Category: Across the Wire Vol. 4

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

The Dunes

By Jon Doughboy

The Oregon Coast in the year 2000. The dunes of a new millennium. In the backseat a younger he, high-school dropout, hitchhiking in search of adventure, seeking a sense of purpose, a coherent self, a fine young woman to write poems to and ogle with soulful, sensitive anguish. To worship. The northwest coast of conifer-studded sand, an alien land to the eyes of an east coast teen, child of highways and denuded hills, medians hosting deciduous trees in their death throes, blighted chestnuts and scraggly sumacs adorned with assorted trash. Sprawling condo developments sliding into polluted rivers. George Washington crossed here, no, there, well, also, probably here and don’t forget there. 

NIN is playing. NIN was playing, then. Is playing, now, again, a twenty-three-year-old memory. The girl behind the wheel is singing along and staring in the rearview mirror, locking eyes with him, with the he of then, and singing “I want to fuck you like an animal.” It’s intoxicating, was intoxicating. He was scared. Horny. Aglow in the eyes of someone’s desire. Here is the hangover, still, residual radiation at age forty. But he didn’t like NIN because his friend’s older brother and schizoid drug dealer used to blast them out of waist-high speakers and they had to creep past his room as kids, tiptoeing cartoon spies hung on tenterhooks by his random acts of terror, until they were old enough to creep into the brother’s room to buy an overpriced eighth or take a hit from the gravity bong in a gray mop bucket in the corner, the plastic jug bobbing in it like a maimed apple. 

“I wanna feel you from the inside,” she’s singing, his ride, the owner of the Astrovan, vehicle of choice for rubber tramps and kidnappers alike, trailing rust and coolant and cigarette butts along the Oregon Coast. How did he end up here? Bus from Connecticut to Chicago. Rideshare from Chicago to Billings. Hitching onward from there to Idaho. Three more rides, more drugs, more propositions, to Seattle, then south, some college kids, an old trucker who was obsessed with the lizardmen lying in conspiratorial caves across the southwest on the brink of a mass invasion. Where are these dunes, he’s wondering, was wondering, and the dunes were more than dunes, they were freedom, proof, despite his doubtful parents and even more doubtful teachers, that he could manage himself, handle the world, grab it by the balls and not get shaken loose like stray and feeble lint clinging to its sex-slicked pubic hairs. 

“I want to fuck you like an animal” and he wondered and wonders what it would have felt like, fucking her, being fucked by her. She was thick and young but older than him, nearing twenty so to a sixteen-year-old, mature, experienced. Worldwise, sexwise. Where are these dunes? But her friend in the passenger seat is the one he was attracted to, desirous of. Eighteen, maybe. A fellow dropout, beautiful brown filthy hair, that hippie bounce, crown of leaves and grit and glitter. 

Beyond the dunes, the sea. The Pacific Ocean. He’s never seen it before. Where do the currents lead? How far Hawaii, Japan? What’s beyond beyond? Is Bobby Darin alive and kicking, crooning there?

He’s looking—was looking, the younger him—out the windows, searching for the dunes, avoiding the confident and penetrating glare of the driver. Too much energy, too many hormones, the rush of uncertainty, youth, hope, angsty wonder. He wants to fuck! He wants to feel! Inside, outside. Like a man, an animal, like the ocean eroding the shore. He’s floating above the van—him, the one he’s become, middle-aged, sluggishly juggling debts and regrets—breathing in its fumes, white coolant and burned oil smog billowing out of a pitted muffler, the smoke of a thousand spit-soaked roaches, patchouli, peanut butter, Old English-soaked upholstery. The other, younger him, is restless in the backseat, nervous, looking for the dunes he cannot see, though from these heights, from the bird’s eye of time, they’re clear as day to the older one, undulating beige waves breaking on pine and spruce reefs. His younger self can’t hear the elder version’s urgent croaking. It’s muffled by the passing years. No matter how loud his older self yells. No matter how important or timely his advice. Time is a vacuum. Time is a room, a cell silent save for the click of the door as it locks behind you. Time is and was and will be. 

NIN is blasting. The dunes are coming up. The dunes are here and gone. The lizardmen — who knows? — are thriving in their caves. The sixteen-year-old he is driven on, fueled by lust and pride and fear. The forty-year-old version drifts after him, an irrelevant flutter, weightless as a dream, howling mute warnings from a possible future. Somewhere, somewhen, beyond.

Jon Doughboy is a janitor at the Hrabal School of Embodied Poetics in Prague. Watch him pull some palavers out of the trash @doughboywrites

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

FUTURES IN WHICH YOU’RE NOT WELCOME

By Sam Pink

A huge dog charged me in the street snapping

and I just yelled Hey and

it stopped, growled a little then retreated.

My battles settle themselves anymore.

At least, that’s what I want.

Burning in reverse. Problem solved.

We should all be kind to each other.

Isn’t that cool of me to think. I’m so great

and I know you can see it.

Which is what’s important anymore.

The universe meets you right

at the point of existence. Unfolding through you.

Machined finely against your every move.

It takes no pleasure or pain

in your defeat or victories.

Teaching lessons through jokes

you couldn’t dream of, not caring

to be heard. With a morality way beyond

any idea you could ever have.

The universe puts you through cycles

you have to see to defeat, or ignore

and continue to be defeated by.

But the cycle will be presented

as many times as necessary.

And that’s that. I won a long time ago

when I decided to just keep going.

The difference now is, I love it.

I see behind the curtain on mental processes

I’ve developed (and clung to)

and entire architectures disappear

like completed lines in Tetris.

And some will ask, what happens

when they’re all gone, when you’ve cleared them all.

To which I say, Who gives a shit.

I’ve relied on a future version of myself I know is real

but isn’t yet and has shown no signs of coming

and it pulls me up every time.

By muscles earned. Frontiering forward.

I forget myself. All my best decisions

happen without me. Being authentic

is a stupid goal. It’s a pretense

that immediately reverses itself.

A dog doesn’t say

I’m gonna be extra like a dog today.

You should be living it.

It should be obvious. I keep reminding myself

this. It’s at the point now where

everything is absurd

but it’s not depressing, it’s funny and awesome.

It’s like how people morph into chickens

in the eyes of a hungry person in a cartoon

except to me everything morphs into

a golden retriever wearing glasses in front of a computer.

And the difference now is, I love it.

Dropped out of the pageant, king of my own sideshow.

So get with it, stupid.

American Reloading is selling

500 (blemished) 124gr hst’s for like 60 dollars, shipped.

Which is pretty dang neat.

When people say they want to see you change

they mean die.

I freeze stars with how much I hate.

And begin Spring with my warmth.

It’s called being a human.

And the difference now is, I love it.

This is not an audition.

It’s the universe unfolding,

a small part of the big idea.

Everything that happens is my fault

for listening or not.

It’s all my fault and that’s fine.

It only gets bad when I try and

blame anything else.

Because the future is ruthless and right.

I salute you on your path, from mine

where you’re not allowed.

Roses are red

violets are blue.

God loves me more

Than He loves you

Sam Pink – twitter: sampinkisalive
Instagram: sam_piink_art

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

SNIP

By Anthony Neil Smith

The doc called Logan and me back to the ER after midnight on a middle-aged husband shouting about his wife having a heart attack and no one helping her. 

We’d already dealt with a drunk who’d taken a swing at a nurse a couple of hours before. Logan had enjoyed cuffing the guy and manhandling him out to the curb to wait for the cops. Logan was the type who dreamed of being a cop but couldn’t pass the physical. The man had a gut and I’d never seen a vegetable anywhere near his mouth. But when the cops showed, he was all, “Got your perp here, attempted assault on an employee. Intoxicated.” Like it was an audition. “Keep up the good work,” they said. “We need guys like you fighting crime.” He couldn’t tell these dicks were fucking with him.

I’d known them both, worked with them on the force. I hung behind. I didn’t want to hear Horace’s ribbing. He knew it, and didn’t care. “You stay safe, Beau. Don’t let anyone cough on you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The other, Jimbo, asked, “You ever get your license again?”

He knew I hadn’t. My bike was chained up outside in plain sight. Assholes.

Anyway, this husband trying to help his wife. I got it. This hospital is in a small Minnesota town, a make-do sort of hospital. Always short-handed, they hired the best of the rest. 

Like me. A half-assed security guard.

I scoped the scene at the patient’s room. Mid-forties hockey mom, D-cups, gripping both rails and panting. “It doesn’t feel right. Something’s wrong.” The husband stood at her side, leaning over, brushing hair from her face, while one of the younger nurses held an oxygen mask in one hand. “You’re okay. I promise, you’re okay. I’m telling you, you’re not having a heart attack. I swear.”

Another woman, thin, flat-chested, white streak running through straight dark hair parted in the middle, saw us first. “Seriously? Are you fucking serious?”

The husband looked up. Thick professor glasses topped by thick eyebrows. A little fat, double-chinned, in sweatpants and a t-shirt that swamped him. A souvenir from Ireland, green with their flag on it.  

I waved him towards the door. “Sir, can we talk –”

“Are you insane?” The hippie woman came for us. 

Last thing we needed.

Logan puffed up. “Ma’am, calm down.”

“All he did was get her some help! They called security on a man trying to get help for his wife?”

Logan reached for his Taser but I grabbed his wrist. “Dude, please.”

Oblivious. He kept at this granola-looking woman. “You need to stand down.”

“You want to tase me? You want to tase my brother-in-law?” The sister stepped into the hall and swung the door closed behind her. Or tried to. 

Logan reached over her shoulder and slammed his palm flat against it. “That’s not how it’s going down.”

“I can’t believe this!”

Logan wouldn’t be happy until he had a chance to tase the fuck out of somebody while I only wanted to get through each shift invisible. An afterthought. 

I talked the sister down. Took all the shit she flung at us in stride. You had to let people vent. They weren’t all threats. Logan was still posing, though. “We can’t have that type of behavior. Your brother-in-law is disturbing the peace.”

I interrupted them both and said, “Please. All I’m going to tell him is play nice from now on. Can you ask him to speak with us?”

Which seemed to do the trick.

Maybe on the surface I was a placid security guard, trying to deescalate the situation. 

Scratch me though, and right under the skin I’m boiling. Wishing I’d never rolled my squad car drunk and gotten fired from the only job I’d ever wanted. 

Two years ago? It’s always yesterday to me. On a good day it feels like last week, never far from my mind. 

Out at three in the morning after a fight with Vicki, who’d finally found out I’d got a vasectomy because I didn’t want another kid. I mean, we already had four, all two years apart, bottomless pits for food and attention and toys. Of course I’d wanted kids. Of course when I, a lapsed Lutheran, sort of, and only child, met Vicki, from a Mormon family of nine, I’d known the deal. She wanted to be a Pioneer Woman mom. Trad mom. Hand-me-downs, bulk shopping, family game nights instead of TV. I went for it anyway. I’d always thought Vicki had my heart in her hand. Now I think she’d memorized a how-to book. How to Mold the Man of Your Dreams, or some such like A Godly Man Needs a Godlier Wife. 

Then we had the kids. After my second daughter – two boys, two girls – I was done. Scared to touch Vicki, more fertile than MiracleGro. Like her eggs were out on patrol, searching for sperm, one measly sperm that might’ve dribbled in when I pulled out and let go on her stomach. Every other woman, better odds you can shoot a million up in there and they all miss, but not Vicki. Something about the women in her family. I’ve got five sisters-in-law and twelve nieces and nephews whose names I can’t remember, even sitting in a pew behind them week after week.

I’d come home aching, only to be leapt on by toddlers. Shin splints, nut punches, sprained muscles. I’d say “Not now,” but Vicki would say, “I’ve had them all day, so it’s your turn.” And I’d say, “You don’t get it. I chased some guys. I tackled one. We had some domestics resist. Please, honey. Can’t they watch cartoons?” But she’d give me a look, the one reminding me I’d told her a long time ago I was on board. Sickness, health, wealth, debt, an arkload of children, I was on board. 

So I got snipped. Never told her. 

Thing was, our little Minnesota town, they’re all in each other’s business, so if a fellow Saint worked at the clinic, and found out from another Saint that Vicki’s husband Beau had been to Dr. You Know Who in order to you know what, well…you know. 

To be honest, I’m surprised I got away with it for as long as I did. Six months of some great God-inspired fake procreational lovemaking. No more pull outs, no more cold shoulders, no more looks. Wham-bam-I-love-you-ma’am! 

My wife’s not stupid. She had an inkling. I think it was more she threw out some bait before reeling in the tea, or whatever they call it, the gossip, the down-low. Our Sainted friends at the clinic almost burst their lungs holding onto those delicious tidbits as long as they did. 

Getting back to the squad car, though. 

I had come home from work. Funny looks from the kids among their hundreds of thousands of Lego pieces. No noise from the kitchen, Vicki not cooking that night for our battalion. 

“We ate pizza,” my oldest son said. “Mom’s upstairs.”

I knew I was in for it. 

She’d planned to turn it into pure drama. Waiting for me in the bedroom, skimpy panties and thick lipstick – on a school night? Posing like a centerfold. Laying a trap.

“I know you know.” I sat at the foot of the bed. “I get it.”

By the time we were done – I never even had time to change out of my uniform – I stormed downstairs to the basement and turned the hockey game up loud while she put the kids to bed, something we usually partnered on. 

Once I knew everyone was down for the night, and Vicki retreated to our room to pray for my lyin’ ass soul, I headed to a fellow cop’s house. Horace. We played Call of Duty and NCAA Basketball and drank a kiddie pool’s worth of Golden Light before he brought out the Evan Williams, as if we weren’t already dizzy enough, while he virtually dunked on me as I spilled the story. 

“Fucking Mormons,” he’d said. “No offense.”

We laughed and made fun of a Mormon wife’s cavernous vagina after popping out eight or nine or eleven soccer-ball-headed kids. I didn’t tell him it was a myth and Vicki could still squeeze my Mister Mister tightly after four, because I was drunk and thought he was funny. “Hot dog down a hallway!” What a joker. 

As I left, he clapped me on the shoulder and slurred, “You…right…thing.” You did the right thing. Guessing he meant the snip. At no point did he say “Stay here, you can’t drive” or “Let me call you an Uber.” Just waved me on my way.

The first few well-lit blocks were fine. I had a curb to follow. But I took a right and there were three roads where there had been only one, overlapping, so I tried to punch through the foggy ones and race right down the middle. A cul-de-sac. I kept on bowling down the center. Dreaming I was an F-1 driver. Blink Blink. 

A yard! A house!

Yanked my wheel to the right, going faster than I realized, and went zero-g before doing an impression of a brick in a clothes dryer. 

I avoided the house, thankfully, and any people due to the late hour, but ripped up this poor guy’s yard. Took the bumper off his GMC pick-up. Felt like I took it off with my teeth. And still – and still – I walked away with only bruises and one broken finger. 

My true blue bros covered for me, of course. If I’d killed someone, it might have been a different story. The higher-ups hid the part about me being drunk – no one tested me, field, breath, or blood. I lost control because I was sleepy. An unfortunate accident was all it was.

Behind the scenes, though, boy howdy. 

I was screamed at. Throttled. Humiliated. Stripped of my badge. 

Then there was Vicki. 

As mad as she was at me getting snipped, it wasn’t like we were done. For a good Mormon woman, “divorce” was a word for soap operas. No, no. Only whispered, never a serious consideration. Around others, she was thankful and blessed I survived intact. Alone, she told me I would have to complete a very long list of making-up over a very long time in order for us to be okay again. 

As in okay okay. As in “letting you anywhere near our bed, let alone my vagina.”

First on the list: church counseling. 

Even in a severely traditional, male-powered system like the LDS, fuck’s sake, the counselor raked me over the coals and then some.

Thankfully, friends of friends of friends helped put me back on my feet with this security gig, even though Vicki had to take a part-time gig at the craft and hobby shop to help with the bills. All in all, we were doing okay, considering. 

Considering losing one’s badge and gun feels a lot like losing one’s dick and balls, even if it only shot blanks. 

So that’s where we were. A perfectly acceptable stalemate. 

When the husband came out of the room, easing the door closed behind him, I knew he was angry. The heat sloughed off in waves. But this was a professor, not a bar brawler. He was angry, embarrassed, and afraid of us all at once. But not afraid enough, not now. Not anymore.

“You understand why we’re here,” I started. Might as well try to get this back on track. I held out my hand. “I’m Beau. This is Logan.”

“Terry,” he said. “My wife is having a heart attack.”

Logan, Mr. Congeniality, said, “I don’t care about the why, okay?” 

I wanted to slap him upside his head. 

“You weren’t here. My wife was telling us good-bye. She thought she was going to die right then. And no one could be bothered?” 

“You have to treat the staff cordially.”

“That’s on them. I don’t think it’s cordial to let my wife suffer.”

I nodded. “Absolutely. You’re right. I understand.”

I did, I really did. I can’t imagine what I’d have wanted to do to these assholes if they’d pulled some of this shit on Vicki, or one of my kids.

But Logan? He couldn’t help himself. “You will follow the rules, or you will not like what’s next. You know what’s next?”

A sneer. He held his wrists together and out. “You want to cuff me now? Solve all your problems.”

I saw Logan, like a gunfighter at high noon, his fingers flicking, wanting to go for those cuffs.

“We don’t have to at all, sir.” 

“Good to know. Can I go in with my wife now?”

If Logan wanted to force the guy to comply, I couldn’t stop him. But I hoped not. I said, “Yessir. Have a good night, sir.”

“My wife’s having a heart attack, you tell me to have a good night.” He shook his head and stepped into the room. Closed the door without another look at us guards. 

Logan let out a breath. “Dude. He is pissed.”

Idiot. 

“I’m going on break. Please, don’t pepper spray anyone until I’m back.”

I found some coffee. I went outside. 

On the curb was the woman’s sister, the granola with the long straight hair and Birks. Sitting, smoking, staring. Getting close to two in the morning. Since I didn’t want to spook her, I made some noises, jiggled the arsenal on my utility belt, and took a wide berth coming around so she’d see me. 

I waved. Like a child. I waved at her. “Hey, remember me? In there? You alright?”

She glared at me, her head nodding in a sort of I can’t even believe you’re talking to me right now. Held the cigarette in an elegant manner, like a book jacket photo. No make-up, not much affect. I don’t know, something about me was drawn to her. But I waited as she sharpened her tongue.

Once she had, “My younger sister is having a heart attack. The doctors and nurses are ignoring her. And they send the goon squad when Terry tries to get her help. I’m not alright, you asshole. Not at all.”

“Can’t say I disagree.”

“Only doing your job?”

Shrug. “That’s why I get the big bucks. Nothing was going to happen. I told him to be a little more careful.”

She took a long drag, then tilted her chin up and blew a stream into the cool air. Even though she was a bit older than me and what I’d call a hard-scrabble Midwestern woman, no great beauty, something about the way she blew smoke and looked me in the eye got blood running to places it shouldn’t have. Or was it that my wife had frozen me out for far too long now and any sort of vibe got my juices going?

“Mind if I sit?” I pointed to the curb beside her. Feeling silly.

“Don’t you have sick people to arrest?”

“Come on.”

She wrapped her arms around her knees and squeezed. “Free country.”

I took off my belt, took a seat, grunting halfway down. I might’ve thought Logan was too much of a balloon to be a cop but I’d gained a beer belly myself. Since I’ve been off beer this past year – not my choice – I guess it was now a custard-filled Bismarck belly. “Name’s Beau, by the way.”

She held out her free hand. “Godiva.”

“Seriously?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to run my real name and check me out.”

“Fair.”

“Married, I see?”

I looked at my wedding ring, had forgotten about it to tell you true. “Mm. Four kids.”

“Happily?”

“When I’m not fucking up I’m pretty happy.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Hey, you just got interesting. Give me an example of how you fucked up.”

Sure. Why not? “I got a vasectomy without telling her because she wanted more kids, and I did not.”

Godiva laughed. A hearty, roiling laugh. A little phlegmy. “I’m guessing she caught you?”

“Too small a town to keep a secret. I should’ve known.”

She rocked into me. “My, my. Still together?”

“Oh, she won’t leave me. I won’t leave her, either. We’re both stubborn enough. Oh, and she’s – we’re – Mormon.”

Another laugh, softer. Another pull from the cigarette. “Too bad.”

I thought about asking her if she’d take me to whichever vehicle they’d arrived in and let me slip it to her. Just sex. A physical relief. Not love. Not at all. Bend her over the seat and go, man, go. I imagined a woman like her had secrets. Secrets only revealed when she was naked. How I’d like to know, yeah, how I’d really like to know.

But I was a coward and wouldn’t dare. Instead, I’d head inside to the men’s room and rub one out thinking about how raw and slippery and filthy it could be. Imagine myself as a stronger man than I am, someone who can make a woman like Godiva beg for it, instead of having to beg my wife to even let me hold her hand in church, sleep in my own bed, kiss her on the lips anymore. But that’s who I was. If my wife had ended up in the ER like this, she would’ve ordered me to hunt down these bastard doctors and give them a piece or our…her…mind. Never on my own. Not sure I could work myself up to it.

The brother-in-law, Terry, stumbled out of the sliding doors. Startled us. He saw us sitting together but nothing registered on his face. He wilted to the concrete beside Godiva. Face flushed purple, eyes red and wet. “She’s…um…they took her to surgery.”

“What?”

“The surgeon told me. He told me.”

“Told you? Told you she’s in surgery?”

“Told me…Jesus. She died, Gin. She died. She’s gone. She’s really gone.”

They broke down together, ugly, insistent, painful. And me. A third wheel. Sitting there beside them, wondering how much I’d miss Vicki if she were to suddenly not be there anymore. And…I don’t know, not half as much as Terry would miss…never got her name. 

They embraced and wept and said things neither could understand.

I stood, grabbed my belt, and slipped inside the sliding doors. Carried the belt to the bathroom with me. They weren’t the first people I’d seen lose loved ones on this job. It got easier, though. I locked myself in a stall and dropped my pants. Tried to remember all of the details of Godiva’s grin before Terry cockblocked, at least in my version, what I needed to feel better right then.

Is that cruel? Someone’s wife and sister dead, and me wanting to get off? I mean, people die every other week at this hospital. They just do. We all do. I formed a callous over my heart months ago. What about me? What about my life being worth dying over?

I worked my hand down there. Thought of Godiva’s feet, her hair, her scent. 

Nothing. Whatever I felt outside had faded. 

That was okay.

It would all be okay. 

I sat on the toilet and wondered how Vicki would humiliate me tomorrow.  

Anthony Neil Smith is a novelist (Slow Bear, The Drummer, Yellow Medicine, many more), short story writer (HAD, Bull, Cowboy Jamboree, Maudlin House, Reckon Review, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, BRUISER, many more), and professor (Southwest Minnesota State University). One of his pieces was chosen for Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023. He was previously an associate editor with Mississippi Review Web, and is now editor of Revolution John. His short story collection The Ticks Will Eat You Whole is forthcoming in 2025 from Cowboy Jamboree Press

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

Grief Therapy

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By Carla Sarett

Carla Sarett writes poetry, fiction and, occasionally, essays; and has been nominated for the Pushcart, Best Microfictions, Best American Essays, and Best of Net.  She has published one full-length collection,She Has Visions (Main Street Rag) and two chapbooks, including My Family Was Like a Russian Novel (Plan B) Carla has a PhD from University of Pennsylvania and is based in San Francisco. x/twitter: @cjsarett

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

Two Poems

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By Jeffrey Hermann

You Couldn’t Pay Me

They say to be good at one thing but I can’t decide. I make some phone calls and I send some texts but it’s Friday. People are heading out to Long Island. “Don’t fuck it up” is the best job advice I ever got. The world only needs so many healers. Someone has to drive the truck. Someone has to think about scrap metal. I’m thinking about scrap metal when I discover a thirteenth month. It’s sunny but breezy and it loves people, unlike the others. Offers worth millions come pouring in. Instead I name it after my dog and give it away, no charge. According to the calendar it’s still July. In the Atlantic, sharks are doing what they do. Only the beach people are worried. If there’s blood in the water, they can’t smell a thing. Seen from below, their legs look like flippers. 

Hold On, Is this Thing in Reverse? 

We saw a shadow on an x-ray in the shape of New Jersey. It was nothing, some normal muck inside the body. The doctor rubbed his eyes and left the room. When he got home to his place in Secaucus his kids were watching pilot episodes of shows that never made it. The nurse stayed with us and spoke with her hands; two birds finishing each other’s sentences. I saw them later in the next room delivering difficult news, then they went home to the Palisades. Sometimes I look at the sky and forget which season comes next. Will tomorrow be a little colder or a little warmer? Sometimes I don’t fully trust my car’s instrument panel. People who aren’t afraid of being alone probably get too many phone calls. I silence mine and sometimes miss my wife asking for help. My two greatest fears are letting go of her hand in the hospital hallway and rolling backward over an embankment.

Jeffrey Hermann‘s work has appeared in Okay Donkey, Electric Lit, Heavy Feather, Trampset, and other publications. His first full-length collection of prose poetry and flash fiction will be published by ELJ Editions in 2026. Though less publicized, he finds his work as a father and husband to be rewarding beyond measure.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

How to Forget

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By MD Wheatley

“Hullo, good afternoon potential future friends, you can call me MD, as in medical doctor, or Mountain Dew. Funny, heh? I think so too. I grew up on Mountain Dew. Anywhoozle, thanks for joining me here today in Conference Room B. You could have easily gone to A but instead you chose B and I love that because I would’ve done the same. I’ll BE your friend. OK, I’ll chill. As I’m sure most of you can tell, this is my first time here and I’m happy to be here. The pamphlets instructed us to do all sorts of things, like share interests, personal qualities (good and bad), show-and-tell-type objects, to which I defer all. Truth is, my interests are likely going to bore most of you, and tomorrow I may wake up interested in the synchronicity of fishing and Battle Royales, if I even wake up tomorrow. Nice, OK, some of you are walking out. Just so you know, the dude in Conference Room A eats raw eggs and doesn’t believe in sunscreen. Have fun losing your new friend to skin cancer at 35! Shit, where was I? Sorry, I chew my nails when I lose my train of thought. Choo choo! Uh, I like Morrissey. I like cassette tapes. I like live music. Have you ever surrendered your body to live music? No? Me neither!!! I like skating. I like reading. I like reading books. Short books. Sorry, talking to myself out loud here. Um, I like esoteric shit. I learned that word like a year ago. Pretty dope word. If you know, you know. I like to think of myself as Dave Masters from the beginning of Stoner by John Williams. You know, before he died in the war. Or the protagonist in Good Old Neon. Neal’s ghost. Good old Neal. And whether you know either of those references or not is besides the point. The point is, I said it. I confessed it. I confessed to a self-diagnosis. And given the time and space, I could diagnose you. Hell, I could diagnose all of us, but what do I know? What do you know? You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. We think we know each other, but who are we fooling? No one. We are the fools. I planned to stick to the script but my note cards got all jumbled in my pocket. Out of order. So, instead, I’ll share with you a poem I wrote because that’s all I know to do. To share a feeling in hopes someone will nod their head in agreement. Sometimes the moon looks like a fingernail. Nice, I see you nodding over there. This one’s for you, buddy. It’s called I Need More Friends To Love Unconditionally, I’m a Really Good Friend, I Promise, Will You Be My Friend? You’re not as tough as you think you are … a blender can still nub all 4 of your fingers quicker than you can say W-T-F … what’d you think was gonna happen? … that your skin was too thick? … your bones made of steel? … it is true though … I kept one of your fingers as a souvenir … right after I asked you to save all of em … which was right after I asked, why’d you do that? … this isn’t high school anymore … you can’t just run away … or not show up … everyone that knows you now … is always gonna know you. Ah frick, sorry. I cry easily. Give me a second. I’m not smelling my armpit, promise. Where was I? Oh yeah, the poem. Everyone that knows you now … is always gonna know you … is always gonna remember that you stuck your hand in a fucking blender … a goddamn blender, Jesus … the sad thing … or funny … or maybe it’s a good thing … is that I’ll always love you … and you know that … I think that’s why you do such stupid shit … because you know I’ll always love you no matter what … and the sad reality is … if you live a life of self-destruction that ends with an entire hand of nubs … I’ll never question you or wonder why you did that to yourself … instead I’ll ask myself … how could I have loved you better? … how could I have saved you? … because here’s the hard truth, OK? … sometimes you wake up before dreams get to the good part … and sometimes you fall asleep before life gets to the good part … Wow, thank you, thank you. I’ll wait a second. Thanks for the love. This is the part where I wrap things up. So, if you’re interested in getting to know me better, I’ll have a newsletter sign up sheet at my booth. It’s back and to the left. I know it’s rude to point, but which way to the little poet’s room? I really, really have to pee. Before I began I thought it was just nervousness but I legit have to piss like a racehorse. Please excuse me. Thanks for your time. OK sweet, bye. Or see you—ooh here comes the pee. Imagine saying bye for eternity..”


MD Wheatley’s a husband, father, and writer living in Charleston, SC. Read more here—mdwheatley.us

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

Three Poems

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by Graeme Bezanson

Graeme Bezanson is a writer living in southwestern France. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from BOMB, X-R-A-Y, GlitterMOB, Sixth Finch, HAD, and elsewhere. You can find him online at graemebezanson.com.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

My Heart Belongs in an Empty Big Mac Container Buried Beneath the Ocean Floor

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By Homeless

After Laura, the days were long and filled with even more sad-looking blue whales than usual. The rooms of Daniel’s house became packed like subway cars during rush hour, often leaving him warm, uncomfortable and unable to move, not to mention so crowded with sadness he could barely even lift his hand up high enough to scratch his nose. And every time Daniel looked out a window, regardless of the time of day, the sky was always wet-looking and gray and, or so Daniel thought at least, seemed gradually approaching, like it was calculatedly moving in on him—an insanely focused assassin coming to smother him with its grayness until he suffocated. And rather than do anything about all this (What is there to do? was the question Daniel’s brain kept rhetorically asking), Daniel just accepted his current situation. He knew he could only wait it out and hope for the assassin-sky to either change its mind or grow lazy and apathetic over killing him because, seeing him helplessly pinned down by sad-looking blue whales, there would be no sport or challenge in removing the speck that was Daniel from this world, and so, instead, it would just leave him be. Then Daniel, with nothing else to do, would do all he could do—wait for some of the sad-looking blue whales to eventually wander out of his house on their own, as if bored or suddenly remembering they wanted to watch Titanic again.


And so the days passed like gravestones made of mud slowly toppling into each other, forcing Daniel to eventually call out of work one morning about three and a half months after he and Laura had broken up. Even though they were no longer together, Daniel could still hear Laura getting mad at him. “You really think you can afford to call out of work? What? You want to be homeless someday?” Which always left Daniel feeling guilty (although over what exactly he didn’t know), as well as incapable of taking care of himself, of being an adult and forcing himself to do things he didn’t want to do.


Daniel did what he always did whenever he had a day off—he drove to his Graceland, his fast-food office, his Golden Arched home away from home.


Daniel drove to McDonald’s.


Or his McDonald’s, as he often referred to it.


Christian rock was playing from the speakers hidden in the ceiling when Daniel walked inside (for whatever reason this was the radio station management had decided to tune into for the past month). The nice Spanish lady working the register who knew Daniel by name already had his order punched in before he reached the counter. Daniel smiled, said thank you, paid for his iced coffee with exact change, feeling embarrassed as he did so, feeling poor as he did so—even though Daniel was poor, more so just feeling ashamed of it, really—and then grabbed his usual seat in the far back corner of the restaurant as far away from the gossipy elder patrons who frequented the restaurant as well.


Daniel took his notebook out of his messenger bag and opened to a blank page. Daniel was a writer who did the vast majority of his writing in McDonald’s because McDonald’s was the one place in the entire world where sad-looking blue whales didn’t stalk him. Any McDonald’s. The location never mattered. For whatever reason, the sad-looking blue whales refused to follow him inside. Instead, they’d stand by the front door and patiently wait for Daniel to return. And when it was time for Daniel to leave, the sad-looking blue whales picked up where they left off. They’d trail Daniel back to his car, ride shotgun, or sometimes, and which Daniel found even more humiliating and degrading, the sad-looking blue whales would sit in the back and Daniel would chauffeur them around. They controlled Daniel, the sad-looking blue whales, and as much as it killed him to admit it, although over the years he had gotten used to doing so (not that that made it sting any less), the sad-looking blue whales dictated almost everything he did.


Sometimes it was simply their laid back yet imposing presence that made Daniel do certain things, or feel certain things, or think certain things. Other times just a meager look from their lifeless black eyes, eyes like pieces of coal dropped in a murky street puddle. But most of the time, and which Daniel found to be the absolute worst, the sad-looking blue whales controlled him by crying.


“Oooooh, oooh, ooh!”


Although Daniel had heard hundreds of thousands of sad-looking blue whale cries throughout his life, it was something he’d never gotten used to, and now, at this point—thirty-one-years-old and not getting any younger—he knew he never would. Daniel didn’t understand their crying, especially considering there never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to it. At least not that Daniel was ever able to figure out.


A lot of the time the crying felt random, but also directed at other sad-looking blue whales even if there weren’t any present. And during these frequent impromptu studio sessions of their own sad, sappy music, mainly consisting of just one sad-looking blue whale but it also not being impossible during the really bad days for there to be almost an entire choir of them, it became impossible for Daniel to feel content in his own skin. Something about their cries brought to the surface the quiet, subterranean knowledge of how innately alone Daniel was, of how alone all humans were, of the underlying facts that most people who weren’t stalked by sad-looking blue whales were usually able to forget about or just completely ignore—that each of us comes into this world alone and that each of us leaves it alone, that each of us is trapped inside one human body with one conscious mind that no other person will ever be able to physically step inside of and, therefore, fully understand. And that, Daniel understood, was true loneliness—your weak and lame human brain being unable to perfectly articulate what it thinks, your mind being unable to form something vague and sharp inside of you into words for the world to comprehend. But the sad-looking blue whales had found words for it. Or maybe not words, but sounds. Sounds that said more about sadness and loneliness than any human language ever would.


“Oooooh, ooooh, ooh!”


Daniel had no idea what the sad-looking blue whales were saying exactly when they cried to each other, but his mind always translated it into “I’m alone! I’m alone! I’m alone!” And when it was late at night and Daniel was lying in bed with his cats and listening to the sad-looking blue whales cry outside his window like lonely wolves howling at a moon that had forgotten all about them, Daniel would always call back to them in his head, softly, mournfully, Me too… Me too… Me too…

Daniel took his pen out of his pocket, his favorite pen—a Simpsons pen Laura had bought him, momentarily making him ache for her like his heart had blue balls. He stared down at the blank pages of his notebook, at the cruel, goring whiteness of them, but nothing remotely creative came to mind. Ever since Laura left, Daniel’s brain had become immobile, like a dead car with its license plates ripped off, left on the street for the city to tow. He couldn’t write, he couldn’t draw, and these two things he once looked forward to doing now just seemed to scare and intimidate him because, being unable to do both, these activities only made him feel worse about himself, which, therefore, only summoned even more sad-looking blue whales.
Daniel gave up on the idea of writing for the moment, took his headphones out of his messenger bag and plugged them into his iPhone. Daniel played the song “Careless Soul” by Daniel Johnston and put it on repeat. It was a live track and sounded like it was recorded in a coffee shop or bookstore. A girl could be heard coughing at one point and Daniel Johnston broke into tears twice during the track. There were no instruments. Just Daniel Johnston singing about being called to meet your God.


Daniel Johnston is Christian rock… Daniel’s brain said.


Daniel non-Johnson laughed at himself. He felt sick and hated himself. He still loved Daniel Johnston, though. Daniel Johnston was certifiable but brilliant. Daniel Johnston loved Mountain Dew and McDonald’s. Daniel Johnston even worked in a McDonald’s. Daniel non-Johnston never worked in a McDonald’s. He’d worked at a golf course, the video department of his college, a Michael’s Arts & Crafts, a Home Depot, two doggie daycares and three animal hospitals. Now, Daniel non-Johnston worked in the stock room of a PR agency that represented beauty products. The stock room was warm, cramped, had no windows and was filled with sad-looking blue whales that were extra sad-looking and invasive. But since only Daniel could see the sad-looking blue whales, it was as if they didn’t exist to the rest of the world. So, bitterly, as well as half-heartedly, Daniel was forced to go through day after day as if nothing were wrong, as if he were completely and totally healthy, all the while still being foolishly expected to travel the same speed as everyone else in the normal world even though he was carrying an extra couple hundred tons of sad-looking blue whale dead weight.


This is bullshit… Daniel’s mind would often complain to itself throughout the course of his day at his dead end job, and then allow itself to feel momentarily good, justified in its own righteousness, knowing that, yes, this indeed was bullshit, a mass amount of it, ripe, stinking and unfair, but then the same recollection would always inevitably creep back in shortly thereafter. That life wasn’t supposed to be fair, that everyone had their own metaphorical crosses to bear, and that this one, enormous and heavier than most with a sad-looking blue whale nailed to it who cried “Oooh, ooh, oooh!” was unwaveringly his. And there was no trading it for another. There was no putting this cross down and resting, and Daniel’s mind, happy just seconds ago in the brief victory of knowing that it was right, that this curse of his was, again, in fact, bullshit, Daniel’s mind would then return to its usual damp and sullen state. He would drag himself through the day as best he could, often too frustrated and tired to care how well he was doing, just wanting nothing more than to make it to the finish line where, at the very end of the day, a box of wine was chilling in the fridge at home, waiting for him. 


Knock, knock, knock…


Daniel took his headphones off and looked behind him. Uncharacteristically, a sad-looking blue whale was at the back door of McDonald’s, pointing down at the handle as if asking Daniel to open it even though the door wasn’t locked.


Daniel hesitated. Not because he was actually contemplating letting the sad-looking blue whale inside, but rather because he had never seen their kind exhibit this unusually nosy behavior outside of a McDonald’s before.

Daniel turned away. He picked up his Simpsons pen and stared down at his notebook, ready to work.


The sad-looking blue whale could go fuck itself.

Homeless often wonders whatever happened to predictability? The milkman, the paperboy, evening tv? He’s the author of four books, and his second novel, “My Heart Belongs in an Empty Big Mac Container Buried Beneath the Ocean Floor,” comes out November 19th, 2024, from Clash Books.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

Swiss Pass

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By Wallace Barker

I. Day Before Independence Day

Shuddered on the train from
Luzern to Brig sending
raw emails and biting
at the turgid air

green valleys and farm houses to
crooked mountains humped over
gray melt streams swelling
their banks thru Zermatt.

Cattle cars finally open
blinking in the cool air
my mind steaming my brow
the Matterhorn like a spike driven

into the neck of the sky.
We ate beef and pork at Walliserstube
then watched “Talented Mr. Ripley”
in our apartment.

II. Extraordinary Complication

A train station in Visp awaiting
the R90 to Genéve.

Green alps enclose the scene
assorted Swiss chocolates are dispersed.

I wore my blue socks today
touch of idiot whimsy.

We are here for such a short time!
Enraged then sad then sober then happy.

I spin the wheel.
I turn like a gear.

III. Wasserfall

At the waterfall within the cliff face
tourists in bright technical jackets 
slip the crevice like little sailboats
dropping over the horizon.

Power of the crashing churn seemed
so wasteful nature is so profligate
felt scared I might jump into it.
We took the 141 tram to the

Coop Grocery I bought two
different kinds of Swiss cookies
felt guilty about happiness.
Brown slugs along the trail

back to our farmhouse
we were careful not to step on them.
We talked about visiting Gimmelwald
tomorrow if the weather cleared.

The views are supposed to be amazing.
I sat on the couch in our wooden
farmhouse and smelled dinner cooking.
I drank an alkoholfreier beer.

IV. Bildungsroman

Crowded train through countryside
luggage in my lap and pressed tight
against foreign strangers
pebble shore to ice blue lake

flashing past the windows
difference between romance and
realism is that romantics
never mention the bugs.

Stultifying crush of mass transit
much of travel consists of these
trains and transfers and luggage.
My son plays videogames on his phone.

He wears headphones and listens
to “rage rap” when I speak
to him he cannot hear and when
I touch his shoulder he shrugs me away.

V. Falling Faintly Through the Universe

Standing in the rain at Montreux
we paid CHF 80 to upgrade
our seats on the GoldenPass Express.

We saw a fox dart in the rain
birds nesting in the train car ventilation
I drank a Rugenbräu beer (alcohol free).

Only a few hours to Interlaken
Miles and Esmé on their phones
Alicia with her embroidery.

No one looks up
next stop, Schönried
then on to Zweisimmen.

Wallace Barker lives in Austin, Texas. His most recent book “Collected Poems 2009-2022” is available from Maximus Books. His debut poetry collection “La Serenissima” is available from Gob Pile Press. More of his work can be found at wallacebarker.com

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

Back in High School 

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By Wilson Koewing

Back in high school it was me and Lonnie ran together. We worked at the movie theater up in Charlotte. If we weren’t working, we were at a house party somewhere. I remember one Friday, Lonnie said a girl he met in study hall wanted to join us. Lonnie wasn’t much of a lady’s man so that was unusual. 

When we picked her up it made sense. Her name was Wren. She dressed old fashioned. Like going to church. I wasn’t sure if Wren was new to town or if we’d just never noticed her. She was a grade behind. She might have dressed funny and been a year younger, but she had something about her sure made it seem like she was a lot older than she was younger. We passed a bottle of vodka around the car. She took two swigs and started screaming out the sunroof.
We lost her as soon as we got to the party. She was full out. By the time she resurfaced whispers were she’d gone behind closed doors with four different guys. It hardly mattered to me, though Lonnie looked deflated. 

We dropped her off at home around sunrise. Entire ride I was worried her dad would be outside with a shotgun. She played possum in the backseat, but once the car stopped, she sprang to life.

“I’m so sorry, daddy,” she said. “Don’t be mad. I fell asleep at Susie’s house. No, I wasn’t drinking. I hate drinking.” 

She winked and skipped away as we tore out of there. 

Wren never returned to our high school. Word was her parents put her in a Catholic school up in Belmont. Rumors circulated about the goings on at the party. For about a week it was all anybody talked about. I guess there’s no denying how it looked. No denying how easy it was for us to act none the wiser. 

I graduated that same year and we all lost touch, me and Lonnie and all the people at all the parties around where we grew up. A whole town of folks. Just seeped away. 

A decade went by then one day I got a Facebook request from Wren. It was Christmas, and I was headed home. It had been years since I set foot in the Carolinas. After high school I visited New Orleans and liked it so much I moved. Got work as a doorman on Bourbon and been there ever since. Rent a little studio a block over on Dauphine. Kind of an insular life, but there’s a never-ending magic to the Quarter. Lonely sometimes, though, even surrounded by so many people. 

After I accepted the Facebook request, Wren invited me to a Christmas party at her house. Turns out she didn’t live far from my parents. 

I arrived at a nice house in a cookie cutter neighborhood. Minivans outside. Inside it was parents and kids. I spotted Wren. She motioned me over and introduced me to her husband. He was a radiant guy, strong, healthy and utterly happy. They pointed at their three kids. Wren showed early glow of a fourth. 

Her husband went off to play host and Wren made us cocktails. I considered asking what happened back in high school, but she only seemed interested in talking about me. She seemed impressed by my living in New Orleans. Curious about how different our lives were. It occurred to me it was the longest I’d talked about myself in years. 

After that, I hung around awhile, skirting the edges and drinking. The sun set and they lit a firepit and before long there was a sway about everything. And there was good music. Then at some point, I was falling over, almost into the firepit, and the children’s horrified faces in the glow from the flames. 

I came to in the car with Wren’s husband. He was pulling into my parent’s driveway.

I took a day to recover sitting on the screen porch with my dad. In his retirement he drank and smoked and watched YouTube on a tablet out there. How-to videos. It dawned on me why he liked them. When I was a kid, he did all the handiwork around the house to save a buck. I’ll forever remember him in the garage cursing while changing the oil in our cars. Crazy that now all he’d have to do is search a YouTube video. The time he would have saved. 

I left him to go inside for a beer then wandered through the house. Not much had changed. It was like a museum. Only thing that had changed was the technology. There was a table with family photos. I stared at a picture from my high school graduation. I could hardly recognize myself. 

The next day I got a message from Lonnie. Hadn’t heard from him in almost as long as Wren. It was like the internet was telling people I was in town. 

I drove over to Lonnie’s. He lived in a trailer out in the country. He was sitting under an oak tree. We shook hands. He was drinking cheap beer and reached in a cooler and offered me one. I cracked it open. Lonnie’d been working at Freightliner for a decade. Same repetitive job every day. But he was a decade closer to retirement. He said he lived in the trailer because it was cheap and what did he care anyway. He didn’t have no wife. 

I stayed awhile drinking and catching up. Long enough for it to get dark and cold out. It was strange seeing him. I could see the Lonnie I knew when we were younger in his face, but there didn’t seem to be any youth left in him. Eventually I sort of stopped paying attention to what he was saying. Every other sentence started with, remember back in high school. 

Wilson Koewing is a writer from South Carolina. His books JADED and QUASI are available from Main Street Rag/Mint Hill Books and Anxiety Press, respectively. His debut poetry collection DETRITUS HOMME is forthcoming from Nut Hole Publishing. His latest short story collection ROLLING ON THE BOTTOM is forthcoming from Cowboy Jamboree Press.