Rind Literary Magazine 7

7 Rind Literary Magazine

Rind Literary Magazine Issue 7 December 2014 - January 2015

rindliterarymagazine.com

All Works Š Respective Authors, 2014-2015

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Editor in Chief: Stephen Williams

Fiction Editors: Johnathan Etchart Jenny Lin Melinda Smith Shaymaa Mahmoud

Nonfiction Edit ors: Collette Curran Owen Torres William Ellars Anastasia Zamora

Webmaster: Omar Masri

Blog Manager: Dylan Gascon

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Contents Acknowledgements

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Contributors

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Fiction: Mar y Thompkins/ David Haight

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Open Flame/ Michael Critzer

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Gone on Tuesday/ Blake Shuart

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Toxicity/ Monica Fernandez

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Management Training/ John Grochalski

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A Ser ies of Controlled Explosions/ David Haight

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The Small Red Book/ James Winnett

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My B aby Shot Me Down/ Monica Fernandez

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Cool 55: The Puffer fish/ Dawn Corrigan

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Acknowledgements Thanks to all of our contributors, past and present, because without you this publication wouldn’t exist. Writing isn’t easy, and the fact that you people keep hitting it every day only proves how fantastic you are—or insane. The jury is still out on that one.

We’re forever indebted to the creative writing faculty of the University of California Riverside, Mount San Antonio College, Rio Hondo College, and Riverside Community College. You support us like a chainmail bra, thank you a million times over for keeping us safe from taking long swords to the chest.

Are you an artistic genius and hungry for exposure? If so, please send us your artwork and photography. Feel free to contact us with any ideas or queries you might have.

Please support the San Gabriel Valley Literary Festival because they are ever so handsome.

You can find out more about them at www.sgvlitfest.com.

Check us out on Duotrope, Facebook, and Twitter. For updates and general shenanigans, head over to our blog at www.thegrovebyrind.wordpress.com. In search of fame and fortune? Becoming a contributor is the first step on your long journey to the throne! Send your submissions to rindliterarymagazine@gmail.com.

Lastly, this will be the final issue that Stephen Williams serves as head editor. He’s had fun, but the release of his debut novel (Among the Ruins, coming in 2015 from Villipede Publications) is eating his free time. We wish him the best of luck.

Until next time friends and readers, -The Rind Staff

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The Pufferfish Dawn Corrigan

“When I walk past that new guy in Apartment 2,” the husband says, “I do this.” He flexes his arms and puffs out his chest, then swaggers past. “Like a pufferfish,” he adds.

“Why would you do that?” she laughs.

“So I look bigger!” says her husband. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

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Mary Tompkins David Haight

Pulling the visor down, Ben rounded Little Blue Lake. His eyes ached and it felt late but the sun was rising. He squeezed the top of his head in a vain attempt to dull the pounding and peered into the rearview mirror. His wife Allison was crammed into the backseat of the squad car staring over the gray water. She had refused to get into the front seat. Neither had spoken since they had left Mary Beth’s house. They had arrived earlier the previous evening expecting dinner and had ended it by having sex with Mary Beth and her longtime boyfriend, Eric.

The image of Mary Beth’s naked form was tattooed upon Ben’s mind. He had crept up the darkened hallway to the door and listened. He felt ludicrous standing there, about to knock and ask what he was about to ask, when it opened. She was something his wife wasn’t: statuesque and confident (even defiant) her beautiful elegant form filling the entire doorway. All he could make out was the screaming whiteness of her flesh against the void of light behind her, her slightly tossed hair (like a present that had just begun being opened) and triangle of accusatory black pubic hair. She focused her eyes upon him like a bird of prey and waited.

“Allison and I were wondering if you guys wanted some company.” Thinking of it now he still couldn’t believe those words had come out of his mouth.

She peered over her shining shoulder into the darkened room. It was clear she was seeking Eric’s mutual consent. Amazingly he heard Eric’s gruff voice respond eagerly, “Absolutely.”

This is what he remembered as he drove, the image of Mary Beth naked, tall, eyes and nipples focused on him, inviting him and Allison into her bedroom and Allison’s expectant eyes when he burst back into their room. Glancing back at his wife and the sullen expression frozen on her face it was obvious she regretted setting aside their vows. He wasn’t surprised. Allison had always been pathologically monogamous. On their first date they ended up back at his apartment on his sagging couch kissing. He thought he had a shot at fucking her when she moved his hand up under her shirt.

When he maneuvered her hand between his legs she pulled back with horror as if his zipper was electrified. He considered asking her to leave and never calling her again. A few minutes later, just after midnight they had sex. It turned out she had broken up with her boyfriend earlier that day and wouldn’t sleep with him until 12:01. That was what made her desire to join Mary Beth and Eric so striking. He rounded the fog covered lake. The highway straightened itself out.

“Where are you going?” Allison asked, rocketing forward, grabbing the back of Ben’s seat.

Ben was startled and nearly jerked the car into the ditch. “Jesus, Allie.”

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“What do you mean where are we going? We are going home.”

Sitting back Allison said, “I’m not going there,” and returned to staring out at the highway.

“What do you mean you’re not going there? Can you at least get in the front seat of the car it looks like I’ve arrested my own wife?” But it didn’t matter. Ben eyed her in the rearview mirror and turned around but her mind was made up. She wasn’t going home.

He pulled into Rise and Dine the 24-hour café in the ground floor of the Wagram hotel.

Allison was reluctant to get out of the car forcing him to open the door from the outside perpetuating the image that he had arrested his own wife. He ordered two large coffees and two chocolate donuts as she slinked along the back wall running her hands along the tops of the booths. They sat staring out of the large window that overlooked East River.

“Did you know that was going to happen last night?” Allison finally asked, her face pulled into an angry scowl.

“Of course not. How could I?” “Because I wouldn’t have agreed to go,” she added watching the brown unmoving pool of coffee in her mug, her thumb fiddling with the chipped uneven handle.

The night was initially unmemorable. They ate a tasteless, bland meal and played cards until after midnight when Mary Beth laid her cards down on the table and stated she was bored.

(Reviewing it now this was when the night took its turn.) They played strip poker by candlelight until everyone was naked and sat, laughing, titillated at their own mild naughtiness, slurping down beers until a little after two in the morning when each couple retired to their separate rooms to have sex.

That’s where the night should have ended, where Ben expected it to end until Allison suggested joining them.

“Should we?” Ben asked with a mischievous non-believing smile. He thought of his squad car sitting outside the house. He was very drunk.

“Oh we can’t,” Allison said, repositioning herself on the bed, sitting up, removing her shirt, wrapping her arms around her breasts. “It could be fun. No one would ever know. Go ask.” As he was heading into the darkness he could hear her add mournfully like a little girl, “They’ll probably say no anyway.”

“Let’s go,” Ben said, entering the room, standing with his legs planted firmly astride with that confidence that had once drawn her to him.

They left only minutes after they were finished, Allison praying they run into neither Mary Beth nor Eric or any neighbors, pulling the door quietly behind them. The music continued to follow them through the door and down the sidewalk. Allison realized she was trembling. Surveying the 8

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empty neighborhood watched over by the empty trees like unmoving judges she wondered what she had done. They got into the car and drove away.

“Last night wasn’t that big of a deal,” she said finally taking a sip of her coffee.

“Nah,” he mumbled, staring at one of the abandoned donuts.

“Did you like it?” Allison asked.

He knew what she was asking. She wanted to know if had enjoyed Mary Beth, if he enjoyed screwing her more than his own wife. Ben shrugged. “It was all right.”

“You seemed to like it.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“You were with her,” she said carefully, “longer than you were with me.”

“There’s no way you could know that,” he said, quickly, too quickly. He struggled to remember if there was a clock in the room. He didn’t remember there being one. Only the relentless bass from the club music Mary Beth insisted on playing. He also knew even if there was one he wouldn’t have noticed it much less how long he had been with Mary Beth compared to his wife, although instinctually he knew he had been with Mary Beth longer, had enjoyed her more too. It was the first time he remembered being lost in sex in many years, his conscious mind dulled as if he had dove into water, heightening the sense of his body and its movements. “Anyway what’s the difference? I came with you.”

He took a sip from his coffee.

“But I didn’t.”

Ben’s eyes rose from out of the coffee cup slowly. “Is that the case?” he asked.

Ben had never made Allison orgasm. In actuality no man had but that didn’t matter to Ben, he took it, had always taken it personally. In the beginning he was determined to make it happen. He approached their love making like he had his wrestling opponents in college: as something to beat.

He cooed into her ear, masturbated beforehand for stamina, ate a variety of strange foods, twisted her into different positions and worked her over under like she was a piece of tenderized beef. When he wasn’t able to beat her phantom orgasm into submission sex became a sweaty frustrating bore.

Caught in the twisted hot sheets they lie defeated. Over time their bodies grew callous to one another and a lasting bitterness formed between them. They had sex infrequently and only as a sort of marital obligation ensuring their membership not be revoked.

One night in an act of desperation her hand slid down between their bodies like a snake. Ben’s balls tightened up and he almost came with excitement until he realized what she was doing. He lifted himself off her.

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“What are you doing?” he asked standing at the foot of the bed. It was as if an intruder had entered their bedroom.

“This way I can. We both can.” I need the release she nearly screamed but didn’t dare and their life went on as it always had and they never spoke of the incident.

“Eric, he made me cum,” she said with a sense of inevitability. Allison had been thunderstruck at the ease with which Eric coaxed an orgasm from her like a parent persuading a frightened child down a slide. Ben turned sideways on the booth, away from her. He made a motion for her to go on. “He just knew what to do to grasp the back of my neck and pulled me for a kiss, when to touch my breasts, how to cradle my ass, when to thrust, when to just lie still and admire my body.” Ben never knew these things and he was too proud to be shown. “I don’t know. Maybe it was her. She was elegant, in control. Her right hand was on his stomach, holding him down, like a dog,” she laughed loudly. “Her left hand was behind her on a thigh or between his legs. The mystery of that left hand made me ache.”

Ben felt a pain in his chest, spreading quickly to the furthest extremities of his limbs and head.

Allison never ached for him, not even when they were first dating. She loved him and wanted to spend her life with him but those were practical considerations, decisions, logistics, an ache was involuntary. Julie, the girl he dated the first summer after he came home from college, and nearly married, had ached for him. They would kiss for hours in the park up the street from his parent’s house. He remembered the time she pulled her face, red with passion away from his. ‘I’m soaking wet.’ It was crude but it was ache. And it was better than sex.

“It made me jealous of someone so in control of their sexuality, not only of what they wanted but able to easily give pleasure to another human being.”

He was barely aware she was still going on, if she was talking about Mary Beth or Eric. She had never spoken about sex so openly before.

“What about me?”

Allison caught herself. It had been too easy to forget that the man sitting across from her was her husband, the man she had shared that experience with and not a stranger or girlfriend. “You were good, really good,” she added over enthusiastically. “Eric was on the bottom. He let me be on top.

You normally aren’t on the bottom. I’m sure that’s where the thrill was for me, just in something new.”

“I don’t enjoy that,” he said finishing his coffee in one swift motion. It burned his tongue and throat. It was none of her god damn business why. He enjoyed taking her hips in his thick, calloused hands rolling her over and onto all fours. “When we used to first make love you told me you found 10

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me powerful, that I was in control – of you, of your body, of our love making,” he said uneasily. It had taken all of his strength to articulate those words. He felt as if the entire world, his parents, Father Nathan, were eavesdropping. Her words, once started, seemed to come easily, like water once a rock is dislodged from its path.

“I liked giving myself up to you. It was like being swallowed. I would lie beneath you and feel satisfied regardless of what my body told me.”

“Regardless of what your body told you? What does that even mean?”

“Maybe you’re afraid to give in to me.”

“I was afraid I would pale in comparison to Mary Beth,” she continued. Ben stared at his wife. He knew that tone. She was provoking him, like a perp., challenging him for dominance, waiting to see how he’d react. “But Eric seemed pleased.”

“We can stop the autopsy now.” Ben traced the edge of the napkin with his index finger.

There was a heavy funereal silence. She would miss making love to Eric. She would miss the red hair that covered his body like the sunrise.

“At least for a night we didn’t have to worry about having kids,” she said.

“I didn’t know we were worried about having kids,” he said finally looking at her again relieved to be talking, even arguing about anything else.

Allison made a face. “We’re not. Well you’re not.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you don’t worry about anything. You just take everything as it comes.”

“As opposed to what? Freaking out every time something happens?”

“At least I don’t pretend nothing is wrong. And don’t make that face. Every time there’s a problem you rush to minimize my concerns as if shutting me up is the real problem and not the backed up drain or damp basement walls or my concern about us having children.”

A couple each carrying a tray breezed nervously by them. Ben and Allison were momentarily silenced.

“Why would you be worried about us having kids?” Ben asked popping the quiet like a stray balloon. “Are we officially trying now? Did I miss a god damn memo?” he asked lifting up and peering underneath his napkin. Allison gave a tiny smile. He could still be funny when he wanted to be.

“What if we’re not any good at it?” she asked staring into her lap. “You see how we are with the dogs.”

“The dogs again?” he asked immediately hot. “The dogs are fine,” Ben said with a slightly 11

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condescending chuckle that didn’t convince. “They are happy and healthy and loved.”

“Each by one of us and to the exclusion of the other.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said, his anger again flaring.

“What if we have two and you decide you don’t like one of them – don’t laugh - or you like one more than the other like you do with the dogs?”

Ben sighed audibly. “That’s not the same thing.”

“But it is. It reveals everything about your character, what you’ll be like as a father, what you’ll be like with our children, how they’ll turn out, everything. I want kids and you don’t. I was raised by a father who didn’t want me and I won’t raise a child in that environment,” she said with finality.

Ben stared at his wife mercilessly. It was clear she had put a lot of thought, wasted thought in his opinion, into this. “Is that why we got those dogs? Is that why I clean up dog shit every day and walk them in ten below winter weather because you’re not sure I’ll be a good father? I didn’t even want the damn dogs,” he said banging his hand on the table.

“Exactly. You did it for me just like you’ll have children for me. What kind of person does that make you?”

“One that’s tired of this conversation.” Ben dropped his napkin on the table unsatisfactorily and went to the bathroom. When he returned Allison’s forehead was bunched forward, her eyes narrowed in thought and anger, her purse pulled tightly to her side.

“I’ll take Buddy with me.”

“Where? What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

Allison pushed her way out of the booth, “Don’t come home. I mean it,” she said and headed for the door.

“You’re unbelievable,” Ben yelled over her shoulder. Once she had exited he found that everyone was staring at him or pretending not to be. “Christ,” he muttered to himself.

The next morning Ben woke up exhausted. The joints in his knees ached and the whiskey he had the night before refused to let go. The cigarette he lit was making him nauseous, yet he refused to extinguish it. He heard the occasional passing car outside his window, the hotel creaking at itself in its own language, and languished in the buzzing inevitability emptiness has. He wondered what he was supposed to do with his day. Forty-eight hours ago there would have been a definite answer: the yard needed work, the gutters needed to be cleaned, they needed groceries, and the laundry wasn’t finished. Placing his hands on his knees and rubbing them, he knew in the space of one conversation 12

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he no longer had a place in his previous life; he was no longer of this world. I’m a ghost.

Exiting the elevator he heard loud voices coming from the hotel bar, and recognized his wife’s. Peering in he saw her, sitting at the bar, a man’s suit coat draped around her shoulders, three businessmen huddled around her laughing. She was laughing too. It was the laugh normally reserved for board game night, if she had had too much wine or if Buddy did something particularly adorable.

Ben wanted to feel the relief he imagined people had when finding out a loved one presumed dead was in fact alive. But he didn’t. All he had were questions and accusations: where were you last night? Who are these men? Why didn’t you call last night? He watched as they did a round of green colored shots. Disgusted, he checked out and exited the hotel.

He sipped on a large coffee he attempted to purchase at the gas station across the street. He nodded at the short, fat cashier as she waved his dollar away. He sat for the better part of an hour on the far side of the parking lot across the street when Allison eventually appeared with one of the men from the bar, her walk unsteady but gay. He watched as the man opened the car door for her, eased her into the seat and gave her a slow, long kiss. Pulling out he followed them onto the highway, hanging back a mile, maybe two, then hit the lights. The car jerked to the shoulder. A smile graced Ben’s face. He could do whatever he wanted to this jackass. Anything. But that was beside the point, he told himself unconvincingly. He knew she would be relieved when she saw it was him. This wasn’t her. They would go home and it would happen. It had to. Approaching the passenger side with his old swagger, he watched as the window came down as she lifted her heavy head and was stunned when Mary Tompkins petrified eyes met his. Gazing across her he recognized Stephen O’Hara.

“Does Donna know you’re out drinking this early Steve?” he asked with barely contained fury.

“Please don’t tell Murray,” Mary whimpered.

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Open Flame Michael Critzer

Skip never saw Evan outside the Royal Cup Casino and Resort. They had first met there during Skip’s inaugural insurance symposium, and it was already time for his second. Had it already been a year? Skip still felt like a newbie at the office. The culture shock of suddenly working among high-income college graduates hadn’t worn off, and being the regional vice-president’s son-in-law didn’t help him fit in with the other agents. Just three years ago Skip was a house painter on an unsteady ladder, making eyes at some rich guy’s daughter.

Remembering the first time he saw Catherine felt odd while watching Evan sing golden oldies beneath the smoky stage lights. Evan’s shock-orange hair, short and spiky, was nothing like Catherine’s plain-Jane blond, and the black liner around Evan’s sea-blue eyes was already more makeup than Catherine would consider. Yet sitting in the singer’s audience felt more visceral than peeping on his would-be wife through a taped-up window. He wondered why. The male body didn’t excite him sexually. Catherine’s figure could arouse him at a glance, before she’d reprimand him for objectifying her. But the experience of Evan seemed to predate sex, reaching back to something essential and forbidden in civilized society. The allure fascinated Skip, like an open flame, vital and dangerous.

That first night the lounge singer had sidled up next to Skip at the bar like a woman, in tight jeans and a brown suede vest. “Buy me a drink?” he asked. Skip did so to avoid making a scene, but Evan made him explain all of the other men in suits with nametags and laughed loudly at the idea of insurance men in a casino. Then he gripped Skip’s shoulder like a man and said, “Let’s raise the stakes.”

Their next two meetings were “coincidental,” as Skip found excuses to visit the southern office each month. Eventually their trysts became a regular appointment. Walking into the lounge each time and being greeted by Evan’s devilish smile became a ritual. Skip felt a hot complicity in that smile and tried to reflect it later in their room, as it hovered above his back in the full-length mirror or beneath him through the haze of sweat and endorphins that lasted long after Catherine would have clocked out at home.

This time, however, there had been no smile—not for Skip, anyway. There was another man there, fortyish, much older. Maybe a relative? No, Evan wouldn’t give that look to anyone he wasn’t fucking or at least wanting to fuck. Skip puzzled over his own reaction. Was it jealousy? No, he’d always known Evan had other lovers. But it grated on him to be so blatantly ignored. It was 15

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disrespectful—that was it. Skip told Evan how much he liked the fiendish smile—Evan had insisted on it. “What turns you on?” he’d demanded. “Tell me what to do?”

Skip had started by mentioning the smile, though he knew what the question really meant, which position, which role, which moan and scream? Evan held him down, refusing to pull out until Skip answered, and even then it was a struggle. Was this all a game? Of course it was, but until now, Skip had been having fun.

Evan continued to avoid his gaze until Skip thought about going backstage, or even leaving, before he realized he would just look childish. He straightened his posture and tried not to appear huffy. Evan was testing him. He could wait it out. Maybe he could find some young girl to flirt with when the little lounge singer finally turned his way. Could he really? He looked around the room. Of course, why not? These girls weren’t Catherine with her ever-ready defenses. “Don’t be silly,” she’d said, when he asked her what turned her on in bed. “And stop grinning like a damned school boy.”

Skip stood up to survey the room properly. A young girl in fishnets leaned against a slot machine closest to the tables, and Skip surprised himself by walking toward her. She looked at him and smiled. What would he say? Maybe that she looked too good to be standing alone? No, only Evan could get away with something like that. He would just start with hello, but as he opened his mouth, she beat him to it.

“Hi, Hun.” Her eyes glanced up at him through glitter makeup.

He stared at her, suddenly unable to speak.

“Are you lost?” she said, amused.

“I—I wanted to come say hello.”

Her smile broadened, almost sympathetically. “Well, hello there.”

Skip felt a sudden need to apologize. He could almost hear Evan’s laugh and see Catherine rolling her eyes in the girl's face. He turned and walked into the casino without saying another word.

Evan’s song pursued him past the slot machines, their handles erect in mockery; he settled into the shadows where he could watch the lounge unseen.

When Skip first began to date Catherine, she acted as though he was a dangerous rebel, running out to his pickup truck like it was a hot rod and hugging him in his paint-spattered jacket like he was wearing leather. He had loved the way she looked at him while her parents stood silhouetted in the doorway. It was as though she’d follow him anywhere and admire him always. That look died when her father offered him a job, and Skip never got over the loss.

He worried over losing Evan’s look of interest too. He worried each time they met and now 16

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felt that fear validated as the last set ended and the singer lingered on stage until the fortyish man approached. Evan’s baiting, that made Skip fumble with self-consciousness, was now given to the other man, who gripped the singer’s elbow with confidence and whispered in his ear. The man slipped something like a business card or a room key into Evan’s pocket and strode away with solid satisfaction.

Skip wanted to march over to the stage and demand an explanation, to salvage some portion of the night. It was their night of the month damn it! He wanted a lot of things, but he found himself returning to his room alone instead. Then, as he pushed the button for his floor, a hand stopped the elevator doors from closing. Evan slipped inside.

“Hey there, stranger,” he said, pushing the button for the floor above Skip’s. “Where were you?”

“Same place as always. You were making eyes at baldy.”

“He offered to take me to Florida. What could I say?” Evan smiled, but it was no longer devilish. “Don’t be sore, Skippy. We had a good time. Nothing lasts forever.”

Skip spoke through unmoving teeth, “I don’t want it to be over.”

“Oh, Sweetie, you don’t have a clue what you want.”

The elevator stopped, and Evan placed a hand on Skip’s cheek as the doors opened. “Take care of yourself. Maybe I’ll see you when I get back.” He walked out onto the floor, and the doors began to close. Skip reached out and stopped them.

Maybe he had tapped into some primal new part of himself, or maybe there was simply not enough time for him to overthink, but after a couple of steps, he grabbed Evan’s bicep with a ferocious grip and pulled him into the stairwell through a soundproof door.

Before Evan’s startled expression could fade into amusement, Skip pushed him against the wall and kept the sarcastic little tongue occupied with a kiss. The feel of the young man’s arms struggling lightly against his grasp blazed through Skip. It was both new and familiar, like Evan himself.

When they stopped to breathe, Evan grinned like a drunk, a hint of fear dancing in his eyes.

Skip loved it. But then Evan’s mouth turned crooked and began to open. Skip said, “Shut the fuck up,” and began tearing at his belt, pushing the singer down to his knees.

Skip gripped the shock orange hair and held it where he wanted, thinking about the girl in the lounge, the assholes he worked with, and finally Catherine.

When he was finished, Evan climbed up the wall breathless. “Goddamn! I’m definitely looking you up when I get back.” He smiled again like a trickster, and Skip watched him wipe his 17

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mouth, wink, and saunter down the hall. It was still Catherine Skip thought about. He had a sudden urge to go home and demand the same from her, to force that smile off of her mouth as well. Maybe she’d push him away. Maybe she’d leave him. She could take the house, the money, even his job, but for at least one moment she would look at him with something besides smug disdain. For that moment, Skip thought, it might be worth it.

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Gone on Tuesday Blake Shuart

As far as Ed Stapleton was concerned, the race to start dying commenced with a starter pistol and ended with a shotgun blast. Stapleton’s expectation was that he would wake up one day and start hacking up blood, which would mandate a trip to the doctor’s office. Routine diagnostic tests would reveal the existence of one life-ending disease process or another, providing him with sufficient time to wind-up his affairs. He had lost a friend and two cousins in the same manner over the course of the past year, and the entire process was by appearances quite satisfactory. All three had basked in the pleasantries, frequent visitors and expressions of sympathy, and had spared themselves the dolor of a futile fight. Although Stapleton would never express this to any of the infrequent callers with whom he exchanged light-hearted political banter and the occasional bit of gossip, he was actually awaiting in earnest the day when the grave news would be delivered. Each stabbing pain, abnormal lab result or blotchy patch of skin was a fresh opportunity for terminal illness, and what his doctors perceived as hyper vigilance was no more than wistful hopefulness masked in malcontent.

Stapleton had employed a strict laissez-faire approach in his assorted business endeavors, and although his social security checks and modest retirement fund more than covered his living expenses, he had determined several years ago that extra cash could be made by hawking his prescription pain medications on the street. His medical records were replete with references to unverifiable aches and pains, memorialized with fancy medical diagnoses such as “degenerative disc disease,” and “fibromyalgia.” Stapleton covered his bases by undergoing the occasional manipulation or steroid injection, but he had vehemently rejected any and all surgical options – and fired any doctor who persisted with such a recommendation. Every week, Stapleton would abandon whatever old Western he was watching and venture the three blocks to the pharmacy on foot, where he would then pick up the narcotic pain reliever of choice, return to his tenth floor apartment and place a phone call. Within a half-hour, some sullen-eyed junkie would knock on his door, giddily swapping a perspiring wad of bills for a vial of pills. A recent afternoon nap had drifted into an introspective state of self-awareness – he was, in fact, a retired, self-employed logistics ‘consultant’-turned-drug dealer – but he had shaken off any lingering guilt by speculating that most of his buyers were too stoned off of illicit drugs obtained elsewhere to garner a tangible high from some prescription painkillers.

It was after one of these routine transactions that Stapleton received a phone call from an unfamiliar caller, who identified himself as Hofstetter. The conversation was abrupt and one-sided, but the gist of it was that Hofstetter was unhappy with Stapleton encroaching on his territory. Any 20

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dealer who refused to pay Hofstetter a reasonable territory tax – no matter how small the operation – would be surreptitiously blotted off the map. This news was conveyed in a more inarticulate, profanity-laced manner, but Stapleton got the point as he steeped a fresh cup of tea. The timing of Hofstetter’s phone call was particularly ill-timed, given that Stapleton’s viewing tastes had just recently evolved from black-and-white Westerns to 80’s sitcoms, and an episode of Newhart was about to begin. Stapleton’s instant affection for Newhart had motivated him to join a new mail-only organization he had read about in a magazine a few days ago. God is Darryl was an international group of 500 or so who believed that God created Earth in its current form during the advent of the television sitcom, and now periodically re-emerged in the form of various characters – most recently, the other brother Darryl in Newhart. Stapleton was not predisposed to the concept of organized religion, but it seemed that his love for Newhart could perhaps facilitate a change in mindset, and he was all in.

Stapleton placed the phone back on the receiver, bolted out of the apartment and took the stairs out to the street. A wave of intense pressure had latched on to both temples, but for once he did not contemplate a trip to the doctor’s office. This was stress – stress that Stapleton did not need.

Stress that he was bound to eliminate from his life immediately. The sudden feeling of overwhelming anxiety had caused him to briefly consider taking a couple of the expired pills in his bathroom closet.

He had resisted the urge, but the experience caused him to revisit a theory that had long fascinated him as he whiled away the hours in his apartment.

Many years ago, when he first began peddling pills, it had struck Stapleton that drug dealing was the only occupation on the planet that dissuaded enthusiasm for the core product or service being delivered. The more invested a headhunter was in the task of finding work for Joe Salesman, the greater his chances of success were at doing so. The more enthusiastic Joe Salesman was about phone book ads, the greater his chances were of convincing the local video store owner to buy one. The more passionate a video store owner was about movies, the better his selection would be – and thus his profits as well. Success in the world of work all revolved around these fundamental concepts – except when it came to drug dealing. A cocaine dealer who was head over heels about his product would probably start out making money, notwithstanding his periodic inventory consumption. The more money he made, however, the more product he could afford to snort up his nose. Inevitably, he would start being high all day, everyday, and any trace of business acumen the dealer had possessed would hunker down in the middle of an eight ball and self-ignite somewhere near the septum. The root of the problem, really, was that drugs had two uniquely devastating characteristics: one, they were addictive; two, they messed with your mind. If phone book ads got you high, the entire theory 21

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was impugned. But if phone book ads got you high, the salesmen would be out of work anyway. The fact that dealers seemed oblivious to this reality informed Stapleton’s hatred for the entire demographic, with which he did not associate himself for reasons obvious to him.

Stapleton crossed the avenue and glanced up ahead on his right, scanning past a travel bookstore and a payday loan shop with a fluorescent green dollar sign flickering in the window. This reminded him of his disdain for both predatory loans and the people who took them. It wasn’t quite analogous to the pedophilic entrapment victim, but it was close enough. He could see far enough past the payday loan place to tell that the offices he was looking for were still open. Stapleton hadn’t seen his old acquaintance Skip Lubbock in several years, but he assumed that Skip was still accepting new assignments.

Skip had always worked alone, and it was easy to understand why. Whatever personality he exhibited in his dealings as an investigator was totally isolated in this one area. Once you strayed outside those four corners, he had very little of substance to say, save for the occasional misplaced colloquialism – the bulk of his lexicon only managed to tickle the edges of the strike zone. His breath was always hot; his tongue constantly darting over the pink and purple tracks embedded in his chapped lips. It was tough to envision the man completely alone – not because it was a rare event, but because such a thought evoked the image of a man stepping outside his own skin and hanging it carefully next to a stack of files while muttering about some guy who was ducking service. Despite these shortcomings, however – and in large part due to his apparent hatred of other humans – he was a skilled investigator.

Stapleton stepped inside the antiquated office. The card table up front was vacant – as was, as best he could tell, the remainder of the place. He sat down in a cracked beige recliner and waited, but it wasn’t long before he heard a familiar-sounding voice spewing sparks of profanity out into the hallway.

“You tell that son-of-a- – yes, I know he did. I know he did, and that’s exactly why I’m gonna take this bat sitting right here next to me and shove it – yes, I know that Roger. I was born on a Sunday, but it wasn’t yesterday. Just tell him to call me. As far as I’m concerned, if he doesn’t, he’s as dead as a hangnail.”

Stapleton heard a long sigh, followed by another cluster of rapid-fire expletives, before the man he recognized as Private Investigator Skip Lubbock retreated from his office. The two men locked eyes, and Skip’s expression was vacant. It was clear that Stapleton’s face was not familiar.

“Help you, fella?”

“Skip – nice to see you after all these years. How are you getting by?”

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“Still above ground. We know each other?”

“Yes, I’m Ed Stapleton. You helped me about ten years ago when I was trying to track down my ex – well, never mind. It’s not important. I need some information on someone.”

“Who are you looking for?”

Stapleton scanned the office quickly. “Can we go back into your office to talk?”

“You see anyone else here, Ed?” “No.” “Tell me what you’ve got.”

“I need information on a guy named Hofstetter. The reason why is not important at this point.”

“Not important to you; or not important to me, Ed?” “You, I guess. I’m not doing anything illegal here; I just need some information on this guy.”

“OK. What else do you know about Mr. Hofstetter?”

“That’s it. His name is Hofstetter, and I think he lives somewhere in the city.”

“His name is Hofstetter, he lives ‘somewhere in the city,’ and you want to know all about him? Is that it, Ed?” “Yes.” “You know what he looks like?”

“No.” Skip chuckled to himself, shrugged, and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a nickel, inspected it for what seemed like an eternity and held it at eye level, saying nothing.

“What’s the nickel for, Skip?”

“You come in here and tell me that you want me to find a guy for you. His last name is Hofstetter. No first name. You think he lives, ‘somewhere in the city.’ No last known address. No phone number. You’ve never seen him before. For all you know, he might be a three-legged midget.

So now I’m asking you something. This nickel right here – I’m gonna go down to Oklahoma and find a big old haystack. Bury it down in there, nice and deep. You come down with me, and then you look for it. You find the nickel in the haystack – I go find Mr. Hofstetter. Deal?”

“Look, Skip. I’m not trying to give you the run-around here. I figured that if there was anyone who could take a little information and make something out of it, it was you. But, if that’s not the case, I’ll go look –.”

“Hold it cowboy, hold it. Don’t give me that, ‘if you can’t do it I’ll find someone else who can.’ You know I’m the only guy in this city who makes water run downstream. You go walk out of 23

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here with your ‘Hofstetter’ and your ‘I don’t know what he looks like, I don’t know what his first name is, I don’t know if he’s black or white or the fairy godmother but I need you to find him somewhere in this city, pleeeeeease,’ and you know what will happen. He’ll call you back in a week with a copy of the white pages and a bill for 300 bucks. I’ll find the guy, but it’ll cost you. I don’t work for free. So, you make the call. I have other clients who need my assistance.”

That night, for the first time he could remember, Stapleton had trouble falling asleep. The headache had only gotten worse since he left Skip Lubbock’s office, made one more stop, and returned to his apartment early in the evening. The pain seemed to penetrate his every thought at this point, and he could hear the blood funneling through his neck and up into his head and ears. It was almost as if his heart was beating right inside his eardrum, but he knew good and well that it was nothing more than his own neurotic predisposition. Pretty soon, a heartbeat would probably emerge from underneath the floorboards.

To make matters worse, the new blood pressure medication prescribed as a result of a recent visit to the doctor for chest pain required trips to the bathroom once or twice per night. The combination of the diuretic and the headaches meant that Stapleton was going to be awake with the image of Hofstetter in his mind for most of the night.

The only solace to be taken from Stapleton’s recent restlessness was that he had quite recently also become skilled in the art of afternoon napping. The process of resting comfortably, unencumbered by real or perceived time constraints, and then awakening to the reassuring sound of systemic progress ricocheting off the pavement like a muzzled gunshot had become cyclical. A feeling of deep satisfaction invariably followed, and Stapleton had concluded some time ago that it probably derived from his realization that neither his acquiescence to, nor his participation in the transactions being conducted ten floors below were necessary to their vitality. This awakening of sorts had lifted a sagging weight from his shoulders, and had also extended his periods of midday REM sleep.

Stapleton rehearsed the following day’s events in his mind, over and over, with workmanlike craftsmanship as he finally drifted away into the first level of unconsciousness. He knew that Skip would hold up his end of the deal, but he hoped it would happen soon. The guy, Hofstetter, was probably a low-level hood out to scare a few bucks out of an old-timer. He was probably sitting in his parents’ basement when he made the call, answering pages from a rotary phone while his mom heated his lunch in the microwave. No way was he going to bust down Stapleton’s door and pull a shotgun over a few bucks per week – especially not when Stapleton had his own plan in the works.

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He was not prone to violence, but was also not averse to the threat of violence.

Stapleton awoke to a ringing phone a few hours later. It was Hofstetter again. “You putting a hit on me, man?” It was more of an accusation than a question.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand –.”

“Don’t play with me. I watched you go down to that P.I.’s office yesterday, and last night I saw the same dude camped out down my street. If you think you can play with me like that, you’re about to find out what happens. You’re dead – you understand?” The receiver crashed into the phone on the other end. Stapleton placed the receiver gently on the cradle, and stared at his forearms – enough wattage charging through them to light the floors of all five oceans.

Some, perhaps even most, make a career out of worrying about the bad things that are just a quarter-mile up the road. The new changes to the company health insurance plan that are going to bankrupt the family in the event of a crisis. The new boss whose “corporate vision” might involve firing two-thirds of the company. But it’s always quiet before the storm hits. The one day the bank teller goes to work not worrying about the lunatic with the gun is the day he comes storming in, caution to the wind; fear of jail or death fully absolved in favor of the distant hope that one or the other, or both, may actually become reality. It’s possible that whoever deals the cards is a firm believer in mitigating the agony. But, more likely, it’s that this grand design of ours waits for the opportune moment to strike, when our hands are up, eyes closed, stomach unclenched.

If Stapleton had been such a man, he might have barricaded himself inside his apartment. But Stapleton was not such a man, and never had been. He took the stairs down to the street, ducked his head and retraced his steps from the day before. He had to get to Skip before Hofstetter got to either one of them. At the end of the first block, he found his path blocked, and glanced up slowly. He found Reynolds, an old friend from boarding school, standing with an arm outstretched. “Ed, how are you old friend?”

Stapleton pushed him aside and forged on, two steps at a time. At the end of the next block, a new, more petite set of feet appeared. He looked up again, and although his vision was blurred, he could tell that it was his first ex-wife – Susan. “Hi, Edward. Are you doing OK?” He stepped around her and pressed ahead, until the familiar green fluorescent light came into view. With Skip’s office just down the block, Stapleton broke into a sprint, panting as the sidewalk slipped in and out of view.

He reached up to pull the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, but found that his arms were numb.

When Stapleton reached the entrance to Skip’s office, he found tables of well-dressed men and women chatting over plates of food out on the sidewalk. He peered intently at the wooden sign 25

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on the door, but could not make the letters out, no matter how long he stood and stared. As he glanced at the faces at the tables, he could see mouths moving, and the voices were all familiar.

Suddenly, another voice called out behind him. “Hey, Ed, let’s talk.� He realized it was the voice from the telephone. Stapleton gulped hard, closed his eyes, and turned around slowly for the last time.

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1

Toxicity

Monica Fernandez Three weeks. It had been three weeks since that night. Three weeks since he scared her into submission, since he seduced her with his passion, since he burned her with his fire. Three weeks since, despite everything that had happened, she came when he did. Three weeks since she curled away from him instead of against him as she drifted off to sleep afterwards.

Three weeks since they touched each other.

Her period was late by five days. She avoided buying the pregnancy test for as long as she could, but she had to know for sure. So she peed on the stick. And she waited.

The three minute wait was agonizing. Her heart seemed to cave in with anticipation. Dread that disintegrated her stomach.

What if she was pregnant? What would she do? It wasn’t like she and Vigil used condoms anymore, but she took her birth control religiously. She should have been safer. Should have gone through any means necessary to prevent this.

She couldn’t have a child.

The timer on her phone went off and Megan grabbed the stick, squinting at the little screen that would decide her fate for the rest of her life.

Two lines. Two little lines. A positive test.

But was it positive, really?

Megan let out a frustrated sigh, throwing the test viciously into the trash as tears of distress blurred her vision. She started pacing the bathroom, running her hands through her hair as she tried to figure out her next move. Her hand moved unconsciously to her stomach – to her womb – where she now knew for sure a child was growing.

What was she going to do now? This was Vigil’s baby as much as it was hers. And she knew how much he wanted one. Was it terrible of her to admit that it was precisely his need for one that made her NOT want one so badly? He didn’t understand what children meant. He didn’t understand what this was going to put her through. He didn’t think about her at all, and that made her instantly hate this baby. Because it gave him everything he wanted, and took away everything that was best for her.

Megan was a selfish person. So was Vigil really, which is probably what made them so perfect for each other – if they both wanted the same things. But being a mother was one thing she knew she would never be able to handle.

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Perhaps if the child had been conceived out of love, out of passion. On accident. Perhaps if neither of them had expected it and it just happened, she would love it differently. But right now she hated it. She hated it. Hated that it was going to be growing inside of her for the better part of a year, draining her body of nutrients, changing her, preventing her from being all she could be and doing all she could do. Hated how it had been created and all of the memories it was going to bring with it.

She tried to look on the bright side. Tried to love it for the fact that it was a product of herself and Vigil – a little mini Megan or mini Vigil that would have his eyes and her hair. But then she remembered that night. She remembered her moans, involuntary but still there, and his thrusts, forceful and needy, and her mindset – her fear and sadness and disappointment and disgust. Her confusion as she tried to separate what was happening from her feelings for him – her distress as she tried to rationalize what happened, as she tried to be okay with it. As she tried to find an explanation.

As she tried to look at him the way she used to. But she couldn’t. Everything had changed.

She still loved him. Oh god, did she love him. And it was that fact that made her heart ache the most. Because no matter what happened to her, no matter how much it hurt her, she knew she would always do anything for him. She knew she would do anything he asked of her. And she also knew that she shouldn’t. She knew that he was toxic. He was poison. But she loved him and he loved her and they were just two individual messes being one tornado of a mess together, and she loved that. She loved the destruction they caused. She loved their disagreements, because it only made their reunions that much sweeter. She loved when they fought because she was never afraid of losing him.

Until now. Until this issue. Until heated arguments didn’t turn into the passionate kind of angry sex that she had come to look forward to. Until he started seeing her as something other than her own person – something other than a human being. Until he started getting so desperate, so unbelievably desperate that he would resort to … to that to get what he wanted from her.

She leaned her back against the bathroom door, sinking slowly to the floor as the tears overflowed and she started to sob.

What was she going to do? She didn’t want to have this baby. But any thought of hurting it or herself was out of the question because that would only hurt Vigil and she couldn’t do that to him.

But he’d never really know if she aborted the baby. She could go right now and never tell him.

But would that be a secret she could keep from him for the rest of her life? Would she be able to live with herself knowing she killed his unborn child – a child he had wanted so desperately, even if it was for all of the wrong reasons?

She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

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So once again, Vigil Licent had won.

She felt the sobs overtake her body, and she curled her legs to her chest, suddenly reminded of the days and weeks she had spent in this position so many years ago when she first found out that she had fallen in love with a liar.

This man. Jesus Christ, this man had put her through hell. He had dragged her through the mud, beat up and vulnerable, toyed with her in the worst ways possible. Played with her emotions like a gambler on a slot machine. Why did she still love him? Why was it so hard to stop? Why wasn’t she strong enough to realize she deserved better?

She hated herself. She hated being so weak when it came to him. She hated what he did to her, what he’s done to her since they reunited at his stupid reunion party so many years ago. She hated how she loved him, despite of everything. How she couldn’t stop, even though she’s tried so many times before. Even after all of the shit she’s been through, the thought of being without him seemed a thousand-fold worse than anything he put her through.

She heard the door to their bedroom open. Heard footsteps, then a soft, “Megan?” Everything was reflected in the tone of his voice. How he knew that everything was broken. Was he as desperate to fix it as she was to have it fixed?

She swallowed her last sob, sniffling and wiping away her tears. How would he feel about this? How did she want him to feel about this?

She tried to compose herself but it wasn’t working, because the two words that she was preparing to say kept repeating themselves in her head, almost making her lose it again.

She stood up from the floor. Opened the door. She met his green eyes carefully, the first held eye contact they’d maintained in weeks. She could see his concern, see the pain in his eyes at her distress. She took a few deep breaths. Each time she thought she’d say it, it was lost on her tongue.

But finally, she mustered up the energy. And her gaze was unwavering, filled with pain and accusation as she told him.

“I’m pregnant.”

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30

1

Management Training John Grochalski

I could’ve been anywhere in the world. But I was in a stifling room full of librarians. There must’ve been fifty of them, talking shop, sucking on coffee and eating stale pastries. Most of them were fanning themselves because of the heat. The administration put on the air conditioning. It wasn’t time yet. We still had to suck through two more weeks before they issued their annual edict to put on the air conditioning; then and only on that precise scheduled day could we finally feel cool and free.

After that, it would be battles over air conditioners by librarians and clerical staff throughout the city.

“Sign in, grab a coffee and a pastry, and sit down.”

Sign-in, grab a coffee and sit down weren’t suggestions, but orders. There’d be no diversions from sign-in, coffee, and sit down. But I didn’t grab a coffee or a pastry. It was my weak defiance. I did sign-in however. If I didn’t sign-in it meant that I’d receive no credit for this meeting. There’d be emails and phone calls to my supervisor. Then there’d be discussions with my supervisor about library policy; long drawn-out, repetitive talks that I did not want to have. So I did it. I waited out the other stragglers, for whom simply filling out their name was a task that needed to be discussed in full detail. Then I took the pen.

“Hello, Charlotte,” I said to the redhead standing by the sign-in sheet. She was fanning herself in between sips of coffee, and gazing longingly at the air conditioning vent.

“Hello, Rand,” she said. And that was the substance of our conversation. It was more than I said to most in this institution.

Because I was late I couldn’t take my usual seat in the back of the room, pressed up against the wall, as if by hugging the plaster or glossy wood paneling I could be saved from the proceedings.

I scanned the sea of fanning, coffee sucking and gum-flapping people. There were seats scattered here and there. I’d have to mount a climbing excursion to get to one. Christ. I began my climb toward a seat somewhere in the middle.

“Okay, okay,” said a voice from the front of the room. The front of the room had a laptop and wires connected to a projector screen that was casting shadows all over its blue light. The voice belonged to a fine looking Hispanic woman in a tight black skirt that showed off her legs. I had a weakness for Latina women. Maybe this meeting wouldn’t be so bad.

“What is a good manager?” she said. Leticia. Leticia Vazquez. She was some newbie in HR trying to make a name, which explained why we simpletons were corralled into this mandatory 31

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management training. This was Leticia’s big moment and we were her test subjects. I didn’t hold that against her. Her legs made it impossible for me to hold anything against her.

Like clockwork the hands went up. Leticia had her pick of the litter. It astounded me how participatory people were at meetings. I seemed to be the only one who ever came in with the dark, brooding burden of having to sacrifice my time for some kind of banal instruction that I’d never use. I was the only one who looked visibly pained. Maybe they put something in the coffee and pastries that made the others so amicable to answer questions. Maybe most of them were happy to just not be at their regular branch libraries this morning. I didn’t know. These people were fucking aliens to me, and their enthusiasm a strange and unbendable object that I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around. I feared their unknown.

“A good manager is someone who inspires,” someone said. I didn’t bother to look at who’d said it. Looking at them acknowledged that we were playing the same game. Looking acknowledged our mutual existence.

“Good,” Leticia said.

“A good manager is caring.”

“A good manager is bold.”

“A good manager is fair.”

“Good, good, and good,” Leticia said.

We were all managers in this room, defining ourselves as caring and bold and fair, when I knew for a fact that some of these people were Hitler-like autocrats hated by their subordinates with a passion unparalleled. At least one had been attacked. Two or three had standing lawsuits filed against them; one by his whole staff. Even I had an employee who’d sent some of the drawings from my blog to HR, trying to get me fired, because he thought they were distorted images of him. There was no such thing as a good manager. Someone always hated the boss. I still hated bosses. And those drawings were about him, the lazy sack of shit.

This good manager business went on for another ten minutes. You could tell that Leticia got more of a response than she’d wanted to because she started rushing people along, answering for them. A good manager is someone se….self-assured, Leticia would finish one sentence, and then point for the next hand while the last respondent sat there bewildered. Had they meant self-assured?

They must’ve since Leticia had plucked the word out of their mouth. It was too much. I sat there hoping my hangover wouldn’t get any worse.

Occasionally I glanced at the big shots in the room. They were whispering and laughing. We were their fools. We were their amusement for the day. Was that the idea? They haul all of us little 32

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people into this boiling room to play games with Leticia for a few hours while they sit back and laugh at us? See how much of the Kool-Aid we’d actually drink? How much more we’d need before we became good automatons. I wanted out. But there was no out save jumping out the window.

“Okay,” Leticia said. “I’m going to break you all up into five groups. When I point at you count off 1, 2, 3….”

Leticia started pointing and we started counting. We were no longer people. We were 1’s or 2’s, or 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s. I was a 1. When we were done counting we had to meet with our group in our designated area of the room. It was bedlam with people getting up and chit-chatting, and going for more coffee and pastries, or asking each other the ubiquitous question: is this where I’m supposed to go?

I knew two people in my group; Edith Allen and Felicia Collins. Edith was my supervisor’s girlfriend, although no one at my branch was supposed to know that fact. But we all did. We weren’t on speaking terms other than a hello or a terse nod. As for Felicia, it seemed that in each and every one of these management training meetings she and I called the same number and inevitably ended up in the same group. We were cosmically linked by the unfortunate power of numbers. Felicia looked like Woody Allen. If you put Woody Allen in women’s clothing you’d have Felicia. When the woman stuttered it took complete and total self-control not to laugh. I could gauge my Woody Allen film watching spurts based on when I had meetings with Felicia.

“I want you all to pick a team leader,” Leticia shouted over the cacophony of displaced managers. Edith was voted ours. I hadn’t voted. My apathy had caused me to abstain from the process. I was still sitting on the outskirts of my group, trying to figure out the collateral damage to my “career” if I just walked out of that room.

“Isn’t this great,” Felicia said to me.

“This is one of the most blatant acts of self-flatulence that I’ve ever seen in my life,” I said. “I should’ve called in sick.”

She sat there grinning. Felicia was a dim bulb if I’d ever seen one. But this system had promoted her again and again because they had nothing else to do with her, and she refused to retire.

One day they’d cart her out on a stretcher, and two weeks later no one would remember her name.

Leticia pulled a big, blue plastic box up from under a table. “I need the team leaders to come over here and grab as many Legos as you can.”

Legos? Had Leticia said Legos? She sure had. Every team leader got up to get their pile of the colored blocks. They looked like a pack of shuffling elephants, full on sugar, starches, and saturated fats. Edith came back with our Legos. She held them because she didn’t know what to do with them.

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We had a five minute conversation about the fact that Edith didn’t know what to do with the Legos.

Should she pass them out amongst the group? Put them on the carpet in front of us like we were five year-olds waiting to dig-in and create? Why hadn’t Leticia given us any instruction from the start?

Our group wanted to know. We were hungry for instruction.

“The reason you have Legos,” Leticia began, as Edith breathed a sigh of relief, “is because I want you to build something.” The crowd noise roared. This truly was a diversion from the day to day business of doing mundane tasks, and handling patron complaints. Leticia was a Moses leading us out of Egypt; she was Jesus Christ with hot legs. “I’m going to give you twenty minutes for your team to build something together. And when we’re all done we’re going to regroup, and everyone will have a chance to guess what you built before you tell us all about it.”

Edith dropped the Legos and everyone dug in. Grown men and women dropped to the floor in a clacking pile of Legos and began building. The room became noise-filled and headache inducing at the excited chatter of my colleagues. My stomach felt ill. I thought that I was going to vomit up last night’s whiskey from the heat of the room. Suddenly a vent clicked. I looked back at the higher ups and they were still laughing. Were they gassing us poor bastards? I wanted to tell Felicia, anyone, to run for it. But Felicia was bent over her Legos with her granny panties on full display, and nearly everyone else was building.

I prepared for a horrible death. But suddenly the room felt cool. It wasn’t gas. It was air conditioning. They’d thrown us saps a bone after all. Hallelujah. Relieved, I sat back and thought about Leticia wrapping those legs of hers around my waist. I spent time clicking a pen that I had stolen from the Le Richelieu Hotel in New Orleans, and harnessing a fantastic hard-on thinking about this bartender chick on Frenchman Street. The pen still worked after three years. At my age my manhood came in stops and starts.

“Rand.” I pulled myself out of a sexual daze. I looked down. Edith was sitting on the floor like a petulant three year-old girl. She was holding a Lego out to me. “You need to participate.”

“I’m here aren’t I?” “We’re building a bridge,” this hefty black girl said from the floor. When had we decided this? I looked at the structure. It was a mass of color that had been built up. It could’ve been a bridge.

It could’ve been an oubliette. It could’ve been a gallows at this point.

“I’m making the boat,” Geoffrey Lodge said to me. He was in a full suit and tie, and lying on the ground pushing a few blue Legos back and forth. Geoffrey irked me. He’d once sat next to me in a meeting fully admitting to the fact that he was on vacation that week, but wanted to come by to take in the action. From that moment on I thought him insane. I found Geoffrey suspect and I avoided him 34

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whenever I could.

I took my piece from Edith. It was a long rectangle of green. I placed it on top of the others and then went back to my pen from Le Richelieu, and my dirty thoughts.

Twenty minutes later all of our Lego structures were complete, and our team leaders were lording over them like proud parents. Our bridge had collapsed three times during the building.

Geoffrey’s boat stayed intact. Each time us 1’s rebuilt the bridge it looked worse and worse. From my tactical standpoint of non-participation, I could see that it was a pile of shit. You couldn’t pay me to cross a bridge like the one we 1’s had constructed. Leticia herself could be on the other end of the bridge, nude, waiting to usher me into the promise land between her legs, and I still wouldn’t cross.

“So what did we all build?” Leticia asked.

We’d all built bridges. At least three of the five groups had built them. We’d all built bridges to the future. What future? Our future. The future of silver jumpsuits, global warming and brain chips embedded in our skulls. It was the future and we’d built it with Legos. Personally, I wished that I could build a bridge to early retirement and a hefty pension; or one back to the past to prod my folks to become insanely wealthy. I would’ve made a great leech.

One group, the number 2’s (no pun intended), built the library of the future. It had an atrium and a fireplace, a computer lab for the patrons, and even a special section way in the back for those sad bastards still reading books. Of course, we couldn’t see this from the structure alone. We had to use our imaginations. I imagined blowing up the library of the future, and building a park in its place.

Everyone oohed and aahed at the number 2’s creation. Geoffrey Lodge stayed on the carpet pushing his Legos back and forth. But we have a boat, he said to us 1’s.

The number 4’s, a rather surly bunch, had built one of our automated self-check-out machines that broke down every third patron. Knowing groans spread throughout the room, and I perked up.

Now, we’re getting to the nitty-gritty. I looked around the room at everyone shooting daggers at that Lego structure. We all hated the automated self-check-out machines. People booed the Lego selfcheck-out machines. We were on the brink of anarchy. I could smell it. Revolution. But then Leticia shook her finger at the 4’s and said, now, now. The higher ups stopped laughing, and I think I saw Charlotte write down some names. I could’ve sworn that someone had cut off the a/c. The room grew docile with the threat. Today would not be our Bastille Day. “I think it’s time we took a break for lunch,” Leticia said.

I looked at my watch. Holy shit, it was damned near one o’clock. Where’d my time gone? I peeled myself away from my leather seat. I was sweat-soaked and drained. How long would this training last? I took a peek at Felicia’s agenda sheet. The paper said we were going all day. All 35

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fucking day? What horror was to come after lunch? I read. It was role playing exercises. Leticia had marked off two hours for role playing. I couldn’t role play with these people for two hours. I couldn’t watch them role play for two hours. I’d murder someone during the course of this exercise. I’d be going to jail for sure if I stayed in this management training. I tried to see what was on the agenda after role playing. I assumed it was ritual molestation by cattle prod. But Felicia caught me looking at her agenda sheet and made an exasperated sound. Then she shoved the paper in a folder.

“They sent one in your email,” she said to me.

I just nodded.

“When we come back we’re going to discuss the three main styles of managing,” Leticia said.

Someone clapped. Who was this sheep? I readied my pen to jab away at their weak neck. “We’ll be discussing the repressive style, the sharing style, and the submissive style of management.” What?

What? And what? “Now, I want you to spend your lunch hour thinking about what those types could mean.”

Leticia freed us from our unholy bond for the hour. We were set to disband but people still milled about the stuffy meeting room. They wanted another look at the different Lego structures.

They wanted to talk about bridges and building bridges, and a lot of them wanted to go over to group 4 and bitch some about the automated self-check-out machines. My colleagues accosted Leticia. They shook her hand and told her how brilliant she’d been that morning. She was beaming. Leticia was in full rock star mode, crossing and uncrossing those blessed caramel-colored legs. Even the higher ups had gathered around her to heap on their hard-earned praise. Leticia would most likely be running the HR department in a year. Legos would be de rigueur at all training sessions. Christ, I needed out.

The wind was brilliant outside; the cool air a sweet majesty. I felt new. I felt rejuvenated just being away from that place and those people. I walked along the bustling city streets. I had no clue where I was going, but I wanted to be as far away from the main library as I could get. I didn’t even want food. I wanted a stiff drink, something the Felicias and Leticias and higher ups of the world couldn’t smell on my breath. I wanted to enjoy my life. I wanted to soak up every moment without thought, and without worrying about the details. Maybe I’d quit and move to Paris or Vienna. They had libraries there, didn’t they? I’ll bet they didn’t play with Legos in Paris. The sky would be the limit. I’d never mention this management training again. It would be like it never happened. It never happened anyway.

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A Series of Controlled Explosions David Haight

Evelyn sat at the kitchen table the tiny hands of her tiny body wrapped in supplication around her coffee cup and never once looked at her husband of thirty-nine years. This was in contrast to Pat’s massive form, grown fat from years of over-eating, bounding around their cramped kitchen, his whale of a belly swung left and right, knocking into cabinets and the backs of chairs, his voice hoarse as he tried to make a case for the continuation of their marriage. There was nothing forceful or intimidating (or even convincing) about him no matter how many times he banged his pulpy left fist into his equally pulpy right palm. He had done more talking in the last hour than he had the last ten years of their marriage. She didn’t budge.

All she could think about was that cow, that god damned cow that he bought, behind her back, while she was at church, after they had discussed it, after she had told him no, that it was too expensive, that the freezer was already cramped and that it was too much meat for just the two of them no matter how many times the kids were invited home for dinner. It would spoil and then what was the point? But he did it anyway like he always had. She could barely get herself to go into the garage. Her freezer was overflowing with the black, reds, and white rock hard parts of the dismembered beast: rumps and flanks and cheeks, chuck ribs, brisket and whatever else a cow can be transformed into.

It was sickening. Stupid, too. As she had gotten older (which is all she felt she had gotten: older, not wiser, not happier, certainly not richer) she barely ate meat. She knew with a nudge she could have become a vegetarian but with the kids gone she would have to incorporate that infernal cow into every, already generous meal he ate, which was exactly what happened.

He was going on about all the years they had spent together, admitting to mistakes he had made, assuring her they would not be repeated, and warning her that even as adults the kids would be devastated if they split (remember your father? he repeated in a particularly cruel gambit) but she was barely paying attention. She was watching his shadow on the kitchen wall behind him.

She thought about the days before they were married. She would camp out in Frostie’s parking lot with Lisa, munching French fries and sipping sodas and watch him and Eddie Domino set the streets of New Holland on fire in that old Dodge Dart. He thrilled her with tales of County Road 76, and the kids that had died trying to take its ninety degree turn at 100 miles an hour. Every Friday she begged him to take her. She remembered the night he did. When they hit 90 she buried her head in his massive bicep. From the backseat Eddie was screaming, “We’re not going to make it,” and “Pat 37

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we’re going to flip,” until she was in tears. At the last minute they shot past it. She was furious. His arm was black and blue for a week.

That was before he received his draft notice. Her father warned her not to be stupid. But they couldn’t stop making love. It’s as if they wanted to get pregnant. They got married, alone at the courthouse and he left for Vietnam. Eddie Domino had left a month earlier. He never came back.

Every time one of those army trucks slithered into the neighborhood she stared out between the curtains and sobbed until it left. He came back to a brand new daughter, Cindy, sold his Dodge, and got a job at a textile company. She became a nurse at Cindy’s elementary school and a few years later Charles was born. Her father true to his word never saw them again or either of his grandchildren.

Evelyn threw herself into motherhood with an almost frightening abandon, monitoring their diet, signing them up for music lessons, getting them private tutors to improve their academics, enrolling them in gymnastics and karate (for Cindy and Charles respectively) and during the summer made sure they had all number of activities to keep them stimulated, their minds active and growing.

Unfortunately this singular focus on her children also signaled the end of her marriage as a romantic endeavor giving credence to her sister’s cruel joke that Charles’s conception was the last time Evelyn and Pat had made love. But Evelyn ignored her sisters. Unfortunately she also ignored Pat, when he pined for her attention, when he offered his opinion on the kids. When she’d overhear the guys teasing him that he was no longer on the board of directors in his marriage, she ignored that too and stubbornly stayed in that holding pattern raising her children. When Cindy left for college she had her first nervous breakdown and when Charles followed a few years later, a second. If she wasn’t a mother what was she? After nearly four decades she still didn’t know.

That was why listening to him now was so strange. She hadn’t counted on this young man’s desperation, his manic fear of loss, losing, being abandoned, or whatever this clinging to their dead marriage was. It confounded her. They hadn’t been happy in decades. Wouldn’t he be grateful to be given a fresh start before it was too late, if it wasn’t already? When she was seventeen he was the most exciting man she had ever met. This terror resembled that man reflected through a fun house mirror. She stared at the coffee cup.

Pat put his hands on either side of the sink. There was a slow drip. “Please don’t do this Evelyn. I love you.” She straightened up in the hard, unforgiving chair. Her mouth dried up. She felt each breath start at the pit of her stomach and make its way up and out of her body like rotten food that needed to be expelled. If he was playing a game he was playing to win. She had to concentrate on the yellow chicken on the coffee cup to keep her eyes from welling up. After all the years 38

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measured only in the silences between the times he had spoken those rotten words and the anticipation of when he would speak them again, they had simultaneously lost their meaning and grown more powerful. They were like the sun: large, remote and incomprehensible. Nevertheless they had the power to give and take away life. It didn’t matter if he meant it or was lashing out in the death throes of their marriage. There was something primordial about her need to hear them. She exhaled and said nothing.

“Evelyn? Did you hear me?” he said staring into the sink.

His voice had that strange lilting tone she had only heard a few times in all their years together: when he accidentally electrocuted himself while cutting branches off that dying pine in the backyard, knocking him off the ladder (the jolt stopping his heart, the fall restarting it), when his mother died - now. Her heart ached. But a sourness, like a best friend pointing at a scar, reminded her of that family picnic when he accused her of flirting with her younger sister’s boyfriend, a claim he knew was fraudulent the moment it left his thin graying lips, gathered in the back of her throat. He slept in the guest room the rest of the summer. She never acknowledged his accusation, not then, not ever. Addressing any of the things Pat had done was risky. She couldn’t give her mother another divorce. Stephanie had given her three, Sheryl one. Her mother always said quite simply, I want you to be happy, when one of her girls told her of an impending divorce, a compound lie. Being an ardent Catholic she would have sacrificed all of her daughter’s happiness to avoid that stain. Evelyn knew this and waited. She knew every humiliating thing Pat did was a charge placed throughout their marriage that she believed would detonate the day her mother died.

Then her mother died and her marriage still stood, continued on for eight more years. It became clear she would have to end things herself. But she hadn’t the courage until he bought that cow, until now. She took a breath, put her hands on her thighs and was about to stand up and look at Pat, for the first time in years when she noticed it – hung on the back of the kitchen chair opposite her: Robert’s favorite leather jacket, the one with the furry collar. It had been right in front of her the entire time but remained invisible. She nearly gasped. He had come over early this morning to fix the bathroom sink. She had forgotten all about him.

He was on his back, under the sink, right up the stairs, oblivious to what was going on, or perhaps waiting for them to stop so he could excuse himself as he crept down the stairs (even abandoning his beloved jacket) and sneak out of the house. He would minimize the damage when he told Cindy. She would find a pretense for calling, babysitting little Gregory or a shopping trip. She would need to get warmed up before finally asking about what Robert had heard. Charles wouldn’t call. He would drive over and demand to know what was going on. The thought of seeing her son’s 39

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face, the knowledge of what just occurred saturated in his eyes, etched in his too-large forehead would be too much. He already would know. They both would. They would take her side. They would exile their father. Evelyn knew about exile. After her marriage to Pat she never saw her father again until he lie buried at St. Marks. By no fault of his own Robert had destroyed everything.

“Robert honey,” Evelyn said, calling toward the stairs, once more grasping the now cool coffee cup between her shaking hands.

“What’s up?” he said appearing at the stair head, panting, his hair sweaty, sticking to his forehead. If he had heard she couldn’t tell.

“Why don’t you call Cindy and have her bring little Gregory over for dinner.”

Pat lifted his head.

Robert nodded, “Sounds good,” and disappeared into the bathroom.

“Why don’t you go get some vegetables, snow peas and some wine and I’ll make… I’ll make something,” she said to Pat. Pat reacted sluggishly the way he had when he fell from that ladder not completely certain she was even speaking to him. He made his way swiftly to the car. She heard the engine growl to a start.

He backed swiftly, carelessly down the driveway nearly flattening the mailbox. She could hear Robert’s muffled voice on the phone to her daughter. Evelyn entered the garage and leaned against the freezer. It was dark. She stood until the soft humming threatened to put her legs to sleep but the turgid meat inside the freezer let out a sickening howl. Straightening herself up Evelyn was prepared, eager for whatever was to come. Before she could sacrifice herself to that nameless something she was jolted back to her senses, by the rough spinning, pulling motors and the slow steady rising of the garage door. By the time it had risen entirely she reentered the house and had begun preparing dinner.

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The Small Red Book James Winnett

As I sit in my car, I look out at my parents’ house. It was my house once too, but that was years ago. It looks just how I remember, but there is something different; something queer that’s hard to define by just the sight of it. The windows used to be lined with plants; there were all sorts of small potted ones that my mother swore she would never keep alive, and yet somehow she always did. I can see the door, wide and welcoming as always. Set against the white-washed walls that contrast just perfectly with the cream colors that my father painted the porch.

Stepping out of my car, I begin to cross the yard towards the door. There’s a path of flat stones set into the ground. The steps up the porch were larger back then, too. My brother, older than me by far, would sit on the steps, and I would stand allowing us to talk face to face. I think those were some of the last days that we ever saw eye to eye. Today, I’m not even sure if I could say what city my brother lives in, and there’s no chance I could recall his phone number. He left as soon as he could and never looked back. I’m not sure if I was supposed to look for him, but I never did.

The door to my parents’ house is locked. I pull a large key from the envelope that’s tucked, forgotten under my arm. The door opens and I’m greeted by a distant smell of cinnamon. For a moment I ponder the idea of fresh cookies cooling on the counter and how they would taste with a cool glass of whatever lemonade or tea my mom had prepared. When I close the door behind me, I’m reminded that the days of cookies are past. In the kitchen I place the envelope on the table and remove my coat. There are things everywhere I look; all of the possessions, conveniences, and collections that two people can gather in their lives are stuffed into every corner of every space. On the shelf, I see the small set of porcelain figurines that my mother loved so dearly. They depict families gathered together, and happy children. I can see why she liked them so much. I turn away from the figures and remember that at the moment, more than cookies, tea or small figurines, I need boxes.

I still remember the path to the attic, even after all this time. I pass my old room; I can’t help but stop to look. Once the only place I could call my own, it’s now an empty guestroom. For a second, I start towards the dresser, wondering if the picture I had hidden behind it years ago is still there. Then I stop and realize that nothing is the same as it was. There’s still a bed and a dresser, but they have changed and do not even rest in the same place as where mine did. Turning from the room, I can see the string of the attic door swinging in the hall. The steps to the attic are painted brown. My father insisted that the house wouldn’t be finished if there were unpainted, wooden steps lingering 41

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about.

The attic is stuffed in a way that I should have expected after having seen the house. There are boxes and baby furniture piled in every space possible. I suppose these are the things people gather in their lives that at some point they don’t need anymore; the things that stop being important. Looking around at all of the old belongings, I search to see if my old bed, dresser, or any of the other half remembered items from my room still rest here. I pause when my gaze falls upon a pile of books stacked in a column ten high, which, apparently, were not even worthy of a box to care for them.

I pull over a box marked “XMAS” to use as a chair. I grab the top book of the pile and scan the cover, searching for a title. The book is old and the red cover is dry and cracking. I cannot tell if the book’s title has faded or there was ever one there. The spine reveals nothing either, so I open the book, deciding that now, I simply must know. There is no title as far as I can see; there is only the name of what I assume to be the author, although it is a name I do not recognize. Flipping through the pages I quickly find that the book is filled with poetry, some short and some long.

I feel he was a poet that few would know, even in his own time. His words are simple and comforting. Here, in the early pages he talks of farmers and the everyday moments that we all know so well. Of farmers, however, I know nothing. I let his words act like a passage to a world I hardly knew existed. I learn of what life was like for farmers then, and I can guess what life is like for them now. The early mornings and the struggles of man against nature are here, and they are expressed so clearly. I let the poems in the book take me one by one, each a journey into a new life and a new world, all of which are so unfamiliar.

Then, I turn another page in the small red book, and the poet, who I never knew existed, talks of something besides farmers and normal life. The next poem talks of death. That’s when I close the book and place it back on top of the pile, before stepping down out of the attic. Of death, I know too much already.

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My Baby Shot Me Down Monica Fernandez

The scratchy sounds of Nancy Sinatra on vinyl played lazily on the phonograph in the cabin.

Violet could hear the sound of the pin scratching the record, a steady static as though a light rain was falling outside.

Violet looked up from the lap she had been lying on on the floor, staring out the window. Had it actually started raining yet? The dark clouds that had been looming in the sky looked ominous, when they had arrived there several hours ago – Violet and this mysterious American boy who had appeared to her in a dream.

The cabin was quiet aside from the music.

I was five, and he was six. We rode on horses made of sticks…

No rain yet. Violet rested her head once more on the boy’s abdomen with an almost inaudible sigh. She closed her eyes, letting the music fill her mind. The haunting single guitar and that lilting vibrato voice reminiscent of a time before her – reminiscent of history.

It was nice here, in this cabin in the back woods of Maine. She looked up at the ceiling and saw past it, imagining the world as though the roof was not there. She could see the towering trees.

She could feel the stillness of the woods, could smell the freshness of the air and practically touch the wet leaves on the high branches. She could taste the freshwater from the stream nearby.

Violet’s icy green hues stared up at the sky as she felt the steady rise and fall of the body beneath her. The peace and solitude; the quiet; the oneness with nature and the world. The constant curiosities that were always buzzing around in her head were silenced, a reverent audience to the haunting melody.

Bang, bang, that awful sound…

It was strange that she had found camaraderie in another person. It was strange that she could be and he could be and they could be together. She never believed that anyone else who understood what she wanted existed. And it wasn’t that she felt she was holier-than-thou. It was just that she felt so disconnected from humans and human nature that she had resigned herself to being alone.

And then she met the American. With his American accent and his American customs and his strange, disconnected nature that she somehow connected with.

The record continued to play. The music seemed to echo, as though the cozy little cabin was a vast cathedral instead. Or was the echo in the recording itself?

Bang, bang, my baby shot me down…

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It was so quiet. The song faded into silence, with only the scratching of the pin on the vinyl for the longest time. So quiet. Just the sound of the phonograph and the barely audible breaths of the only two living beings in the cabin. Eventually even the record stopped, but neither Violet nor the boy got up to change it. There was something better than that haunting 1966 recording that hung in the air – in the silence.

Because just beyond the two young adults lay four bloody bodies. And the silence that followed the end of Bang Bang only solidified in stone the lives they had taken. And the lives they now had.

Together.

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Contributors Dawn Corrigan's poetry and prose have appeared in a number of print and online journals, with work forthcoming from Silver Birch Press, The Bookends Review, Lighten Up Online, The Screaming Sheep, Brain of Forgetting, and The Wallace Stevens Journal. Her debut novel, an environmental mystery called Mitigating Circumstances, was published by Five Star/Cengage in January 2014. She lives in Gulf Breeze, Florida in the corporeal world and at www.dawncorrigan.com online.

Michael Critzer's short stories have appeared on The Story Shack, Horror Novel Review, and other sites as well as in publications from Firebringer Press, Short Scary Tales and others. His work has been described as the Twilight Zone with an MFA. He teaches analytical and creative writing in Central Virginia, and he is currently completing his first novel. Keep up with him on facebook/authorMichaelCritzer or @MichaelCritzer on Twitter.

A recent graduate of the University of California, Irvine, with a BA in English, Monica Fernandez has had several short stories and creative nonfiction pieces published in various journals across Southern California and the Southwest. She is currently working on the first novel of what she hopes to be many.

John Grochalski is the author of The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and the novel, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he constantly worries about the high cost of everything.

David Haight was born in Minneapolis and educated at Hamline University where he received a degree in English and Philosophy and later an MFA in Writing where he was distinguished by the Quay W. Grigg award for Excellence in Literary Study. He published his first novel Overdrive in 2006 his second Me and Mrs. Jones in 2012 and recently finished a collection of short stories. He lives in the Twin Cities with his wife Lynn.

Blake Shuart is a 32 year-old attorney living in Wichita, Kansas. He has been writing for many years, but began aspiring to publish within the past two years or so. When not working or spending time with his wife and two young daughters (with a third on the way in a few weeks), he spends his time reading and writing.

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James Winnett was born and raised in sunny San Diego. For college, he traded the sun of California for a completely different experience of the sun in Arizona. He is a current MFA student of Northern Arizona University. He is also the non-fiction editor of NAU's Thin Air Magazine. He now lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he is a dedicated gamer, and student of fiction of all genres.

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