Tag: across the wire

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

3 Poems

By Edward Anki

Mellow Beer Glow

Bullseye

Pricks and Purple Flowers

Edward Anki‘s poetry has appeared in Ballast Journal, JAKE, BOMBFIRE, Rejection Letters, Roi Fainéant Press, The Feathertale Review, Qwerty, The Chaffin Journal, and others. A chapbook of his poetry, Remote Life, was published by BareBackPress (2014). His first full-length poetry collection, Screw Factory, was released in 2022 by Anxiety Press. A former stand-up comic, bartender, and agonized telemarketer, Edward is currently engaged in part-time studies to become a psychotherapist.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

MAGDALENE

By Chloe Aiko Stark

The girls tilled the soil whenever they wove their pricked fingers around the flat collars of businessmen. They kept it warm with their own bodies for ignoble days of burying, poured over with primrose by the good sisters who kept them still. They had never to pay for taking a room, these girls that liked to fall sick in the dead of night, before winter. Whatever had gotten into them needed only to be pressed upon by a strict thumb bearing the reason of the divine and excised, thrashed around the laundry room when nobody was looking. A gown from dull needles stained and swallowed, they would have to learn the hard way. Men that visited and looked straight into them were never clean and held conversation like fools, so the girls tended to their wounds with the skin of their own pallid legs that flailed. Take the animals to a cleaver and see that they do the same.

Hold her hair up while she suffers to please you, she can do it herself in the hall. Her hand slipping down the shaft, the sisters should have taken him out of her. She makes less of herself, expels the taste onto the floor so that he can burn holes into the fabric and she can tear her fingernails across carpeted walls, turn her hands on herself and suppose that she may have to pray some more.

The fences were long and sloughed off the unwanted. They were the only beautiful things on the property, painted white at the end of every year. They covered an overgrown field of weeds and insects that bit death into their prey, the posts were tied taut. Nobody in town had ever to see the ashen face of the home for fallen women, its curtains always drawn behind iron handles. The brick laid without care and dressed in smoke and oil spores. There was a spire that rammed its stake into the skies and a crow impaled by the wing. All of the girls knew the place and went there to see where it tended to happen, where the others had gone once they had made up their minds. 

Drown acts of disobedience in the basin. Wash flesh under hot water until it is tender enough to fall off the bone. Hold a caucus for morality, and then tell the girls that they will never see heaven. Drip coffee over their spent heads and have them give their bodies over while they bleed. The ways of the righteous and the lessons in hell and how to avoid it, how could they when they were already there.

The girls told tales under the covers after the sisters went to bed. They parted their lips to warm milk and rolled its sweet froth over their teeth. They crossed their ankles and wore their arms around bent knees to say where they ran off to when the rain swept over the bank, others conspired through the thin cotton sheets. Feathers were plucked from a swollen mattress and sown into pillows to be picked up by the younger girls and tossed to the ones who were quiet, they tried to draw smiles over their tired mouths. How it was to move through the city when the dark had settled and the winds came soft, what the earth felt like after the rain fell down the sloping roofs. The doors locked after a long walk home just for a slip down the porch to soil their pantyhose. A week of wages out the window. A loose cannon and a letter from the church where some slept hand in hand, angels that they were and would become.

Chloe Aiko Stark is a writer and student.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

Scooters and Other Crushes

By Joshua Vigil

After she sat me down at the all-night diner, she said she was no longer attracted to me. All humans, Traci clarified. The truth is, I find that scooter out there incredibly sexy.

The electric one?

Yes, the electric one. Though they don’t always have to be electric. She slipped her hand into mine and led me to the parking lot. When her fingers touched the scooter’s frame, she let out an animal sound, so unlike anything she’d ever made for me. And with an unfocused but crazed expression, she said, Do you understand?

The scooter can’t love you back! I said.

I think you’re wrong about that. You’re so wrong.

She dropped to her knees and left her cheek plastered against the aluminum.

Is this about Richard? I asked. Or your Dad?

Traci’s fingers jumped to the cluster of gold acorns that hung from her neck. She worried them in her grip, each of them filled with the ashes of the men of her life. A dead father’s. A late husband’s. 

I think I’ve finally gotten over their deaths, she said. This is what that looks like. 

***

We remained friends. Every so often she sent me photos of scooters she had crushes on. Some were tiny and mechanical, with rust and dents, while others were shiny and expensive, the latest models. I began paying more attention to the scooters that populated our mid-sized city. Down sidewalks I found many cast aside. Years ago, a start-up had come and dropped hundreds all across downtown. Now, fleeced with cobwebs, they stood forgotten. I righted one up, pressing its frame against my leg, and I closed my eyes, waiting to feel something.

***

My date and I were a little drunk, our voices thick and our treads unsteady. She asked me to stop talking about Traci as I flicked the light to the living room on. Had I been talking about her so much? Beside the front door the woman teetered. A moment passed before a look took over her face. Why do you have so many scooters? she asked. Her head swung left and right as she inspected my living room, taking in the sheer volume of scooters I’d amassed since the break-up.

It’s complicated, I said.

She ran through the maze of scooters, asking if I’d bought them all or if they were stolen.

Is it stealing if they’ve been left for dead? 

Are you one of those eco-anarchists?

How do we know they don’t have souls?

The woman cocked her head. You’re joking.

I told her the truth then. That it was Traci’s fault I’d been collecting them. She’s into scooters, sexually, I said, and I’m just trying to understand her.

You want to get back together with her, she said, I understand.

But doesn’t it make you sad? Seeing all those scooters out there? Worse than any graveyard I’ve ever seen. At least in death humans get to rest in privacy.

I don’t think this is just about scooters, she said.

We’re never just any one thing, I said. You’re right.

The woman plopped onto the couch. Her face was pink and oily, and she looked deflated suddenly. In the spirit of sharing secrets, she said, I have a fake ear. She fiddled with her ear until the whole thing came off. A shark accident, she said.

I was still holding the prosthetic when we tried kissing. Our lips pumped and squirmed when the woman said she couldn’t, not with all the scooters staring.

I told her I couldn’t either. Traci, I said, she’s the love of my life. 

***

Are you familiar with yappers’ regret? Traci asked when we met again at the all-night diner. The gold acorns still hung from her neck. 

Neither of us are yappers, I said. We’re the quiet types. 

People assume we live interesting interior lives, but I’m not so sure that’s true.

You fall in love with scooters left and right. 

That’s what I need to talk to you about, she said, and she told me she was done with scooters, that she’d been taking an interest in roller skates recently. 

Is there a difference between roller skates and roller blades? I asked, thinking of the latest trend on TikTok involving one or the other. People flew down the paved hills of my neighborhood dangerously; so many had already died. Like most trends, this one would be over within a week—and what would become of all those recently-purchased skates? Traci, I thought, was here to save them. 

She looked longingly at a pair of skates packed in the front basket of a bike parked outside. I said, Maybe you just have a thing for feet.

Maybe, she said. 

I thought of what awaited me at home, the scooters I’d now have to get rid of. And I thought of what the weeks after would look like. All the skates I’d pilfer off the street. Anything for Traci. When I focused my attention back on her, she was drooling. Her eyes were still set on the pair of skates. You want to save the skates because you couldn’t save Richard, I said, or your Dad.

Look at the way they catch the light.

I stared at the skates, aqua colored, with bright pink laces. The brake jutted from the toe, domineering. And then my eyes returned to Traci, with her dreamy gaze aimed out the window. Faint freckles splashed her face and chest while curls bounced from her head. Her irises twinkled.

I took her hand and pulled her up—she’d never get over their deaths, but I could try my best to help—and I rushed us outside, where I scooped up the skates, Traci screaming beside me, lit up with joy. 

As the skates bounced against my chest, I admired how they caught the light.

Joshua Vigil is a writer and educator living in the Pioneer Valley. His writing has appeared in Hobart, Joyland, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. His chapbook Shapeshifter is out now from Bottlecap Press.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

Johnny Lifeline

By Calvin Cummings

I get together with this guy now that I don’t drink. He’s my not-drinking buddy. I thought our get-togethers would involve more, but our time together has become more about what we don’t do. 

His name’s Johnny, but in my phone, I’ve got him saved as “Lifeline.”

Last time I was over there, we were sitting on his back porch, not talking, passing a pack of cigarettes back and forth and freezing our balls off. I asked if he wanted to get something to eat. He shook his head.

“You mind if I go get something?”      

He did this backwards nod. Like lifted his chin up. In the drive-thru, I thought about whether this actually meant yes or if it was just an acknowledgement that something was said. Or was it nothing? Are there even words for what it was, or does defining it completely miss the point? 

Back on his porch, unwrapping my burgers, I decided it’s just one of those things that words don’t work for. Like how I feel about him and what we do for each other.

We continued not-talking as I ate, the burgers cold and the fries flabby because I drove the fifteen minutes back up the state highway to his house to eat it with him. With every bite the burgers revealed themselves to be what they really were, not food, because once stuff like that gets cold it stops being food, which it never was, you know what I mean? Like as long as it’s hot, you can trick yourself into believing it isn’t what it is, which is what it’s not, but once it’s cold…

Back and forth between the burger and the boagie, putting it down on the plastic chair’s corner with the ember just hanging off. Shivering, chewing. Missing out on the mirage. But even so, I could never bring myself to pull over into a spot in the parking lot and eat everything hot and crisp and alive because then I wouldn’t be with him. So I went back and ate while he didn’t and we continued doing nothing because that’s our way.

Back when I used to drink, I’d do nothing too. One of the nothing-things I’d do was watch nature documentaries, usually with other people, the roommates I used to have before everything spiraled and I landed at my mom’s. Those guys weren’t like me and Johnny. They could watch a peregrine falcon dive for doves, or a baby elephant get separated from the herd in the desert, or learn about the mushrooms under the ground, how they communicate electronically across thousands of miles of rot-eating foam without needing to drink ten, sometimes fifteen beers. 

“There’s this jaguar,” I told him after I finished the not-burgers, “that lives in Asia, like around Russia, or maybe even in it. And there are only forty of them, the jaguars, or tigers, this specific one. Can you believe that? And they’d never been captured on camera before these guys did it, the documentary people.”

I knew this because I watched the documentary about the documentary, too. The footage of the footage. The men wrapped in white camo, their telephoto lens peeking through the layers and the snow on top of the layers. That’s how I knew that this mythic creature had never been photographed before. That, before this, it wasn’t totally real, just a legend, a story told over and over.

My man hit me with the inverted nod.

“You should watch it,” I told him. “I can’t describe it. There aren’t words. The way it jumped from rock to rock and crawled out of its hole. This perfect thing. So cool.”

I crinkled up my silvery wrapping papers and shoved them into the bag, tossed it under my chair. An HVAC rattled to life and its hum whited out the evening’s other murmurs.

“Just unbelievable. That these things are out there happening and we don’t even know about it—I don’t know, like it’s so cool that it’s out there. I still can’t believe it.”

Another not-nod.

I’m not explaining this right, how me and him are together. Listen: he means more to me than any other person I’ve ever known and is second only to my higher power. I’m serious. If you gave me a button and told me, “Press this button and someone will die. Someone who is loved by someone else as much as you love this man. But, if you press the button, this man who you love will also feel how much you love him for the rest of his life, at all times forever, and the feeling won’t dissipate or grow stale the way all feelings normally do, it will be constant and buoyant and good forever.” If you gave me a button like that, I would press that button in an instant, because not-doing things with him is the only way I’ve found to prevent myself from doing all the other things I don’t want to do, the things I don’t want to do because I want to do them so badly, the things that every part of me, down to my atoms and the humming space within my atoms, sings for. It’s like no matter what, whether I drink or don’t, a chorus of me-particles belts the hymn of beer inside me, in faith and hope and love, convinced of what great things beer can do for me and us and the world, if only we believed. 

But sitting with Johnny makes me think I can learn another tune.

“Yeah, the jaguar looked like how Hot Dog looks when he jumps down from the couch to the floor and then up to the kitchen counter.” 

My childhood cat, Hot Dog. Fourteen years old this Christmas, in just a few weeks. He’s third after my H.P. and this guy. But there’s a gap between my number two and my number three, and it’s a lot wider than the gap between one and two.

Chins up from Johnny.

He feels the same way about me that I do about him, I’m sure, because why else would he let me come over? I come over after work, don’t even need to call him, and he’s always back there, dragging off a 27, offering me a light when I ask. I pull a chair up and we can just be. He doesn’t need to talk when we’re back there. He talks plenty in the meetings, where we met. There he tells us about his daughter and his ex-wife. He talks with his hands, shaking his fingers and stretching his arms out wide, telling us, “If I knew where they were I’d go to them, I’d nail myself to a cross in front of them—no, I’d let them nail me to the cross. But she’s changed her number and my mother-in-law won’t give me an inch.” 

Sure, we could talk about that stuff. But I think he likes that I can take his mind off all that. I like that I can take our mind off it. And so I tell him other stuff.

“These documentary guys, they did one about the ocean too. Apparently we used to be little tiny one-cell guys,” I said, pinching my fingers, “that didn’t even need air to breathe, and we lived off the methane farted up by the volcano pits down at the bottom of the ocean. Did you know that? That that’s what methane is? Farts? And that the whole world used to be an ocean?”

He readjusted how he was sitting, pulling at the crotch of his pants and crossing his arms, an unbroken stare into the fading-to-black backyard.

“We could just split in two,” I said, “and make more of ourselves. No sex. And now we’re made of trillions of these things.”

There were good times, too, he’d told us, when the kid and her mother and him would be at the zoo, usually after only one or two sips from the flask, before he’d completely emptied it and moved on to whatever wine coolers and domestic cans they served from the popcorn stalls. Everything would be coming into focus, the sunshine making its noontime transition from blue to straw-gold, the weather perfect, sometime between Summer and Fall or Winter and Spring, and he’d see a stuffed penguin or snake or something and pull it off the rack and hold it in front of his daughter’s face and say, “You like that? You want it?” and that’s when he’d notice his daughter’s twisted face, these uncertain curves of mouth and eye that she’d turn to her mother, whose face would also scrunch up, like they both had some pain somewhere deep inside themselves that was flaring up, and he’d go and buy the penguin anyway and hand it to his daughter and she’d shyly walk behind her mother’s legs, who might even have been pulling her.

He said he knew it was all his fault, but that knowing this didn’t stop him blaming them for working against him, for trying to ruin his life by always bringing it all up, by feeling things that made him feel guilty. Because it’s one thing to have a problem and another to have someone have a problem with your problem. 

There was some other stuff too. He put his hands on them. He says he’s only been told about it, doesn’t himself remember. And I’m always thinking, like, damn man. Damn. But these are the people who become your brothers when you’ve been where we’ve been.

We don’t talk about any of that now though, not on the porch, leaning back in the plastic chairs, hearing ‘em creak. Pulling our arms into our shirts and rubbing our palms against our ribs. That’s not what the porch is for. 

While I talked about poison dart frogs and bonobos, he stood up and limped to the deck edge and peed through the railing onto the grass. Like our doing nothing, this struck as something I’d do while drunk. But that’s the thing: we weren’t drunk. So it was different. 

I watched his back, his thinness rippling under the plaid. Steam slipped off his arced stream. I worked my hands under my armpits, trying to get back the feeling. My Johnny.

The HVAC shut off and the splat of his piss on the mud became clear. Enough time passed that I started counting the seconds.

“Phew-wee! You been holding it in?”     

He remained concentrated. I fiddled with the name tag on my polo. I work at the TJ Maxx by the quarry. Two months in and I’ve been promoted to customer service specialist. I handle most of the returns. People bring me their used things, stuff they no longer want—things they really should keep given how they’ve been used—or bought by mistake, or bought out of some hope for what the item could do for them, turn them into—expensive blenders, skinny jeans, Star Wars Legos (all on sale)—and I place the things that used to be theirs beneath the counter and run their cards and say, “Thank you for coming in! God bless!” and I mean it, I really mean it.

“The job’s good,” I said to Johnny’s back. “Yeah, the job’s real good. Real good. They think I could move up to management in a year, if I can stay in line.”

He grunted as the stream pittered out to a trickle, zipped himself up, and limped back to me. 

“I know I’ve told you already, but you ever need anything,” I said, “you can use my discount.”

He lowered himself into his seat and lit another cigarette. I had to snap to get his attention for the lighter, but then I did the same. We sighed the smoke out. The HVAC chunked back on.

I don’t know what Johnny does other than haunt this house where he used to keep his family. And now I haunt it too. But I guess it’s better to be a living ghost than just plain dead.

“Yeah, real good over there,” I said. “Real good.”

You might think, How could you possibly sit with a man like that? Did you also hit a woman? I’ve already explained it. You either get it or you don’t. And no, by the way, I haven’t but what does that matter? Would you even believe me? Would you even care?

I’m sorry I’m so defensive. Add that to the list of things you either get or you don’t. Now that I think of it, maybe the difference between you and me is that I know what the Apostle Paul’s talking about in Romans, with the whole “I do not do what I want to do, but what I hate.” I don’t need to hit a woman to know that I’m like Johnny, that we’re all Johnny. Maybe you do. Maybe that’s why you hate Johnny. Because he’s who you’d be if life ever forced you to really face yourself.

“So how are you doing anyway? Me talking your ear off as usual,” I asked.

He adjusted himself again, sniffed, rubbed a finger under his nose at some nonexistent snot, then flung his arm outward, turning and looking at me now for the first time all night, those flood-light lit eyes and expressionless smile, and gestured towards the world, like, “This is how I’m doing, my beautiful, dear friend. This. Here.”

I followed the trajectory of his arm, its cast across the backyard and up to the treeline, where bat silhouettes flickered against the blue-steel of night. A mourning dove called. Wind shushed through the deck railing slats. This could be any time. We could be anywhere.

I flung my arm out too, both of us now holding invisible glasses, raised in an unspoken cheers to another God-glorious day plucked from the jaws of our devourer.

Calvin Cummings writes and lives in Baltimore. His work is featured in or forthcoming from Blue Arrangements, Soft Union, Spectra, Scaffold, SWAMP, and others. calvinthomascummings.com

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

2 Prose Poems

By Julián Martinez

WD-40

The key was having a harder and harder time with the lock. The lock was having a harder and harder time with the door. The door was having a harder and harder time with the frame. The frame was having a harder and harder time with the wall. The wall was having a harder and harder time with the house. The house was having a harder and harder time with the block. The block was having a harder and harder time with the tenant. The tenant was having a harder and harder time with herself. Her self was having a harder and harder time with her country. Her country was having a harder and harder time with its laborers. Its laborers were having a harder and harder time with their bosses. Their bosses were having a harder and harder time with their bosses. Their bosses were having a harder and harder time with their bosses. Their bosses were having a harder and harder time with their bosses. Their bosses were having a harder and harder time with their spouses changing the locks.

IKEA Bear

My girlfriend didn’t care that the stuffed brown bear in a lawn chair in IKEA was carrying a gun. Our cart is packed, she said, staring forward. Look at that bear, I said. No one in the store besides me was watching it load its pistol, the sneaky freak. We had been arguing over money and each other’s lack of listening skills all evening, so she kept walking when I made eye contact with the bear and broke into a sprint. I’d wrested the gun off of it, both of us snarling, when a salesperson asked if she could be of assistance. The bear plopped to the floor. The gun went behind my back. She was confused. She had no clue how the bear had gotten into the store. Was I sure it wasn’t mine? I blurted, yes, uh, actually it’s an engagement gift. As I kneeled down to pick up the bear with one hand and squeeze it tight, it bit me, pulled the gun free and shot me in the face. It fled on all fours, everything going black. While I was in a coma, my girlfriend built the furniture then took it all with her when she left. I’ve been practicing my revenge on the bear at the local gun range every day. The bear’s probably by the side of the highway in the forest now, making fun of itself for being so fragile and soft.

Julián Martinez (he/him) is the son of Mexican and Cuban immigrants and is from Waukegan, IL. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Hooligan Mag, Little Engines, The Sonora Review and elsewhere. His debut chapbook, This Place Is Covered Head to Toe in Shit (Ghost City Press, 2024) is available now. Find him online @martinezfjulian or martinezfjulian.com, or IRL in Chicago.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

DOORS

By Craig Rodgers

The phone is already ringing. David wakes at the sound. He turns in bed and looks about in a fog and he reaches for the phone, he presses the screen.

“Mark?”

Banging on the line, some kind of commotion and then quiet. David asks again.

“Mark? Hello?”

Another quiet moment. He starts to hang up when Mark’s voice comes through. 

“I found the door again.”

He says more but the commotion returns, louder now, then click, he is gone.

_____

Mark is nodding off. He sits at his desk with notebooks open showing figures he follows in only the barest of ways. He reads and reads until numbers blur and the lamplight falling across the page takes on a false tone, the light of a stage play, dreamlike and unreal. He stumbles his way down the hall. Shoes clack on tile. He touches his face, he yawns. The bathroom door is open. He pulls it shut at his back.

The tap is modern. He waves a hand at the sensor. Water gurgles and spurts out into a chrome sink. He fills a mug and drinks. Awake now. He shakes his face and blinks. He turns and opens the door.

At first he cannot accept it. The mind reels. A hallway lays out the way but the details are changed and wrong. Green carpeting lines a floor that goes on far longer than it should. He takes a step. Hands hold the wall for safety. The warm paneling is unfamiliar to the touch. He wipes the hand on his pants.

Passages exist where none should. A doorway opens onto a bedroom. Another shows an office of sorts. A library, a den. At the end of the hall there stands a door closed to him. He approaches in slow walk. He leans, wary. Hand reaching out. He turns the knob and pushes. 

The next room is cast in the pale light of buzzing overheads. Long tables divide the space. Racks of cabinets labeled in some other language take up all of one wall. All is quiet here.

He turns. The carpeted hallway at his back is as it was. The familiar bathroom of his home is there beyond the hall. He takes a breath and closes the door.

He opens the door, the same door, onto a bedroom. Sheets are mussed where someone has lain. A television plays but the sound is turned low, figures whispering between bouts of familiar canned laughter like the sound of falling snow.

A voice comes from somewhere near. Growing. He crosses the room to a closet, stumbling, catching himself. The voice is coming near. He crawls into the closet and pulls the door closed. The voice is at once gone. All sound is changed, even the unheard white noise breath of the walls is wholly altered. He opens the closet door.

Ahead is a garden enclosure. Glass walls look out on the world beyond. Houses, a street. A neighborhood entirely foreign. He moves along an aisle of quaffed greenery, ducking or peering over the rows of lush flora. Looking for a door.

At the room’s end is a small shed. Tools inside. Hoes and sheers and rakes. Gloves, seeds. Bottles for spritzing. He stoops to fit inside, pulling the door shut against him in the tiny space. 

He feels the change at once. The humid greenhouse air is replaced with a dry coolness. He opens the door onto a dining room set for a meal. Sweating now. Frustrated more than scared. He checks the phone in his pocket but there is no signal here in this place. He crosses the room to a door.

They go by faster now, searching for anything familiar. Yanking open doors and running to the next. A hallway, an attic, an office, a ballroom. More of the same, with occasional deviations. One door opens onto a stadium vacant of living things. One opens onto a room in pitch dark. He does not test the walls for a switch, instead pulling the door again closed and moving on. Doors and doors. Then.

He doesn’t recognize it right away. The green carpet. The hallway. He stops when he does. Standing, breathing. His body shakes. He resists the urge to run. The phone shows a signal. He moves with a measured pace. Forward. He scrolls and dials. It crackles but it does ring. He presses it hard to his ear. The voice is there, far away. He is in the bathroom now, and there comes a pop like a room pressurized. David’s voice is there, clear.

“Mark? Hello?”

Mark closes his eyes with relief and more. 

“I found the door again,” he says.

But the hair on his arms is standing, his fillings ache in his jaw. When he opens his eyes the door is closed.

David parks in a skid. He is out and crossing the lawn at a run. The lights all show in the house’s every window. Not just the windows, the open front door too. David steps inside. He goes room to room looking. Every door in the house stands open and Mark is not here. He checks again just in case. He calls friends, he asks questions. What could this be, where would he go. Each agrees to come help, even if they know not with what. With nothing left to do but wait for their arrival, David closes the front door.

Craig Rodgers is the name on several books ghostwritten by a gaggle of long dead Victorian spirits.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

The Ever-Present Mr. Small

By Alicia Ameur

Three-to-close is my least favorite shift. The streets are too dark and empty to walk home alone. I look at the clock and see it is almost closing time. Mr. Small was in the store for my entire six-hour shift. I caught glimpses of him, wandering from aisle to aisle, carrying a shopping basket filled hours earlier with a few loaves of white bread and jars of peanut butter and jelly. He never checks out at my register and, thankfully, tonight was no different. I watched as he timidly stepped into Tracy’s line to pay for his groceries. 

After punching out I search the window along the front of the store and don’t see him standing in his normal spot between the shopping carts and glass. Usually I can keep tabs on him while he watches me work at the register but lose him while I’m in the office closing out my drawer at the end of my shift. 

I edge close to the storefront window, trying to see further out into the parking lot. It is too dark beyond the row of cars parked directly along the entry walk to the store. I press my forehead against the cool window, cup both hands above my eyes to block the reflection of light for a better look, expecting to see Mr. Small on the other side of the glass, watching. 

He is not. 

I scan the parking lot, carefully considering whether a shadow is behind a tree or if it’s just my heightened fear causing an illusion. 

The hair on the back of my neck stands up as the automatic door swings open to the chilly night. I glance around as I walk out the door and still don’t see him. I scurry across the lot to the sidewalk, keeping a careful eye on the tree and its shadow. 

Once I reach the crosswalk I consider which route to take. The quickest is straight up Winthrop, a well-lit, frequently trafficked street. I would have good visibility of the sidewalk ahead, but there are many nooks for Mr. Small to hide. There are also homes on either side and I could knock on a door to get help, or even flag down a passing car.

The longer route would involve a half mile walk on Revere Beach Parkway, and another half mile to Short Beach. Not only is that an inefficient way to get home, there is a section where I would walk alone between the seawall and street with only a flood barrier on the opposite side. But there would be nowhere for Mr. Small to hide other than on the rock armour beyond the seawall. There aren’t any houses for me to run to for help and the cars drive too fast for me to flag down. 

I chose the faster, better-lit route. Only now I must decide whether to walk through the front or back parking lot of Dimino’s Subs. I am grateful to see that it is still open and the lights pool on the front lot, showing no Mr. Small in sight. There is only a sliver of streetlight shining into the back parking lot and I decide to stay at the front. My only concern is that I might be blindsided if he is waiting in the back lot on the other side of the building. 

I walk as quietly as possible, peering beyond the wall, hoping I don’t see him. Once I pass the sandwich shop, I have a clear line of vision all the way to the train station. I stay close to the chain link fence between the sidewalk and train station parking lot. There are a few cars still in the lot, but not a person in sight. 

My eyes dart in all directions. Ears conscious of every sound, listening for the rhythm of steady footsteps. All I hear is the rustling of dead leaves and litter in the light breeze. These sounds startle me into thinking he is nearby, then give me a fleeting, false sense of safety when I realize it is not Mr. Small. 

I think empty ‘positive’ thoughts to keep my panic at bay. There’s nothing to be nervous about, Alicia. He’s never hurt you before, he’s harmless. . . It’s not even a mile, you’ll be fine.

I reach Beachmont Station, and  see him standing behind the bank of pay phones. My heart races and my throat constricts. I come to a full stop, frozen in fear.

I take deep breaths and calm down enough to continue walking. I cross the street and walk past the bakery, hear the crinkle of his shopping bag and the thud of his boots on the pavement. He is walking about twenty steps behind me, his usual stalking distance.

I’m not sure if he understands what he’s doing, following me, a fourteen-year-old girl to work, dance class, and almost everywhere else I walk. Maybe he’s trying to protect me, I think, telling myself lies to tamp my fear.

I think back to ‘the incident’ almost two years ago. On that night, the neighborhood boys thought it would be funny to pull a prank on Mr. Small and tell him I was in love with him. I was home alone with my younger sister. We were watching a rented VHS from June’s Video Hut when we heard loud banging on the front door. As I approached the front hall, I heard Jay, Scott, Anthony, Brian, and T.J. laughing hysterically across the street.

The pounding reverberated louder and louder with each step I took. I yelled out, “Guys, it’s not funny!” The culprit furiously jiggled the doorknob while pushing and pulling the door in its frame, and I heard my sister whimper behind me.

I saw movement outside in the dark. Then Mr. Small’s face peering through the porch window, his hand cupped over his brow to get a better look inside. I stood frozen as his head turned in my direction and we locked eyes. He smiled.

I ran to the kitchen, feeling him watch me as I searched through the junk drawer for the list of emergency phone numbers. I remembered my parents added Natalie’s Restaurant.

I steadied my hands enough to dial the number. The hostess answered after several rings, and the sound of an adult’s voice suppressed my fear. I gave a hurried description of my parents.

Since they were regulars, the hostess knew who I was looking for. When she put the phone down to get them, full terror returned; I was alone in the kitchen with Mr. Small watching my every move. I could no longer stay strong and contain my tears. My shoulders shuddered as I quietly sobbed with my back to the window.

I waited for one of my parents to come to the phone. I focused on the background noise of the busy restaurant coming through the line: plates and silverware clinking, people talking and laughing, live music from the dance floor. People who were comfortable and safe, and at that very moment, I couldn’t remember how that felt. 

After what seemed like an impossibly long time, I heard my mother’s irritated, slightly slurred voice on the other end. Through jagged breaths and sobs, I explained what was happening and begged her and dad to come home. With the same casual tone she used to deny me a ride to a friend’s house, she said that their dinner had just been served. 

Dinner had just been served? There was a man trying to get in the house and she was more concerned with food. I composed myself enough to convince her that this was an actual emergency. She reluctantly told me she would request doggie bags for their dinner and head straight home.

After I hung up the phone, a rush of relief flooded my body, interrupted by a worry: assuming this Saturday night was no different from all the other Saturday nights, it was very likely that my parents had been drinking heavily. If my dad was too drunk to drive, they might die in a tragic car accident, all because I called them to come home early over a situation my twelve-year-old self couldn’t manage.

Even though I feared my parents would get in trouble for driving while intoxicated, I decided to call the police in hopes that they would arrive sooner than my parents. I explained the situation to the dispatch officer and she advised me to take my sister to a spot where Mr. Small wouldn’t be able to see us. She assured me a patrol car would arrive as soon as possible. I hung up before she could say anything else and slowly turned to see if Mr. Small was still watching through the window. 

He was.

I could still hear the boys laughing across the street. I focused long enough to decide that the safest place to hide would be in the living room, which spanned the back of the house. If we crouched behind the sofa, we would be close enough to the front door to hear if he got in, but far enough away to be safely hidden. We held each other tight, crying quietly while we waited for the police or our parents to help us.

The police arrived about an hour later, shortly before our parents. I saw the flash of blue and white lights illuminating the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. I told my sister to stay hidden and went to the dining room window. A couple of police officers stood below the streetlight in the grass triangle across the street. Mr. Small was hiding behind a bush with no leaves. After a minute or so the police got him to stand and walked him to the police cruiser. He wobbled back and forth trying to balance, clearly drunk.

My parents pulled up as Mr. Small was being placed into the backseat of the cruiser. They approached the police officers, walking deliberately enough to mask their unsteady gait. After a quick discussion, the officers drove away. I heard my parents’ laughter as they came up the front walk. I unlocked the deadbolt, my hands still shaking.

I asked my dad what the officers said, and he calmly told me they were going to keep Mr. Small in jail overnight to sober up and let him go home in the morning. They couldn’t keep him because he technically didn’t commit a crime. I wanted to scream at them.  They were so unconcerned about what transpired; didn’t even ask me if I was okay. I was too exhausted to talk about it further. My body felt numb and I could barely stand. I knew any protest would be futile until they sobered up. So I walked upstairs, brushed my teeth and got into bed. As upset as I felt, I was grateful there were adults in the house.

The memory of that night causes tears to well up. I remind myself that thinking about the past won’t help and shift my focus to my surroundings and the whereabouts of Mr. Small. 

I realize I have reached the shortcut next to St. Paul’s Church – stairs leading to a path that crosses over from Winthrop to Bradstreet. If I take the shortcut, I will be home in less than a minute. As desperate as I am to get home, I’m afraid to take the shortcut because the passageway is very narrow with fences on either side.   

I walk the full block around, knowing we will soon pass the house where Mr. Small lives with his mother. I wonder if he will continue following me home or stop at his front door. The closer I get to home, the faster I walk. As I pass his house, I pray he will stop there. My house finally comes into view and I increase my speed to pass the ten or so houses that stand between me and safety. 

I risk a quick glance behind me and see Mr. Small outside his front door, watching me walk away. I break into a sprint, fumbling my keys as I rush to get inside, panicking until I finally deadbolt the door behind me. 

I walk into the cold, dark, empty house, sit on the stairs and cry.

ALICIA C. AMEUR is an aspiring writer, knitter, avid reader and baker, as well as a mother to two adult children, Josef and Amina.  Born in Boston, MA, raised in the Beachmont section of Revere, MA, a suburb of Boston, she currently resides in Worcester, MA with her three black cats, Edgar, Allan and Poe.  She is currently writing a creative non-fiction book to share her and her family’s story with the world.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

You Hate Me Correctly: A review of Cletus Crow’s Phallic Symbols

By Conor Hultman

Cletus Crow has published a grand slam sophomore book of poems. Phallic Symbols (Pig Roast Publishing, 2024) has absorbed the disciplined formalism of the debut, like sunshine into a stone. Out of that formalism Crow has kept the bare beauty of the senryu, but allowed the verse to unselfconsciously expand into a free verse, occasionally prose poetry, that retains structural integrity and power. Rarely is a word out of place or tossed off. Very often does a poem glow with an unassailable wholeness, made up of atomically graceful single lines. “this is how / vampires / kill themselves”

        These poems don’t disappoint on the title’s come-on, but most often they’re about erotic disappointment. Festooned with phalluses and dotted with anuses, the poet accomplishes that Freudian alchemy of symbolism that draws a pornographic flag of genitalia intersecting, drains all the prurience out of it, transforming sex and its paraphernalia into potent totems of impotence and disappointment. “My penis is a sewage pipe.”

The suffering displayed here is almost always racked across a relational valence. Failed romance, unrequited love, flirting with friends, family history; the self being created across the collection is a group collaboration, a tapestry of every way people can make pain together out of wanting and not getting. “My therapist says / I should clone myself / so I can kill myself / without dying.”

Crow is funny without trying, which is the best way anyone can be funny. Almost every page in Phallic Symbols could make you laugh or cry, could be used as a Rorschach-blot-test-cum-poem. A short one to prove it to you:

     Outrageous Nowadays

     Man offered to buy my old gym socks for $30

     Can you imagine?

     $20 more and we can go see a movie

A whole world created at one glance, like a gay American Hanshan carving poems into a mountain with his penis. There’s a raucous, generous humor there, but it’s living uneasily with a great and knowing sadness. Part of the secret at work is religion, which flits among the poems about pop culture and fantasy. Christianity, a rich tradition of desire and loss and promise, is referenced with a reverence special to good art. “I make meth / with some man named Jesus / who is not God.”

The sequencing of the poems in Phallic Symbols is part of what makes the whole work. It starts with “Hike with Erectile Dysfunction,” where the exterior natural world and the interior world of sexual imagination fuse into a stark naked, frozen noninteractive image. It ends with “Hope,” a beautiful ode as tautology, including desperation and transference in ten simple lines, that function as a reinforcement of all the preceding emotive confusion and as a suggestive imperative line away, an exhortation to the reader to hope, even if the hope is futile and hurts. Between these two bookends are poems about whale penises, the penises of statues, God’s penis, girl penises, Godzilla’s penis, insect penises, penises after vasectomy, mannequin penises, cyborg penises, penis pictures, penis drawings, porn penises, grandfather’s penis, and the Washington Monument (which is, of course, a penis). Rather than brute obsession, Crow takes this material an expands it, goes off on variations of content and concept as frequently as technique. Phallic Symbols is like Apollinaire’s Alcools, or Mahler’s Third Symphony, in that it takes a theme and recreates it at every stroke, fully maps out its potentialities and drops the pen immediately when the next line would be repetition. Love is the most fertile battlefield for such artistic wars, as the above mentioned. “Then comes a night with your penis in / the love of your life.”

Cletus Crow nods subtly to influence when it’s due, Graham Irvin and B. R. Yeager notably. But these poems are all the author’s own. Crow is aware of being a singular voice, alludes to outsider status with grace, as with the poem “Literary Society”: “There are too many words I don’t know. / The poets are coming to kill me.” Phallic Symbols could very well be next season’s fashion, and after that a perennial classic. If you are trying to copy a more intelligent and hilarious style than your own, look no further. But don’t tell them I sent you.

Also, my copy came with a condom with a poem on the wrapper, but it would have to be some seriously fucked up sex for me to use it:

     BDSM

     a whip hands above

     handcuffs on the doorknob

     you hate me correctly

     at specific times

Conor Hultman lives in New York, New York.

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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 

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.

Categories
Across the Wire Vol. 4

Dip Spit

By Chuckry Vengadam

Everybody at the pregame is white. Which is good. Spending most of my first two years of college exclusively with Indian people left my friend-diversity imbalanced, so it was time to step outside my ethnic comfort zone and into this frat brother’s living room. Around the room are dudes in pastel-colored button-up shirts, but it’s hard to see exactly what color they’re wearing, or even the details of their face, because the only light in the living room comes from a dim lamp in the corner. It’s unclear whether the guys around me are frat brothers or rushees like me. Guys file in and out of the fluorescent kitchen to refill their cups, temporarily exposed like a flash photograph before dissolving back into the party’s murky interior, and others stand around the room, making idle chatter or scrolling through their phones. As I notice I’m the only Indian person in the room, my heart jumps and I assume it’s just my social status rising, but nope—it’s the unfamiliar, frightening realization that I know nobody there.

I didn’t tell my roommates I was here. They wouldn’t understand. They’re brown like me, so the idea of joining the University of Michigan’s Greek life was a laughable aspiration. We’re simple folk. Our conversations are often complaints about class, dreams for the future, and stupid inside jokes, usually over ashed joints and late night games of Super Smash Bros. If I tried explaining to them why I’m rushing a frat, they’d laugh. Me, in a frat? This smooth-faced pothead bookworm rubbing shoulders with beer-chugging dudebros? “Are you okay?” they’d ask. “Just come watch a movie, dude.”

So yes, part of joining a frat was to become cool and attract women, but another part was the thrill. Rushing Pi Kappa Phi (affectionately called “Pi Kapps”) in secret made it fun, scandalous even, the idea of sneaking off to join white folk in the late evening for a nightcap or twelve, the exhilaration of leaving my normal life behind in favor of something new, even if only for a while, like clothes after a shopping spree. And besides, this was more of a tour for me than a serious commitment. I wouldn’t really get in, would I?

They’re blaring some generic pop music at this pregame. I knock back a few gulps of jungle juice to fuel my confidence. This other dude walks by, short brown hair, slanted eyes, sort of, and I recognize him from one of my classes. Marco. I wave. He looks Asian–or maybe half-Asian—so, thank God, I’m no longer the only cultural representative at this event. There’s another outsider, someone perhaps more out-of-place than me. He seems to recognize me and suppresses a smile as he waves, his mouth opening the bare minimum to signal communication from afar. He comes over.

I say, “Whattup?”

“Not much, man, just chilling,” I think his face is emotionless, but I don’t really see it because the pop music is so loud we have to yell into each other’s ears.

“You rushing?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“You?”

“Yep.”

I’ve made a friend.

Which isn’t super surprising, because at the Pi Kapps meet-and-greet the previous week, I nailed it. I bro-high-fived several bulky frat bros on entrance, the kind where you slap palms and pull each other in, then half-hug with the other arm. I sat at their sticky dining table in a small room with walls of chipped paint. The brothers seated around the table were pink-faced and wore Timberlands, long hair stuffed under backwards caps, beer in or near their hands, like a dinner party for deadbeat dads. This one bigger guy asked me to tell him about my hometown in two words, so I said, “boredom and Republicans,” earning me some laughs and pats on the back. I knew I had a shot.

The thing was, the rush coordinator told me in his nasally voice, that pledging would take maybe fifteen to twenty hours a week. He listed some of the expected responsibilities. Cleaning up after parties, tutoring other frat members, cooking breakfast, and a bunch of other chores. I’m sure there was more left unspoken, like chugging a gallon of milk or running through a cornfield naked covered in lube or other equally clever hazing rituals. The problem is that I already spend an extra fifteen hours per week for Michigan Izzat, the competitive all-male Bollywood Fusion dance team I’m on, and there is no way I can do both. I’ll have to choose.

Minutes after I meet Marco, girls stride through the door. Short girls, tall girls, blonde girls, girls wearing yoga pants, girls wearing lipstick, girls with ponytails. A fantastic diversity of white girls. I’m excited. They’re half the reason I’m here. Fraternities grant you entire crowds of perfectly manufactured white women. You don’t find them at Bollywood dance competitions or Izzat parties. One of the girls approaches me. I clench, and my solo cup crinkles.

“Are you in my Chemistry class?” she asks.

“No.”

“Are you sure?” A little smile plays on her lips.

“Yeah, I’m not taking Chemistry, so definitely not,” I say, idiot that I am.

She excuses herself to talk to her friends, who gather in the kitchen to drain all the jungle juice from its vessel and oust me from my comfortable fortress. I’m in the living room, alone again. I search for people to talk to, but I’m not sure what to say. Most of the parties I go to have Indian people there, where everyone knows someone, and meeting new people’s easy because there’s always at least one mutual friend. Here, I’m on my own, searching for an entrance into the conversation.

My inspiration for rushing is my friend’s roommate from freshman year. Skinny, hunched over, daddy-longlegs-looking white kid. Always wore a hat as though preparing to go bald. When the three of us played video games in his dorm, he’d bless us with stories of how drunk or high he got while pledging. How many girls he’d hooked up with. He’d tell us this with a pinch of chewing tobacco tucked behind his lower lip, and then he’d throw a tantrum when he lost the game. But the thing was, he had good weed, dozens of friends, and a sex life, so I wanted—needed—to be like him, even if he and his frat brothers would get so cross-faded they’d pass out on bean bags in his dorm, their stupid mouths open as they held plastic cups full of their own dip spit.

My own plastic cup is, again, nearly empty as I stand in the corner of the living room trying to look casual. Some of the girls are perched on couches, pretending to be interested in what the collared-shirts standing above them have to say. By this point, considering my chug rate and smaller stature, I’m likely drunker than the rest. Cute white girl was a botched attempt. But that’s okay. The guys on Izzat would’ve gaped if I told them a white girl even talked to me. I could imagine them grabbing their hair, eyes bugging out, squatting on the ground in overdone displays of surprise. “Broooo, no wayyyy!” they’d say, and I’d just be like, “Yep.” Once the theatrics wore off, they’d circle me like sharks. “Why don’t you make some moves?” they’d say, the air thick with hoots and hollers.

To which I’d probably just smile and shrug, hands raised, because I was used to this. Bro-endorsed hookup culture is par for the course at a Bollywood collegiate dance team event: at the first night’s mixer, you find cute girls and “plant some seeds” by being boyishly charming and showing them attention; then, during your performance the next evening, you make repeated eye contact (especially during the sexy parts); and finally, at the afterparty, you pound five shots of tequila whose quality you severely overestimate before finding them and initiating a hot, sweaty grind session that would bring a proud tear to the eye of middle school you. Embarking on this journey was hard for me, though. I was a shy kid—a late bloomer, my parents said—so those first couple years of college, I had a hard enough time making friends, let alone romancing women, let alone drunkenly coordinating the loss of my virginity at national dance performances.

Half a cup of jungle juice later, I consider leaving this pregame until one fellow finally catches my eye: a big, bulky, WWE-champion-looking Indian dude talking to a couple of sorority girls in the corner. I approach, and he greets me with a, “Yo, what’s good, rushee!” He has an Indian accent. His shoulders are the size of helmets. He bro-high-fives me, which has now become a physically tiring greeting. His name is Yeshwanth. “Call me Yesh, though. How’s it going?”

“It’s good, man.” I suddenly have everything and nothing to say. What do I ask this fellow? What do I ask one who’s successfully infiltrated the whites so easily? His skin is dark and porous, his beard short but thick. He must be at least twice my weight, even though he isn’t much taller than me. Nothing about him matches the Pi Kapps brand of pimply pink faces and dip lip I’d grown accustomed to thus far, so I’m taken aback. “What do you like about Pi Kapps?”

He shakes his head and pauses for a moment, trying to wipe the drunkenness from his brain, and then looks at me with a kind of mentorly confidence. “This is where it’s at, dude. You don’t get this kind of brotherhood anywhere else.”

“Not even at other frats? What about OGP?” Omega Gamma Pi is our campus’s Indian fraternity, whose parties my brown friends and I would check out since they’d happily ply us with free booze and weed to convince us, a gaggle of wide-eyed Indian boys fresh from the suburbs, to join them next semester. “What about them?”

“Eh.” He waves dismissively and laughs. “Just a waste of your time, man.”

“I’m on Michigan Izzat,” I say, leaning right up to his ear as the music grows louder. “You know AJ Sarangi? Koushik Yadati?”

“Maybe?” He squints and nods his head with doubt. “That the dance team?”

I nod. “I wanna pledge Pi Kapps, but I don’t think I can do Izzat at the same time.”

“Listen, bro,” he slurs. He pulls me close, his wrestler arm wrapped around my shoulder, his other arm gesturing, like a big brother explaining how something worked. “I get why you wanna stay with them. They’re pretty tight knit. But you’re never really gonna have as much fun with that crew.”

My stomach sinks, but he has a point. The Indian community on our campus has a reputation for exclusivity. They don’t spend time with white people. Izzat boys would throw parties every other weekend, and the same people would go to each one, each browner than the last. Go to one and you’ll hear the same Bhangra songs mixed with hip hop beats. You’ll hear the same conversations about which girls on other dance teams are “down” and which aren’t. You won’t see a white face or hear “Sweet Caroline.” You won’t see the rest of the world.

Yesh’s eyes glaze over. I don’t believe him. He’s drunk and doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But he’s honest and friendly. And he’s the real deal, though, plucked out of Mumbai and into Michigan on a student visa, accented heavily, a little wild in his gestures with his head tilting as he spoke, not like the knockoff desis I dance with, so why wouldn’t I listen to him?

I finish my drink and stumble over to the kitchen to negotiate with the sorority girls guarding the jungle juice for a few sips when the rush event coordinator, his face a concerning shade of hot pink, enters the room. “Rushees, get on the buses,” he yells. People pass confused looks to each other, in part, I’m sure, because they’re shocked to hear such a loud expulsion of air through nasal passageways alone. “I said, rushees, get on the fucking buses, now.”

He jogs out of the house towards the first bus before I can ask where we are going. I look around, where I’m alone at this dying party with no one except my new friend Marco, who’s so drunk he can talk about nothing besides how drunk he is, and my new cultural advisor Yesh, who’s so drunk he leans against the wall, alone, staring into space, like the last book on a bookshelf. These would be my new brothers. I check the time. It’s past 11pm, and part of me wants to call it a night. I’ve acquired enough satisfying experiences, and I don’t know where these mysterious school buses are going. If I leave now, I can get home, get a little high if there’s any weed left, maybe play Melee with my roommates for a few hours if they’re awake. Then, the bus engines start, the cool white boys tossing half-empty solo cups on the lawn and giving zero fucks file into the vehicles, and man they look cool, so I join.

The ride lasts almost fifty minutes, our buses lazily careening down an empty highway through bumfuck nowhere Michigan. Yelling and whooping fill the whole bus. Guys keep standing and pointing at each other across the aisle, everyone else says, “Ayyy,” and I have no idea what they’re talking about. All I have is stupid Marco slouched next to me. The most useful part about him is the plastic water bottle full of vodka he brought onto the bus. Before dance competitions, our liaisons would similarly bring us secret liquor in water bottles so we could get sloshed in the auditorium after our performance. A much more preferable experience to this, I think, and I fight the urge to reminisce.

Instead, I ask Marco, “Where do you think we’re going?” to which he replies, “I’m so fucked up.” I ask, “Why are you rushing?” to which he replies by spitting on the floor. He leans forward and presses his forehead into the back of the seat in front of us. It stretches, and his eyebrows peel upwards so that each time the bus hits a bump, his raised-eyebrow face bobbles up and down. I can imagine having to mop up his vomit from the frat house floor in a month. He starts snoring, and I take the water bottle from his limp hand and glug down the rest of the liquor.

The bus squeals when it pulls off the lonely highway and up to a small building surrounded by nothing but air and grass. It’s clear from the line of depressed sixty-year-olds at the cash machine inside that this is either a casino or an inconveniently located Wells Fargo. We push through the next door and see, under the glow of invasive fluorescent lights, a few tables for blackjack and poker, a few slot machines, and many more old people wordlessly playing cards. No one has their cell phones out; no one speaks to each other. It’s a peaceful communal gathering, until, like a tsunami of fresh testosterone, twenty-five frat bros and rushees whoop and holler their way inside.

Risk-averse in most ways, I pull up a seat at the blackjack table just to watch. No one else is around for me to talk to. Marco sits a few seats down, his face pressed into the green felt of the table as his arm somehow stays upright to hold his cards. Yesh was too drunk to come. The other frat bros have dispersed, most headed to the small bar against the far wall for cheap PBRs. No music plays. The building is dead silent, except for the shuffling of cards and the growls of white boys. The hollow-eyed dealer, resigned to his duty, says very few words. There are no girls here. They were just at the pregame to lube us up, I realize, to get us excited before the big event. It’s just us and the geriatrics taking turns losing money.

Here’s where I employ my superpower. Here’s where I Febreze a situation I “should” like even if it smells like shit. I scan each segment of the casino and excuse its degeneracy: the senior citizens stone-silent in line for the ATM probably just had a long week, the drunken frat bros howling at the poker tables are just blowing off steam, the owners of this establishment must be proud to serve such a diverse set of patrons late into the night. Forget that I hate gambling, that I don’t like anyone here, that I’m bored and tired. My gut churns, but I bury it. Everyone else is having fun, after all. It’s what I do when I explore something new. I make it my home and forget where I come from. I bury myself, and I lose everything.

“How’s it going?” asks the rush coordinator, his nasal voice snapping me out of my daze.

“I’m doing great,” I say. “This is…so cool.”

His long brown hair has stayed slicked back, and his lower lip protrudes with a chubby bump that I try not to stare at. He slaps a hand on my shoulder. “Listen, man, if you join, you can have great nights like this for the rest of college.”

I think about this. I think about having fantastic nights at this rural money dumpster for the remaining two most formative years of my life. I imagine myself arm in arm with the white girl whose Chemistry class I’m not in, leading her into a casino, softly slipping a pinch of chewing tobacco inside my cheek like a jewel stashed for safekeeping, and playing blackjack with expressionless retirees for three hours. My stomach drops, and I feel a slow-release shock, this cocktail of trepidation, panic, and thrill, the kind that comes when your parents tell you you’re moving to a town you’ve never visited. Then, the rush coordinator, eyes glazed over, speech slurred, seals the deal. In three throaty loogies, he spits tobacco into his own beer cup and drinks it back up with a smile.

Dear God. I have no more Febreze for this.

I used most of it on Izzat. Forget about the brutal practice schedule and wannabe frat culture; performing for an audience is sexy beyond imagination. We’d line up on stage, our hearts thumping, as beautiful college girls from Texas or Ohio or wherever eye us from their seats. The music would start. The voice in my head would stop, and, for the next eight minutes, I’d feel the clarity that machines must have when they’re turned on. Who my teammates were didn’t matter; it was just about giving myself completely to this beautiful routine. Afterwards, there’d be thunderous applause, and we’d hug and jump and scream before shuttling to our hotels, draining bottles, and heading to a late-night afterparty at some glitzy club.

Dancing with Izzat is like working at a startup, though: long hours, big risks, huge payoff, guaranteed burnout. I shouldn’t have been surprised—we are twenty testosterized dudes desperately looking for a spotlight. We spend hours making sure our arm and leg angles match and formations are symmetrical. Captains yell at us to push harder, to keep our facial expressions up, to stop socializing and focus. We push ourselves  four hours some nights, and I come home at two in the morning for a breath of fresh weed before sleeping like a corpse. Homework slips through the cracks. I wake up at noon and skip class. I lay around in bed worrying about school. It’s no wonder I wanted to quit Izzat to rush a frat, with its shinier status and fewer grueling athletics. It felt like, in the company of male friendships, a promotion from traveling consultant to senior associate. It felt like something I’d earned. But now here I am, nearly two years into college, watching a potential mentor figure silently ingest his own tobacco juice.

Since Uber doesn’t yet exist, I cannot make an Irish goodbye from the casino. Instead, I suffer while I wait for the buses to rev back up. Silently, I watch my comrades lose all their money at Blackjack to the older clientele, but they don’t seem to care. Their eyes are completely soulless. Some nod off right there at the table. Others hold their own, chatting up the other clientele, who mostly grunt in response. I imagine the Izzat boys here, and it’s a fun thought. I can see them pour into this establishment instead of Pi Kapps, can feel the frenzied looks we’d receive as we literally beat our chests after winning a round. They’d take control of the aux, blast Bollywood mashups, pat each other on the back, all of us laughing and dancing on the tabletops. It’d be fun, in another world.

Eventually, we board the buses again, this time without the rush coordinator commanding us, just marching in sullenly, like commuters before a work day. I can’t find Marco on the bus, but I imagine he went home the same way he came to the casino—snoring, forehead sticking to the seat in front of him and mouth loudly open. The buses reach the pregame house again, its lawn devastated with torn grass, plastic cups, and vomit. It’s dark, and the shadow splayed in front of the porch is either Yesh’s prone body or a huge shrub. I make it back home, where my roommates are asleep, and I slip into bed, thinking of how many cups I’d have to clean up off Pi Kapps’ lawn if I were to pledge, and what those cups might contain, and I shudder with relief, happy to be alone.


Chuckry Vengadam was born and raised near Detroit, Michigan. His work has been published in the El Portal literary magazine as well as a self-published essay collection, Late Bloomer, about a few of his life’s inflection points, which you can order here. He lives in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Categories
Across The Wire Vol. 3

NDA

By Julián Martinez

Good morning, I am reaching out today to make clear some topics that came up during our interview last week regarding my prior employment. I was formerly employed by a public figure known across the globe for their ubiquitous impact and influence across culture, media and beyond. What you may not know is that this public figure is, and has been, a company and not one individual.

I was responsible for the management of paid actors who portrayed this figure in public and sometimes private spaces, while the operation was overseen by a think tank that included investors, political advisors, financiers, and myself since November of 2023. Prior to that, this public figure (who I am not legally allowed to name) was a living individual by whom I was originally employed in 2018.

My legal obligation to maintain the anonymity of this person has been in effect since my signing of a non-disclosure agreement, although this may have been nullified on October 23rd, 2023, when this individual set the paper copy of said agreement on fire in my living room, shortly before what was later referred to as “the personal-professional merger.” Thus, because of the uncertain status of this agreement, I am unsure of what can and cannot be shared without direct retaliation. 

I feel it is only right to inform you, looking ahead to my in-person interview with you tomorrow afternoon for the Director of Development role, to address the gap in my resume which you remarked upon in conversation. To clarify, I am sharing some of the more sensitive, “gossip-y” (for lack of a better word) details to give context to the skills and capabilities I would bring to your team.

Though my time with Drake— fuck! Fuck. Sorry! Didn’t mean to write Drake. I could backspace and delete that, but you know fucking what? It feels good to type that. It’s like, oh, who’s that one pop star? I know his name. Tip of my tongue. Oh, fuck me! Drake! Lil’ ole Canadian rapper and entrepreneur, now a nominal figurehead for what is projected to be one of the most powerful groups of leaders in the world. I mean, you name ‘em. You think of a fucked-up rich person, and they’ve got their meat hooks in Drake’s carcass and I’ve shaken those hooks like hands.

The shit I’ve seen! You don’t know the half of it. You don’t know at all! I’ve never even said this shit out loud in the privacy of my bathroom or over text or even thought about it. God forgive me for all the suffering I’ve helped put innocent people through. God forgive me for what I had to do to Aubrey.

I don’t think the rich and famous, if they believe their own lies as much as he did, have any real friends, but we got to trusting one another. When he broke into my house, I thought he was my then-girlfriend Gina, but I reached for the other side of the bed and there she was, asleep. So I hopped out of bed and turned the light on and I saw a big dark blob in front of me ‘cause I’d forgot to put my glasses on. I said, “What the fuck are you doing?” and he said my name, all soft like I was the in-the-flesh angel my mother named me after, the way he was so good at making his words gentle and pleading in love songs, and I just broke down crying ‘cause I hadn’t heard that voice in months.

Once I threw my glasses on, I saw he looked like shit, which was surreal. Gone was the manicure and face care. He’d lost a lot of weight but his face was bloated. He was wearing all the same designer clothes as before but he smelled like alleyway. He was crying but when I went in for a hug his face hardened and he punched me in the stomach. Speaking of hardened, you don’t want to know the people I’ve seen with James Harden. Anyway, he hit me and I went down and Gina screamed and called the police. That’s when Aubrey really lost it. 

He thrashed everything onto the floor— tables, dressers, cabinets— then he sounded like he was crying for real and asked where I kept the work documents I’d told him about, licensing agreements and actors’ contracts. I wanted to tell him no, but I just walked into my office, found the key to the drawer and held the folder out to him. It wasn’t fear. It felt like opening the door to a restaurant for your friend as the two of you walk in. I mean, I was going to name my firstborn child after this guy for changing my life. Gina never agreed with that, but Gina and I never had a kid, so it doesn’t matter.

I knew he’d been keeping money from me and the team, that he’d been hiding all sorts of secrets, leveraging dirt on us to other industry players, playing mind games to keep control until he disappeared when the merger was first discussed by the Board. Aubrey was a liability to OVO and the Drake brand, so we kept our careers alive even if he couldn’t do the same for himself. He was an unstable megalomaniac who I knew I’d never see again, so I gave him the papers. I watched him burn them in front of me then drop the ball of fire onto my couch. “We’re free, baby, we’re free,” he said as the red-and-blue lights painted his face.

The cops took him away and the firefighters put out the flames but no one came back to ask us any questions. The patrol car was involved in an accident on the freeway. After the merger, which would’ve finalized whether the B&E by Aubrey had happened or not, my new manager called me to the conference room and informed me that my position as Assistant Coordinator would be phased out as the operation moved forward. I didn’t ask any questions— I was so zonked from pills in those days.

Drugs were how me and Aubrey got close. It’s like I was doubling my dosage to make up for his absence. Jesus, this feels good to write out. To just not stop, to say it all— and that’s not even all of it! I could write books about this shit, but they’d kill me first. I thought they were trying to for a while, what with all the Jehovah’s Witnesses that came by my front door around that time. They’d leave pamphlets in my mailbox about repenting from the Devil twice a week. Business insider magazines, pharmaceutical freebies, pink slips for the car note, notices about soon-ending medical insurance, and Devil letters. 

I couldn’t repent from the Devil. I was the Devil my entire twenties. One time I answered the door and— I mean, I was too fucked up— told the missionary at the door or whatever they call themselves that I would shoot them before they shot me, and I did. Well, I thought I shot them but I’d just thrown up a rocket of tequila and tomato juice onto their shirt. They never rang again but they kept leaving their pamphlets— I wonder what codes of silence they’re bound to.

Anyways, I’ll delete this shit in a second. Just feels good to let it out over a couple drinks. Not good, really. Dumb that I haven’t put it into words before. What I should say in this email is don’t fuck with me, Mr. New Probably Boss, because I will have a goon chop your child’s fucking lips off your face with the push of one button if you so much as cut me in line for the Keurig tomorrow. And if I don’t get your stupid little job I swear to God I will sever yo

Sent from my iPhone

Julián Martinez (he/him) is the son of Mexican and Cuban immigrants and is from Waukegan, IL. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Hooligan Mag, Little Engines, The Sonora Review and elsewhere. His chapbook, ThisPlace Is Covered Head to Toe In Shit, is out in August 2024 with Ghost City Press. Find him online @martinezfjulian or martinezfjulian.com, or IRL in Chicago.