The Opiate: Spring 2022, Vol. 29

The Opiate Spring 2022, Vol. 29

The Opiate

Your literary dose.

© The Opiate 2022 Cover art: Elisabetta Sirani, “Portia Wounding Her Thigh” (1664) This magazine, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced without permission.

Contact theopiatemagazine@gmail.com for queries.

“No neurotic harbors thoughts of suicide which are not murderous impulses against others redirected upon himself.”

-Sigmund Freud

“Words, they cut like a knife. Cut into my life. I don’t want to hear your words. They always attack. Please take them all back.”

-Madonna

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

Editor-in-Chief Genna Rivieccio Editor-at-Large Malik Crumpler Editorial Advisor Anton Bonnici Contributing Writers: Fiction: Beth Escott Newcomer, “Blown Out” 10 Max DeVoe Talley, “King of Kingman” 14 Adam Matson, “Deus Ex Manhattana” 21 David Obuchowski, “Almost Nothing” 24 Kathleen Glassburn, “Lost and Found” 36

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Poetry: Emalisa Rose, “Hiding the wretch that I am,” “While he was away,” “When the moon leaves me cold,” “The catharsis of clean” & “Stray cat 37” 43-47 QH Flaccanoid, “Christmas Trip to Berlin: A Scrapbook” 48-51 Susie Gharib, “Virginia Woolf,” “I Dreamt,” “Verify you’re not a robot” & “Like the Sea” 52-55 Ron Kolm, “My Struggle” & “CBGBs” 56-57 Antonia Alexandra Klimenko, “The Fly-by-Night” 58-59 Ivana Mestrovic, “Local History, Venice” & “The Wedding Photo” 60-62 Mitchell Waldman, “A Single Black Crow” 63 Suzanne O’Connell, “One Swollen Day” 64 Elise Swanson Ochoa, “Writing Is Like A Bloodletting” 65 Emma Jo Black, “Time of Your Life” & “Confessions to the Softboy” 66-67 Criticism: Genna Rivieccio, “For A Misogynist Time, Call BUtterfield 8” 69

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

Editor’s Note

When one thinks of self-mutilation, perhaps the automatic stereotype that comes to mind is an “overdramatic” teen girl just trying to “get attention” or “feel edgy” (see: Thirteen). Few people understand that it is a true form of release, especially for the repressive type who turns all of their contempt for society and what it demands of a human being (which is to dehumanize themselves in order to function) onto their own body. For we are all expected to go through this thing called life like obedient little duckies who don’t complain about how utterly absurd the system in place is. Anyone who talks about it for too often or too long is deemed to be “ranting,” and lately, runs the risk of being put on some kind of “list.” For being someone who has not accordingly accepted that “this” is “the way it is.”

Like a “normal” adult does. And even now, in 2022, that is still the most important thing to most, even (and perhaps especially) so-called artists.

Sure, it used to be the thing that, as an artist (namely, a writer), it was practically a prerequisite to be tortured and weird. But now, it’s as though the infection of “being normal” (read: monetizable) has bled into this once-sacred realm as well. For even artists, all damned to have social media, must pretend to be as normal as they can, lest something “offensive” comes back to bite them in the ass (even years later) after they’ve posted it. Because then, assuming la fama actually does come, it could be snatched away just as quickly as a result of something you did or said that went “against the grain.” Even though that’s precisely what art is supposed to do. And no, I’m not talking about the kind of “free speech” (a.k.a. hate speech) the right wants to bill as part of the First Amendment. But the kind that still challenges and provokes thought. Or, heaven forbid, incites a discourse among those remaining who haven’t been turned entirely into zombies.

And maybe it’s the sight of zombies all around that further propels one to want to hurt themselves just to cope. Just to feel. But often it’s the former reason, as Portia knew all too well. Not to be confused with the one in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, this is the one from Julius Caesar, based on Brutus’ wife, Porcia, who decided to prove her vigor to her husband by stabbing herself in the thigh to elucidate how adept she was at absorbing pain... as though a woman needs to prove any such thing based on having a monthly period alone (one would use the child birth analogy except, in case you need to be reminded, not every woman will come to know that pain). This grand gesture being done to show him that, even if tortured to give up information about the plot against Caesar, she could endure the agony in silence against the pressure. Ah, such fools for men women can still be (and I should know).

Always trying to prove themselves to such an overtly inferior gender that patently doesn’t give even half as much of a shit about their genital opposite.

After committing this self-harm, Portia was only too eager to declare, “I found that my body also can keep silence.” That is, in addition to her mouth, as the mouths of women continue to be shut in the face of a society that so loves to announce that the sexes are equal now. We can all stop “playing the victim card” just because we’re women. “Things have changed,” etc. But of course, they have not. Which is why something like the Plymouth shooting in the U.K. back in August of 2021 can still happen. The fact that misogyny isn’t deemed a form of terrorism (while misandry causes males to quake in their boots thanks to the once-in-a-lifetime likes of Valerie Solanas) is why men continue to get away with so much abuse. And yes, emotional abuse counts as well. It’s part of why women haven’t been able to decondition their brains from constantly questioning their true worth—which is continuously dictated by

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seeking male approval. As was the case when Portia decided to stab herself in the thigh so as to show Brutus her value. A woman’s worth always boiling down, in one way or another, to her body. At least in men’s eyes.

And yet, no matter how self-sacrificing or how accommodating, it turns out to never be enough.

Especially after that withered and worn body becomes too shriveled for a man to desire. Which begs the question of why a woman really bothers with constantly giving in to the long-standing indoctrination that she “has to” please men. For what end? To be cast aside or killed... whether figuratively or literally? Because let’s not forget there are also a thousand ways to die by a man’s psychological warfare. Worst of all, he seems blithely “unaware” of what he’s doing. Otherwise known as: gaslighting. Making you feel crazy for having very warranted feelings. A response to being treated like little more than a stool pigeon regardless of how Portia-esque you try to be in your bid to “prove yourself.”

Enter the Freudian take on suicide as it might apply to a woman scorned. It is not really herself she wants to kill, so much as channel any murderous impulses aimed at a man onto her own person. Cut, cut, cut. Self-loathe, self-loathe, self-loathe. Because that’s what women are brainwashed to do. To place any and all blame squarely on their shoulders. Wondering what they might have or could have done differently to change the always inevitable outcome: being dismissed. The worst part about it, perhaps, is that the woman, in her own mind, was aware of the keen dissatisfaction she felt while being with this mediocre man (as the only man who isn’t happens to be dead: Albert Einstein). But she chose to “stick it out” anyway. That’s what Tammy Wynette told us all to do, right? “Stand by your man.” Make him feel “big” and “important.” Be his goddamn surrogate mother. And that’s what they all want, in the end. A replacement to fill the void that Mommy left when she sent them packing. They want to be “taken care of,” despite the fact that the only purpose they’ve ever served in this life is being deemed as the “providers” (‘cause God or whoever knows that artificial insemination and the best vibrators technology can create have rendered their dicks a moot point). In the genesis of this dynamic, “providing” translated to hunting and gathering. In modern times, it meant being the one to go to the office, where the only women there were “secretaries”—not only present to type, but serve as potential mistress material, to boot. Because one woman is simply never enough for a man. The biological excuse being that he’s “hard-wired” to spread his seed all over, create the most progeny.

What with men being very concerned about leaving behind a legacy... inexorably failing to leave any artistic or monetary contributions that are worth a damn. And when all else does fail, they say, breed. Especially more mini assholes who can grow up with the underlying assumption that they’re simply better by sheer “virtue” of not being “just a girl.”

The mother who raises these men can’t help herself in making him feel “special” either. Women, once more, being complicit in their own way with regard to perpetuating the vicious cycle of an ingrained self-superiority within men that has had a centuries-long headstart in spreading. Like racism, undoing the damage of this enduring propaganda may never actually happen. Particularly since people who possess this type of worldview pass it down to their own spawns, who pass it down to theirs, and so on and so forth. And that goes for the women who themselves bear the brunt of internalized misogyny (myself included).

Some might find this Editor’s Note more venomous than usual (or perhaps totally on par with my normal tone). But it ought to be said that the verbal abuse men deliver over years and years spent with a woman before chucking her can’t even remotely compare to what I’m doing here. In that sense

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 (and many others), I’ll never be superior. The male benchmark for caustic abuse is simply too high to match... but I can keep trying, I guess. In the only way I know how: through words. Biting back with them to make men and women alike understand the egregious discrepancy that is still going on in general and in “romance.“ And, on that note: is it so much to ask for one person to stick around without transmuting into Mr. Hyde? To understand the “two against the world” philosophy that has marked so many iconic literary couples? Whose relationships also failed ultimately because the man was a fucking cad (you know, Ted Hughes, Alberto Moravia, Henry Miller, Jean-Paul Sartre—that sort of ilk).

And then we have to ask: is it women who are the fools to make the same mistake over and over again?

To keep “counting on men” for anything other than disappointment, belittlement and subjugation.

Perhaps. Or maybe our “good will toward men“ is something that said gender ought to learn from in their reciprocal treatment. Something we keep trying to set an example about until pushed to our brink like Lorena Bobbitt.

Anyway, everyone likes to say that heartbreak is merely “a part of life.“ Just one of the many hardships that makes you stronger, and a more “fully realized“ human being. But few people (specifically, women) seem to factor in that the majority of said heartbreak is derived from men. And that the selfharming, whether literal or metaphorical, could easily be staved off if we just learned our lesson. They are the scorpion, and we the frog.

Yours fondly, Genna Rivieccio April 2022

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FICTION 9.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

Blown Out Beth Escott Newcomer

I

grant you this place isn’t the most elegant firetrap in the world, but I like it. It’s the place I start my days.

I’m not sure what it’s called officially. I call it Jerry’s because Jerry’s the bartender.

He’s a good egg, doesn’t hassle me. Lets me smoke cigarettes at the bar with my coffee and my paper until noon or until somebody else comes in. He puts the coffee in a proper cup with a saucer, then tops it off with a generous splash of his cheapest vodka, just like I like it. He even puts a spoon on a napkin for me as if it’s a fine dining place.

Jerry must be about a thousand years old. The bartender time forgot. I guess you might say he looks after me.

Not that I demand much. Just some peace, quiet and anonymity to wind down my wasted life.

For instance, a couple of evenings ago, this guy comes in asking about me. Linen suit, shined shoes, cloying cologne slicing through the stench of this old barroom.

“I told him, ‘Stan Sorenson? Never heard of him.’”

Jerry knows not to betray a trust. Said he ordered an Irish neat. Water back. Dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the bar and said to keep the change.

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“Guess he’s buying you breakfast today,” says Jerry and slides a business card across the counter: Ken Hendricks, Collections. L.A. area code. Wilshire Boulevard address.

“Collections. That doesn’t sound good,” I say to Jerry. As if I had anything left to collect. But Jerry says it isn’t like that, he doesn’t think.

“Guy’s no gorilla. Too stylish. A real candy ass.

Had a manicure.” Said he watched the guy drive off in a classic T-bird, all fixed up, whitewalls, every detail done up to the hilt.

“Said he was looking for a famous photographer from the 90s. Said he found all these negatives in the basement of an industrial building in L.A. Wanted to get permission to publish a coffee table book or something. Told him nobody like that around here. Must have had the name wrong.”

Yeah. Must have had the name wrong.

Paper says it’s going to be hot today in Riverside.

So hot it will break all the records on the earth. On the earth.

That’s some kind of exaggerated bullshit. You can’t trust the

Blown Out - Beth Escott Newcomer the newspaper anymore. But they’ve been saying that since H. L. Mencken.

Ah, Mencken. That bastard could serve up the dark heart of a thing with style. Even if I was born forty years too late to pal around with Mencken, even if no one remembers who he was, he’s still my inspiration.

Back when I was still living the high life in L.A., I used to be able to actually taste the whiskey, to care about the taste. I knew the difference between Jameson and Old Bushmills—not just the flavor, but the politics and history of the difference.

Used to order Bushmills neat at the bar at The Dresden Room before The Dresden Room was The Dresden Room.

Before it all got so goddamned ironic, The Dresden Room wasn’t just a room; it was a time machine. With those high-back, white leather booths and those crazy regency glass and brass chandeliers, that wraparound bar, that dark paneling. Marty on drums, Elaine tickling the ivories and ebonies, belting out standards.

A half-dozen old blue hairs in their sparkly cocktail dresses, sitting at the piano bar, waiting their turn for open mic, their dates dressed to the nines, holding their chairs, lighting their cigarettes, then snapping their Zippos shut. That was in ’86 when I first started going there. It might as well have been 1952.

That was before the old barflies got muscled out by all those fake hipsters who didn’t know what to order, what to wear, what song to request. Hell, they wouldn’t know the difference between a fedora and a porkpie. Speaking of hats, I wonder where my Panama is now. I could sure use it these days in that awful sun.

Sunny fuckin’ Riverside.

Whoever would have guessed this desolate burg would be the end of the line for me? I underestimated my own demise—thought my sense of style would save me.

While all the mindless masses

strolled down Sunset, still wearing Levi’s and cowboy boots as if they were on the way to lasso some cattle, I was having suits made down in Chinatown off North Broadway. Found that little tailor shop one day after dim sum.

They had that lightweight wool, which wears great in the summer. I forget that guy’s name who used to make those suits for me. He was from Hong Kong. Damn it. What was that guy’s name? I can hardly remember anything anymore. My sister would probably say it was the booze. She would probably be right.

Whatever. I’m going to die soon—probably right outside, with my cheek pressed on the dirty sidewalk—and take the makings for this fascinating History Channel special with me.

This joint might not be The Dresden Room, but it’s what I got.

Nobody cares about this place. Not the cops. Not even fake hipsters slumming. As if there’d be hipsters, fake or not, in godforsaken Riverside.

Not that there is a God. Mencken didn’t believe in God and neither do I. But I must admit, mystery remains.

Which makes me wonder, just for a minute, what negatives that guy found.

I thought they had all been destroyed.

And now the door swings open, and in wanders another sad sack with nowhere to go but a dive bar in Riverside at ten o’ fucking clock in the morning. Maybe he’s a sports fan. Maybe I’ll just stroll over there, slap him on the back, and bellow, “How about those Dodgers?” Highly unlikely. Sports. What a monumental waste of time. I never did see the appeal. My old pal Coop used to try to talk with me about the Lakers and even took me with him to a couple of games at The Forum. I’ve never been so bored in my life. Luckily, he had a skybox or whatever they call it now.

Everybody I knew had money in those days. There were pretty waitresses coming in and out with snacks, and there was bottle service.

Speaking of snacks… did I eat yesterday? God, I can’t remember anything, but I should probably remember to eat. I barely notice if I’m hungry anymore. Oh, I’ve tucked into some fine French-cut lamb chops at Musso’s and the five-course prix fixe menu at La… La… you know, that place, over off Woodman in the Valley.

That French place. What is the name of it? I guess it’s just as well I’ve put my fine dining days behind me. These days, I prefer the simple life where a steady supply of Larks, coffee and Popov are all I need to take the edge off.

Jerry must be a mind reader.

Here he comes with a fresh pot of joe and a bowl of stale pretzels. Did he give that other guy a nod like he knows him? I don’t think so. The guy doesn’t nod back. Just stares straight ahead. I want to say, Take a picture, asshole, it lasts longer. And I should know.

In school, back in Phoenix, hanging out with Kevin and Jimmy and the rest of those guys, I took all the photos. We used to stage a lot of silly tableaus, us making still lifes out of the contents of our lunchboxes; us posing all serious with silly girls and all silly with serious girls; us dressed and made up like Alex, Georgie Boy and Billy Boy from A Clockwork Orange.

Actually, I was never in the pictures. I was always behind my Leica, staying anonymous, recording it all for posterity.

I saved up for that camera— worked at the camera store all through high school, learned everything there is to know about photography when I was still a kid. Leica is hands down the best camera made on the planet.

You can have your Nikons and your Canons. I’d stand there in the red light of the darkroom in my closet and be amazed every time to watch the faces of my friends appear on the page, holding our cigarettes from the bottom like Russian spies, sporting sharkskin from the Goodwill, lolling on the hood of that old T-bird of

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 Jimmy’s.

The time came to escape the hot, dusty, endless boredom that was Phoenix, and we drove that car into the ground, all the way to L.A. The transmission just fell out of the thing at the corner of Hollywood and Vine.

Maybe that’s too on the nose, but it’s how I remember it. We grabbed our gear and left the old T-bird where it

Germs and The Circle Jerks, Fear, The Dickies—they knew what was coming.

They knew what time it was. They were already furious, and the world hadn’t even ended yet. I captured the righteous menace, snapshots in basement venues and burned-out buildings, all-night shows, speed freak geeks biting heads off live chickens, performance artists throwing cow

were in demand.

I had that loft Downtown— two lofts, actually. One for my life and one for my work. Across from a scrap metal yard. Nobody lived Downtown then. It was a foreign country. All those Midwestern kids hitchhiking here and heading to parties in the Hills, making trips to the beach, thinking this was Beach Boys land; wearing shorts,

“You can’t trust the newspaper anymore. But they’ve been saying that since H. L. Mencken. Ah, Mencken. That bastard could serve up the dark heart of a thing with style.

Even if I was born forty years too late to pal around with Mencken, even if no one remembers who he was, he’s still my inspiration.“ sat. I don’t remember how we even made a life after that. How we found that amazing house a few blocks off Sunset. Hollywood was a seedy-ass neighborhood back then, back at the butt-end of the 70s before the place got fucked up, fake, plasticized, corporatized. I don’t know about the other guys, but I found my purpose.

I took out my camera and never put it away, documenting the slow descent of Western civilization, L.A.-style. Darby and his band, The

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blood on society ladies, middle-aged drag queens doing stripteases—I recorded all of that with my Leica in my linen suit and Italian loafers.

Somehow, I made a living. How did I do that?

People liked my pictures.

Important people, rich people, people who wanted in on it. Music producers and fine artists and jazz musicians and gallery owners—I shot their artists, their album covers, and made portraits for their book covers. Me and my Leica

t-shirts and sneakers like a bunch of nine-year-olds. As if this were some kind of sun-bleached, whitewashed postcard. Not for me, no thanks. I liked the grit and the grime—West’s L.A., Hammett’s L.A., the grifters and the con men and the gumshoes drinking coffee at Phillipe’s, leaving dimes for the busty waitresses, Santa Ana winds inspiring mayhem. I guess that’s why I started dressing like that—natty, like a real man. I lived in L.A. for more than thirty years and never owned a pair of

Blown Out - Beth Escott Newcomer shorts or a bathing suit.

I guess I wouldn’t turn down a new pair of pants right now though.

The ones I’m wearing have seen better days. And the shoes—these old wingtips I got at the Angel’s Flight Thrift downtown the day I sold my old Leica to Jimmy for five hundred dollars. It was the last thing of value I owned. Jimmy understood me. He knew that dry-out hospital was no place for a guy like me. There’s no fucking “higher power” or whatever it is those AA do-gooders wanted to shove down my throat. You live, you die, you slosh in your grave. That’s the facts. We just strolled right out of the place, got in his car and drove to the bus station. Jimmy handed me a ticket to Riverside and the phone number of an old girlfriend of his he thought might put me up till I got back on my feet. Which I guess never happened.

So here I am in fucking Riverside. Jimmy’s friend kicked me out of her one-bedroom after two days—ain’t no picnic with an old drunk sleeping on your couch—but she did help get me set up with a cot at the homeless shelter and signed me up to get on the dole. I pick up my check from the P.O., and sometimes my sister wires me some cash. And, if I really need it, I can get a meal at the Catholic church’s soup kitchen—but I won’t pray for it, goddamn it. And there’s still plenty of shoe leather left on the soles of these wingtips, even though they’re a little too big for me. Guess that’s better than a little too small. The only trouble with these shoes is I can’t really run in them—the soles are too slippery. Not that I’ve needed to run.

Much. I can out-talk the junkies and the meth heads who want to horn in on my shady haunt behind the Riverside Museum. I can behave in a respectful and civilized manner when the occasional policeman tries to roust me from the lobby of the Mission Inn. Sometimes bad stuff happens on the street, I won’t deny it. I’ve got hands

like a girl and boxing skills to match.

I’ve been roughed up on occasion— wrong place, wrong time sort of thing.

But I still have my dignity, even if I don’t have my Panama, my custommade, lightweight wool suit or my Leica.

I really wish I could take a picture of that guy. If I did, I could capture the slick meanness in his eye.

He’s been staring at me since he sat down, like he has it in for me. But why?

What did I do to deserve it? Maybe he’s just crazy. This world ain’t got much time or space for losers like him, like us. While I’m trying to figure out what kind of character he is, I make the stupid move. I hold eye contact for a beat too long. Shouldn’t have chanced the glance. Shit. He smiles at me. Like a snake.

I should have kept my eyes on my newspaper. I’m wondering if I’ve made a goddamned enemy, or worse, a goddamned friend. Here he comes. I should leave. I gotta get out of here. I grab my smokes, drop two bits on the bar for Jerry, and make for the door.

He stops me, grabs my arm.

“You Sorenson?

Stan Sorenson?” He speaks. A voice like a garbage disposal.

I lie, “Not me, fella. You got the wrong guy.”

“Too bad,” he says. “I’ve been looking for a guy named Stan Sorenson. I thought for sure you were him. His friend Jimmy up in L.A. said I might find him here. I’ve got something for him.”

I don’t need help from a guy like that. I don’t need help from anybody.

“Sorry, bud,” I say. “I’m not your guy.” I pull away, push open the door, and take off running into the bright white, blown-out July heat of Riverside as fast as my wingtips will take me, smack in front of the number 11 bus. And down I go and out I go, taking my story with me.

*** Note: This story first appeared in the online magazine, Brief Wilderness.

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

King of Kingman Max DeVoe Talley

R

od Miller sat perched on the paper strip atop the examination table. His hospital smock hung open in the rear. But worse than any poking or probing, a cold stethoscope and the snap of vinyl gloves, was the inevitable summing up. Doctor Feldstein stared at his computer screen, grumbling then sighing.

“Put on your clothes, join me,” Feldstein said, waving a hand.

Rod climbed off with a loud tearing sound. Somehow, ass sweat had fused him to the paper roll. The doctor half-turned and grimaced.

“First off, you have to stop drinking,” Feldstein said when Rod plunked down near the desk.

“I’m not an alcoholic,” Rod insisted. “Two, uh, three drinks, every other night.”

“But you’re mixing alcohol with Prilosec. That causes dizziness and headaches. And you’re on mood medication.” Feldstein removed his glasses to study Rod, as if he hadn’t just finished a lengthy annual exam. “You’re fifty-five. How many times have you fainted or blacked out this year?”

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“Just twice, I swear.”

“But it’s only February 25th,” Feldstein shifted in his seat. “You could go into a fugue state, or even slip into a coma.”

“Can’t I stop the medications then?”

“The Prilosec dissipates reflux gas, and the mood meds... Didn’t your wife insist you continue taking them or she would leave—” “I told you that?”

“No, Jessica did.” He shrugged, scratching his scalp. “We’re all trying to help.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll cut down.” Maybe the quack would let him leave.

Feldstein wheeled back in his swivel chair. “One drink a night.”

“Seems doable, as a long-term goal.”

The doctor’s forehead rested in his palm. “You’re paying me for expert advice and you’re barely listening.”

“I’ve got to run.” Rod stared at his phone. “What did you say?”

Feldstein left the room.

King of Kingman - Max DeVoe Talley *** After Rod drove through midday Ventura traffic to the Home Warehouse employees parking area, Jessica called.

“Rod, will you meet me at the Hollenbeck party after work?”

He cracked his Toyota Camry’s door, allowing a Southern Californian breeze to filter in. “Isn’t that a networking deal? Not my thing, Jess. Really boring.” He heard loud breathing. Some yoga shit to help hyper people cool down.

“Do whatever you want.”

Her words were clipped and precise.

“But I’d be so happy if you’d join me.”

When his wife adopted a stern, motherly tone, Rod would agree to almost anything to stop it.

“Well, I guess.”

“Eddie needs to have a serious discussion with you.”

“Really?” Eddie was the numbnuts younger brother she had infinite faith in. “What now, a restaurant investment? The GoFundMe to become a SpaceX astronaut didn’t pan out.”

“That is so judgmental,” Jessica said. “Eddie didn’t realize how expensive it was.” She exhaled.

“Anyway, that happened in the past.

We all make mistakes in our youth.”

Rod laughed. “He’s forty-five and it happened six months ago.”

“Well, he’s younger than you.” Jessica was expert at switching the argument. “Any who, is it wrong for me to want success for both my husband and brother?”

“No, I—” “When do you hear about your promotion, darling?”

“This afternoon. I told you.”

He paused. “Wait, you didn’t tell Eddie, did you?” Rod checked if the call had dropped.

“Well, not directly,” Jess finally replied. “But he may have

overheard me.”

“Talking with who?”

“I don’t know, with you or Mom.” She sniffled. “Feels like I'm on trial here.”

Rod could sense her thinking, figuring a way out of this conversational jag.

Jessica’s voice rose. “What did Feldstein say? I hope he prescribed something for your... episodes.”

“I’ll tell you tonight. Text me the address. Going back to my shift.”

“So proud of you, giving up writing books for a real job,” she said.

“Take your meds before the party, honey. We don’t want any incidents.”

Rod tied his work apron on while walking through the cavernous building toward the lumber and tools section. Lost customers seeing the yellow apron became magnetized, asking about toilets and fridges, for carpeting and lighting fixtures. He could hear the panel saw grinding in the far corner and smell airborne sawdust.

During a three p.m. break, Supervisor Lyle Brodie ushered him into a cramped back office. “As you know, Rog—” “It’s Rod.” Brodie frowned. “Right.

Your uncle was Roger Miller, the ‘King of the Road’ singer.”

“My uncle’s cousin.”

“Whatever.” He flashed a corporate grin. “HW supervisors have promoted you to manager of aisle twenty-four.”

Rod watched Brodie’s smile become strained.

“However, due to a dip in regional sales last quarter, it’s a promotion without a raise.”

Brodie chewed at something. “For now. Once the ship is righted and consumer confidence returns, you’ll make more. I guarantee.”

Brodie had been Rod’s third supervisor in eighteen months. His word held the permanence of lovers’

names written in wet beach sand.

“But, you do get five sheets of plywood on the company tab, and if you spend a thousand here, you’ll receive fifty dollars cash back.”

Rod wandered outside into the echoey thoroughfare.

“Wait.” Brodie stood up behind his desk. “Ditch that yellow apron. You get a new red smock like mine.”

Rod smirked. “I’ll pick it up later.”

Brodie jangled keys on a ring. “Here’s the best part.”

“I get to use the HW rental van?” Rod felt mildly euphoric.

Brodie frowned. “No, your own personal keys for the forklift.”

He whispered, “Only the big boys, the managers get these.” *** Rod drove three miles home in a funk. Trapped; no escape.

He lived in northeastern Ventura on a vaguely disreputable street. Finding an affordable rental meant dealing with sketchy nearby operations. Cars rumbled up and sped off at all hours to the neighbor, two houses away. Shouted conversations in English or Spanish often erupted in the early hours of morning. Police were called. They drove by, flashed their bright lights, then motored on.

Today, at 5:45, it remained relatively quiet. Rod slipped inside his two-bed cottage. Both cats scrambled through their door to the backyard as soon as he entered. Scratchy and Mr. Nibbles hated him. Actually they despised everyone, but Rod didn’t even pretend to enjoy their presence.

And they knew.

A note taped to the fridge: Honey, went to pick-up Eddie. Meet me at the party by sixish. A jacket and tie, please.

Love, Jess.

Brother Eddie often claimed car trouble. Rod felt certain he’d sold

15.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 his PT Cruiser months ago and just snowed his gullible sister.

After Rod downed his one allowed glass of Seagram’s, he wedged into formal attire. A knock sounded.

Shit, some early-rising tweaker looking for the nearby drug shack. He checked the peephole before unlocking the door.

“Jesus, Brandon?” He stepped backward. “It’s been years.”

“Yeah, it has.” Brandon appeared older than twenty-nine.

Tattoos on his neck, dark circles beneath his eyes and a prison-style haircut: longer above the ears and cropped close below. A funky smell of moldering clothes and greasy junk food radiated from his body.

“Thought you were still living in Oregon. How’s your, uh...?” Rod couldn’t quite speak her name. “How’s she doing?”

“That’s what I’m here about. Mom.” Brandon knuckled his bloodshot eyes. “She says your divorce wasn’t finalized. Claims you’re a bigamist.”

“What the hell?” Rod winced.

“Well, no offense, but she always was delusional.”

“It’s worse.” Brandon’s voice cracked. “She’s got this attorney guy, Pinos. Looks like a Greek gangster.”

“So he’s going to call me, serve papers?” Rod laughed. “Not scared.”

“He’s already in L.A.” Brandon frowned. “He’ll be up here searching for you soon.”

“Okay, thanks, but I have to get to a party now or I’m in deep shit.”

“Listen, since I took a Greyhound clear down to warn you, would it be cool to crash here a few days?” He attempted a sad puppy expression. “A week?”

Rod inhaled his stepson’s pungent aroma and imagined Jess’ pained no-face. “Tonight. One night.

My wife has a strict guest policy.”

“Solid. Hey, before you jet, I brought some bud.”

16.

“Sorry, don’t smoke anymore.

Jess would kill me if I did.”

“Nobody does these days.

Vaping is where it’s at. No smoke in your lungs... or odor on your breath.”

“Really?” Rod paused in the doorway. “Well, I guess I could take just one, uh, vape before leaving.”

“Awesome...”

Rod felt slightly buzzed and disoriented as he drove. Was it the whiskey, weed, Prilosec or the Seroquel he just swallowed? Luckily, only a twenty-minute drive, but to Oxnard.

He hated Oxnard. A sprawling area, hard to navigate at night and the address was way off the 101—a rich enclave called Oxnard Shores.

Residents wanted to change its name to South Ventura Beach, or anything else. Gated mansions, private microcommunities, expensive vacation rentals, boats in the twinkling harbor.

The whole deal.

Leaving Brandon home alone, near a trap house, was not the best idea... but Rod could use him as a boomerang to escape. Wish I could stay, Jess, but I need to check on my stepson, he imagined himself saying.

On Harbor Boulevard outside the big two-story residence, a valet took the Toyota’s keys. The place was gray with a Gothic palace look to it, except modern and Southern Californian, so: ugly as shit. Well-groomed couples lingered on the outer stone stairway that led to the open double doors.

An earnest bearded man by the entranceway smiled. “You need this.” He handed Rod a pamphlet entitled Physicology.

“Are you Burt Hollenbeck?”

Rod stuffed the paper into his back pocket.

“I’m Crispin. Here to enable wellness.” The fortyish man scooped a wedge of hair off his forehead. “We’ll speak later,” he said with a conviction Rod didn’t share.

“Totally.” Rod brushed past him into the throng massed inside.

Seeing the large interior, the false gaiety and the dressed-up guests trying to appear successful reminded him of Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” Boisterous laughter and conversations spilled over the music, a constant stream of Motown hits.

Rod spotted Jessica across the room between clots of people. Was she chatting with Brodie? By the time he pressed through, she stood alone.

Taking a different tack, Rod snuck up and kissed her on the lips.

“Rod?” Jess seemed to question his identity. “Please, not here in public.” She scowled. Seeing her hair piled up Roman style and thick eyebrows showing prominently on a bare, high forehead, he pictured Joan Crawford.

“This is a business event,” she scolded. “We’ve been married fifteen years. Act like it.”

He backed off. “Were you talking to my supervisor?” Her face went blank, mouth drooping on one side as if enduring a mild stroke.

“Lyle Brodie?” Jess stared away. “Uh, he’s here somewhere. I did speak with our hosts. Remember to thank them for including us tonight.”

“Sure. Point me in their direction.” He twirled around.

“Are you... okay?” She pressed close, his condition her dirty secret.

“Did you take—” “Yes, at home. I’m fine.” He paused. Not the moment to broach the subject of Brandon. Probably eating delivered pizza, vaping and watching porn on their couch.

Jess brushed lint off his collar and smoothed his hair. “You seem a little edgy. Better have a cocktail.”

“No, Dr. Feldstein insisted: one drink a night.”

Jess sighed. “That’s all I’m asking, darling. One drink to settle down. Tonight is important for you, for us.”

“But I already—” “Shhh!” She made her

King of Kingman - Max DeVoe Talley concerned face.

Rod hated being shushed, though he did feel way too sober for this event. “When should I talk to your brother?”

“Whenever you want.”

“Great. Be right back.” He

How did she know?

“I’ll demand a raise from Lyle Brodie while you’re talking to Eddie.”

Rod climbed from the sunken living room through the wood-paneled library where vaguely Mediterraneanlooking people drank wine and flirted

chewing at something. “You know, I’m all for free speech, but I just didn’t get your second, Flowers for Adolf...”

“No one did. Was supposed to be, Flowers for a Dolphin. Printing error.”

Rod sighed.

“Did you unfriend me on

“Seeing the large interior, the false gaiety and the dressed-up guests trying to appear successful reminded him of Poe’s ’The Masque of the Red Death.’” started toward the buffet spread, but Jess hooked his elbow. “Eddie’s over there.” She pointed. “Beyond the library, inside the den.” Jess marched him over to the table bar. “My husband needs a bourbon on the rocks. Your best brand.”

Once he had drained the plastic tumbler, Jess launched him into the social current. “Hear Eddie out, that’s all I ask.”

“Oh, about my promotion...”

“I know.”

on plush leather sofas, acting out some lifestyle commercial.

As he approached the den, an inebriated man shambled toward him.

“Roddy?”

No one called him Roddy. “Uh, yeah?”

“It’s Stu, remember?” The man’s head lolled about. “Still writing books?”

“Yeah, sort of. Not really.”

“I loved your first novel, The Astronaut’s Clarinet.” Stu paused,

Facebook?”

Rod struggled to recall. “No. I may have hid you or blocked you from seeing my posts, but I’d never unfriend.” He reached out a hand, in vain. “I mean, we’ve been vague acquaintances for what, ten years?”

“Longer.”

“Glad we had this conversation.” Rod spotted Eddie.

He stood making moves on an artsy woman in a multicolored dress. A perfect moment to interrupt.

17.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 “Yo, Edward!” he shouted, pumping his arms.

Eddie glanced at the woman, then Rod, weighing their importance to his immediate future, before ditching her. “You made it, bro. What a spread. Hey, still working on your sci-fi novel? Tears of a Clone, right?”

“For nine years.” Rod frowned. “Jess claimed you had something important to say. I hate these parties, so let’s cut to the chase.”

around a double-cleavage crevice. “Is that on this planet?”

“Jesus, yes.” Eddie angled his face close. “Arizona. Forty minutes to Flagstaff, and you’ve got Winslow from that famous Eagles song next door.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Sits right off I-40. Gallup lies further east.”

“And Gallup is?”

Eddie’s eyes widened. “The

gift outlets serving the major tourist destination.” When Rod said nothing, Eddie continued. “Native American jewelry stores.”

“Wait, it’s on tribal land?”

“You might need to negotiate over boundary lines and such. But no problemo for the new aisle manager at Home Warehouse. You’re a born communicator.” Eddie grinned.

“Yeah, Jess told me.”

Rod scratched his nose.

“‘So proud of you, giving up writing books for a real job,’ she said. ‘Take your meds before the party, honey. We don’t want any incidents.’”

“Time is flashing by. I’m forty-five, you’re sixty—” “Fifty-five.”

“Yeah, that’s why we have to seize the moment.”

Rod scanned the crowd.

“And what is ‘the moment’ here in Oxnard?”

“An incredible opportunity, now that I’m a junior sales assistant at Gorgon and Merkin.”

“Realty firm?”

Eddie nodded, holding an ecstatic, childlike expression. “Ever hear of Meteor City?”

“No.” An Italian woman in a low-cut dress brushed past. Due to his buzz, Rod saw four breasts rippling

18.

freaking gateway to New Mexico: Land of Enchantment.” He drank his cocktail.

Rod felt his weight shifting, the house swaying. “So what are you saying, exactly?”

“Offering you a rare opportunity before it goes public.”

Eddie raked a hand through his oily pomp of curls. “Ten acres with existing structures for a hundred grand.” He lowered his voice. “Do you realize what a bargain that is?

You can barely buy ten yards in Ventura for that price.”

“Never heard of Meteor. It’s a city?”

“Well, more a bunch of

“Tourist destination?”

“Meteor Crater National Landmark.”

“So, paved roads?”

“No, better,” Eddie said.

“Dirt roads are natural, organic. Less tar and toxic chemicals.” He extended his cup. “Your glass is empty, take a belt.”

Rod shook his head. “I’m on a strict one-drink-a-night diet.”

“Dude, don’t let my sister bust your balls.”

“It’s more of a health thing.”

“Not saying have a second drink, just share a swig with your brother. We’re practically blood relatives.”

King of Kingman - Max DeVoe Talley “We are not.”

“No one ever died from a little rum.” Eddie winked.

“Okay.” Rod wanted to inform Jess about Brandon, then leave this noisy, crowded nightmare. He started to sip, but Eddie shoved the cup, forcing liquor down his throat.

Rod felt an intense burning sensation, internal combustion, then that special clarity when solid blocks have been removed, mental constipation cleared. All those unnecessary brain cells that warn: don’t run into traffic, or dance on the edge of a rooftop or stick fingers into a wall socket. All gone. “That was rum?” he asked in a scorched rasp.

“Bacardi 151.” Eddie hugged him. “I love you, man, but you’ve become so uptight since getting married.”

“You didn’t know me before.”

Rod dabbed his forehead with a drink tray napkin. He felt feverish, the room blurring and fading, the world he once knew slipping away. “You mentioned structures on the land in Meteor Valley. Like a house, a barn?”

“Meteor City.” Eddie smiled, showing baby corn teeth. “Legally, we can only say ‘structures.’ Meaning, yes, they could be a ranch house and guest cottage... you just need to dust off, fix up a bit. Or it might mean a watchman’s shack,” he bit his lower lip, “or an outhouse.”

The room dimmed to a light blue and green with liquid white flashes. Faces became fuzzy, pointillist.

Rod listened to the thirtyish woman talking loudly nearby.

“On our first date, he’s wearing this bougie jacket and a hipster goatee that wasn’t hip. When I described my food issues and my abusive graduate professor who gave me an A-minus, crushing my selfesteem, he interrupted me to order drinks. A real mansplainer. And he wore bespoke slacks and this bougie watch.” She laughed.

Rod put his thumbs in his

ears and fluttered his fingers. “Bougie, bougie!”

The woman twitched then tossed her drink, but missed Rod and splattered Eddie. “Entitled white people.”

“You are too,” Eddie replied.

“I hate my whiteness and apologize for it daily on social media.”

The woman grimaced and stormed off.

“Not sure you’re hearing me.” Eddie clutched Rod’s arm. “I can get you this property with just twenty grand down.” He paused.

“Jessica mentioned you had that amount. You could turn the land into a gold mine. Open a bed and breakfast, a gas station, a ranch with pony rides. Don’t you understand?

I’m handing you the keys to Meteor City.”

A tanned, swarthy man gripped Rod’s shoulder. “Your first wife sent me to find you.”

“You the Bulgarian?”

“I’m from Crete.”

“So you’re a cretin?”

“No, Greek. Mr. Pinos.”

With dark hair slicked back into a ponytail, he resembled a debauched Steven Seagal. “Maggie is willing to settle things for ten thousand.”

“You’re no lawyer,” Rod said.

“Not in the traditional sense.”

“No, just a thug,” Eddie added. “Look at his eyebrows. You could shag carpet a motel room with those.”

“No insults. Pinos demands cooperation.”

Rod punched him hard in the face and the Greek sprawled backwards. Rod fled, lurching through surrounding guests toward the connecting room. When he glanced behind him, Eddie and Pinos were fighting while onlookers tried to break up their scuffle.

On his way toward an escape, Crispin from the entrance still

loomed. “Did you read our literature?

Physicology changed my life. Weekly cleansing sessions begin for as little as five hundred dollars.”

“Literature is Virginia Woolf, Moby Dick, he seethed. “That was a pamphlet, fucking propaganda.”

Unmoved, Crispin replied, “Open your heart, free your mind, void your bowels.”

Rod ran up the staircase, worming through people. At the top, he gasped for breath, dizzy. He lurched into a dark coat room, layers of garments blanketing a bed. Rod relaxed, floating in a muzzy blur until he noticed movement. He jumped up and switched on the table lamp.

Emerging from beneath the coats and scarves were Jessica and his supervisor, half-undressed.

“Brodie? Jess?”

“It’s not what you think, dear,” his wife insisted. “Just a breathing exercise. I had a panic attack downstairs.”

Rod darted to the landing and another hallway until a young redhead blocked him. She looked Slavic, wide-eyed and alluring.

“You are for me?” she asked.

“I am searching for mate, for partner.”

“What?” Rod rubbed his sagging head.

“You are Physicologist, right?

I am Dacha, looking for financial wellness.” She pressed full lips to his ear. “In exchange for... the physical.”

Strobe lights flashed in the windows, playing off the walls, and sirens howled. Rod saw men in white arrive at the base of the stairs. He descended, slipping and stumbling.

Mr. Pinos lay unconscious on a stretcher held by two attendants.

“Craziest thing,” Eddie said.

“Heart seizure. Apparently a history of mixing painkillers and alcohol.”

Eddie seemed sad, but only for an instant. “So that land deal. We’re not done.” Eddie morphed into a nodding bobblehead. “Just sign this

19.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 and I’ll let you go. Jess is all for it.”

A muscular man in an Armani suit approached. “Remember me, Rod? Vince. It’s been thirty years.” He forced his way between them. “Leave my college roommate alone. Can’t you see he’s fried?”

“Rod’s my brother-in-law,” Eddie protested.

“I overheard everything,” Vince said. “Meteor City? What a crock. It’s just desert. No water, no trees. Middle of nowhere. That’s how you treat family?” He glared at Eddie.

“Beat it. Now.” “Come on.” Vince put his arm around Rod’s shoulder and led him to a room at the rear of the house.

He illuminated a desk lamp then began chopping something. “This will wake you up.” Four fluffy white rails of powder waited.

“No thanks. I just want to leave. I don’t do crank.” “‘Course not. That’s ghetto.

This is coke.” Vince snorted two lines.

“Okay, maybe just one to help me drive home.”

“Now you’re talking,” Vince said, nostrils frosted and flared. “It’s good to be king.”

“What?”

“You know, your uncle, Roger Miller.” Vince sang, “King of the road!”

The coke didn’t energize Rod, just added stars on the periphery of his vision. He sensed other living things. Two young kids snored and breathed on bunk beds. “Should we be in here?”

“Best spot. No interruptions.”

Vince snuffled the fourth line, then gulped from his drink. “What a party.

All those Physicologist phonies out there recruiting, and your relatives...

Vultures.”

“Thanks for rescuing me.”

Rod wiped his sweaty face with a Kleenex. His tie was undone, shirt unbuttoned.

“Loved Flowers for Adolf, by the

20.

way. Didn’t read it, but props, man.

Owning the libs eleven years ago.”

“The title was a printing error.”

“Sure, printing error.” Vince winked. “Guys like us need to stick together.” He flashed hand gestures that resembled white supremacy or Aryan Brotherhood signs.

“Wait, what?”

“Trump 2024.”

“No, God no...”

“That was such bullshit about Meteor City,” Vince continued.

“Especially when I have a much better deal. Twenty acres in Kingman, Arizona. Brown dirt mesas, zero humidity. Closer to California.”

“Seriously?” Rod tried for the door, but lost his balance and staggered into the bunk bed frame.

The boy woke up; the little girl started crying, “Mommy, mommy!”

Rod rested against a wall.

Vince pulled him up by the lapels.

“Don’t you get it, buddy?” He let Rod go. “With no money down, if you sign tonight, you could be the King of Kingman.”

Rod wavered in space, mumbled, “Jess,” then collapsed into inky darkness. Parents yelled in anger, children screamed. The hardwood floor felt good.

Deus Ex Manhattana Adam Matson

T

he tight leather upholstery felt colder than usual as Braham lay down on Dr. Florsheim’s couch. Or, perhaps, it was he, Braham, who felt cold. Outside he could hear car horns honking on Lexington Avenue.

The couch faced away from Dr. Florsheim, and this was how Braham preferred it. He found it awkward, and discomfiting in a way he did not want to confront, to face another man directly while he described his masturbation fantasies. Masturbation fantasies were generally what Braham discussed during his therapy sessions.

“I’ve come to a crossroads, Doctor,” Braham said.

“Indeed?” said Dr. Florsheim. The doctor also preferred that Braham face away from him. This afforded him the opportunity to floss the little pieces of bagel left over from his lunch.

“A chance encounter at the club has... spurred me in a new direction.”

“I’m listening,” said Dr. Florsheim, unravelling a fresh strand of floss. It was an everything bagel.

“My daughter, Tilly, is home from Andover,” Braham said. “Spring break. I’m trying to keep her out of

trouble, so we’ve been going to the club. Playing lots of tennis. The old wrist is acting up on me.”

Dr. Florsheim said nothing, prying a sesame seed from between his incisors.

“Tilly and I were playing a heated match, a real father-daughter slammer,” said Braham. “When a friend of Tilly’s showed up with her mother. Collins Bernhardt.

That’s the friend.” He turned slightly, and Dr. Florsheim emitted a murmur of interest. “The mother’s name is Kitty, or Bunny... or some animal nickname, I don’t remember. She’s my age, maybe a couple of years younger. But Collins is eighteen, same as Tilly. They were classmates at Country Day. Collins is at Groton now.”

“So, we played doubles. Just a set or two. And my wrist started acting up. I didn’t want to appear, you know, injured, or old, for God’s sake, so I played through.

And the whole time, Doctor, I kept watching Collins Bernhardt. She was wearing a traditional white tennis skirt, nothing improper. But every time she served, she tossed the ball so high—I mean extremely high, almost unnecessarily high. And then she would kind of hop up to swing.

21.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 And every time—every time—she hopped, the back of her skirt would kind of flap up a little bit, and I could see just a tiny sliver of underwear.”

“Ah.” “It was blue.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The underwear was blue.”

“I see.”

Braham half-turned, and Dr.

Florsheim assaulted a pesky poppy seed in the cavity of his molar.

“Blue is a cool color,” Braham pontificated. “Cool as in cold, I mean.

As opposed to, say, pink, or red, which are warm colors.”

“Of course.”

“And a cool color perhaps sends the message, subconsciously, that one does not want to be seen. Or

attractive girl. Christ, they all are. All of my daughter’s friends. They’re like some higher species. When I was at Princeton, there were some knockouts, but the girls these days… The women, I mean. Young women. Well, I don’t know, maybe they are still girls. That’s my problem. I can’t distinguish, Doctor. And neither can my libido.

This tennis match was three days ago,

“How do I go from being me, a masturbating middle-aged schlep, to a sexual dynamo who fucks nubile co-eds?“ Florsheim whisked his floss into the pocket of his jacket. “Is that unusual?”

Braham asked.

“Is what unusual?”

“Blue underwear?”

Dr. Florsheim straightened his posture, glanced at his Columbia diploma on the wall. “I believe underwear comes in a variety of colors, Braham.”

“I know,” said Braham. “But with a white tennis skirt? Seems like a dark undergarment would show through, or be noticeable. White over dark. And the way she kept bending over to retrieve her balls—not a kneebent crouch, but a full bend. Like ballet. Knees locked. Legs straight.

Flashes of blue everywhere.”

“That’s interesting.” Dr.

22.

noticed. It sends a repellent message.

But I noticed. I noticed every time.

And I began to wonder if perhaps the girl was conflicted.”

“Conflicted?” That poppy seed was really in there.

“I think she wanted to be noticed,” Braham declared. “What else explains all the bending over?

Or the unusually high toss? In fact, why wear such an absurd color at all, beneath a white skirt?”

“Interesting.” Dr. Florsheim managed to pry the poppy seed loose.

He plucked it off his tongue, inspected it and flicked it away. It landed in Braham’s hair.

Braham didn’t notice the projectile. “Well, that underwear did it for me,” he said. “Collins is an

and I’ve been on a rampage of selfpleasure ever since.”

“Indeed.”

“Three, four times a day. And it’s the same wrist I hit a forehand with. I can barely move it.” He lifted his arm, and the flaccid wrist hung impotently in mid-air. “I took six Aleve this morning.”

“You’re only supposed to take two, I believe,” said Dr. Florsheim.

“I’m seeing Dr. Burke tomorrow. He’ll know what to do.

But my wrist isn’t the problem. It’s the fantasy. I keep having the same fantasy over and over. Can’t get it out of my head. It’s torturous. I’ve never felt anything so powerful.”

“Would you like to tell me about it?” Dr. Florsheim asked.

Deus Ex Manhattana - Adam Matson “It begins at the tennis club,” Braham said. “We’re playing doubles, as we were. Then after the game, we retreat to the clubhouse for a shower, before getting lunch. Lunch isn’t really part of the fantasy.”

Dr. Florsheim suppressed a belch, which tasted of cream cheese and onions.

“The fantasy is about the shower,” Braham said. “Recently I’ve been having fantasies about co-ed showers. Like when I’m at the club, I think: why couldn’t the men and women shower together? It would be thrilling, progressive. Et cetera. So, I imagine myself taking a shower, after the tennis match, and as I’m washing myself, I’m starting to grow aroused.

And in walks Collins Bernhardt. Fully naked. Completely natural. Like it’s something we do all the time—shower together. She steps up to the shower head beside me—it’s like an open shower room, no separate stalls, we all shower together. And she starts washing me. Washing me.”

“That sounds like a fairly standard fantasy,” said Florsheim.

“But then,” Braham said, holding up a quivering finger. “My daughter walks in.”

“Mmmm.”

“And she doesn’t join in, or anything. I don’t want to have sex with my daughter, for God’s sake. But she is there. Naked. Watching. Just watching.

And part of me kind of wants her to watch. I get aroused knowing she’s watching me with her friend.”

“Where’s the mother in all this?” Florsheim crossed his legs, the back of his neck starting to bristle.

“I don’t know,” Braham said, sounding genuinely confused. “She must be showering somewhere else.

I never think about the mother. I think about Collins. Washing her and touching her. And then, after we’re both all lathered up, I fuck her. I turn her around, press her against the tile wall of the shower, and I fuck her. Hard.

She’s moaning, and I’m grunting. And

I feel twenty years younger. And the whole time, my daughter just watches.

And I don’t know if I want her to be impressed, or disgusted, or tell me to stop. I don’t know. But I think I’ve reached a crossroads.”

“You mentioned that. Of what nature?”

“I want to fuck an eighteenyear-old girl,” said Braham. “Woman, I mean. I’ve wanted it all my adult life, probably. It’s always been a fantasy. But now I want to take it to the next level. I want to actually do it. Not necessarily Collins Bernhardt—although she might be a good start. I just don’t know how to initiate. How does that conversation start? How do I go from being me, a masturbating middle-aged schlep, to a sexual dynamo who fucks nubile co-eds?”

“Are you asking me, literally, what you would say to a young woman?”

“Yes,” Braham said. “I’ve thought a lot about this, and I want to do it. Why shouldn’t I? What’s the point of my life anymore? My hedge fund has made me a millionaire several times over. I’ve made millions for some very powerful people. I have the walkup on East Sixtieth, and the cottage in Montauk. I don’t need anything anymore. I want things. My ex-wife slept with one of her grad students.

Why can’t I dip myself in the fountain of youth? I deserve the things I want, too.”

There was a rumble on the street outside. Braham craned his neck toward the window.

“I’m sorry,” said Dr. Florsheim. “They’ve been repairing the sidewalk for months.”

“I’m going to treat myself to a young woman!” Braham declared, shouting over the rumble.

Dr. Florsheim said something in reply, but his words were lost. The rumble built steadily to a roar, and the whole room began to shake. Braham tried to stand, but fell violently to the floor, landing on his bad wrist. Dr.

Florsheim toppled over backwards in his chair. The windows exploded in a spray of glass.

“Oh, my God, it’s a bomb!”

Braham shrieked. “We’re under attack!”

It was not a bomb. A rift opened up in the middle of Lexington Avenue. Geysers of flame shot out of the earth. A giant canyon of fiery magma swallowed all of Manhattan in one screaming, honking, exhaustfuming bite. The entire island was instantly incinerated, along with Brooklyn, the Bronx, most of Queens, Westchester County, Northeast New Jersey and Greenwich, Connecticut.

Staten Island was spared, possibly because that was where Wu Tang Clan came from.

And the rest of the world lived happily ever after.

23.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

Almost Nothing David Obuchowski

T

he snowless fall had been nice at first. It spared the people of Hawthorn, Minnesota from getting out their bags of Koldkil-brand Ice Melt and many different kinds of snow shovels—the pushers, the scoopers, the blades of some molded from plastic, others aluminum; the shafts of some straight, others bent into strange angles and lines that were somehow supposed to make shoveling snow easy on the back. But nice gave way to another feeling. Something close to conspicuous. As in, it was always on people’s minds. “Still no snow,” a grocery store cashier might say to a customer whose food they were scanning. “Just means a much worse March, you watch,” the customer would answer. Exchanges like this—between strangers, co-workers, friends, neighbors, family members—were ubiquitous throughout Hawthorn by early November, at which point the conspicuous feeling gave way to yet another: strange.

In an effort to comfort themselves, people would invent excuses and theories on the spot. “It seems odd, but up here, it’s all about the jet stream. Storms can’t form in those kinds of currents, or if they do, they get pushed around. Saint Paul got pounded last week. We’ll get ours

24.

soon enough,” an electrician might tell the general contractor who’d hired him to run the wires and install GFIs for a kitchen remodel. The contractor would nod and answer, “Oh yeah, you get these fronts come down from Manitoba, and they cancel out the ones sweeping over from the Dakotas. That don’t work, see, because the temperatures need to clash to get the condensation you need for moisture. You watch, pretty soon here we’ll start getting these warm fronts from the Gulf. And when we do, look out, boy, we’ll have some blizzards, we will.” Of course, none of these theories ever addressed why that year should be any different than the others.

By Thanksgiving, the lack of snow was a constant theme on the local weather. Don Henry did the weather for Channel 7 out of the Twin Cities; Lisa Doone was the weatherwoman for Channel 4 out of Duluth. “It’s official,” they both announced in near-identical terms just before Thanksgiving. “Hawthorn has surpassed its record for latest snowfall in the year, and there’s still no snow in the immediate forecast.”

By Christmas, strange gave way to alarming.

That the rest of the state and country seemed to be get-

Almost Nothing - David Obuchowski ting snow as usual was both a salve and fuel for perplexity. On one hand, it was nice to think there wasn’t some global climate catastrophe. On the other hand, why was this happening to Hawthorn? “It’s troubling,” people would grumble suspiciously. “It’s worrying,” people would say, their eyebrows arched. “Gonna be a hell of a drought come spring if it don’t start snowing soon,” others would warn while shaking their heads.

With the New Year, there was new hope. But by the second week of January, those fresh hopes faded and the anxiety returned. February was, historically speaking, the snowiest month and so that held some promise.

But when Valentine’s Day came and went without any snow, alarm gave way to yet another feeling: resignation.

“If it hasn’t happened by now, it won’t happen at all. Not until next winter,” a teacher would say to another in the faculty lounge. “Yup. One for the history books,” would be the reply.

By this time, Hawthorn’s complete lack of snow had become a headline in the regional news. On March 21st, the first day of spring, the largest newspaper in the state ran a front-page story titled, “Winter Without Snow.” This story ran in the smaller local papers owned by the same media company. Emmeline saw it in The Hawthorn Horn with the same headline. The story offered very little in the way of why the winter had been how it was, but it noted very definitively that it was “the first and only time ever that snow hadn’t fallen in Hawthorn since 1871, when the first complete meteorological records were kept.”

But Emmeline Neeve knew they were wrong because, only three days earlier, as she had been crossing one of the streets in her neighborhood, she’d seen a large, single flake about the size of a peppercorn. She’d stopped midway between the two sides of the street, and had watched it drift on the breeze—a bright white

dot contrasted against the deep green of an Engelmann spruce at the edge of a yard on the next block. She lost sight of it momentarily as it rode a current skywards and blended in with the pale gray clouds, but then she’d picked it up again as it slowly sunk, see-sawing, then augering toward the Earth. Emmeline held out her gloved hands, palm open to the sky, one laid over the other, in much the same way she’d done when she used to receive communion—something she hadn’t done since she was twelve, though it still felt like a familiar gesture. The snowflake touched down gently on her wool-covered palm, sat there for a moment, almost imperceptibly vibrating, like it might blow away and become airborne again. But, instead, it collapsed in on itself like some miniscule and dying star, and melted away, leaving behind the faintest speck of moisture. She closed her hand, though there was nothing in it.

Emmeline looked to the sky, hoping this flake would be a harbinger of things to come. “Surely there will be snow now,” she thought, she hoped.

But the clouds withheld their bounty, and at the sound of an approaching car, she cleared the intersection, continuing her walk toward nowhere in particular. *** Who knows where Emmeline could have been during that nearly snowless winter? New York or Chicago or London or maybe Los Angeles or perhaps Mexico City or possibly Paris or any other city known for its museums. But instead, Emmeline, twenty-seven years old, was in Hawthorn, where she lived with her mother.

Her father, a heavy smoker, had died of lung cancer when Emmeline was twelve. Ten years later, she graduated from a small liberal arts school in Saint Paul with an art history degree. She then moved across

the River into Minneapolis, where she rented herself a miniscule studio apartment, which she could just barely afford thanks to her entry-level job in the Membership and Events Department at the NAMMAD—the North American Museum of Modern Art and Design. Her plan had been to work there for two years, gaining valuable experience. Then she’d earn her master’s degree, which she’d use to get far more prestigious roles in the exhibitions or education or curatorial departments at any number of the world’s major museums. But, only a year into her tenure at NAMMAD, Emmeline’s mother suffered a stroke, partially paralyzing her and giving her a form of intermittent dementia. So, Emmeline moved back to Hawthorn. Not resentfully. But not happily, either. She worked part-time for Hawthorn Public School District, where she taught two-week long Art History units for the two middle schools and one high school and was a substitute teacher as needed for any of the HPSD schools. Otherwise, she stayed with, took care of, shopped, cooked and cleaned for her mother, whose mobility was limited and who slipped in and out of vast caverns of confusion.

That winter, Emmeline’s mother was mostly unaware of the lack of snow. And in some way, it was a relief. Anyone and everyone Emmeline interacted with commented on the weather, which was tedious at best; at worst, it only served to heighten her awareness and general anxiety about the situation.

But at home, the weather was seldom commented on, other than the occasional remark from her mother that it looked like a nice enough day, to which Emmeline never disagreed.

After Emmeline saw the snowflake, she stayed out walking around her neighborhood for another hour, watching chickadees flit from the branches of the pines, flickers hammer at the trunks of slippery

25.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 elms and crows roost on telephone wires and the tops of the orangetinted street lights. But she hadn’t been looking for birds. Rather, she’d been hoping to see another snowflake.

Many snowflakes. So many that she’d find herself in a sudden blizzard. But after forty-five minutes, the clouds began to break up, giving way to slivers and washes of blue.

When she got home, she stamped her boots on the mat.

Nearly three decades of habit. “I saw a snowflake, Mom,” she said as she hung her scarf and put her gloves into the basket on the wooden bench near the front door.

“What?” her mother called from the kitchen. “Come here, I can’t hear you.”

Emmeline walked into the kitchen with its worn, yellow vinyl floor and dark-stained oak cabinets. It was outdated, but since her mother’s stroke, Emmeline had given up any hope that it might be updated. Her mother was sitting at the round, wooden kitchen table staring, it seemed, at the clock on the microwave, which flashed 3:03.

“I said I saw a snowflake,” Emmeline repeated, unable to hide her excitement.

“Oh?” “Yeah.” Emmeline filled the tea kettle.

“A snowflake, you say?”

“Yes, mom. It hasn’t snowed—” she stopped herself before she could say anything that might confuse or alarm her mother, concluding, “...in a while.”

“We always said we’d retire somewhere warm,” her mother said dreamily.

“Arizona or New Mexico. I remember.”

“I wanted Arizona. He wanted New Mexico.”

“Right,” Emmeline said. She pulled a bag of English breakfast tea from a red and black box and dropped it into a white mug with

26.

“NAMMAD” written on it in angular red type. She glanced at her mother and noticed her expression slowly changing, growing concerned.

“You okay, Mom?” “I forgot his name. Your father. What was his name?”

Emmaline looked at the mug. They’d given it to her on her first day of work. Now, it was the last remaining relic from her time at the museum, but it was something anyone could have bought in the gift shop.

“Thomas. His name was Thomas.”

A look of relief came over her mother “Thomas. Yes,” her mother exhaled. “Never Tom. Always Thomas.”

Tenderly, Emmeline rubbed her mother’s shoulders and kissed her hair, which was still thick and soft after fifty-nine years, though it had gone mostly gray from brown a decade earlier. Her mother, Emmeline thought, had always been beautiful.

Emmeline believed she still was, despite how the stroke had altered her mother’s face, had rendered her smile a completely different shape than the one she’d known so well. The stroke had rendered life itself a different shape than it had been before. It had left her mother with almost nothing.

She was forced to retire from her work as a therapist. She could no longer play the violin in the Hawthorn String Quartet, which performed its Winter Wonderland Holiday Recital from the small bandshell in the town square every December.

The stroke left her grieving not only for her husband, but for her former self as well. Its effect on Emmeline’s life and career was only slightly less significant. This merely bonded Emmeline and her mother together more tightly. To be bitter toward her mother for the stroke would be as fair as blaming her for the lack of snow.

The water boiled, and Emmeline poured it over the teabag, which danced in the scalding water, then went to her room. She debated

what to do about the sighting and then finally decided to look up the number to the Channel 4 Duluth tip line.

“Tips,” someone answered brightly.

“Hi, I have a tip.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

“I saw a snowflake. Here in Hawthorn. I saw a snowflake,” she said and she couldn’t help giggling with excitement.

There was a pause at the other end of the line, and then finally a sigh. “A snowflake?”

“Yes!” “Look, lady, we’re busy enough without crank calls, okay?”

“But I’m not—” “Bye.” Click, the call ended.

Emmeline was overcome with a sense of embarrassment. Had she really called a television news station to tell them she’d seen a snowflake?

Later that night, the news reminded her and all the other viewers that Hawthorn had gone yet another day without snowfall. *** It wasn’t very chilly, so Emmeline wore her U.S. Army field jacket to the Safeway—the jacket she’d bought at an Army/Navy surplus store in Saint Cloud, the jacket onto which she’d sewn British and Canadian patches on the left shoulder just to make it different, the jacket she’d worn throughout high school and had never really thought she’d wear again until she moved home and she’d found it folded neatly in a box along with other coats, none of which interested her anymore. But she had always loved that Army jacket, and the only reason she hadn’t brought it to college was that she’d been trying to cultivate a more academic, intellectual aesthetic, instead of moody and punk. But none of that mattered much anymore, she

Almost Nothing - David Obuchowski reasoned.

It was the first week of April by now, and news of the Minnesota town where it hadn’t snowed a single time had found its way onto the internet and the back pages of national newspapers, where it was

“How do you figure they had such a good winter?”

“Maybe their people go to church more,” the deep-voiced man chuckled darkly.

“Emmeline?”

Startled, she whirled around

honestly said no. But maybe it was his deodorant, or shampoo, but he smelled the exact same as he always had.

After one last squeeze, he let her go and then leaned back as if to get another good look at her.

“She’d stopped midway between the two sides of the street, and had watched it drift on the breeze—a bright white dot contrasted against the deep green of an Engelmann spruce at the edge of a yard on the next block.” generally regarded as little more than amusingly odd. But for the people of Hawthorn, it was all too real. And while its residents tried to remain hopeful for a more typical next winter, they still talked to one another about the one that had just passed as if it wasn’t a season, but a witch that had cursed the town.

As Emmeline made her way down the soup, rice and pasta aisle, she overheard someone in the next aisle say, “Hutchison got over sixty inches of snow this past winter. That’s a five-year high.”

“Their crops’ll be happy,” a man with a deeper voice replied.

from the cans of broth, and standing about ten feet away was a man, about her age, who she instantly recognized.

“Ian?” “Yeah!” he said, smiling broadly. In a moment, he’d closed the distance between them and was leaning over her half-full cart and hugging her tightly. She returned the hug with one loose arm as she used the other to steady herself on the cart.

He looked the same. He even smelled the same, which had surprised her because if she’d been asked if she could remember what Ian smelled like at any point since she’d last seen him, which was high school, she’d have

“Emmeline. I can’t believe it. Wow.” Emmeline bit the insides of her cheeks. Of all the people she had to run into from high school, why did it have to be Ian? “So do you live here?” he asked.

“No,” she answered almost instinctively. Even after five years, some part of her still hadn’t accepted that she’d moved back to Hawthorn, the town she grew up in. “I mean, I do now. But, I didn’t before.” She took a small step back and drew a deep breath, frustrated with herself for feeling nervous around him. “I had to come back to help my mom.”

27.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 sick?”

His smile fell away. “She’s

“Kind of. She had a stroke, and now...” she trailed off without going into detail.

“Damn,” he said, rubbing his stubbly chin. “I’m sorry about that, Em.” She hated that name. Em. That plain name everyone presumed to call her in high school. “Thanks.

Yeah. Anyway. You, Ian, what’re you doing here?”

“Documentary,” he said proudly, holding his hands out to the sides of his lean torso as if he were presenting himself as a prize. The nearly ten years since she’d last seen him had only made his cute face handsome, like time had sharpened his angles and lines. Seeing how he looked made her wonder how she appeared to him. Frustrating, because she knew quite well she looked better now than she had in high school. And why should she care what he thought of her looks anyway? “The snowless winter of Hawthorn. I was born to do it.”

Emmeline only nodded, unable to really bring herself to agree with words.

Ian and film. This was a sore subject. *** Throughout high school, Emmeline was a quiet, somewhat gothy creative kid who threw herself into writing, painting, drawing and reading, and who got good grades without much effort. Ian wasn’t a slacker, but he wasn’t a valedictorian, either. And while he hadn’t exactly been a jock, he was hardly a punk or a poet. He was on the track team, but he smoked. He was a bit of a class clown, and yet he always seemed a little mysterious. He drove a rusty, lightlydented Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme from the mid-seventies, which was somehow the most interesting car at

28.

the high school while also being its biggest piece of junk. He didn’t run with the popular crowd, and yet he may have been the most popular kid in school because every single student seemed to like him.

And then he’d made his films.

Though, to even call them films was to give them far too much credit, as far as Emmeline was concerned.

The summer before their senior year, Ian found a small yellow and green box in the storage area of his parents’ basement. It said, in all caps: KODAK EKTASOUND 240 MOVIE OUTFIT. He opened the box, and found, nestled safely inside a molded styrofoam tray, a Super 8 film camera with an onboard microphone.

Ian had always liked movies, but hadn’t ever really considered making them. But the strange camera intrigued him, and so he asked his parents about it, and they said it was nothing more than an obsolete thing they picked up when they’d first been married, thinking they were going to use it to make home movies. He was free to have it, they told him.

Ian bought a bulk of Kodak Ektachrome film cartridges—one color, one black and white—from a place out of Chicago, and he immediately put the camera to work.

By fall, he was bringing the camera with him to school, whipping it out in the cafeteria, in the senior parking lot where students passed around cigarettes and drank coffee. Between classes, he followed students with his clattering, motorized Super 8 film camera with its long, jutting phallic microphone, protruding from the body of the camera in a way that seemed almost obscene. Like his cranky old Cutlass, Ian always operated the camera with a big smile, like he knew it was ridiculous—as if he were making fun of himself for driving such a ratty old car, for using such a weird, outdated camera.

As seniors were permitted to leave campus during their lunches

and free periods, Emmeline almost never ate lunch in the cafeteria during her final year in high school. One fall day, at the start of her lunch, she was heading out to her car.

“And... action,” she’d heard from behind her and the now-familiar whir of the battery-powered motor and the constant clacking of the plastic gears from within the Kodak Ektasound 240 Movie Outfit.

She glanced over her shoulder.

“Act natural,” Ian winked.

She walked a few more steps, then glanced over her shoulder again and with a smile said, “Cut, Ian. Cut.” He stopped the camera and jogged so that he was at pace with her.

“Got big lunch plans?”

“I don’t know. Do you consider Panera to be big plans?”

“Come with me instead,” he said.

She shrugged in agreement, and they took his Cutlass out to the open space on the edge of town. From the trunk, Ian produced a small cooler, and from it, a fancy looking bottle.

He declared, “Lindemans Framboise. Lambic.”

“Come again?”

“Raspberry beer. I nicked it from my parents. They got a whole case as a gift and they never drink the stuff. Don’t know why. Tastes like candy.”

“Beer? It’s hardly noon.”

“This stuff is weak. It’s like half the strength of a Budweiser.

You couldn’t get drunk off this if you tried.” He took a swig from the bottle and held it out to her.

She shrugged. “If you say so.” She took a drink, too, and he was right. It tasted like some kind of tart candy. He hopped off the brown hood of the car—obviously a replacement, as the rest of the car was black—and he got his camera from the backseat.

“Action,” he whispered and depressed the button on the handle with his thumb, and the machine came

Almost Nothing - David Obuchowski to life. Emmeline pretended not to notice, and drank the sweet, red beer.

Ian slowly walked in an arc from one side of the car, around the front to the other. With a half-circle completed, he turned off the camera. “Man,” he chuckled, “you look great.”

She raised an eyebrow at him and smiled a little, doing a good job of hiding the flush of excitement and nerves that ran through her when he said that. She certainly didn’t feel drunk or buzzed, but she wondered if maybe the beer had gone to her head.

“Why don’t we hang out more often?” he asked her.

“Beats me,” she said.

“Everyone does the same old thing out here, you know?”

“Mmmhmmm,” she agreed, though her understanding of what he meant was based more on theory than actual experience. She’d never really had a steady or sizable group of friends.

“Let’s face it, most everyone here’s just gonna wind up working at 3M, Land O’Lakes or Valspar. Not gonna be any different than high school. Bet you won’t, though.”

“Nope,” she grinned. “Not me.”

He picked up a stone and threw it out into the tall grass, now pale after a summer full of sun followed by a few weeks of early morning frosts.

“You’re way too interesting for this town.”

“That’s probably what everyone says about you.”

“Me?” he said, as if he couldn’t imagine what anyone would ever say or think about him.

She handed him the bottle.

“Oh come on.”

“Nah,” he demurred.

“Honestly, you’re probably the most well-liked guy in our class.”

“Please.” All-American. All modesty. He took a long drink. “You wanna hang out this weekend?”

“Yeah,” she said, surprised at how much she did.

“Cool.” He grinned at her, then rambled into the grass with his camera.

That weekend started a string of hangouts, just the two of them. Long conversations in the ragged booths of Spatch, the all-night restaurant out on the interstate, where they’d split an order of fries and drink countless coffees, thick with hazelnutflavored non-dairy creamers. Long rides in the Cutlass, which he let her drive. Late nights in their basements, drinking skimmed booze and Lindemans Framboise spiked with vodka. The camera was always there, sometimes on, sometimes not. Their conversations frequently turned into confessionals which were innocent at first—who they had crushes on, who they’d kissed, who they couldn’t stand.

But the longer they sat, they drove, they drank, the more personal they got. The grief of losing a parent, the secret sketches and verses in volumes of tattered journals, even their sex dreams—the details of which would make them giggle bashfully, but turn them on secretly.

Though, as Emmeline looked back years later, she came to realize these confessions were rarely reciprocated. She was the confessant, he the confessor.

They’d kiss. Long, intense kisses, where they would run their hands along the curves of angles of their bodies, but almost always over their clothes. Except for one time.

There was one time when they drank just slightly more than usual and Emmeline was wearing a skirt, and he was lying on top of her, pressing more and more firmly into her, their hips fluidly, rhythmically pushing and pulling against each other as they kissed; he reached down between her legs and felt warmth and wetness through her underwear and then she felt him turn his hand so he could unzip his fly and she didn’t say a word but she looked at him in the eyes, stared at him really, with a look that

said neither keep going or stop. He froze.

And for a moment they looked at each other as if they were projecting themselves into the not-too-distant future when they would be looking back at this moment when they’d crossed some invisible border into a whole new territory and they’d done it not alone, but together. Ian and Emmeline—forever bonded as each other’s first.

Ian smiled. And then he laughed the same laugh he did when he’d rev the engine of his Cutlass Supreme or run his Ektasound 240 movie camera. He rolled off her and said, “Whoa, I’m drunk.”

She wondered why he’d stopped. Was it because of her? Or was it because of the thing itself ? And how did she feel about it? They had been on the verge of something big.

But in an instant, it slipped away and was almost nothing.

Over the following months, they continued their hangouts, though they weren’t as frequent, and they made out less. Ian had burned through his bulk of film, and so the camera went back into its box, which sat atop the threadbare velour bench seat in the back of his Cutlass, where it would slide from one side to the other depending on which way he happened to be turning the large automobile.

One winter night, when it was snowing lightly but steadily, he picked her up and took her to Spatch. He seemed to be more eager to see her than he had been for a while, and was in an even better mood than his usual jovial one. She asked him what had made him so happy, but he kept in her suspense. It wasn’t until the plastic oval plate overflowing with golden, greasy French fries was between them that he finally told her.

“You know how a few months back, I was going around recording stuff with my camera?” he asked.

“It’s film. You don’t record with

29.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 it,” she giggled. “You shoot with it.”

“Blah blah blah,” he teased.

“Anyway, I got all of those cartridges developed and transferred onto digital.”

“Cool.” Emmeline doused some fries with malt vinegar, plucked one from the pile and took a bite.

“Well, my parents got me this brand-new computer back in November as, like, a combination birthday/Christmas gift, ya know. I realized that it’s got this cheesy movie editing software already installed on it. So I messed around and I spent like two hours just cutting the footage up into five different short movies.”

“Two hours, huh?”

“If that,” he laughed and grabbed a French fry.

Emmeline took another bite of her own vinegary fry, trying to squelch the ember of dread she was starting to feel in the pit of her stomach.

“Seriously, I didn’t even look at what I was editing. I just mixed up the footage at random.” He took a sip of coffee to wash down the bite he’d been chewing while he was speaking.

Emmeline put down the remaining stub of her soggy fry.

“So I put it into five different movies and then, for a laugh, I submitted them with an application to the CalArts film school. They not only accepted me, they’re giving me a partial scholarship. Not much, but enough. My folks are picking up the rest. They don’t want me taking out loans.”

Somewhere out there near the gas pumps or in the parking lot, a truck’s horn bellowed, and then there was a short, feeble beep of a car horn in response.

Ian leaned in, as if he was about to share a secret. “They even want to show the movies at this little film fest they’re doing next summer when school starts.” Suddenly, as if he’d just been given the news that very moment, he smacked the table

30.

with both hands. “Can you believe it?

I’m going to film school! I’m going to Hollywood, baby!”

All at once, Emmeline felt drunker than she’d ever felt, and yet, she hadn’t had a drop to drink. She was dizzy with envy and confusion and righteous indignation that such a prestigious art school would embrace someone who was so clearly just a dilettante. “Are you kidding?” was all she could manage.

“Not kidding. Not kidding,” he said, shaking his head. He clapped.

“This is not a joke.”

“Wow,” she said and forced a smile.

“The movies are called Hawthorn One Through Five, only I did it with Roman numerals to make it look more serious.” He laughed at this.

“You’re in them! I mean, everyone is, but there’s more of you than anyone,” he said, as if he expected her to be thrilled by this. “Wanna come over and see ‘em?”

Now she was not only envious and resentful and indignant, she was afraid and embarrassed. She’d had absolutely no idea he would be doing anything with the fim he’d taken of her, and had certainly never considered he’d distribute it let alone actually show it in a movie theater. “Um, yeah,” she said. “Of course I want to see it if I’m in it. I mean, honestly, Ian,” she said, “I had no idea you were ever going to do anything with this. I feel like you should have asked.”

“Em,” he said, dismissively, “come on. It’s not like I set up a hidden camera. You knew I was recording you.”

“Shooting,” she corrected him.

He grinned. “I knew you were gonna be a tough critic,” he said.

They left the remaining mountain of fries uneaten and walked out into the light snow, Ian holding her hand, Emmeline in a daze. Throughout the entire drive back to his house, Ian excitedly explained how he’d framed it

as some high-minded documentary of small-town, Midwestern life, and how he’d carefully chosen Super 8 film, as it harkened back to what people perceive as a simpler time and format, but in reality is more complicated, cumbersome, problematic. “I was just throwing out as many artsy and intellectual terms as I could come up with, you know. Just, like, having fun.

I mean, God, if only they knew I was just messing around filming random stuff.”

Emmeline could not, for the life of her, find anything redeeming about the movies. There was nothing discernibly different between any of the parts. They just appeared to be disconnected shots of things and places and people. The grocery store. A leaning barn. The mall. A hallway full of students. His Cutlass. A track meet.

French fries. Teenagers smoking. A squirrel eating Fritos. And throughout all of this, there were extended shots of Emmeline. Some of them showed her drinking. Some showed her making silly faces. Some were of her leaning on an elbow looking tired and happy after an hour of kissing. But then there were other parts with her. Parts with sound.

Parts where she was talking about how even though she loved art and would love to be a great artist, she knew she didn’t have the real, raw, true talent to be, but that she was committed to living an artful life, to helping curate exhibitions, to working in the greatest museums of the world surrounded by the most brilliant art ever made. Maybe I can have my own gallery. Maybe I can run a collection at the V&A. The films, mercifully, ended.

After how long, she couldn’t say.

“You know,” he said, “it’s kind of amazing to me that here you are talking about how hard it is to be a great artist, and yet all I did was just randomly toss this together, and look!”

Emmeline strongly considered screaming at him. She was also tempted to break down and cry. She

Almost Nothing - David Obuchowski wondered if she might write to CalArts to inform them he was an imposter.

It was a gridlock of humiliation and hatred and jealousy, and all she could do was sit there, speechless, still staring at a screen that no longer displayed any images.

“You’ve got to admit, that’s pretty funny,” he prompted her.

“It’s not,” she said, barely

left.

“I’ll walk.”

“It’s snowing!” he argued.

“Barely,” she said coldly, and

Emmeline’s rage gave way to sickening resignation. It didn’t matter what she did or didn’t do, say or didn’t say. Ian would go off to California where he’d be loved like he was in Hawthorn. People like him lived a

wanted to tell him she liked it better when he was a stranger. But there was another part of her that wanted to know what had become of him, how the world had decided to continue to reward him. There was another part of her that was simply lonely. And there was another part of her that was thrilled with this chance encounter.

“If you’re making a

“Even after five years, some part of her still hadn’t accepted that she’d moved back to Hawthorn, the town she grew up in.” above a whisper.

He let his head drop, and he turned away from her, like he’d been expecting she might react like this.

“You’re really gonna be like this?”

“The thing I care about the most... it’s just like a joke to you.”

“Em, it’s me. Ian. You know I’m not like that.”

“Just one big joke. And I’m the punchline.” She finally brought herself to look up at him. “What did you think? I was going to be happy to be in your fake art film?”

“I—” he started to say.

“I’m humiliated,” she cut him off. “And I’m leaving.”

“Em, come on!” he called after her. “Wait, I’ll give you a lift and we can talk about it.”

charmed life. They could drive ugly, terrible cars and make it interesting.

They could never have much to say and seem mysterious. They could just smile a lot and seem kind. They could throw a bunch of uninspired footage together and call it art and people would believe it. She had no respect for him.

At least they hadn’t had sex. *** “So, look. It’s been a long time,” Ian said. “I would love to catch up. Can we do dinner? Please?

Seriously, Em. Please.”

The cold, fluorescent lights overhead seemed to flicker. There was a part of her that wanted to say no, that

documentary about this winter in Hawthorn, I have a story for you,” she said.

“You’re kidding,” he said, his eyes bright and wide. “What? Wait— don’t tell me. Wait for the camera.”

“You’re not gonna shoot it on that Ektasound thing, are you?”

He laughed. “God, what a memory,” he said. “No, definitely not.”

“All right, well tomorrow works,” she said, as if every single other night didn’t as well. “Let’s do something around 8:30 at my place.

My mom’s place, I mean. She’s asleep by eight.”

“Tomorrow. 8:30. Your house.

I remember exactly where it is.” ***

31.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 She half-expected him to show up in the old Cutlass with its black body and brown hood, but he pulled up at half past eight in what appeared to be a late model Hyundai. She was unsurprised when he came to the door with bottles of Lindemans Framboise.

He was also clutching a baguette.

“I didn’t know what we were having, so I brought this,” he said,

“Of course,” she played along, and then she rummaged through the fridge for the cheese. “Let’s see, I’ve got brie, cheddar and some nice parmesan.”

“Beats fries,” he said.

The constant references to high school were already wearing on her. She gave a courtesy chuckle, but left it at that.

cheese on a large dish decorated with a hand-painted sheaf of wheat beneath its glaze. They did all this silently, as if it were carefully choreographed, the scene ending in the two sitting down at the dinner table, the overhead light barely competing with the darkening gloom of the kitchen and surrounding rooms.

“Em, I just gotta say

“She wondered why he’d stopped. Was it because of her? Or was it because of the thing itself? And how did she feel about it? They had been on the verge of something big. But in an instant, it slipped away and was almost nothing.” setting the baguette on the kitchen table.”

“I’ve got some cheeses and olives if you want to do a little cheese plate for dinner.”

“Sounds good to me.” He held up the Lindemans. “For old times’ sake.”

“Indeed,” she said.

“We can always add vodka for more fun.”

32.

Ian took two glasses from the cabinet with the comfort and familiarity of someone who lived there. He poured the Framboise and handed one to her.

They clinked glasses, Emmeline being careful to not meet his eyes directly, and then took a sip. Then she handed him a bread knife and nodded toward the baguette as indication that he should slice it, which he did, looking pleased to have a job. Emmeline arranged the

something.”

She braced herself.

“We didn’t leave things in a great place.”

“I don’t want to talk about the past, Ian. Honestly, we’re almost thirty now. I’m really not trying to look back at my teens—” “I get that,” he said, “and I’m sorry to cut you off, but let me just say: I’m sorry. I get now why you weren’t

Almost Nothing - David Obuchowski okay with me just putting you in my movie project thing. I thought you figured I might do something with it, but I shouldn’t have assumed that.

That wasn’t cool.”

“Thank you,” she said, though she found herself entirely unmoved.

He visibly relaxed and gave her his million-dollar smile. “And, honestly, you were everyone’s favorite parts of those movies. Like, by a long shot. They—” “Don’t,” she said. “I really don’t want to hear about that.” She felt her skin get hot with anger.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, and he drank down the rest of the bloodred beer and refilled his glass.

For the previous day and a half, Emmeline had been struggling with how she might learn about Ian’s past nine years. How and when would she ask him about film school and the career that followed? Would she wait until the end of the night? Would she do it directly? Would she do it with subtle questions, and try to draw the intelligence from him without him even realizing it? She was desperately curious, but she also hated to give him the satisfaction. So perhaps, she allowed, she wouldn’t ask him anything whatsoever. She might even change the subject if he began to talk about it himself. But now, with him sitting across from her, there was only one thing to do. Ask. “So how was the rest of film school? And what have you been working on? Aside from this documentary, I mean.”

He looked from his beer to her and back again and inhaled slowly. “Well,” he said, “I didn’t actually finish film school.”

“No?” Emmeline asked, sitting back in her chair. This was intriguing.

“No. For one thing, the scholarship. Well, it dried up.”

“Dried up?”

“There was some fine print. I mean, it comes down to this: it wasn’t a good fit.”

“How so?”

“Well, I mean, in addition to a level of academic performance, they also require you to either produce a certain amount of film on your own, or find work on other productions.

They’re real big on having you get in there, do things, be a part of the action, you know.”

Emmeline tilted her head, not really understanding what this was all coming to.

“Film school. First, you watch a lot of films. I mean, you have no idea—” “I majored in Art History, I looked at a lot of art. I have an idea.”

“Right. So then you know.

Well, see, for me, watching all those movies. It was a little much. And it’s not like we were watching, you know, Die Hard. We were watching these four-hour long, black-and-white silent things... ah, you know. It wasn’t my thing. So, I skipped a lot of the showings. The grades slipped.”

“What about making movies, though?”

Ian drained the glass again. “You know,” he said slowly, “sometimes I think you sort of cursed me.” He smiled a strange smile.

Emmeline crossed her arms.

“Excuse me?” She wasn’t sure if he was making a joke, and, if not, whether she should be offended or flattered.

“I think about the stuff you said all those times we hung out. The stuff you said in the movie. About knowing you weren’t a great artist, and yet you were determined to be involved with art somehow, just because you loved it so much.”

“You thought that was funny because you made a joke art film and it got you a scholarship at film school.”

“Right.”

“Still funny?”

“No,” he shook his head.

“I got there, and the quote unquote film festival was really just a showing of everyone’s movies they submitted with their applications. First week was critiques. Critiques of those movies. I thought I was being a nice guy, thinking of all these nice things to say about everyone’s,” he chuckled.

“But didn’t take long to realize, they weren’t looking for us to be nice.”

“That’s not how critiques work,” Emmeline smiled.

“Everyone was tearing everyone’s apart. And when it came to mine,” he paused, they tore into it.

I mean, they just trashed it. Like I was saying, people liked you, but they hated the movies. Someone actually made a point to say that the movie would have been better off directed by ‘that girl who was in it.’ Someone else said, ‘It’s weird to have some talk about recognizing being a bad artist in a movie that’s so clearly bad art.’”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.

Ouch.

Exactly.

Anyway, I licked my wounds but figured, what the hell, we were all getting torn down and I’d just come up with some more fresh ideas out of thin air. Tried to do another Super 8 movie,” he laughed a little. “That didn’t work out too well. Professor said I needed to move on from the ‘gimmicks.’ Anyway, point is, I had no ideas. And the more I thought about how I didn’t have any ideas, the more unable I was to come up with anything. It’s like, when I made those five dumb movies, I wasn’t thinking about anything. I wasn’t thinking about making art—great, good or otherwise. But at least it was something. And at least someone found it interesting. But as soon as I had to make it my business to have ideas, to create, it just fell apart. The grades slipped. I didn’t produce enough. I limped to the finish line of my second year, and that was it. I remember

33.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 when I dropped out, I thought to myself, ‘What if I never met Em? What if I never had to hear all her philosophizing on great art and knowing your limits as an artist?’

Stupid, I know. But there was always some part of me that felt like, maybe I could have skated by if I didn’t have you in the back of mind, questioning me as an artist.”

“I’m sorry,” Emmeline said. And she did feel sorry for him, even if she also felt there was a little more justice in the world than she’d previously thought. “So then what’d you do?”

“Ah! Well, you know how I’m handsome?” he asked with a big smile and poured himself more of the Lindeman’s.

She couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yes, I guess I might have noticed that at some point.”

“Right! Me, too!” he said.

“So did my parents, by the way.

Anyway. I figured, you know, this is ridiculous, me, a director. I’m not a filmmaker! But, I’ve got some charm, I’ve got the looks, and I’m right there in L.A. Why not act?”

“Act? Were you ever in school plays or anything?”

“Oh God, no! So, I convinced my parents to put me into acting school. It was less than film school even when I’d had my scholarship.

And as I’m going through acting school, I start getting a familiar feeling. The feeling that I’m in way over my head. But I booked a couple local commercials over the next few years, and I’d go to every possible audition they’d let me into.”

“And?” Emmeline was fairly riveted.

“And, Emmeline, I’m now a bartender. Turns out, I’m not all that great-looking. Maybe I am in Hawthorn. But the thing about L.A. is this: everyone’s great looking. Greater looking. So, really, I’ve just bombed.

Really, I have. It doesn’t matter how

34.

far east of the city I move, I really can’t afford to live out there. I still go for auditions, but I know I’m never gonna get the part. I think the one thing I succeeded at was becoming a cautionary tale about going to Hollywood.”

Emmeline truly believed she ought to be savoring this much more than she was. It was good to know that he wasn’t some millionaire, but on the other hand, it made no sense whatsoever that he, Ian, didn’t have some great career with a gorgeous wife and a slick house with a great view and an expensive Italian or German car. He was the most well-liked kid in Hawthorn, and everything he did, people seemed to love. It felt wrong that he should be such a failure. As wrong as going an entire winter without snow in Hawthorn.

“So there I was, getting ready to pack it in, maybe move back here, get my real estate license, when guess what I see on the news?”

“Hawthorn.”

“Hawthorn. Exactly. I mean, people just didn’t get how absolutely insane it was that Hawthorn didn’t get any snow. A town in Minnesota!

No snow! It was like they were treating it like some funny little thing.

And then I’d talk to my parents, and they’d sound genuinely terrified, like there were plagues of locusts.”

“It’s been,” Emmeline tried to find the right word, “it’s been strange, for sure.”

“Well, so that’s when it occurred to me. Maybe this is my chance. Maybe I need to go back to Hawthorn, and make a documentary to help people understand.”

“It’s a great idea,” Emmeline said, and she meant it. “It really is.”

“Thanks, Em,” he said. “So. You said you have a story for me.”

She nodded, finding herself actually eager to be in a movie he was making.

From his bag, he pulled out

a small but very expensive-looking digital camera and collapsible tripod.

He set it all up, framed a shot and then sat back down across from her.

“Ready?” he asked.

“I am,” she said.

He asked her name and her age, both of which she answered, and then he said, “You told me off-camera you had a story about this winter in Hawthorn. But I said I didn’t want to hear it until we were rolling. We’re rolling now. Go ahead.”

Emmeline told her story about how she had no work that day in mid-March, how she’d just finished cleaning up from lunch with her mother, how she then went on a walk and how right there, in between two blocks, she’d seen a snowflake.

“They’ve all said there wasn’t any snow,” she said. “But there was. I saw it.”

His smile changed almost imperceptibly. “Wait,” he said. “You saw a snowflake?”

“Yes.” “But just one?”

“Just one.”

“How do you know it wasn’t a little piece of down or a Styrofoam particle or something?”

Being challenged on this point took her aback. “Because it melted, and also I know what snow looks like because I grew up in Minnesota.”

“Huh,” he said and sat back.

He reached carefully around the camera and took another sip of beer.

Then he placed the glass down and leaned forward again into the glow of the overhead light. “Okay, but it was just one snowflake.”

“Yes.” “Just one?”

“Yes.” “Not one tiny snow shower.

Just one... little... teeny... tiny... flake.”

“It wasn’t ‘teeny-tiny,’ but yes, it was one snowflake. But it just goes to show, there could have been others. And even if there wasn’t, that

Almost Nothing - David Obuchowski one is that much more special, and I saw it.”

Ian burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh,” he said.

All at once, Emmeline was filled with renewed rage and resentment toward him. Utter hatred, really.

“So, what, you saw one snowflake and that means that it really did snow? That it just almost didn’t snow?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I mean, I think when they say it didn’t snow in Hawthorn, they mean, like, there wasn’t any measurable accumulation or precipitation. I don’t think they actually mean there wasn’t a single flake.”

Emmeline leaned forward over the table, over the same placemat she’d eaten over for nearly her entire life. “How would you know, Ian? You a meteorologist now? Are you a director-filmmakerdocumentarian-actor-bartenderrealtor-weatherman?”

“Whoa,” he said.

“Good luck with your documentary. Maybe it’ll get you back into film school and you can almost graduate.” She stood up, signaling the end of the interview and their short-lived reunion.

“Okay, okay, hold up, okay?” he said, trying to smooth things out.

“No, forget it. Leave.

Seriously, get out,” she said. She didn’t yell it. Quite the opposite. Her voice was almost gentle.

Mere minutes later, Ian was in his Hyundai (or maybe it was his parents’ Hyundai), and he was pulling away from the curb, away from Emmeline.

In the coming days and weeks and months, Emmeline tried to bring herself to wonder if he’d finish the documentary or if it would just fail like most everything else he’d done

since high school. But, no matter how much she tried to wonder, the thought was like spring snow on warm, black asphalt: it wouldn’t stick. The truth was, she really couldn’t care any less.

Whatever became of him and his socalled art, was so tiny, so fleetingly temporary that it seemed more insignificant than a single snowflake in the snowiest winter Hawthorn had ever seen.

35.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

Lost and Found Kathleen Glassburn

I

’d flown into London from Seattle and stayed at a hotel at Charing Cross Station. Music outside kept me awake most of the night. In the morning I stumbled onto the train to Bath for the start of my tour.

At the Dunton Guesthouse, a matronly woman with eyeglasses hanging from a gold chain introduced herself as Mrs. Remington. “Your roommate is settled in,” she said.

Following her into the small room, I noticed windows overlooking a manicured garden. A younger woman sat at a writing desk, printing in large capital letters on a piece of cream-colored stationery.

“This is Phoebe Martin,” Mrs. Remington said.

“And this is Bethany Thomas.”

Phoebe stood up. Trim, with a dab of pink lipstick and a curly mop of sparrow-brown hair, her smile seemed pleasant enough… maybe a bit reticent.

I put on my meeting-a-new-client expression.

“I’m sure we’ll have a great time on this trip.”

Exiting the room, Mrs. Remington called back, “You best go down as soon as possible. Mr. Morgan is starting the kick-off meeting in a few minutes.”

36.

The pillows and quilt on one of the twin beds were rumpled. I stashed my rolling suitcase under the other and said, “Well, Phoebe, shall we?”

A man with peaked eyebrows and a well-toned build bore a strong resemblance to the singer Sting, a favorite of mine. This man’s name tag said: “Lloyd Morgan.” Standing at the door to the breakfast room, he shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Welcome, people!” he kept repeating as we slogged in and slouched onto folding chairs arranged in three semi-circular rows.

I sat next to Phoebe, trying to keep my tired eyes open, sipping a cup of coffee that would definitely hinder sleep.

“How long will we be at this hotel?” Phoebe whispered.

Didn’t she read the itinerary? “Three nights.”

The guide started with obligatory introductions.

“I’m Lloyd from Wales. It’s a grand place that I look forward to showing you.”

My deceased husband, Owen, was Welsh.

“I’ve been leading tours for over twenty-five years.” Lloyd turned to the first person on his right. “Tell

us a bit about yourself.”

“Name’s Darren. I’m from Seattle, Washington.” His light blonde hair, silver threads among the gold, stood out in our group. “Being single, I figured a trip with a lot of people would be fun.” He looked Phoebe’s age, which I guessed to be about forty-five.

Twenty other participants were paired up as couples. They all

emails if we wanted to share (I chose not to). Next, he started his talk.

“Here we are in jolly old England for fifteen days.” He looked around the room. “You Americans are going to notice the reserve and attention to detail immediately.”

At the time, we laughed.

Then he started in on the National Trust. “Terrible organization. They prey upon the elderly, convincing

Lost and Found - Kathleen Glassburn

That night in our room, after a dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, then ale tasting at The Hop Pole, I got Phoebe to share a bit of personal information.

She had previously worked as a bookkeeper at her late husband’s window washing company. I had been a psychologist with the diocese, and Owen had been a professor of medieval history at the University of

“Did I regret not trying harder to meet someone? Was that why Phoebe’s situation hit a nerve? A sweet woman, albeit troubled, I didn’t want her to be, decades up the road, going on trips by herself, rooming with strangers.” appeared to be middle-aged or older.

When it got to us, my roommate said, “I’m Phoebe from Minneapolis, Minnesota,” in the same way a new kid might stammer to a classroom of unfamiliar children.

“I’m by myself. My family wanted me to take this trip.”

I said, “Bethany from Seattle.” They don’t need to know anything else.

When the last person finished speaking, Lloyd passed around a clipboard for names, home cities and

them to bequeath scant savings. My own father gave everything to them except a two-room cottage.”

Aren’t many of the sites we’ll visit supported by this trust?

Still, I didn’t let his words bother me. Owen and I had planned a trip to England with our Episcopal church fifteen years before. It was to be a pilgrimage that fit in with what he taught.

Now I had come on my own. ***

Washington. She had one grown son.

I had no children. After indulging in Cadbury chocolates delivered by Mrs. Remington, we prepared for bed. I could soon tell by Phoebe’s regular breathing that she was out almost immediately.

Not me. No matter how tired, I still had a difficult time getting to sleep. I crawled under a tent of covers with my travel flashlight.

Skimming through an already notated guidebook, I reached the entry about Glastonbury, which we would visit in

37.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 a couple of days. Midway through a description of the Chalice Well, Phoebe shrieked several times. I bolted up, throwing my covers aside. She sat stiffly, ramming the mattress with her fists. I shone my light in her direction.

Phoebe’s dark eyes were glazed and unfocused.

Moments later, she quieted and fell back on the pillow. Her breathing steadied.

My heart pounded like an ancient clock counting off seconds.

What to do? Did anyone hear?

A tap on the door was followed by a low, male voice asking, “Is everything all right?”

I opened it a crack. Darren, with his blonde hair going every which way, stood there.

“Phoebe had a nightmare.

She’s back to sleep.” I didn’t need to explain night terrors to him.

“I’m right next door if you need anything. She’s probably overfatigued.”

“Thanks for your concern.”

The rest of the night I dozed on and off, pondering this incident and hoping it didn’t happen again. Phoebe remained quiet. *** In the morning, I watched her stretch and yawn as she got on her feet.

While her eyes were bloodshot and her face looked more haggard than before, she seemed none the worse from the night terror. When she came out from her shower, wearing a somber gray jogging suit, I broached the subject.

“Something strange happened last night.”

“Huh?” She zipped her jacket tighter.

“You had a terrible dream.

You hollered out.”

“I’m so sorry. They’re called night terrors. I’m not aware when I have one.”

“What causes them?” How

38.

much does she know?

“Stress. This trip has been hard. I was awfully tired and besides that, I didn’t want to come.”

“Why did you?”

“My son and daughter-in-law thought it would be good for me. I’ve been helping them take care of their little girl for several years. She went to kindergarten a few weeks ago, leaving me at loose ends. They coaxed me into taking this trip.”

“Are the night terrors serious?”

“They can require medication, but mine don’t. I’ve had them since childhood. My granddaughter, Emily, has them too. After my husband’s accident, mine started again—only occasionally.”

“Do you want to talk about it... his accident?”

She cocked her head to the side for a moment before explaining, “Well, Larry’s company specialized in office buildings. He hadn’t done any of the actual work for a long time, but one of his employees called in sick. He hesitated about doing the job himself, saying that he wasn’t sure about going up there. I told him that I knew he’d be okay.”

Holding my breath, I waited for what was to come.

“A cable broke… Larry fell seventeen floors.”

“That’s horrible.” What else could I say? “It’s always an enormous shock when a person in their prime dies accidentally.”

“He was such a good husband and father. His foreman called me to the scene. I’ll never forget Larry’s mangled body on the sidewalk.” Her face had turned red with emotion. “I blame myself.”

“That’s understandable.” My heart went out to her. “I hope you can let your feelings go, at least for this time away.”

She didn’t respond.

I offered, “How about something to eat.”

soon.”

“You go ahead. I’ll be down ***

While munching on some granola, I looked at the Bath section of my guidebook and planned a stroll around town with Phoebe. She never showed up. So I went by myself to the Jane Austen House and the Costume Museum before going to No. 1 Royal Crescent. There I sat on a hard wooden bench in an empty room, waiting for a video to start.

Lloyd wandered in. “Hello there… Bethany, is it?”

I nodded.

“Been here long?” He sat down next to me.

“A few minutes.”

“Alone?”

“I am.” Is this house sponsored by the National Trust?

We watched the video in silence, after which Lloyd followed me up the stairway. On the landing I stopped at a vintage dollhouse exhibit.

I loved miniatures. “Are you interested in these?” I asked when Lloyd stopped as well.

“The craftsmanship. My father did construction in our village,” he said. “My daughter was more into playing her violin than this sort of thing.”

We gazed at tiny rooms for a few minutes before traipsing up to the actual living quarters. The Parlour’s table was set for four—teatime. I glanced at the furniture descriptions.

“That’s a Chippendale bookcase desk.” I pointed to a sign. “A tidy place for dealing with business matters.”

“My office is a mess.” Lloyd shrugged.

He tagged along into The Gentleman’s Retreat.

A docent with heavily wrinkled features that made him look as old as the displays launched into a talk about everything from books to a 1790s-era

Lost and Found - Kathleen Glassburn globe to a medical electrical machine replica.

When he finally took a breath, Lloyd moved closer to me, his eyebrows raised.

“This is fascinating, but we must move on,” I told the man.

Once out of earshot, Lloyd said, “Thanks for the escape. We could have spent the rest of the day listening to him.”

“It’s nice to see someone who enjoys his work.”

Once we had gone through the whole house and were out on the sidewalk, Lloyd offered a hand. “Good browsing with you.” He turned and walked up the street.

Searching for a pharmacy, I ran into Darren. “How’s your roommate?” he inquired.

“I think she’s fine.”

“She seems sad… and the nightmare…”

“Her husband died a few years ago.” I couldn’t help myself.

“She is attractive… and single.”

“I’m divorced. Also a few years ago.” From his pained expression, I assumed it wasn’t his choice.

“You never can tell…” I stepped away. “Must be off to find something to help with my sleep.” *** That night, Phoebe and I lounged in our room after fish and chips at a pub, anticipating the Cadbury chocolates.

“What do you think of Darren?” I asked.

“Who?” Phoebe looked truly puzzled.

“Darren. The guy on our tour.”

“Which one is he?”

“Striking silver-blonde hair.

Tanned and healthy-looking. By himself.” Like you!

“Oh yeah, he’s from Seattle.

Did you know him before?”

“Never met.”

“So…?”

“You aren’t... interested in him?”

“Should I be?”

I paused. Do I say he asked about her? “I’m going to turn my light out.

It’s a big day tomorrow.”

“Where are we going?”

“Glastonbury. King Arthur and Guinevere—all that romantic stuff.”

“Glastonbury… the only stop that appealed to me.” She rolled over and mumbled, “I love stories of Camelot. My first date with Larry was to the musical.”

At least she should have pleasant thoughts going to sleep then. I braced myself for a repeat performance while my mind took off.

Darren was a presentable man. Did Phoebe have no desire to date?

Mind your own business. Did I regret not trying harder to meet someone? Was that why Phoebe’s situation hit a nerve? A sweet woman, albeit troubled, I didn’t want her to be, decades up the road, going on trips by herself, rooming with strangers.

An hour later, Phoebe’s night terror struck.

Darren didn’t come to the door this time.

Despite the disturbance, eventually I slept fairly well—thanks to the Tylenol PM. *** After breakfast, which Phoebe skipped again, we loaded into a coach, as the British call buses, and headed for Glastonbury. It was a lovely lateSeptember day. The sun shone but it was cool enough to require a jacket.

Indian summer. What do they call it here?

Once we were on the move, Lloyd spoke into a microphone. “This is not my favorite spot—not by a long

shot.”

Odd comment for a tour guide.

“Glastonbury is a haven for aging hippies and New Age enthusiasts. There are more crystal shops than useful establishments. I won’t even go into the music festival that attracts hordes of nutcases. That said, the town is on our list. Go there we must.”

Within an hour, we disembarked and he led us through the Abbey ruins, talking about different areas in a brusque way: St. Dunstan’s Chapel, the Lady Chapel, the Chapel of St. Thomas à Becket.

“Supposedly, the bodies of Arthur and Guinevere are buried in a so-called grave outside.” He then marched off in that direction.

Remnants of walls surrounded the rock-encircled plot that looked as humble as a pauper’s final resting place. An unobtrusive plaque read: Site of King Arthur’s Tomb.

“You probably have a Hollywood notion of Arthur.” Lloyd’s face twisted into a sneer. He looked directly at Phoebe as if she must be guilty of this sin. “Poppycock! There might have been an Arthur, probably a Roman soldier, but so long ago it cannot be substantiated. He’s not buried—” “An iron cross was found here in the twelfth century with his name on it,” I said loud enough for everyone to hear.

Lloyd stretched taller. “Never proven. Of one thing we are certain: he did not look like Sean Connery.

Arthur was small with spindly, twisted legs, yellow, broken-off teeth, lice... and he rode a stinky mule.”

I recalled Phoebe’s words before she went to sleep.

One fellow, standing beside me, took off a tweed cap and rubbed his charcoal gray head. He muttered to his wife, “Sure knows how to wreck a good tale.”

She nodded and they shuffled

39.

The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 away, holding hands, followed by almost everyone else.

I remained, looking at the little grave and choking up, wishing that Owen was holding my hand. How he would have enjoyed Glastonbury.

Phoebe, a few feet away, had a tear rolling down her cheek. I watched as Darren went up to her.

“That might be the truth,”

“It’s all right, Owen. He can’t change my mind about this place,” I said out loud.

I moved to the fringes of our paltry group and listened to Lloyd’s spiel.

“It’s said that the chalice Joseph of Arimathea brought to England is at the bottom of this well.

The waters have healing powers. Who

reflected on some of the things Owen had told me.

Unlike Lloyd, he was certain of Arthur’s existence—being a true Welshman. “There are documents that prove it,” he’d said. “Like the controversy over whether there was one man named Shakespeare or several who wrote the plays attributed to him, this has been left to individual

“‘These sites that used to mean so much to me have poisoned my life.’ He drank some of his comforting tea. ‘What about you?

Why are you on this trip by yourself?’ Why not?”

I heard him say. “But I’ll keep my own picture of Arthur.” He paused as Phoebe brushed the tear away and acknowledged him for the first time.

With a kind smile he went on, “These legends are part of our heritage.”

“I appreciate your opinion.”

She sniffed. “Lloyd’s words were a real downer.”

Their shoulders touched as they walked away.

Lloyd had gone to the Chalice Well. Will he spoil that too?

40.

knows… maybe that’s the case.” He sounded more respectful. “You can buy a vial of water to take home,” he concluded in a sarcastic tone.

My icy-feeling eyes pierced Lloyd’s. Stomping off, I saw Darren and Phoebe crossing the street and entering a crystal shop. That lifted my spirits.

I bought a vial of water and two books, then found a tiny café off the main street. Opting for a sausage roll and a cup of Earl Grey tea, I

interpretation.”

Owen chose to believe that William Shakespeare was the author and poet. He also believed that King Arthur lived in fifth century England.

A charismatic leader, he drove the Saxons out of his country, at least temporarily. Wounded on Salisbury Plain, maybe he was even taken by boat to Avalon, where Morgan le Fay healed him.

“An Arthur will come at Britain’s hour of need,” Owen would quote.

Lost and Found - Kathleen Glassburn Adding, “During World War II, they held on to this idea, along with the image of Saint Paul’s Cathedral rising from the dust and rubble of the Blitz.”

As we rode back to Bath, I felt a swell of delight seeing Darren and Phoebe sitting together, comparing crystals. Phoebe’s was a pink quartz.

Darren’s was white with a golden glow.

Upon arrival at Dunton Guesthouse, tired from the first outing, we all headed to our rooms for a rest before dinner. Halfway up the stairs, I realized I’d left my jacket on the coach. The door was open and no one else was around. I rushed to my seat and would have rushed back out except a flash caught my eye. Lloyd was hunched in the rear, studying his notes with a torch, as they called flashlights.

He gave me a limp-fingered salute.

Doesn’t he want to be in his own room? *** I didn’t go right upstairs but made a cup of tea and rested at a little round table for two in a corner of the empty breakfast room. The prospect of Lloyd’s bitterness for the rest of the tour upset me. Maybe I would explore Wales independently.

“May I join you?”

He had quietly entered the room.

“I’m leaving.”

“Please don’t let me chase you away.” He put a tentative hand on my arm. “I’d like to talk for a minute.”

I took a sip of tea and scrutinized him.

“I’ll get a cup too.”

Lloyd returned and sat down in the other chair. “You don’t like me.”

No point denying it.

“Most people don’t. I don’t like those who do.”

“Why are you so meanspirited? Couldn’t you have expressed

the questionable nature of Arthur’s story in a more tactful way?”

“Soft and gentle?”

“What’s wrong with that?” I touched the vial of well water in my pocket. “Some people want to believe these old myths. You made them feel like fools.”

“Did I make you feel like a fool?”

“I’m beyond that. But how about Phoebe? She’s having a hard time.”

“She does seem wounded…

I’ll apologize.” He stared at his folded hands. “This is my last tour. I’m about to retire to my father’s cottage in the mountains.”

“Were you always this jaded?”

“Life…”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Never have…” He rubbed two fingers in a circle on the table’s surface. I must have seemed trustworthy because he proceeded to tell me how too many years being away on these tours, much as he had enjoyed them, took a toll on his personal relationships. His wife left him for another man… a man she met at the Glastonbury Festival. “He claims to be a descendant of Arthur’s, and they own a crystal shop.” On top of this, Lloyd’s musician daughter was estranged. She blamed him for their broken family and wrote folk songs about fractured relationships.

“That’s all very sad,” I commented. He looked like a rudderless boat at the mercy of the Fates. I felt the ice in my eyes melt away.

“These sites that used to mean so much to me have poisoned my life.”

He drank some of his comforting tea.

“What about you? Why are you on this trip by yourself ?”

Why not? I hadn’t spoken to anyone except my priest about what happened. I told Lloyd of my life back in Seattle and, after a hesitation,

described Owen’s accident.

“I was a coxswain on a rowing team… something I’d done since college. My husband stood on a bridge watching our most difficult race. We were ahead. He got so excited that, as we went under that bridge, he ran to the other side.” I took a deep breath.

“Owen never saw the SUV. He died immediately from head injuries.”

Lloyd took my hand and bowed his head as if in prayer. *** Over the next several days, he became more pleasant, and we dined together every evening. Phoebe no longer shared a room with me. Darren proved to be more exciting, shaking her out of the doldrums. I didn’t hear any more night terrors.

Lloyd and I communicated after my return to Seattle. I never heard what happened with Phoebe and Darren.

When Lloyd wrote about reconsidering his opinion of Arthur and that he probably was a noble soldier, I wrote back that he was sounding like a true Welshman.

It wasn’t long before Lloyd moved across the ocean.

Now, in good weather, after a restful sleep, we spend lovely hours rowing our double shell at the Montlake Cut.

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POETRY 42.

Hiding the wretch that I am Emalisa Rose She kisses my hand and blows me another when we say goodbye for the day.

We played bingo (she won) made paper flowers, said grace and had minestrone.

I come twice a month as a floor volunteer but I’m really this horrible person, getting worse with each birthday.

But I wear soft spots for cats and opossum, all kinds of strays and old gals in nursing homes.

I should probably just set up camp there in this alternative universe; It’s become quite becoming on me.

I’d be nice all the time instead of the wretch that I am when no one I care for, is watching.

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

While he was away Emalisa Rose “The willows will weep while he’s away.

The three standing sycamores will leaf up and leaf down several more seasons.

There’ll be three quarter moons and a thousand and one sunflowers will garnish the garden.”

Our mother would speak in this lyrical language to deflect from the days we’d count down in await of our father’s return while he was away.

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When the moon leaves me cold Emalisa Rose There’s those things.

The things only you, Mom and I had been privy to.

Mom is years passed and you and I teeter at the vortex of “maybe we’ll talk again.”

There’s things that we know, things that we witnessed pertaining to Dad, with that wretched disease eating him up, more so with time. Those strange things that bind us, though we pretend that we hate each other.

There’s that dark place I live, when the moon leaves me cold and no one but you would know why.

I need to revisit that place, now and then if only to speak with you.

You, who lived through it with me, You, who could kindly confirm that I won’t get or inherit that disease that plagued our dear father.

It’s times like these that I wish we behaved like real sisters.

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

The catharsis of clean Emalisa Rose Today is day ten.

I cleaned all the cupboards, scrub brushed the grime, off the warped wooden floor even the crevices, where the dust balls accumulate.

The sink full of dishes, long gone, post-mortem.

I bleached all the bathtubs and toilet bowls.

The designer faux pocketbooks and ten-dollar dresses, boxed up for donation. Mops, brooms and sponges getting a workout, from one never thrilled about housework.

But I did it with fervor till my knuckles bled red with remorse and revenge, best left, in the pail of hot bleach and ammonia as I try to deep clean you, out of my hemisphere.

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Stray cat 37 Emalisa Rose “Not again,” Tommy says.

He’s a target for possums, raccoons and even the speed racers’ wheels going by, not to mention the babies he’ll make and add to the overly populated.

“Let’s call the shelter,” he says.

I said that I won’t; I’ve seen them locked up in a cage, waiting for homes, slipping toward madness.

“Pretend you don’t see him,” “Let Annette, in house 3, figure his fate,” this one time.

“But open the bag and toss out some kibble first.”

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

Christmas Trip to Berlin: A Scrapbook QH Flaccanoid I: Introduction I don’t take many photographs, so let these stand, These verses that follow, like so many Snapshots of what I’ve done and where I’ve been; And be glad without a camera that your friend Documented but a few impressions In a view finder no machine can understand.

So here are my portraits: would be imperial Eunuchs at a Noël feast; courtesans In high venereal mythology, Lodged in apartments more than mortifying.

II It’s definitely a line that stuck in my head, When I read about it on the internet; I found an article that answered me What was the name of the waxy berries Like toothpaste foam on all the toothbrush heads Of the bristles of all the leafless hedges; “They’re an important winter food source for The grouse and pheasant…” was the line, no more.

In Dahlem-Dorf, Berlin, an archipelago Of ponded parks with reflective willows Starts across from Kaiserswertherstrasse Where Luke lives in a basement apartment; Parks with gelid grass that dogs deglaze Like before take-off on sub-zero days, So the hull and wings and windows won’t freeze Before the airplane reaches the upper breeze, Vested tarmac men with a special spray From a hose solve any forming ice away And future crystals, and crash landings too, Or whatever ice makes engines do.

I flew here from Israel, my flight wouldn’t freeze, And yet I had almost burst my kidneys Like these dogs, who had been waiting to get out.

An important winter food source for pheasant and grouse, Floating ghost berries are held in suspense In the leafless shrubs like marionettes By dowels, and vamp a puppet ghost story Of food for birds and poison for human beings.

Luke says he hasn’t seen any grouse or pheasant,

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But what does he know, he’s vegetarian.

Admittedly, the berries remain unculled And the walk through the park’s a threatening one Except for fowl and I flew here to be In Berlin for Christmas, what does that make me?

III: Annie at her meal; present, but unpictured Luke and Guada.

Your black and white silk carré hung in a knot Down your black shirt; your lips were darkly made up With a wine-ish lipstick; out your short sleeves Your maroon arm freckles in minute relief Spoke a cosmos, a sky of somber points Of hard speculation between your joints.

Is it any surprise your stars have been Always darker than your anemic skin?

Is it any wonder you’ve acted so tough When your constellations were never bright enough?

Annie, it’s all wood panels all around us; After dinner, and after that and after that, I really don’t know, but we’ll be astounded; The lights are low in the restaurant, and I like that.

IV: Apology to Annie It’s like Caledonia is Scotland; Cathay, China; Hibernia, Ireland; Punica can be purple or pomegranates; Sometimes marble is called Paros and honey, Hymetia, and everything in poetry Has a name that’s a little different; So your name is not your name herein, But for my convenience, Annika, You’ve been changed, even if it is unpleasant.

V I’d like to be able to write that, Annie, But I still think it’s your poem to write About the mistake I made and how you believed it, Not then, but on some street, some other night.

I’d really like to be able to write A poem about that typo I sent You, when Luke and I ate Chinese Christmas night; “We are Chinese,” I wrote; you knew what I meant, But some night, some street, someone was wearing A hat similar to mine, theirs was red, Mine was green, but for a second you thought it was me, It turned out to be a Chinese man instead.

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 VI: Emma’s apartment. Malplaquetstrasse To be sure, I’ve seen your naked breasts, Emma, you’ve hung them photographed on the wall; In a cartoon of two women making love, The vaginas are all cartoonish ones.

In your living room hangs a comic strip Of a woman masturbating and moaning; There’s a small dildo next to a ceramic Vase, and I slept on a fold out below it.

Or where a bristling goblin sneaks right in Upon a nude and carelessly blanketed Woman, the monster sports a modest prick.

This Japanese mythology done in pen And ink hangs next to a Ganesh, or a Klimt; Empty wine bottles are on the floor; Or, publication of the Musée Rodin, In a book the labial theme’s restored.

Among all this art, provocative and holy, Cookbooks, vases, Japanese smut, The lighting is low, the floorboards are wooden: This place is cozy like a finger fuck.

VII: Another comic on the wall of Emma’s apartment.

A sketch in the kitchen of two friends At coffee, but both are skeletons.

And let no inimical one object That they have no gullet, no esophagus: Between friends, isn’t coffee just a pretense To meet, to sit, to be out of the house?

Or does communion really take, in fact, A completely operational digestive tract?

I don’t think some resected guts Is what espouses loneliness.

Perhaps life is all you can get over, A terraqueous globe or whatever, And if you can do that, you’ll live forever; Like Utnapishtim got over the world And lives at that extreme and is immortal; Just the same, ephemeral in no wise, Having got over being skinned alive, A Gashadokuro in his extreme, Need not take horror to heart, not at least If he cares (but why?) to keep on living.

VIII: We stayed at Emma’s to cat-sit Hokkaido

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Oh god! Why is this where she leaves the box?

For being horny is just the same, makes Everything inconvenient her taste.

Sure, she hung her tits for all to see, But she invited us over to watch her pussy.

So litter perfumes whatever cooking You might like to do, then puts you off your dinner.

Luke, Emma is clearly insane; let’s get Chinese, Limp loins, fresh air; I just need to get out, please.

IX I mean, you don’t like it, Luke, I know that, But now that I’m back home, I miss the flat, Waterless, perfectly examinable Dais, the triage dish you find so damnable In the way Germans cast their porcelain.

Luke, you’re smart; so forgive the insolence; I know you like to learn, then how are you not Curious when there’s self-knowledge to be got?

And if it’s not that, what keeps you up at night?

For me a drowning nightmare kind of frights Me out of bed so my colon can begin To breathe again, and evacuation Of my insides makes me hopeful of sleep, Once I’ve flushed away all my bad dreams having stared them down and examined them; But you don’t suffer precipitation, Yet there’s something gelid pelting you awake.

No, the cold makes bed a cozy place…

Why then, Luke, are you awake? What weather, What gizzard, what guts, my lonely friend, what liver Can you express? What organ’s excrement, For better sleep, is worth examining?

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

Virginia Woolf Susie Gharib Your agony is flowing in my veins, the accumulating residue of thousands of decades, of women entrapped within allotted spheres.

In the name of protection, you were banished away from the stimulus of London which had allayed that innermost loneliness of the emancipated.

A new type of attic engulfed your fragile frame, so every woman is made to believe that madness is the outcome of intellectual freedom.

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I Dreamt Susie Gharib I dreamt I was the empress of Rome and clad was I in the purplest of robes.

Ten gems decorated the rings I wore, the hand that held the scepter of gold, the hand that clung to a new writ-scroll.

My lips had pronounced my first-born law, which banned taxation of every sort, instigating in the arena a roar of applause.

Outlawed are crucifixions and gory sports, Colonial expansions to enslave the Gauls, and all assassinations to usurp a throne.

A pact is made between mortals and gods.

No sacrifice is required to appease their wrath, no slaughter of animals, no human blood flows.

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

Verify you’re not a robot Susie Gharib I’ve never withheld my succour despite rebuffs and discontent.

I’ve fed the mouths that constantly vilified and cursed.

I listened when I should have plugged my ears with wax, for your tongues are coated with indigestible lies.

I consoled.

I nursed, and never expected any type of recompense or thanks.

I readily gave loans when you claimed that you were in debt and have been forever waiting for the return of sums without interest, for a single acknowledgement, but ingratitude is what I shall harvest from my altruistic unselfishness.

No regrets.

I shall receive one response: verify you’re not a robot.

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Like the Sea Susie Gharib I heave like the sea.

I ebb and flow and gravitate to your speech, to your breath that has ever since become my breeze.

I cleave like the sea to masses of rock as ancient as eternity, your long-held beliefs that my waves lap with certitude and ease.

I reiterate like the sea a song that no Siren could perceive, that no mariner ever heard or dreamed, a poem of the deep, that your voice intones every time it greets my ears.

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

My Struggle Ron Kolm In 1992 Jerry Brown, The liberal ex-governor of California, Ran against Bill Clinton In the race to become The Democratic nominee for President Of the United States of America.

He entered the New York primary And came to New York City to campaign.

While he was here he shopped In Coliseum Bookstore on 57th Street Surrounded by a phalanx Of Secret Service agents.

When he approached the cash register With a pile of books I leaned over from my post At the bag check counter To see what he was buying.

At the top of the stack was a copy Of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf!

I was so shocked I lost my balance And almost toppled onto Mr. Brown, But a burly agent blocked my fall And told me to be more careful.

I apologized and left the front of the store To use the bathroom in the basement Wondering if Jerry actually thought That Hitler’s book Might help him win the election.

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CBGBs Ron Kolm Years ago I worked at the Strand bookstore with Tom Verlaine. He invited me to CBGBs the first time his band, Television, played there.

Punk was born that night.

I ended up getting into a fight with my date, and we left to take it outside.

Tom yelled at me the next day: “Why the fuck did you split?”

I responded by asking how the hell he knew I’d left.

“I can see everything from the stage,” he answered, as he continued to shelve books.

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

The Fly-by-Night Antonia Alexandra Klimenko Each night he comes and goes to Hell slips in and out of my sleepless sleep parks his grief on my altar like some silent witness like all things aborted nameless haunting like offerings that are damned that beg to be blessed Invisible Mirror Unwanted Guest Pale Dagger at my throat covering my mouth with his open wound Choruses rising from smoke to ash on nicotined lips You must be imagining this Cold cold the foul wind he rattles No… wait…

Hot hot putrid and stale stale the air he blows up my ass Hot and cold hot and cold on the back of my neck For God’s sake PLEASSSSSSE Make up your mind!

(But who can keep track?)

Each night he parks his grief on my altar flies in and out of my mouth like sex as if he had wings as if he had a soul as if as if this never happened Memories are made of this

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My fly-by-night my carrion of the dead my demon lover whispers in my ear he likes to eat what’s left of my words Is waiting waiting for a long paragraph or to slide under my tongue where I keep my confessions where I keep my confessions and that sweet sugar cube the one that never melts the one that you choke on Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

Local History, Venice Ivana Mestrovic i. a flower— pressed between pages carrying the memory of the end of an evening a dark courtyard, a warm night, the echo of shoes on cobblestones in a now empty square and unexpected an elusive scent —musty and yet still sweet ii. dusk and the sounds of bells buoy and church and birds swallows sparrows and others unknown guideposts all float up into a gray felt sky covering the wandering city with night iii. later your smell rises from my skin

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like mist from the damp earth still warm from the newly departed night as it meets the morning air iv. the ferries arrive at dawn but as yet the quays are empty I arrived once then pigeons fill the square huddled cooing waiting to rise with the clang of morning bells in the first soft light the tower seems unending I had forgotten that only in paintings do parallel lines ever meet

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

The Wedding Photo Ivana Mestrovic They were walking up the stone stairs.

They were young, of course, she with long black hair brushed smoothly from her forehead holding the cloud of her white skirt in her arms revealing the temple of her high-heeled feet, smiling.

He also dark with a neatly trimmed beard and a close-fitted suit moving around her back and forth like a pendulum and she the pivot always facing her always admiring always smiling.

Their happiness was tangible.

They were glowing with it and were beautiful.

The photographer a minor orbiting moon went up the steps backwards taking pictures as they walked.

It was just the two of them.

They did not want to be posed.

The rest of the family were nowhere to be seen awaiting them expectantly at the banquet eyeing the sweets.

We walked each facing ahead trying in our pauses to think of things to speak about. We were long past the spectacular and I have never worn anything that looked like a cloud or a glistening meringue.

The photographer kept snapping and we became as we passed them two strangers in the wedding photos, two nameless people walking down worn stone steps, our backs seen to the right of the happy beautiful couple, recorded and unknown, marginal, part of the fabric of the life of the city, always turned away, faceless and still.

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A Single Black Crow Mitchell Waldman A single black crow sitting on a wire shivering in the rain feathers blowing in the icy breeze beak raised eyes searching the skies through the mist for a shadow a glimpse of a passing, comforting wing.

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

One Swollen Day Suzanne O’Connell I reach for him.

My hand extends, touches a blank wall.

Shadows streak across it like puppets striking each other with kitchen implements.

I glimpse a spinal column in the shallow end of the pond.

I reach again, not to save, but to touch.

We are two opposing waters, waves in between.

I remember him as a troubadour, but I no longer hear his music.

I have reached the day’s midsection, a day once swollen with possibilities, now an unwanted conception.

It is dark in the shadows.

Otherwise, the sun beats the dust with sticks.

My mother, Our Lady of Perpetual Disappointment, walks into the backyard without invitation.

You see?

One comes without welcome, the other, reached for, never shows up.

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Writing Is Like A Bloodletting Elise Swanson Ochoa The blood-red velvet curtains hang heavy and limp around the silken bed.

Braided knots, damp sheets bear my sweating, searing brain.

A delirium, another fit, God, please, rid me of my sins.

The cool drip of the towel pulled from the basin rings in my ears like the screeches of the damned.

The hot licks of the fireplace whip my veiled eyes.

Tossing my cheeks, but I can’t turn away.

My blood is dirty.

Immediate purification, Almighty.

Bring the leeches!

Slippery and black piled in the jar.

Place them just so— over the heart, the jugular, the crook of the arm— and watch them feed, my darlings.

A devilish symbiosis, yes, excavate deeply, draw thickly.

The leech swells, gleaming in its pudge.

A surreptitious cackle as my heart calms to its usual rhythm; a lone thumping.

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29

Time of Your Life Emma Jo Black Death slides over parted lips with a tube of cherry lip gloss giggles soft rattles her bones in the pencil case Death cradles her phone curls her hair around her finger says she’s lying here all alone you should come join her Death leans in snatches the dog-eared poetry notebook to read it aloud to the class rolls her eyes at the queer kid “why are you so obsessed with me?”

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Confessions to the Softboy Emma Jo Black I’d rather you had told me all you wanted was to fuck me so I could have turned you down and kept The Smiths out of this how cool and real do you truly want me to be? what if I told you, I read the Marxist articles you sent me and I’m not making my emotional labour your commodity not sure who taught you my chest was the ideal place to dig a grave for your trauma, but it wasn’t; I’m not when you tried to unconsensually choke me to the chorus of “Psycho Killer” I honestly thought it was a joke how was it not a joke? fake-flirting with your bros doesn’t make you a queer ally if you wear nail polish and spend your time explaining to women what kind of girl you think they are you’re still an asshole yes, I have seen Pulp Fiction, I don’t want to recreate it funny how I’ve fallen for my fair share of women with talent, and brightly-colored hair, yet it never crossed my mind to call them manic pixie dream girl funny too, how I’ve never once been tempted to slide into their bodies not fully awake you call it a chemical reaction I call it rape if I think about it long enough, I can’t breathe the idea that some men despise my body to the point of being able to enjoy it just the same whether I want it or not so you can keep your explanations I don’t owe you anything because you sent me indie songs you want to know what’s even less mainstream than experimental Sovietic post-rock? consent I’m still waiting on the day you’ll stop hiding behind nihilism and take responsibility for your actions in the meantime, don’t flatter yourself, you’re just like the other boys.

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CRITICISM

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For A Misogynist Time, Call BUtterfield 8 Genna Rivieccio

W

omen are so often the ones accused of “fucking up” men’s lives when, in fact, it is the men in question who invite them in. Who make these women feel admired and secure before pulling the goddamn rug out from underneath them and then wondering at how she could be so “retaliative” when he suddenly has a whimsical “change of heart” (read: change of vaginal appetites). A woman like Gloria Wandrous knows better than to get attached to any one male suitor, herself a “lady of the evening” as a means to, as Carrie Bradshaw would call it, “have sex like a man.” That is to say, unemotionally. Or at least with the ability to juggle more than one woman at once and not feel too terribly “bad” about it. That’s clearly what one of Gloria’s latest “main squeezes,” Weston Liggett, is able to do to his devoted wife, Emily.

Published in 1935 and set in the New York of circa ’31, BUtterfield 8 as a novel has since been cursed with both a foreword from Fran Lebowitz and its 1960 film adaptation starring Elizabeth Taylor. A casting choice that

actually couldn’t have been more ideal or iconic, and yet, screenwriters Charles Schnee and John Michael Hayes seemed to be banking a little too heavily on her presence alone. Which, in the end, they weren’t wrong to do as the film was critically acclaimed and garnered Taylor an Oscar win for Best Actress. It all just went to show that no one was reading, even in 1960. For if viewers had read the original source material from John O’Hara, they would have thrown tomatoes at the screen. Because not only does the film remove the central element of the narrative—the fact that this was all happening during the desperation of the Great Depression—but it also seeks to paint “true love” as the only form of redemption for a “slut of all time” like Gloria. The same way the adaptation of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s would for Holly Golightly (immortalized

by Audrey Hepburn) the following year in 1961. That is, by turning Golightly into the type of “elegant” prostitute who could change her ways for the “right” guy: a fellow prostitute. So clearly, the 1960s in Hollywood—while markedly “edgier” in content—still had some holdover

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 re: how a woman could be made “respectable.” That is to say, by happening upon a respectable man (as men are still deemed “respectable” even when they’re philandering, binge-drinking bastards) who is “kind” enough to take her “as she

bad. She is bad, she is badness. She is Evil. She not only is evil, but she is Evil. Whatever I am now is her fault, because that girl is bad. Whatever I was before, the bad me, was nothing.

I never was bad before I knew her. I sinned, but I was not bad. I was not

has no choice in matters pertaining to his “ruin” (as though men can ever actually do anything but fail upward).

Another marked book versus film difference is the character of Eddie Brunner in the former. In the film version, he becomes “Steve

“And yes, there is a certain amount of wondering about how much New York itself plays into Gloria being ‘evil.’ Especially being so filled as it is with the crème de la crème of fuckboys and phonies.” is.” Forgive her for her past “sins” of acting as any man might.

Like, for example, one of the men in BUtterfield 8 about to cheat on his wife for some of that sweet, paidfor snatch as he seethes to himself, “If only I’d always thought of School Board meetings I wouldn’t be here now, in a filthy New York taxicab, living a lie by being in this city on a cooked-up pretext. Living a worse, worse lie by having any reason to be here. Goddamn that girl! I am a good man. I am a bad man, a wicked man, but she is worse. She is really

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corrupted. I did not want to come to New York before I knew her. She made me come to New York. She makes me trump up excuses to come to New York… That girl is bad, and hell’s fire is not enough for her.” Apart from being an accurate snapshot of how NYC is the worst place in the world, it’s a pretty incongruous form of logic this man comes up with to blame a call girl for his (penis’) desires.

And it smacks of the misogynistic slant of the Bible that paints Eve as being solely responsible for the Fall of Man. As though a man himself

Carpenter” (played by Taylor’s thenhusband, Eddie Fisher). Transformed from an artist (specifically, a cartoonist) into a jingle writer—just another demarcation of being firmly in the mid-twentieth century as opposed to the plagued-with-poverty and lackof-technology-in-advertising 1930s.

And as “Steve,” the screenwriters were also obliged to alter the detail of how Eddie came to be Gloria’s best and only friend, opting to mention instead that they’ve known each other since they were kids when, in truth, Eddie didn’t meet her until his

For A Misogynist Time, Call BUtterfield 8 - Genna Rivieccio arrival in New York from California.

Then, of course, in both instances of Gloria’s character, there needs to be provided some grim, macabre reason for “why she is the way she is.” In the book, there are pages devoted to the why with such phrases as, “It has been hinted before that there was a reason for the recurring mood of despair which afflicted Gloria. When Gloria was eleven years old, she was corrupted by a man old enough to be her father. At that time, Gloria and her mother and uncle were living in Pittsburgh. Her father, a chemist, had been one of the first people to die of radium poisoning.” In the film, the uncle is extracted altogether in favor of an oblivious mother who turns a blind eye to Gloria’s whoring ways in a far less intelligent manner. In the book, her uncle, William Vandamm, veers far too much toward lecherous obsession with his attractive niece, with O’Hara describing, “He was glad she was not his daughter, because he could love her more. Fathers have to love their daughters and sometimes there is nothing else, but an uncle can love his little niece, and they can be friends, and she will listen to him and he can be as extravagant with her as he pleases.”

It’s plain to see that Gloria being overly spoiled and fawned over so early on by an older man gave her some “wrong ideas.” Especially with her uncle markedly ousting his mother from their more natural dynamic altogether. And yet, who is she to argue when Vandamm is the one controlling the purse strings? The primary method with which men have always attempted to hold their power over women. So it is that O’Hara describes, “His sister was in favor of his obvious enthusiasm on the part of her brother, although she was not unaware that her brother more and more gave to her the status of privileged governess.” It was that status, perhaps, that led her to be so lax in allowing Gloria to consort with whomever she pleased. Granted,

Gloria’s mother couldn’t be blamed (then again, couldn’t she?) for having more faith in men than she ought to have. Especially someone who came so highly recommended from her own brother—a certain Major Boam.

Someone Vandamm met through the Army Ordnance Department. While Vandamm was relegated to desk work away from Pennsylvania, Major Boam was in the state all the time, therefore took it upon himself to visit Pittsburgh rather frequently. Frequently enough for Gloria’s mother to interpret his many appearances as a sign of “genuine interest” in her…and not her eleven-year-old daughter (in the film, it happens when she’s thirteen, perhaps to be “less icky” about it). Little fool.

For what man doesn’t, at his core, have pedophilic tendencies? At the very least constantly preferring someone much younger than his own age. Only if “given the choice,” of course.

Unfortunately, Gloria has no choice in the matter when Major Boam finds her alone (save for the clueless maid) at home and gives in entirely to the carnal lust he’s been feeling for her all this time, illustrated as follows: “Then panic and fright and the need of haste came on him, and his hands went wild. He kissed her so hard on the mouth that he hurt her and she could not be sure what else was going on, but she knew enough to struggle.”

Major Boam turns to “Major Hartley” in the film, and the backstory is told to Steve in the final act, waiting until the last possible instant to explain away why she’s so “fucked up.” The unspoken reason being: because a man fucked her up, in turn, making her “unsuitable” for other men to psychologically toy with her instead. At a more “age-appropriate” time. Gloria proceeds to tell Steve in the dark—after a cruel rejection from Liggett—that Hartley was tasked with picking her up from summer camp at Grand Central Station the year she was thirteen. “He stayed in that house for one week,

and taught me more about evil than any thirteen-year-old girl in the world knew,” she sobs.

So yes, this, in the end, is the reason O’Hara uses for why Gloria is “all wrong” about men. Why she’s such a “slut.” And, in the movie, the screenwriters even go so far as to give Gloria their own line about the experience: “You haven’t heard the worst of it yet! I loved it! Every awful moment of it I loved!” This scene being the proverbial “Oscar clip” in terms of Taylor giving her most emotional delivery of the film. Yet the words coming out of her mouth are puppeteered by a chauvinistic writing duo that can think of no better way to “justify” Gloria being so whorish than the fact that her sexual assault simply “transformed” her into a harlot, so that “the deep shame of it” wouldn’t hit her “until it was too late” and she was already branded for life. Liggett was supposed to be her “one last chance to stop it”—the “it” being her “deviance.” Because any woman who relishes having sex with abandon— and worse still, for pay—is the most horrifying thing of all to the patriarchy.

Accordingly, she’s indoctrinated to feel “sinful” about it. That Gloria doesn’t is what makes her all the more “dangerous,” therefore damned to a tragic fate.

Not just because she’s “the other woman,” but because she’s a “tease.” Especially to Eddie/Steve, who is so blatantly in love with her that the expectation is she’ll simply “reciprocate” because that’s what all women are expected to do when men cling to her like a puppy. However, the relationship between Eddie and Gloria is markedly less brother-sister in the novel, with Gloria angrily questioning why he never expressed some form of desire for her like other males in her orbit. For it is a disease of most women to seek aesthetic approval from men. Validation of their attractiveness through the expression

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The Opiate, Spring Vol. 29 of sexual desire. She goads him one night at dinner about it, calling him out for having disdain for her whorish ways. She accuses, “You don’t like me because you feel superior. You know all about me and that’s why you never ask me to sleep with you.”

He replies, “I’ve asked you to sleep with me.” She scoffs, “Yes. Sleep with you. Good Samaritan. When I’m tight and you think I’ll get the devil if I go home drunk. You ask me if I’ll sleep in your apartment. Why, that’s the most insulting thing you can do, in a way. It proves how you feel about me. You’re above my sex appeal. You could sleep with me and not feel a thing.” Eddie isn’t one for entirely taking the bait by admitting that he’s in love with her, instead offering, “Good Lord.” She retorts, “Yes, good Lord. I’m no good. I’m not fit to touch. You’d be contaminated if you touched me. That’s the way you feel about me, isn’t it?” Even though he continues to tell her that’s not how he feels at all, there is undoubtedly some truth to what Gloria is accusing him of. For men tend to possess this air of judgment about women who have fucked “too many” men.

Liggett, in fact, might be the only man in New York who truly doesn’t care about Gloria’s “situation”—so deep and intense is his love. Perhaps that’s helped by the fact that he’s not painted as being very attractive, and comes with the baggage of having two daughters in addition to a wife. In the movie, naturally, Liggett is Hollywoodified into a dashing, handsome man (Laurence Harvey) with a drinking problem and made to come across as far richer than the hard-working bloke of O’Hara’s mind. He also has no children because, again, Hollywood likes to make literary sin slightly less seedy onscreen.

And where BUtterfield 8 the movie tries to make Gloria’s love all for Liggett, there is a period in the

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book where Eddie is just as strong a contender to “save her from herself.” That’s why, during their aforementioned conversation at the restaurant, Gloria continues to press, “If you didn’t know I’d stayed with so many men would you love me?” He insists, “I do love you.” She probes, “But it would be different, wouldn’t it? Of course. It’s stupid of me to ask you that. But will you answer this truthfully? If you had just met me, without knowing a thing about me, what would you think of me?” He finally gets needled into admitting, “Well, it’s awful when you think that you’ve stayed with so many men and made such a mess of your life, and then someone you really want to stay with because you love him, that person is the one person you musn’t stay with because if you do he immediately becomes like the rest, and you don’t want him to become like the rest.” So there it is—a classic case of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t as a woman. For even when a man can “forgive” your “trespasses,” he’ll still take issue with some other aspect of them.

Even “big city” boys think this way. And yes, there is a certain amount of wondering about how much New York itself plays into Gloria being “evil.” Especially being so filled as it is with the crème de la crème of fuckboys and phonies.

At one point, she’s even told by her uncle, “I don’t think you’ve been looking at all well lately. I think you ought to get out of New York for a month or two. I really do, Gloria.”

Although Gloria definitely agrees, she, alas, doesn’t make it out in time to be spared from the city’s inevitable thirst for pure souls. And Gloria is a pure soul, even if her vag is not (by male standards). This is part of why Eddie’s “steady,” Norma, openly despises Gloria in the film (in a way she does not in the book). Because somehow, Gloria manages to exude

the innocence of a “lost lamb” at the same time as her “devil-may-care” act. And that’s something Norma— uptight, inexperienced Norma—will never be able to do.

The fact that Eddie only really feels obliged to marry Norma because she’s a “safe, sensible” girl also comes to light as O’Hara writes, “He thought back over the years, and it might as well have been Norma all along. His succession of girls always had been about the same general type… They had to have a feeling for jazz that was as good as you can expect in a girl. They had to be cute rather than blasé, a little on the slangy side, and come to think of it, all of them including Norma had to go to bed for one day out of every twentyeight. They were all fundamentally the same, and probably they were all fundamentally Norma.” Even the name—Norma—connotes a “normal” girl. Someone dependable, not ever too rocking of the boat.

Ah, and talking of boats, that is the very thing that causes Gloria’s demise. Though, once again, the movie ruins that as well by turning her death into a car crash—a little bit too on the nose in terms of being a mirrored metaphor for her life. And yes, one wonders if J. G. Ballard had this movie in mind when he decided to write Elizabeth Taylor into his 1973 novel, Crash. Gloria gets her crash, of sorts, in the book all right, and it’s one based on a socialite and “good time girl” of New York named Starr Faithfull (luckily for her, drag queens had not yet become mainstream enough for her to be called out for having such a drag name). She, too, washed ashore under dubious circumstances. That, indeed, is how O’Hara’s book begins, though we aren’t aware that Liggett will be the one truly responsible for setting Gloria’s “accident” (or was it?) in motion until the novel’s conclusion.

As for another major moment

For A Misogynist Time, Call BUtterfield 8 - Genna Rivieccio at the beginning, Gloria decides to steal, er, borrow a very valuable mink coat from Liggett’s wife’s closet in retaliation for him ripping her dress the previous night and her needing something to put on in order to go out into the world with “dignity.”

In contrast to the film, the buildup to Emily finally realizing her coat is missing is done with far more writerly finesse by O’Hara, who paints a picture of all the horrible things that happened to any number of people in New York, but how, “of all the things that happened to all the people in New York that day, none was more shocking to any individual than Emily’s discovery that her mink coat was not in her closet.”

With the mink as a symbol for many things, we also come to understand that any marriage becomes about money, property. And in this case, what a man can give (since it usually ain’t orgasms). In the movie, Emily is essentially the sugar mama, coming from a wealthy family that makes life “too easy” for Liggett (poor baby), ergo his selfdestructive tendencies that align with Gloria’s. This would be plainer to see if the film still took place during the Prohibition era, as speakeasy life is far seedier than simply rendezvousing in a bar. Yet BUtterfield 8 as a movie is so overtly “modern,” and couldn’t possibly exist in the 1930s—based on Liggett’s mention of Playboy alone. Oh, and because Gloria has a therapist. Admittedly, so did Starr Faithfull… in a way. Apparently, Faithfull’s mother and stepfather, at the suggestion of “credible” doctors, thought it would be a good idea to get her a “sex tutor” (read: an artist) to help her cope with the trauma of having been regularly molested by career politician Andrew James Peters (at one point the mayor of Boston).

Sort of like what Joe a.k.a. Josephine a.k.a. Shell Oil Junior (Tony Curtis) in Some Like It Hot was getting out of

Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe) while he posed as a millionaire. Only with far less comedic flair. Indeed, the entire sex tutor thing was made all the more disgusting by Peters being the one to bankroll it.

No wonder someone like Eddie—so “level-headed” and “normal”—can’t believe in something as cockamamie as “true love.” What with all the sickos out there. And that’s why O’Hara notes, “About love Eddie was not so sure.

The thing that he supposed existed, that kept together a man and woman all their lives and made them bring up children and have a home and that kept them faithful to each other unquestioningly and apparently without temptation—he had not seen that in his own home and so he was not personally acquainted with it. He was not sure that he ever had seen it, either.”

Meanwhile, as Gloria falls for Liggett, she starts to have inverse feelings about love, with O’Hara recounting, “It worried Gloria a little to come around again to a theory she sometimes had that a woman ought to have one man and quit. It made for a complete life no matter how short a time it lasted. Gloria resolved to be a better girl…” Better, of course, meaning not so “free-spirited” (read: slutty). And look at where that gets her—in either version of BUtterfield 8: dead. Cut down in her prime. All because she “dared” to be a “freewheeling” woman. Which is, to this day, the last thing a man truly wants out of someone he plans to “make” his wife… or even just his “main bitch” before eventually casting her aside. It’s still the Normas of the world who prevail within the limiting institution of marriage or, at this juncture in our culture, merely being someone’s “situation.”

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