ―At least until we have to go to work,‖ Paprika rasped with a ghastly smile. Her teeth were yellowed. ―Oh, where do you work?‖

―Mascara. We‘re the headliners.‖ ―You‘re entertainers?‖ ―Totally.‖ ―The best. You should come to one of our shows,‖ Tangelina said. ―You‘ll never be the same.‖ ―That‘s what I‘m afraid of.‖ They both looked at me, then each other. I thought that was it. I‘d angered these beasts. Then they started laughing madly and simultaneously, as if on cue. ―Gregor,‖ Paprika croaked. ―Bring honey-bun more wine. We like him.‖ ―A lot,‖ Tangelina croaked. *** A half hour later, after they‘d asked me all about teaching and listened to my boring talk with genuine interest, Tangelina and Paprika were growing on me. They got up to dance, politely asking if I‘d like to join and taking no offense at my declination. During my fourth glass of cabernet, as I watched Tangelina Betty dance seductive circles around Paprika, who stood still, drinking her wine and looking a little like a maypole, I began to think, Why not? This may be what I‘m cut out for. If Penny, the most easy-going woman in the world, won‘t have me, maybe I‘m cut out for life among men, and former men. Everyone was pleasant and friendly. 63

Maybe Gregor was on to something. I could hear him in the kitchen discussing future ports of call. I took someone‘s phone off the side table, closed myself in Gregor‘s bathroom, and called Penny. I didn‘t give her a chance to hang up and said what I wanted to say right away. ―Did you leave because you think I‘m secretly attracted to men?‖ She paused. I could hear what sounded like a hockey game in the background. ―Who‘s Fawzy Tandori?‖ ―I‘m using his phone.‖ ―Where are you?‖ ―At a party.‖ ―Is he attracted to men?‖ ―Actually, I think he‘s a female impersonator. I don‘t know if that makes him gay, too.‖ ―What kind of party is it?‖ ―Different. You didn‘t answer my question.‖ ―No,‖ she said. ―It never occurred to me that you were secretly attracted to anyone, much less men. But now I‘m beginning to wonder.‖ ―So am I,‖ I said. ―I‘m having fun with these guys.‖ ―How are you?‖ she said. ―My mom thinks I killed you.‖ 64

―Why didn‘t she just call me?‖ ―She doesn‘t like to call cell phones,‖ I said. ―She thinks it costs more.‖ ―I think I straightened it out with the officer the other day.‖ ―How about those elbows?‖ ―I know,‖ she said. ―I recommended some lotion.‖ ―Then I‘m off the hook.‖ ―He kept looking at Dad funny though,‖ she said. ―What did you tell him?‖ ―I may have inferred you left me for him.‖ ―You moron. Do you want to know why I left?‖ she said. ―You never asked.‖ ―I was afraid of the answer.‖ ―I just wish you were nicer to people. Me, and other people.‖ ―Is that it?‖ ―And that you would get another job.‖ ―So you don‘t want kids or vacations to Morocco or all those things I‘m not sure I can provide?‖ ―A trip to Mexico wouldn‘t be out of the question.‖ ―We could probably swing that.‖ 65

―If you got a job.‖ ―I could do that.‖ ―After you tear yourself away from Fawzy.‖ ―It‘s Tangelina I‘m more concerned with. He‘s kind of hot. Actually, I don‘t know if Fawzy is Tangelina or Paprika.‖ ―Is it some kind of spice party?‖ ―It‘s pretty spicy.‖ ―Are you drunk?‖ ―I‘d have to be. But this is a pleasant group.‖ ―Call me when you get it out of your system.‖ ―Tomorrow?‖ ―Tomorrow‘s okay. I‘m getting tired of all sports all the time.‖ ―Is he making you drink beer with him?‖ ―He‘s trying. I don‘t want to blow up though.‖ ―I‘ll find out what this wine is and get us some.‖ *** The next morning I left Emma a message with Gregor‘s address when I guessed she‘d be at a kid‘s soccer game or something and told her to tell the process servers to hurry because he was probably leaving the country. I didn‘t want to talk to her and spill the details. I‘d spare her that. Plus I 66

was a little mad about what she‘d told Gregor about me. Even if it was almost true for a couple of hours. Then, with Ambush watching with her ball, I started mopping the floor and doing laundry for Penny‘s homecoming. Edward Hagelstein‘s short fiction has appeared in Fiction Fix, Thuglit, The Harbinger, The Fat City Review, Pithead Chapel, Sundog Lit, The Whistling Fire, Phoebe, Drunken Boat, and other places. He lives in Tampa, Florida.

Tom Darin Lisky spent nearly a decade working as a journalist in Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil. He is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi. His fiction and nonfiction has appeared in the Crime Factory, Driftwood Press, Mount Island, The Burnside Writers Collective, Sassafras Literary Magazine, Hirschworth, and Biostories, among others. His photographs have been published in Roadside Fiction, Iron Gall Press, Blue Hour Magazine, and Midwestern Gothic. He lives in Texas.

THE NOTE Grant Sorrell

It was old—that much was obvious. A dark brown was creeping inward from every side and the paper felt hard, yet brittle—as if a decent flick of my forefinger would punch a hole straight through. The page had been folded in half—hamburger style, as I‘d learned in kindergarten— and the crease was black with dust. When I unfolded it and laid the page flat on my kitchen table it released the distinctive smell of a used book store. Why did I have to open it? I could have thrown it away like any other piece of scrap, but here I am now—thinking of nothing but the dozen or so words scrawled in ink at its center. I could have chosen any jacket at the thrift shop today, but I had to pick the one with a past, the faded brown leather one with a note inside its breast pocket whose words I have now committed to memory. Unable to do anything else, I read it one last time before trying to

sleep: ―I‘m sorry, Mom and Dad. Please know this wasn‘t your fault.‖ It was signed, with love, from someone named Henry. *** Work was shit the next day, as I knew it would be, and I could hardly focus on the spreadsheet laid out before me like a prison map. I was on my sixth cup of coffee when I decided I needed to study the note again. It was something to do, at least, something interesting—an adjective which I currently could attribute to nothing else in my life. That was my problem—Josie told me last week while we watched The Sopranos—that nothing interested me anymore, not even her. I denied that last bit, of course, but apparently my expressionless face gave me up like a rat. She hasn‘t been over since and I‘ve made no attempt to call her or even finish the episode we were watching. Reaching into my gray briefcase, I felt the old piece of paper nestled between two overdue reports. I peeked over the top of my cubicle to check for encroaching managers. Seeing none, I pulled the note out and unfolded it on my desk. ―Please know this wasn‘t your fault,‖ I read quietly to myself. I flipped the paper over and looked at the faded letterhead in the top left corner. Whatever logo had been there was impossible to discern, but the Austin, Texas address beneath it was not. I typed it into Google and found directions—only three hours away, according to the map. There was something about the note that I couldn‘t get out of my head—like a used car salesman, it wouldn‘t leave me alone. They could be dead now, for all I knew, but somewhere out there were a mother and father deprived of 82

their son‘s final words. I pictured them sitting at home on a Friday night criticizing each other‘s indecision over what to eat for dinner, when they received the phone call that their son—their only son, perhaps—was no longer alive. Or maybe they were knocking on his door to remind him to clean the dishes, only to find him hanging in his room or sitting in the mess of his own slashed wrists. I didn‘t want to think about it anymore, but how could I not? I hated to admit it, but this was the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me. I felt like Jessica Fletcher. I shut off my computer and packed my briefcase full of paper-clipped pages I cared nothing about. I put Henry‘s note into my starched breast pocket and grabbed the leather jacket off the back of my chair. I escaped. My managers would ask where I was going, of course, but I didn‘t care—I‘d faked enough illnesses to weasel out of any situation. I was going to get the note back to Henry‘s parents. *** The bus was empty other than the elderly couple seated at the front. We were halfway to Austin and I wondered if there would be University of Texas students on the return trip. I watched the bland scenery change outside from pasture to trees, from trees to pasture, and wondered who would ever choose to live that way in a modern world. They would probably think the same of me, though— working in a cubicle, taking public transportation, and paying exorbitant rent on a place that barely contained the books I‘ve yet to read and probably never will. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but my mind was racing. Who would I find at this address? Did the place still exist? Would I find boarded up windows and a cow grazing on the lawn in front? I took four deep breaths and pulled the note from my pocket. I felt as if I knew Henry personally at this point. 83

*** I stepped off the bus at the corner of Slaughter Road and Interstate 35. Before the driver closed the door I asked if he knew the area of the address, and he gave me the same blank look my father had when I told him in high school that I wanted to be a writer. The old couple that had been sitting at the front of the bus had finally gotten their luggage off and overheard my question. ―Where are you headed, son?‖ the man asked in a raspy voice before pulling a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. There was something about elderly smokers that I respected, their commitment to the thing that was surely going to kill them, each cigarette a middle-finger pointing up to the malevolent clouds. ―I‘m looking for an address on Waverly Road,‖ I told him, reaching for the note in my pocket before changing my mind. ―Are you familiar?‖ ―Oh yes,‖ his wife answered quickly. ―We know just about every street in Travis County, don‘t we, Gerald?‖ The man‘s brow wrinkled as he glanced quickly at his wife. He turned back to me. ―Yes, I‘m familiar with the area. Lots of office buildings around there.‖ Not completely missing her hair, he exhaled smoke above his wife‘s head,. ―You here on business?‖ Gerald asked, pointing a liver-spotted finger at my briefcase as I set it down to pull the leather jacket over my shoulders. It had begun to rain thick, cold drops that painted the sidewalk dark. ―Yes, something like that.‖ ***

It only took an hour to reach Waverly Road on foot. The elderly couple had offered to drive me there once their son had picked them up, but I wasn‘t looking for help or company—I wasn‘t interested in forced conversation. All I cared about was the note and where it would take me. Gerald was right, however, about the office buildings. Both sides of the road were lined with single-story brick complexes. FOR RENT signs littered the small strips of grass that stood between them and the pavement that I wandered down. It was midafternoon on a Tuesday, but the empty parking lots I passed every few hundred feet made it feel like Super Bowl Sunday. I found the address that was listed on the back of Henry‘s note—2311 Waverly Road—and felt the slick of my hands as I walked up the sidewalk. A faded sign above the door read WAVERLY TAX ADVISORS and I briefly thought of the work I‘d left behind to come here today. I opened the door. Inside was an empty receptionist desk, wooden and cheap, holding a computer monitor the likes of which I hadn‘t seen since Clinton was in office. I rang the bell that sat on the desk and walked around the room waiting for a reply, taking inventory of the things around me, and rehearsing things I might say to whoever might come. There were three chairs on each side of the small room and a coffee table between them. Magazines were spread across the table with scratched rectangles where the address labels should have been. I was flipping through the covers when I noticed three framed pictures on the wall above the chairs to my left. Two of them were little league baseball team photos, sponsored by Waverly Tax Advisors, but the third was a black and white picture of a family standing in front of a large oak tree. The man had one arm around his wife and the other around his son, a boy around fourteen years old with already-tired-looking eyes. I leaned in closer

and noticed a printed inscription at the bottom of the photo: ―The Kellum Family. David, Mary, and Henry.‖ *** No one ever answered the bell, but I did see a copy of the yellow pages behind the desk and was able to find an address for David and Mary Kellum. The Valero clerk at the end of Waverly Road was familiar with the street name and drew out directions for me on the back of a dirty Community Coffee napkin. ―It‘ll take you about thirty minutes by foot,‖ he said. ―You want me to call a cab for you? Bus don‘t run around here.‖ ―No, thanks,‖ I said before leaving. A blur of cars roared past on the freeway to my left during the first two miles of my walk. When I turned onto a street called Sycamore, things quieted down. I was in a residential neighborhood now full of old brick houses, chain-link fences, and flags on doors. A few more turns and I was on Peach Run, the street where I would find the childless Kellum family. *** Four deep breaths, then an equal number of knocks on the door. I could hear a television somewhere inside being silenced, then footsteps. I fidgeted with the sleeves of my jacket and tried to stand straight, something I had never learned to do correctly. I looked to my left in time to see a curtain fall back into place behind the window, and then I heard a voice. ―Can I help you?‖ a woman asked from behind the door.

―Yes, Ma‘am, I‘m looking for Mr. and Mrs. Kellum,‖ I said, the words coming out like a question. ―I‘ve found something of theirs that I‘d hoped to return.‖ A deadbolt shifted and the door creaked open enough for me to see the face of a woman who was not in the picture in the receptionist office—like everything else in there, the yellow pages must have been outdated. She had an attractive, perfectly symmetrical face and brown shoulderlength hair with streaks of grayish-blonde throughout. She looked to be in her mid-fifties. ―I‘m sorry, I think I have the wrong house,‖ I said, both disappointed and relieved. ―I‘m Amber Kellum,‖ she said, opening the door a bit more now than I hadn‘t tried to force my way in. A sister, perhaps? A niece? ―Oh I‘m sorry, it‘s just that I was expecting—‖ ―Who is it, Hun?‖ an approaching voice asked from behind the woman. The space behind her filled with a balding, spectacled man around the same age. I answered for her. ―I was looking for David and Mary Kellum. I found something that belonged to their son, Henry,‖ I said, pulling the note from my pocket and taking a step forward. The man‘s eyes widened and scanned from my face down to my sleeve and into my hand. He said something softly to his wife before she turned and walked back into the house. Stepping outside, he closed the door behind him and reached out a hand for the folded piece of paper. Never opening it but feeling the browning page between his fingertips as if to savor the moment, he turned it over a couple of times in his hands. Then he did something that I never could have anticipated. 87

He ripped the paper in half. Then he ripped the two halves into fourths, the fourths into eights, and so on until he had a fistful of confetti in his hand. Without meeting my eyes he walked past me down the brick walkway to a set of trashcans, lifted one of the lids, and let the pieces fall. He walked back to where I stood with a smile on his face and extended a hand in greeting. ―Hello, I‘m Henry Kellum.‖ *** The night sky was clear outside the bus window and for the first time since childhood I was identifying constellations. There was Sagittarius pouring tea into the sky, Orion shielding himself from Taurus‘ charge, Hercules facing Draco without a hint of fear. Henry and I went for coffee after he cooked me dinner that night. We talked about everything, from baseball to politics to our favorite Beatles albums. But most importantly, we talked about the note. He was seventeen years old at the time and was sure that this world wasn‘t for him, that he would never gain interest in the things that he should, that the unknowable pain in his heart would never go away. He was ready to jump, he‘d said, when a car screeched to a halt on the bridge behind him. It was Amber, his future wife, who found him there and convinced him to step away, to climb back over the railing and talk to her. She told him the usual things worth living for—the things he‘d read in books and heard about all his life—but they were somehow different coming from her lips. She meant every word, Henry told me, and for the first time ever he was able to believe them. When he climbed into the passenger 88

seat of her car that night to eat the first of a lifetime of meals together, he‘d left his jacket behind—hanging over the railing of the bridge and, with it, the note that he was thankful his parents never had to read. Turning the cuff inside out with both hands, I held onto the sleeve of the jacket in my lap. Henry insisted I keep it, that he didn‘t want to worry about me without one on the way back. But I think he gave it to me for more than that. I was still a couple hours away from home and my forehead was pressed against the bus window. The glass was cold, but it felt wonderful against my skin. There would be work to catch up on when I got home, but I didn‘t mind. It was a beautiful night and I thought about the stars. I thought about Josie and finishing that episode of The Sopranos we‘d started, the one where Tony finally comes out of his coma. I thought about the Beatles, The White Album, and how even their worst songs were still some of the best I‘d ever heard. I thought about a suicide note torn to nothing in the bottom of a garbage can, and a teenage boy who found purpose in life behind the railing of a bridge. I thought about Henry—and how happy I was to be alive.

Grant Sorrell studies English at Sam Houston State University and lives in Huntsville, Texas.

WHERE IS CENTRAL PERK? Jim English His daughter looked up at the apartment building on the corner of Bedford and Grove Streets, where the characters in Friends lived. ―You think this is a love site?‖ Erin said. She was thirteen, wore the new blouse she‘d picked out for their New York trip, and had on purple eye shadow. It was a cool morning in early June, and the air was so clear that Saul could see down Bedford and across Seventh Avenue. ―You‘re the expert on love sites,‖ Saul said. He hadn‘t been back to New York in fifteen years and was only visiting because it was Erin‘s birthday and she‘d insisted. He and Erin‘s mother, Sally, had met in Manhattan, fallen in love, and gotten married, but that was over now. Erin slid her fanny pack around to her stomach, removed her map of Manhattan, and studied it. She‘d affixed tiny 90

yellow adhesive arrows at the site of this building, where much of the action in Friends took place, plus the Museum of Natural History, where Ross worked, plus Bloomingdale‘s, where Rachel worked. With a red pen, she‘d marked the site of Saul‘s former apartment, Sally‘s old place, and the apartment they had rented together. ―I think it‘s a love site,‖ Erin said. ―Remember: Chandler and Monica fell in love here.‖ Saul looked up at the building. It was six stories tall and made of brown brick, with a fire escape that started on the second floor and zigzagged up to the roof. A restaurant with red windows and a blue awning occupied the ground floor. ―You want to take a picture?‖ Erin stared at the building and then said no, there were plenty of photos online. She took out a pen and made a checkmark on her map. They started walking toward Seventh Avenue. ―What‘s the name of the coffee shop where everyone gathered?‖ Saul said. ―Central Perk.‖ ―And where is that?‖ ―It‘s a mystery,‖ Erin said. ―No one seems to know.‖ A man and a woman in their twenties, holding hands, passed them. When they reached the Friends building, they knelt by the front door, bowed their heads, and prayed. *** 91

―Did you have a nice apartment when you were single?‖ Erin said. They stood at the corner of Barrow and Seventh while she studied her map. Saul leaned over and pointed at the red circle that indicated his old apartment, at 73rd Street and York Avenue. ―My place wasn‘t much. It wasn‘t as nice as the apartment on Friends.‖ Erin found 73rd and York on her map, which she‘d done many times before. She ran her finger up and down the orderly avenues on the East Side. On a map, Manhattan always looked so immaculate. ―What was it like?‖ ―Remember? It was a railroad apartment. Long and narrow. With a bathtub in the kitchen.‖ Erin laughed. ―I can‘t believe you took a bath in your kitchen!‖ She loved to ask him questions about his years in New York. She knew where he worked, what his jogging route was, and which Ray‘s Pizza he preferred. She even knew about the time he got lost on the Times Square Shuttle. They continued down Barrow Street to West 4th, took a right, crossed Sixth Avenue, and finally reached the park. It was noisy and crowded. Couples lounged on the sunny benches, kids tossed Frisbees, and an ice-cream truck discharged colorful cones and glossy bars. ―Let‘s walk up to the Arch,‖ Saul said. ―I‘ll take a picture of the two of us there.‖ They walked across the park and reached the Arch. Saul had forgotten that Fifth Avenue ended at the Arch, and 92

now he turned and looked up the street. Manhattan was so dense and crowded, and yet, Fifth Avenue peeled the city open at its heart. In the distance, the Empire State Building poked the sky, and closer to them, church spires loomed. Three blocks uptown, in the middle of the avenue, a young couple stood in the middle of the crosswalk and danced. They walked back toward the fountain in the center of the park. Dozens of children were playing around the cascade. As he and Erin approached, a gauzy mist dampened their heads. ―Didn‘t Mom take a course at NYU?‖ Erin said, pointing at Bobst Library. ―Wouldn‘t that be a love site?‖ Saul laughed. ―That was a study site.‖ ―You think it‘s stupid, don‘t you?‖ ―Not at all.‖ ―What‘s wrong with looking for love sites?‖ Erin returned the map to her fanny pack.

After Washington Square, they caught a cab to Bloomingdale‘s. Rachel, the flighty and gorgeous woman on Friends, was a buyer at Bloomingdale‘s and fell in and out of love during just about every season of the show. Rachel fell in love at Bedford and Grove. She fell in love at Kennedy Airport. She fell in love at Central Perk. There was something about Rachel, and youth, and New York

that captivated Erin. Rachel and Ross: what a beautiful love story! After that, Saul hailed a taxi and they headed for the Museum of Natural History, where Ross worked. In the back seat, Erin said: ―Wait! Can we visit where you used to live?‖ They were going uptown on Third Avenue, and their new cabbie cut from lane to lane. ―It‘s a drab block. Just old apartment buildings, a RollsRoyce garage, and a sanitation facility.‖ ―Why don‘t you want to go back?‖ Saul leaned forward and said to the driver: ―We changed our mind. Can you drop us off at York and 73rd?‖ Their driver took a hard right on 72nd and headed east. Vans and motorcycles and town cars clipped past them. Erin looked out the window. ―Did you have any girlfriends before Mom?‖ ―Just one.‖ ―Where did you meet her?‖ ―At a party.‖ Erin pulled the map out and looked at it. ―Where?‖ Saul made his head nod. The rest of his body didn‘t move. ―I can‘t remember.‖ ―Why don‘t you try to meet someone in St. Louis?‖ Erin said. ―The way you met Mom in New York.‖

―You have to meet so many not-right people before you meet the right one,‖ Saul said. ―It‘s not worth the effort.‖ He could feel his daughter staring at him. ―It‘s like that in Friends, too,‖ Erin said. ―Monica had to take a long route through Richard and that Italian guy before she realized that Chandler was the right man for her. And Ross had to marry and get divorced. And Chandler‘s parents were a mess, which some girls in my class say is why Chandler seems so neurotic, but I don‘t think he‘s neurotic at all. I think he‘s just confused. Divorce takes time for people to adjust to, and they need to push themselves to get out again. You know what I mean?‖ The driver slowed as they approached 73rd Street. ―Near side or far?‖ ―Far,‖ Saul said. He paid the driver, they got out, and they walked down the block, toward the East River. A hundred yards away, traffic swished past on FDR Drive. Beyond that, the river looked high and gray. Saul stopped. ―That‘s the one.‖ He pointed at a five-story, brick walk-up to their left. The brick must‘ve been a warm red color when it was first built, but now it was grey and dingy, and the fire escape looked rickety. On the sidewalk by the front door, lay a broken glass jar. A little mound of yellowish-green pickles, floating in pickle juice, sat in the jar‘s lid. Erin said: ―Which floor were you on?

―Fourth. But I was in the back, so you can‘t see my windows.‖ Erin pointed at the fourth floor. ―Let‘s pretend those are your windows. Is that the spot where you fell in love?‖ ―Yes,‖ he lied. ―That‘s where I fell in love.‖ ―In the kitchen, living room, or bedroom?‖ He couldn‘t remember, so he said: ―Kitchen.‖ ―And what were you cooking?‖ ―Spaghetti sauce.‖ He laughed. ―My oven was so old that I had to lash the door shut with a bungee cord.‖ ―Where was Mom?‖ ―By the sink. She was rinsing lettuce.‖ ―And when you fell in love with her, was she aware?‖ ―I don‘t know.‖ Traffic noises from York and FDR funneled up the street from both directions. In the distance, a siren burrowed its way to the hospital. ―Did you tell her?‖ ―I don‘t remember, but I probably asked her if I could see her again.‖ ―When?‖ ―Soon.‖ A car whished by and Erin raised her voice. ―When soon?‖ 96

―Within the next week, probably.‖ ―And how did you say it?‖ ―Erin, that was years ago.‖ ―Could you please say it?‖ ―Sally,‖ he said in the direction of the fourth floor, ―do you have plans this weekend?‖ ―That‘s it?‖ ―Sally,‖ he said louder, ―I have tickets to a show.‖ ―That means love?‖ ―Sally, I think about you all the time. When can I see you again?‖ Erin looked at the windows. ―That‘s not how it happened.‖ She pointed at the door of the building, by the broken pickle jar. ―You carried Mom up the stairs. You bought gladiolas and put them in a wine carafe on the kitchen table. You read her a poem you wrote.‖ *** Last stop: the Museum of Natural History. Street-cart vendors were selling hot dogs, ice cream, and pretzels, and yellow cabs cluttered Central Park West. The air smelled of cooked food and car exhaust. To Saul‘s surprise, Erin didn‘t want to go in. He stood on the museum steps. ―You don‘t want to see where Ross worked?‖ 97

―I‘m tired.‖ ―Shall we go back to the Village tomorrow morning and look for Central Perk?‖ he said. ―We can have brunch there. Our flight isn‘t until four fifteen.‖ Erin folded her map and slid it into her fanny pack. ―I think I‘ve had enough of New York.‖ ―We can come back,‖ he said. ―Whenever you want.‖ They started walking down Central Park West. They passed chained-up bicycles, mothers with their strollers, and flattened water bottles. ―I‘m thinking that this is it,‖ Erin said. ―I won‘t see New York again.‖ ―No,‖ Saul said. ―Autumn in New York can be beautiful. Let‘s plan a trip in October.‖ ―It‘s all right, Dad.‖ ―What?‖ Erin paused on the sidewalk. ―Now I‘ve seen it.‖ ―Seen what?‖ ―I‘ve seen where Ross met Rachel, and now I know where Monica and Chandler got together, and if Joey ever meets anyone, it‘s going to happen on the set of a soap opera.‖ He said: ―What about Phoebe?‖ He and Erin both loved Phoebe. She was so ditzy and affectionate. ―She‘s at Central Perk,‖ his daughter said. 98

James English teaches at the Community College of Rhode Island and lives in Providence with his wife.

KILLING THE POETRY PROFESSOR Doug Draime Buying six tickets instead of the usual five weekly. The Mob knew I could be trusted for the money: six grand and a $400 leather brief case. It was impossible to have a relaxed conversation with him. He jumped around showing me unpublished manuscripts, dusty and yellow, written forty years ago. Louie was willing to back the six grand with six of his own. Insurance is what he called it. Besides, I knew the .38 in his boot was known to go off when the insurance premium didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t pay off. 100

The restaurant was full but I found Flo at one of the back tables. She was a little high, but had the right answers. I got her out of there, with the gun in my pocket, pushing her into Johnny‘s car. By now the drinks would be lined up and Benny would be telling anyone within ear shot, that he was really John Dillinger‘s little brother from Martinsville, Indiana. Meant nothing to me, as long as he picked up the stuff after his drumming gig on Santa Monica Boulevard. He looked through his file cabinets for twenty minutes, like I wasn‘t even there, pulling out books in French from the Dadaists and Surrealists. He was rubbing his arm and yawning a lot. I had nothing against the old guy. Morning found me with the gun under my pillow, and Benny asleep on the floor, faithful with his fix and stuff laying neatly by his head. I left him there and took a bus down to the club, walking up the back, pushing the right button at the second floor. She screamed, she didn‘t want to talk about it, and then causally put the stuff on the back seat. Everything was closed up tight, but we found the Hollywood Ranch Market steaming with drug freaks. I still had the gun, and I wouldn‘t hesitate. The professor was dead. All his old books and poetry were burned. I was into it deep now, with nowhere to voice my innocence. The cops thought I‘d 101

pulled the trigger. It was bad enough I‘d set up the professor, but I didn‘t shoot him, Flo pulled the trigger. Doug Draime's latest book is More Than The Alley, a fulllength poetry collection from Interior Noise Press. Also available are three chapbooks: Los Angeles Terminal: Poems 1971-1980 (Covert Press), In The Back of Madam Wong’s (Tree Killer Inc), Rock ’ n Roll Jizz (Propaganda Press), and an online chap, Speed of Light (Right Hand Pointing). A poet, short story writer, and playwright, Draime emerged as a presence in the literary 'underground' in Los Angeles in the late 1960's. Awarded PEN grants in 1987, 1991, and 1992. During the last few years he has been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes. He currently lives in Medford, Oregon.

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Building Red: Mission Mars edited by Janet Cannon

October 13, 2015

janetcannoneditor.wix.com/buildingredant hology

Earth Witch A Winterhaven Mystery by Stella Jay Candle

October 31, 2015

www.stellajaycandle.wordpress.com

Creatures

by Cyn Bermudez

2016 www.cynbermudez.zohosites.com

Riding Light (The Riding Light Review) is fiscally sponsored by Art without Limits. To make tax-deductible donations, please visit our website. Stay Connected Facebook: www.facebook.com/ridinglightreview Twitter: www.twitter.com/riding_light Website: www.ridinglight.org ―Imagination is more important than knowledge.‖ – Albert Einstein

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The Riding Light Review Cover and Interior Header art by Allen Forrest, photography by Tom Darin Liskey and Kathy Rudin, fiction and poetry contributions by Erin Cunningham, Doug Draime, Jim English, Erin Darby Gesell, Edward Hagelstein, Peycho Kanev, Harika Kottakota, Noah Milligan, Grant Sorrell