Tag: across the wire

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

The owner of my favorite coffee shop died 

By Matt Starr

I didn’t want to believe it when I saw the sign sitting among the bags of wholesale beans like the portrait in an ofrenda: an easel-bound line art illustration captioned with “RIP. A celebration of Dave’s life will be held at Rey’s Restaurant.” Only the “will be” had been marked through with a sharpie and replaced with “was.” 

That last little edit was a kick in the head.

For a brief moment I allowed myself the suspension of logic. To convince myself it wasn’t him. But then, on another table positioned in one of the storefront windows, next to an actual photo of Dave, lay a memorial book. The kind you see at funeral homes.

“Goddammit,” I said to my wife, and she said something goddammit-adjacent, and then there was only the bustling coffee shop on a weekend afternoon. Orders taken. Portafilters pounding the counter. Beans roasting, the Probat mixing them with its mechanical arm, throwing off fumes of something burnt. Something so intoxicating you’d let it suffocate you.

Cup A Joe, for my money, is one of the greatest coffee shops – not just in North Carolina – but in the world. It’s no frills, the drinks are strong. There’s a dinginess, just enough, and a dated quality to the decor. Like the place let the world pass it by, and it didn’t give a fuck because all it cared about was serving you coffee so intense it’d make you want to run through bulletproof glass. On the wall is a picture doctored to make it look like Frank Zappa is shitting into a Starbucks bag.

Dave was an extension of this irreverent workman vibe. Not to mention, the owner, a fact I’m embarrassed to admit I never knew until after he was dead. I guess that’s because he didn’t fit the description I held in my head for such titles. He looked like a King of the Hill character. Tall and casually dressed. He wore glasses of a style that had gone in and out of fashion, and then back in again, and had a long, mousy ponytail that fell behind his receding hairline. His voice was flat, like he didn’t get excited for anything, but there was an undercurrent of kindness, too.

It was weird not seeing him behind the counter while the show was going on. But so it goes, and all that jazz. I was pacing back and forth between the memorial table and the racks of beans on the far wall, remembering. Dave, back there with the rest of the staff, clad in a college hoodie. 

“Café au lait?” he’d ask by the time I made it to the pastry case, remarkable considering the hundreds of people who cycled through on any given day.

“You shaved,” he’d say as he put my order together.

I had fairly close friends who wouldn’t have noticed.

Dave was in the background for eight years, selling me the good shit while I was younger, hungrier, working my way through school with a full-time job. Falling in love with my wife. Toiling away at my stupid writing. Applying to every “real” job under the sun. Trying to figure it all out. You can’t manufacture a presence like that.

I signed the memorial book. Drank an au lait in his honor, and it restored some of the wind that had been knocked out of me. Later that night, I put on a John Prine record and read the obituary from Dave’s hometown newspaper. Somewhere in Minnesota. Turned out he liked basketball, like I do. He liked Tom Waits, like I do. He made friends in spite of a desire to be alone, which is somewhat reflective of my MO.

Who would have known?

I would have, if I’d made half the effort Dave did. But you don’t get those opportunities once someone’s gone. All you can do is keep the good times warm on the hot plate of your mind. Because in the grand scheme of things we’re not even around for the time it takes to drink a fucking cup of coffee. 

###


Matt Starr is from North Carolina.

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

The Dialectic of Rock Music

By Bill Whitten

Rock songs have their origin in the wound. 

Rock songs are born in the songwriter’s head and hands but then die. 

On stage or in a recording studio a rock band will bring them back to life like cut flowers in water.

Every guitar player is a historian.

Rock music is formed by a history that remains alive even in its decay.

Rock music is a territory that possesses no reality or connections other than those of a shared ecstasy.

The compulsion that drives the formation of any rock band is always the same: an impulsive, anarchic flight from society, propelled by something like romantic love.

A rock band is, of course, not like a family, but instead is like a religious order or a military unit or an urban guerilla.

Accordingly, the belief in something greater than itself is the glue that ties a band together. Instead of a god there is Keith Richards, the Beatles, Johnny Thunders, Lou Reed, Chuck Berry. Like divinities they can be worshipped or defied. 

Rock music is a military art; prepare for a performance or an album like a battle.

Refuse to choose between the beautiful and the unbeautiful.

In the recording studio the rock musician operates on himself and projects his suffering onto his songs. 

Contagion is both the lifeblood and the poison of rock music.

A rock musician is a being with no shell, open to pain, tormented by light, shaken by every sound.

Surrounded and controlled by machines, there is a compulsion to sing, talk and act like machines. It must be resisted.

Beethoven often played the piano with the lid closed.

Rock and roll when practiced correctly is never a reproduction of the past, but instead a present that is continually renewed. 

Devotion to rock music reinforces the worst traits of one’s character. 

The burning streets, the fuzzy horizon, the clouds, the river and fire, the cold, the suffering, the sadness, the vanished women. 

A man can never really know a woman, he can only pursue her indefinitely. It is the same with rock music.

Each rock song creates an infinite space.

Before the mutation took place that allowed homo sapien to speak, archaic humans had a signature, recognizable cry like that of the blue jay, the horse or the wolf.

Rock music is the color of black hair.

Bill Whitten is a musician and writer.  He is the founding member of St. Johnny, Grand Mal and currently records under the nom de guerre William Carlos Whitten. His latest recording *The Third Interval* was released in February 2024. His book BRUTES, a collection of short fiction was released in January 2022.

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

The Playground

By Matt Rowan

The guy was not a very sociable guy. He walked past a small playground every day. There was never anyone playing. No children. No adults. No dogs, even. In fact, a lot of parks and playgrounds expressly forbid the presence of animals, pets – wild animals could do as they pleased, no one would stop them. (You’d like to see them try!) But no pets, even though it was public property. That didn’t seem very fair. 

This day, while walking by the small playground, he decided he was done with his job. He was done with his old life. He climbed some plastic steps and sat on a slide. He wasn’t coming down. He was wearing his business suit. He had a tie on. 

Not too long after he’d positioned himself there, a little boy and a little girl emerged from a nearby house and walked over to the playground. They had a tiny dog with them. The dog wouldn’t stop barking at the guy. 

“Go home, kids. Places like these, they don’t allow dogs. They only allow people,” the guy said. “People like me. They’re for people like me.” 

The children stared at him in the way children will.

“I said go home. And take the dog. Don’t you know dogs aren’t allowed in places like these?” Raising his voice now. “This is a place for people whose lives are garbage and who’ve got nothing left to give.” 

“You’re in our backyard,” the little girl said. The little boy touched her arm, and he shook his head, no. They went inside. The dog followed after them. The guy stayed where he was. 

Here, all around him, was what his life had amounted to, so little. Friends of the guy had said he was melodramatic. That didn’t mean he wasn’t really and honestly suffering. And greatly. 

The next day, the guy still hadn’t moved. A few more adults were with the guy, sitting on different parts of the swingset and other equipment. The little girl and the little boy began playing in the front yard, deciding that was better than trying to get rid of the adults. 

This time it was the boy who lost his patience. “Get out of here, you people! This is private.” He ran and climbed up to a man in a business suit sprawled out but seated upright on top of the blue plastic tunnel that connected the two wooden structures of the playground apparatus. “Goooo, gooooo,” the boy said, shoving this man. The man moaned but did nothing else to indicate he was aware of the boy’s shoving. “Muuuuuuuh,” the man said. 

The boy kicked the man hard on the spine. The man, overcome by the pain of it, felt his back. He moaned again, this time to convey physical pain. And then, once he’d recovered, he slapped the boy hard on the face. 

The guy looked at the boy, and then looked back down at the woodchips beneath him. Sometimes, in this world, little boys get slapped by men.  

The boy’s eyes welled with tears and he began bawling, running from the man, and the little girl was shouting something incoherent as their dog barked obsessively. 

The guy dragged himself through the wood chips and the distance between that separated the playground apparatus from the swingset. He pulled himself up by the swing’s chains and hoisted his torso over the swing’s seat. He was still facing downward. He crouched back on his toes and pressed off to give himself a bit of forward momentum. It didn’t do much. He moved very slightly. He moved, though. The swing weakly rocked back and forth, but not for long because his feet still skidded against the ground. He kept his arms hovering over the ground for a while but they soon fell. All of his limbs created friction and slowed the swing down. He was back at a relative standstill, twisting the seat left and right and twisting its chains up sort of. He got back on his toes and repeated the process. His clothing was covered in wood chips. 

“I don’t care. Whoever you are. My life has been the worst by far,” the guy said, tugging at his shirt. 

“Are you talking to me?” said a woman wearing a red skirt and white blouse. 

“Sure I am. Why not? I am. You don’t have it like I do.” 

A man in a cowboy hat and a bolo tie interrupted them. “Whoa now, who had it worse than what? Let me tell you who has it worst: me. Yessir. There was a time a man could speak his thoughts out loud without being told not to after he spoke his thoughts out loud.” 

“What sorts of thoughts?” the guy said. 

“You know the sorts, but I’ll tell you — all sorts. And time was I could say them and no one would mind. Hell, people would clap and applaud and tell me I’m great. But then the second I spoke my thoughts to ‘more people’ everyone got all bent out of shape. It isn’t right and it isn’t fair. I blame the leaders of old who didn’t do their jobs. Them and the new leaders, who are terrible.” 

“It’s true. A lot of things are terrible,” the woman said. “Just think about poverty. Poverty could happen to anyone. You wake up and boom: poverty.”

“I tell you this, we ain’t talking about the same thing, girlie.” 

“Don’t call me girlie,” the woman said, and threw a handful of wood chips at the cowboy. The cowboy howled in exaggerated pain as a few of them winged his face. He then sobbed and wilted back into himself.

“I’d fight you for suggesting your life has been worse than mine, if I weren’t so miserable,” the guy said to the cowboy and rolled over on his back, staring up into the sky at nothing specifically. 

More people started filling up the space on the playground equipment. All of them had problems. They looked like birds, all huddled together in masses of humanity. 

The boy and girl’s mother was in the kitchen. She looked out the window that offered a view of their backyard. She was horrified, startled by the many people who’d filled every inch of the available play space. 

She went immediately to her children. “Have you been outside recently? Have either of you been outside in the backyard?” 

“We both have,” the girl said. The boy nodded but looked away from his mother. 

“Did you see all the people? Did you talk to any of them? They’re strangers, so don’t talk to them again, if you did. I’m calling the police and I want you both to stay inside.” She saw the boy now; she saw his face, the red mark. “What happened? What did they do, who did this?” The mark on his cheek seemed to be throbbing. She dialed 911 and, despite what the operator had warned her not to do, she hung up and went outside to confront the adults who had hijacked her children’s backyard playset. 

“Get out of here,” she said, moving briskly toward the adults, resembling a pod of walruses now more than birds. They stayed entirely still, unstirred by her sudden appearance. She raced around the various people in their various positions: supine, recumbent, seated with legs crossed, slumped over, and dangling from various objects and heights. “You all need to get off of my property.” 

They had no intention of leaving. She was beginning to think she could beat one to death and still the rest wouldn’t leave. She tried anyway, a ridiculous looking man in a trenchcoat and wearing the fake “nose, glasses and mustache” combination. He refused to fight back, as though he were in some kind of transitive state. She was furious, who were these people and what had they done to her child? The police might take her in, as well, but she was going to be sure someone answered for their crime. 

She clawed the man’s face. She bit him. She stomped on his neck. Eventually he began stuttering and gurgling up blood. But it was more like a damaged robot expelling some kind of fuel or propellant liquid. Not a man. No longer that, if it ever was. 

“You are not a child!” she shouted as though it were an expletive. “This is not a public playground and even if it were, there is no going back. You think you can just go back? Who are you to think that?” She spat on the man, having finished her attack.

The police arrived, and they saw the mother standing over her victim. The police thought the scene was weird but aware of the only option available to them, they took the mother into custody. The children watched as their mother was escorted into the squad car, learned from this obvious injustice that the world is a complicated, terrible place. 

The guy knew that. He had already arrived at that point. That’s why he was laying where he was laying, blood pooling all around.

Matt Rowan lives in Los Angeles. He edits Untoward and is author of the collections, Big Venerable, Why God Why, and How the Moon Works (Cobalt Press, 2021). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Split Lip Magazine, Electric Literature, Gigantic Worlds Anthology, Booth Journal, TRNSFR, Barrelhouse, SmokeLong Quarterly, Moon City Review and Necessary Fiction, among others.

Categories
Across The Wire Vol. 2

Watch and Learn

By Jillian Luft

Every day, the knocks came. Katie, Bren and Sometimes Shandy.

Beads of sweat ran down their bodies, clung to the polycotton blend of their K-Mart dresses, squished between toes scrunched in shimmery plastic. Humid sighs of nothing, there’s nothing hung in the afternoon haze as they waited for someone to drive by and wave, for anything  to coast around the corner and take them by surprise.

There was only so much Katie, Bren and Sometimes Shandy could do in Verdant Village. They could roam the subdivision’s empty streets as if they were one sad backyard. They could buy Screwballs from the ice cream truck and throw the bubblegum stones at the warty red ducks that bit their hands far too often. They could creep toward the canal and wait for a gator to feast on their tender shins. And when they exhausted those options, they could look toward the road while the blacktop cooled, dull and quiet and wonder what lay beyond those rust-flecked walls. .

I was too new to the world then to grow tired of things but now I see why Katie, Bren and Sometimes Shandy slouched on the sidewalk, their day-glo jellies poking the pavement while they longed for anyone—even their mothers—to come outside and talk to them. After school, they appeared on my doorstep because I nodded and smiled and consented to anything they asked. I gave them what every girl wanted: I made them believe they were at the center of things. I was eight and glad to have a job to do.

When not at school, I spent my time staring slack-jawed at the TV screen, filling my head with a constant reel of music videos. Smoke and silk, fire and fantasy, neon and nasty. I couldn’t get enough.

But when those knocks came, I always answered.

Katie, Bren and Sometimes Shandy were older. Fifth and sixth graders with awkward teeth and budding breasts. They liked charm necklaces, WWF wrestling, scratch-n-sniff stickers. They loved, loved, loved Bon Jovi.

Katie, Bren and Sometimes Shandy spoke softly of Bon Jovi. How they would marry him, how his hair looked in the video premiere, how he sang and made them cry.  If you asked me—and no one ever did— Bon Jovi was a twerp with a horsey smile. Even his winks were wholesome. He was a goof, like someone’s dad wearing a wig. I liked the wild boys, the ones with the impish sneers and scandalous pouts. The ones that looked like they were up to something secret and special and I was dying to know what. 

How cute is he? Katie swooned. We were sprawled out on her living room floor and “Bad Medicine” was playing for the umpteenth time.

Sooooo cute, Bren and Shandy swooned right back.

My mom said I can go to the concert but only if we win the lottery. She’d better play a zillion times because there’s no way I’m missing my husband!

Katie clutched her heart and flung herself against her bean bag chair. We watched this performance and giggled like we were supposed to.

My dad’s always playing that dumb lottery, Shandy said, rolling her Disney animal eyes.

My dad tries to tell my mom it’s a waste of money but she doesn’t listen to him, Katie scoffed.

Bren said nothing because her dad didn’t live with her.

I said nothing because I didn’t know what the lottery was and I didn’t know much about what my dad thought about anything. He was always working. At night, a scrambling of keys in the door, a tired face in the cramped foyer. A man who put me to bed, tickled me and told me he loved me before leaving me in the dark.

In Verdant Village, none of us had money but we acted like we did. We had a community pool and our condos were basically houses with screened-in patios, modest dining rooms, vanity lighting. Maybe it wasn’t true suburbia, but it was the same sunshine warming our limbs. The same grass, only less of it. Even if we owned more square footage, we’d still be hyped-up on Kool-Aid, strung out on MTV. We told ourselves it was all the same.

Dads worked at power plants and pizza joints. The lucky ones pulled shifts at both. Moms stayed home and set the table. When their kids were watching, they danced in their living rooms. When no one was watching, they napped until dark. Their lives, fevered pink with blusher sets, lemonade, flamingo home decor. They baked and vacuumed and tied up the phone lines with stories of bill collectors, their husbands, other people’s husbands, the state of the neighborhood, the state of the world, department store sales, and how we drove them crazy. And then one day we heard them murmur a new word.

What’s a Peeping Tom anyway? Shandy asked.

Katie sipped her Capri Sun, let out a world-weary sigh. It’s like a pervert or a robber. It’s like a bad guy, okay? A really bad guy. 

I don’t get it, Shandy said.

I don’t either, I admitted.

He watches ladies through their windows and waits for them to take their clothes off. Do you get it now? Bren smirked.

Kinda, I guess.

But why is he called Tom? Shandy asked.

He just is! God, you guys can be such babies sometimes. Katie buried her upturned nose into Bren’s triple-pierced ear and snickered.

I tried to ignore them, return my focus to Bon Jovi and his lame antics. But it was no use. Their laughter won out.

Katie and Bren often teamed up, making it clear where their loyalties lay. I didn’t mind, really. I was just happy to be there. But Shandy, the 10-year-old in the group, wanted to be seen as their equal. Her dignity depended on it. Like so many times before, at this sign of alliance, she fled for Katie’s bathroom, slamming herself inside. I shuffled toward the door, waited for her in the hallway. Loud sniffles competed with the running faucet. I never knocked. I let her be.

When the sink went silent, Shandy exited with her sad movie stare, imploring me to take her side while she took my tiny hand. And I never knew how to say no to anyone so I let her lead me out Katie’s front door and across the street. I’m not sure Katie or Bren even noticed.

***

Shandy’s dad, Don, was home. Like usual. Wearing nothing but his tighty-whities. Hairy legs spread wide in his recliner. A jar of Miracle Whip in one hand. A butter knife in the other. Thick chest hair, thicker glasses. The stench of fried bologna glazing the air.

Hey honey, he greeted me, licking the knife’s edge clean, then dipping it back into the jar. And he smiled. Wide. Not like Bon Jovi’s grin, not like Billy Idol’s snarl. More like a circus clown on a smoke break. Relieved that the facade’s crumbling. Pleased that you’re confronted with his true nature.

Shandy, sweetie, grab your Daddy a soda before you go play, wouldya?

Shandy abandoned me for the fridge and I swayed in the sliver of light Shandy’s mother’s seashell lamp offered, the only light in that living room at all. Cars exploded on the television. Shotguns fired. The knife ran circles in the now empty Miracle Whip jar, scraping and screeching against the sides.

So, what are you girls up to? Don scratched a furry thigh. I avoided his tortoiseshell frames but I felt his eyes leaning into every part of me, burrowing past my suntanned skin, my chubby-cheeked politeness and digging deep to reach somewhere I didn’t even know about.

I shrugged, looked down at my Easter yellow socks, my candy pink jellies. Tried to focus on the colors, the cheer they offered in brighter places than this. He was asking me something. But I didn’t understand what. He was asking more than what he was saying. He was asking me something else entirely.

You’re so shy, he laughed. Just like my Shandy.

My skin burned so hot I was convinced it smelled. My tongue wilted. My limbs froze. I decided that at least half of me was dead. Half of me had gone limp, watching Don ingest me without even opening his mouth.

Here ya go, Shandy mumbled. A soda can hissed. I heard a gulp, a belch. No thank you. Just the increased volume of brakes screeching, glass shattering.

Shandy took my hand again. She revived me. I fixated on the back of her strawberry print romper as she skipped down the hall, leading me to safety.  I tried not to think about Don’s hungry eyes bulging in the dark.

In Shandy’s room, we knelt on her bottom bunk, undressed Barbies in our fists. We smacked taut torsos together, bent legs into impressive splits, contorted smooth groins into straddle-friendly positions. Some of the dolls didn’t have heads. We’d managed to pluck their symmetrical faces clean from their necks, leaving that weird fleshy knob. We made their grotesque bodies wail and whimper Oh mys! and Oh nos! even though they didn’t have vocal cords, even though they didn’t have mouths.

It was a ridiculous game. A game fueled by our curiosity about how a woman’s body worked. What it did when it was alone and out of our sight. In this game, we agreed that to be a woman was to be naked and maimed. To be a woman was to be hysterical. I didn’t know where we got this from. Maybe TV. Or maybe it’s what our mothers implied when they rested silently on their loveseats. Their eyes, unfocused but fierce with knowing.

A flock of headlights flew across Shandy’s window, signaling the dads’ return home from work and dinner time. I dropped my dolls, said good night and made for the door.

Don was still pantless and parked in front of the tube when I re-entered the living room. At that moment, I was reminded of my mother’s advice when playing in the backyard, the canal flowing a few feet away. Don’t get eaten by those gators. Run like mad but scramble! Zigzag. If you zigzag, they’ll never catch you.

Hey, sweetie, Don called after me. Don’t be a stranger. You’re welcome here anytime.

Thank you. I-I-I won’t, I stammered, memorizing the same crap linoleum I had in my own entryway, hands trembling as I reached for the doorknob. I could feel his eyes roving in their glass cages. Somehow, I managed to stagger out into the streetlights and zigzag my way home.

When I walked in, I inhaled deeply. Exhaled finally, too. Taco night. Cumin and onions. Something sizzled, something bordered on burnt. TV on, not MTV. The evening news. But no one was watching.

Mom’s voice spiraled through her bedroom, following the length of her phone cord as she stretched it to its limit. Hovering in the teeny space between her bedroom doorway and the kitchen entrance, she monitored her ground chuck. Nothing was in flames, so she continued gabbing.

It’s probably that Christian kid…No, no his name is Christian. He’s definitely not Christian…The one that lives by Tammi. You know the one. He’s got that satanic music blaring out of his car at all hours of the night…Yeah, the dirtbaggy-looking one. It has to be him because Gary and I caught him and his punk friends on our roof throwing rocks up there, drinking beers and other dumb shit… Un-huh. Yep. And he was pressing his pimply face to our skylight, looking in at us watching HBO, yelling and laughing. Gary dealt with them, went out and told them to knock it off. We haven’t had trouble with him since. He doesn’t even make eye contact with us anymore, the twerp. But I could see him doing other creepy crap. I wouldn’t put it past him to be our neighborhood Peeping Tom…Hold on 007’s home… Heeeey, when’d you get here? Your dad’s out back. Go say hello.

She patted my head absently but I didn’t bother responding. I knew she wanted me out of the way so I kept on walking through the kitchen. I yanked open the sliding glass door, stepped onto the patio to find my dad beyond the screen, perched high on a ladder, installing the high-tech lights he’d blabbed about for weeks, the kind that clicked on when something moved. When someone moved. Someone. Somewhere out there.

Don’t come outside. Stay where you are, Dad barked. 

I won’t. I stood on my tiptoes and pressed my face to the screen. 

The mosquitoes are bad. Some huffing, some panting, some metallic clanging and then: What’d you do with your friends today, squirt?

Nothing really. Just played.

Sounds nice.

I waited for my father’s next question. Crickets chattered in the grass. My father’s feet rested on the rung in front of me, his dirty work boots level with my face. I peered up but could only detect the faint outline of his denimed torso. All I could see was his neck. The bugs were finding me through the screen and my father stopped speaking, so I wandered back into the faux warmth of our living room. Dusk filled the skylight above my head. I was getting hungry.

On the TV, an old man reported another girl missing. I immediately changed the channel to watch a pretty man sing.

***

It was Mom’s idea. Katie, Bren and Sometimes Shandy at our place for a sleepover. An excuse for her to invite their moms, and Tammi, over for some “grown-up fun.” Strawberry daiquiris and girl talk at the kitchen card table while their daughters huddled up in sleeping bags in the living room, slowly losing their innocence to cable TV. 

Katie and Bren didn’t want to be there but their moms refused to leave them home unsupervised. After all, there was a Peeping Tom on the loose. Plus, their dads were working overtime and wouldn’t be home until dawn. They were probably bribed with cheap jewelry and cassettes from the mall. It was fine to hang with me during the day but no babies were allowed in their presence past sundown. When they arrived, they talked only to each other, kept their distance from Shandy and me in case some cool stranger dropped by and they had to explain, Hey, we’re not with them. We swear.

Have fun, girls. Pretend like we’re not even here, Bren’s mom said before disappearing into the kitchen. We didn’t have to pretend. Once the blender started whirring, we rarely saw our mothers’ faces. We might as well have been alone.

I didn’t ask Katie or Bren to play Barbies or board games or Truth or Dare. I didn’t ask them anything at all. Instead, I decided to gossip. To reveal something. Something I’d overheard that might ingratiate me to them further. Something that might change the course of their lives—at least for one evening. And they’d have no choice but to be grateful.

We were watching that boring movie with Tom Cruise and the unicorn when I turned to my fickle friends and teased, Hey guys, I know something you don’t know.

What? Bren asked, eyes still on long-haired Tom.

Yeah, what? Katie asked, stuffing more popcorn into her mouth. 

Well, you have to promise you won’t tell anyone. 

God, we won’t. Now tell us.

Yeah, spit it out already.

Shandy grinned patiently, said nothing.

You know that older boy, Christian? 

Their eyes fixed hard on my little impish face. I knew I had them now.

Oh, he’s so cute! Katie exclaimed.

Yeah, he’s super dreamy. Dreamier than Bon Jovi maybe. What about him?

I kept my tone casual but glowed with pride. He’s been on my roof before. Him and his high school friends go up there to party and drink beer. And one night he was looking in on my parents. Maybe he’ll do it again tonight and we can wave or something.

Oh my god, no way!

All three girls screamed. With anticipation. With fear. With desire. I tried to shush them in case the moms heard but it didn’t matter. The moms were cackling too loudly. The moms were drunk. 

We should scare him by sticking our tongues out!

Ew, no. Funny faces are lame, Katie. We should just look up at him like, “What are you doing, you freakin’ weirdo?” Like we don’t give a crap.

Yeah, you’re right. I was being totally lame. Let’s just do what you said.

I gotta put some mascara on. Bren rummaged through her purse.

I don’t know, guys. Maybe he’s the Peeping Tom. Shandy laughed nervously; her Disney eyes panicked.

But we ignored her concern. This was the night’s new plan.

For what felt like hours, we craned our necks toward the glass-plated night and waited for Christian to see us. Eventually, our necks ached and our stomachs rumbled and mom had baked a batch of Toll House she was willing to share and we were getting tired even though we swore we’d remain awake to see Freddy Kreuger invade teenage dreams, to see a startled Christian beaten at his own game. The prospect of his arrival had been enough to satisfy us. So, we turned away from the skylight and filled our mouths with chocolate before giving ourselves over to sleep. 

I was faking though. I took advantage of any opportunity to stay up late. The moms were still in the kitchen, pairing their cookies with Kahlua and milk, discussing what they would do if they were the Peeping Tom’s next target. Who they would call (their husbands at work, the cops, each other), what they would shout (curse word, curse word, curse word), who they would blame (pornography, society, unemployment).

Then I heard the squeak of nylon and opened my eyes to see Shandy slipping out of her sleeping bag and ambling into the kitchen. I didn’t hear what she said but suddenly she was leaving and ruining her mother’s good time.

This was my one night off in forever, Shandy, her mom grumbled while stepping over our still bodies.

I didn’t ask her but I think Shandy was afraid Christian would show up and haunt us in our slumber. I stared up at the skylight again and held my breath. I saw only black but I couldn’t help but think of Shandy’s dad’s face. 

At some point, I fell asleep to the TV and the moms’ tipsy excitement about when and where the Peeping Tom would strike next. My own dreams remained undisturbed. 

***

A few weeks after the sleepover, Katie, Bren and me were down at the pool, splashing around. Shandy stayed home with a stomach bug. We were showing off our handstands and holding our breath in the deep end when we spotted Christian, up-close and shirtless, washing his car in front of the pool’s gates.

Katie and Bren scrambled out of the water like excitable dogs, shaking their bodies dry in an embarrassing hurry. A boy was better than handstand contests. A boy was better than me, better than ice cream or anything. They elbowed each other in their scrawny sides and dashed toward the gate, leaving me and their towels behind. I hung back because I knew my place. I knew I didn’t belong in this scene. Still, I entered it anyway.

After collecting our towels. I dragged my feet across the scorching cement to the pool’s entrance. Once outside the gates, I dawdled under a tree a few yards away and tried my best not to gawk, to make my presence known. There he was. Flaxen rattail pasted to the damp of his neck, silver cross earring sparkling in the sun. Axl Rose whistling through his stereo speakers. An open beer next to a bucket of suds. Christian, dirtbag teen and possible Peeping Tom, on full display.

Katie and Bren squatted on a nearby parking curb, squinting up at danger. They talked loudly about nothing. They used bad words and acted stupid. They didn’t acknowledge me once even though I stood directly behind them.

Christian sponged his windshield, humming along to the radio like we weren’t right there ogling him with open mouths. We watched his muscles crest like waves across his back as he lunged over the gleaming black of his Pontiac Fiero, as he hosed down his hubcaps, waxed his back bumper, polished his taillights. And then he turned his attention, along with the full force of his nozzle, to Katie and Bren. He doused their just-dried bodies, aiming directly at their bare browned skin. They squealed and bolted across the parking lot, giving themselves away as the children they were.

Eventually, the water stopped rushing and the girls stopped shrieking. But Axl was still singing when Christian moved toward Katie and Bren. He lit a cigarette, looked on as they shivered with delight.

I’m headed up the street to the Gas-n-Go. You two wanna go for a ride?

I mean sure yeah cool. That’d be awesome. Katie and Bren were beaming, giddy. Then, emboldened by his invitation, Katie asked: Would you mind buying us some Garbage Pail Kids?

Christian laughed. Yeah, I can get you some of those. You’ll owe me one though. Then he turned his bright eyes on me. What about her? Does she want to come, too?

She’s not allowed, they said while I stayed in the shade. He took their word for it, tossed his bucket in the back, and revved the engine. In their soggy two pieces, Katie and Bren clambered into Christian’s passenger seat. All goosepimpled flesh and giggles. Katie squirming on Bren’s lap. Don’t you dare tell on us, they smirked. Fingers to lips curled in satisfaction. It’s a secret, okay?

The shiny Fiero sped off, left me choking on a cloud of burnt tire and cigarette smoke. I wanted to know Christian’s secrets. Not if he was the Peeping Tom or not. I knew he couldn’t be the one stalking our windows. Getting loaded with his friends on our roof was for fun. What the Peeping Tom did was for something else.

I wanted to know other things about him. Like his favorite Slurpee flavor, his favorite song, what he wanted to be when he turned 18. I wish I’d blackmailed Katie and Bren, asked for a pack of Garbage Pail Kids or Dr. Pepper Gum in exchange for my silence. Asked for anything at all.

That night, I curled into my covers and imagined Christian lurking outside my window, surveilling from the front seat of his Fiero, aiming his eyes and high beams into my bedroom, hoping for a light to flicker on, for a mere glimpse of my beauty. He wasn’t a Peeping Tom, just a lovesick boy. In my mind, there was a difference. 

I fantasized I was older. Older than Bren or Katie but not as old as our mothers. I had teased hair, bleached blonde, like the girls on Club MTV. I wore ripped jeans and bustier tops. To sleep, I slipped on satin negligee. My room wasn’t crowded with toys or stuffed animals. Everything smelled fruity-sweet and party-ready. Everything was cool. I was cool. 

And Christian knew it and longed to be inside. He ached to hold my hand while I slept. He ached to make me stand in the middle of my moonlit room, his arms around my waist as he looked deep into my eyes to find that I knew much more than Katie and Bren. About life. About rock music. About all the things that mattered to him. That I was ready to ride shotgun in his Fiero far past the Verdant Village walls and the Gas-n-Go. That no one would have to know he kidnapped me. That no one would care if I went missing.

***

***

Not long after Katie and Bren’s Gas-n-Go escapade, the knocks stopped. The pair became a rare sight, sometimes glimpsed in Christian’s driveway where he and his scummy pals loitered past dark, blasting metal from their cars’ tinny speakers. 

Katie and Bren still looked bored but less alone and more important. I guess that’s what Mom meant when she said there was a way something called puberty could change you. I wondered if they still loved Bon Jovi. I wondered if they thought of him—or me—at all. 

There was still Sometimes Shandy, skittish and lonely at my front door. Big eyes pleading for me to not turn her away like everyone else. And I never did. Only lied now and then when she asked me to play at her house.

Sorry, my mom says I’m not allowed anymore. She wants to keep an eye on me. 

Mom was one of the last to encounter the Verdant Village Peeping Tom. Dad was working overtime the night he visited, which meant I was staying up later than usual lounging on the sofa like a lazy empress, gnawing on cold slices of leftover pizza. Adam Curry was counting down the top videos of the week. 

Over Bret Michaels’ broken heart, I heard my mom on the phone.

Holy shit, Tammi. He was here…You know who, the creeper, the peeper!…No, I couldn’t tell. It’s too dark and those stupid lights Gary installed don’t catch crap. But someone was out there, standing and facing my bedroom. I got out of the shower with my boobs out and everything else before I even noticed! Jesus Christ.….Yeah. it’s kinda my fault though. I left the blinds open by accident like a dum dum…Yeah, I’ll be fine. Gary gets home soon. Hope that asshole got a good show…Hey, you might be next! (laughter)…Okay, g’night.

I waited for the clack of the receiver. Her door was ajar. I knocked gently.

Why are you knocking, kiddo? Get your butt on in here!

Mom was in bed, freshly showered and smiling. She pulled back her bedspread, patted the empty side of the mattress.

Come on in. The water’s warm.

I dove in between the sheets and snuggled into the soft of her terry cloth robe, her loose curls spilling wet onto my cheeks. I hoped she’d spill her secrets, too. I wanted to stay there, nestled against her. Warm and safe. I wanted to be her baby still, for her to watch over me and never let me go.

We cuddled in silence for a while, our bodies facing one another. I kept my eyes on the vertical blinds, their vinyl slats jammed shut. Protectors from the night. 

I swallowed hard and looked deep into my mother’s eyes before asking, Mom, did you see the Peeping Tom just now? 

Were you listening to my phone calls again, 007? You’re too smart for your own good. She ran her fingers through my tangled hair. I didn’t see who he was but I saw someone man-shaped for sure.

I swallowed hard again. Do you think it was Don?

Don? She jolted upright, her spine kissing the headboard. Why would you ask about him? Kiddo, what’s going on?

Nothing. But I don’t think it’s that Christian.

Jesus, 007! When did you hear me say that?

I don’t know…one day when you were on the phone.

Dear lord, you truly are a spy. Listen, I’m not sure who he was, she sighed. And I don’t want you to worry, okay? He’s not going to hurt me. And he’s not going to hurt you. Whoever he is. She reached for my hand, crushing it against her sun-damaged chest. Her eyes boring into my brain. There are people out there that are searching for something. Some excitement, I don’t know. We feel more sorry for people like that than anything.

I nodded although I didn’t understand. Mom vibrated with a nervous energy, but it wasn’t fear. 

You know sometimes I think you know more than we think and it’s terrifying. She bent down and kissed my forehead, gave my tummy a playful poke. Let Mommy get dressed, sweet pea. Daddy will be home soon.

She rose from the bed, freeing herself easily from my embrace, opening and shutting dresser drawers, retrieving her clothes and then her cosmetics. I lay there and thought about how mere minutes before a mystery man took in the sight of my mother’s naked body. But more than that, he’d entered a place he didn’t belong without ever having to step inside. 

I watched my mother watch herself in her bureau mirror, pursing her lips together like a promise and admiring the results. Her eyes, aflame and haloed in kohl, she reminded me of the women on MTV—the way they arranged their faces to fit the mood of the man’s song, the way they pretended they weren’t seducing and surrendering to danger. But they knew they were and they liked it. My mother’s reflection met my eyes. I wasn’t sure which one of us had been caught.

She turned around and bared her normal face, flushed and sheepish. Shoo, shoo! she squealed, chasing me out of her room before quickly closing her door. I lingered, hoping to be reinvited, but the blow dryer began its pretty drone.

I let my mother be, plopping myself down again in front of the television. I let the men in the music videos tend to me, let them teach me. Those men that sung about being hungry beasts, bringing me to my knees, watching every breath I take and wanting more, more, more. I brought my face so close to the screen, I could taste the technicolor of their feigned desire. I didn’t dare look anywhere else.

Jillian Luft recently returned to her home state of Florida. Her work has appeared in Hobart, XRAY, Rejection Letters, Expat, Vlad Mag, and other publications. She’s currently seeking publication for her novel about toxic Florida romance. You can find her on X @JillianLuft and read more of her writing at jillianluft.com

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

THE SUICIDAL IDEATION THAT SPIKES WHILE CHANGING JOBS

By Jesse Hilson

I was at a library and talking with a middle-aged woman and made a pass at her. I was telling her movies to watch and books to read. I touched her throat, then said I’m sorry, and are you married? She seemed alarmed but not like she was going to call the cops or anything. I think she gave serious thought to being unfaithful to her husband with me, like she wasn’t hostile to the idea but it made her feel very sad because she felt trapped. Only one other person lingered in the library with us, the librarian, another even older woman who sort of represented the middle-aged woman’s life and sense of propriety. She was pretending to read a book and waiting for us to be done with our conversation and leave.

I’m very attracted to you, I said, as if this fact should knock over everybody else’s needs and upend lives. Vronsky and Anna didn’t wait for the world to cohere around their wants. I didn’t say that at the time but I’m saying that now. This really happened and it’s still happening.

Then I drove her somewhere. It was a cross between LA and the town where I grew up. She ended up disappearing.

I’m the Son of Sam but instead of a dog, it’s a black mold pattern glyph on the wall at the head of my bed, behind the headboard that gets onto my pillows and seeps into my mind while I sleep, gives me hyperdreams. Grand Theft Auto Sadness. Antisocial fantasies in isometric pixel animations. And I don’t even like games.

I couldn’t give my wife a back massage because her back was covered with ink. Less a tattoo than a glossy book cover, like a catalog. For Xmas shopping. I said she had a lot of knots and tried to remember the parallel runways of muscles up both sides of her spine but the printed back ink was confusing me. I felt her big breasts. She kicked me out of the house. I tried to talk her out of it. A baby was walking around the room. It was such a bitter argument. It was forever. A typical theatrical event was happening elsewhere and I drove there listening to delusion-reinforcing music with cryptic lyrics as I used to do in that part of the city. At the theatre thing, which was full of kids because a lot of schools went there, an adult pulled a gun. They talked him into leaving and he was tackled by a tank of a security guard on the front lawn. I went to a concession stand inside which seemed familiar: and I bought three cannabis-infused bananas from the rip-off artist. Right away they got jumbled with normal bananas so I lost track of which ones had the drugs in them. So I ate three and went outside and there was a rock concert with people dancing and the band was playing the hit single from that year “(I Was) Standing In Heaven.” 

The interview they give to welcome new schizophrenics is called the IRIS (Ideas of Reference Interview Scale), and a high score on item 14 indicates that some message of significance has been sent to the interviewee through the media. In the Before Time, usually while driving, awake and not dreaming this time, I did perceive that — Kurt Cobain singing “Yeah” on the car radio meaning whatever random thought I was thinking at the moment I heard that verse of the song was true, song lyrics teased information about hidden Cotard arrangements, death marbled into life — but now it’s as if TV shows and movies and pop radio were daily rushes slipped quietly over the transom of my heavy-lidded eyes in REM aquarium depths. Dreams are safe psychoses (sike-oh-sees), rehearsals of virtual unreality. Wandering around fairgrounds honeycombed with tents and corrals no one wanted you to be in, populated with crooked firefighters, rapists, angry ghosts, disabled childhood friends, all in constant frenetic video game motion.

I am led by spectacle through dream-malls. Stage massive dynamic group-races that absorb me and take me along. Blood trips, voyages that always have some dramatic turning or betrayal among passengers, often family members. Shopping spaces, markets both indoors and outdoors, carve up group attention. An audience waits and peers into my dream-world. Mass media pilgrimages staged for someone, not me, not the dreamer displaced by the spectator’s passive ego. Everything is given a new portentousness, a signal within the dream transmission.

Setting up social media accounts, dating apps, work emails at my house, I had to come up with wifi superstitions to combat the ghosts that prevented multi-factor authentication from getting through. Everything’s combat. And the authentication code only arrives when it’s too late and you are no longer near the device. This is the shield of the poltergeist.

Frustration happened impacting the mood, paralyzed the mood-feeler beyond the actual obstruction causing the frustration. Can’t eat can’t sleep can’t perform simple tasks. The crazy man is a robot with one square task-peg stuck in his round queue-hole blocking a whole string of other later tasks, of all more amenable shapes. I don’t appreciate you setting the extroverted tempo. I have not intersected enough with all of you. Very well. I will take my chances. A noon whistle blotted out all repetitions of your name.

Jesse Hilson lives in the Catskills in New York State. His work has appeared in Maudlin House, Rejection Letters, Expat Press, Hobart, Exacting Clam, Don’t Submit!, Bruiser, Apocalypse Confidential, and elsewhere. He has published two novels, Blood Trip and The Tattletales, and a poetry collection Handcuffing the Venus De Milo. He is the founding editor of Prism Thread Books. He can be found on X and Instagram at @platelet60.

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

LOU AND OTIS

By Ed Komenda

Lou opened the door with a heavy blanket over his head.  I hadn’t seen my best friend in over a year, and it was a relief to see him standing there, cloaked like the South Side’s Obi Wan Kenobi. It was January.  A few days after Christmas.  A dull gray Chicago.  Lou welcomed me into the house:  A rented three-bedroom on 67th, where the temperature was a few degrees warmer inside than outside. Comforters covered the picture window. A blue couch sat at the center of the living room.  On the cluttered coffee table sat a TV remote, a Tambourine, a stack of X-Men comics, an old Ziploc of weed, an empty bag of Lays, a pickle jar half-filled with garlic chunks suspended in juice, a peanut butter jar with a protruding spoon, a two-liter of Coke with one pull left at the bottom, an ashtray with Camel cigarette butts, six or seven nubs of days-old blunts and a tattered copy of Road-side Dog.  The reason blankets covered everything is winter gas bills got too high.  One weekend of heating the place and you were bankrupt.  Lou zipped his body in a sleeping bag and breathed through a fabric air hole he fashioned in the shape of his mouth.  We walked through the living room and into the hallway, where another set of  blankets obscured a doorway.  Lou parted the blankets like a beaded curtain, and we stepped into the kitchen.  It was warm.  All four burners on the gas stove were going.  Lou sat at the table. In front of him sat a bottle of Jim Beam.  Next to the bottle was a tiny puddle of spilled whiskey – an erroneous pour left to evaporate.   Lou poured a shot for himself and took it. He slid the shot glass to me, and I took one, too.  We said little. We traded the shot glass until we felt brave enough to exit.  Lou said he needed five minutes to shower. He left the kitchen and entered the bathroom.  Shower sounds and steam leaked under the door. I rubbed my hands together and jammed them into my coat pockets.  I could see my breath.  The spot reminded me of the country house where I’d been living the past three years. I stapled Walmart blankets over the windows. I kept a space heater next to the bed.  I slept fully-clothed – pants, sweatshirt, socks – with a hood drawn tight around my head.  A heavy blanket on top. On the dead heating vent, I kept a bottle of Wild Turkey.  It was nice to have someone to drink whiskey with.  In the country, that someone was Otis, the fifth man on our four-man lease. He looked like a descendent of Andre The Giant if Andre The Giant grew up roping steer and using Keystone beer to fluff up his scrambled eggs. He stayed in the basement. Tucked in a corner room cramped with warped, musty vinyl, a king-sized bed and computer desk, he chain-smoked Winstons and played World of Warcraft, wrapped in a nest of secondhand blankets. We had a fireplace in the living room and no money for wood. But we worked in the library, and one day Otis returned with stacks and stacks of discarded books. He grabbed a thick history text and tore it in half.  Split it right down the spine.  He grabbed a geography edition next  and tore that in half, too.  I could tell he was well-versed in the art of book disposal.  We stacked the pieces like cords of wood. I crumpled pages into kindling balls, and Otis dropped his own in the ash. He flicked his Bic under the yellow pages, and soon there was fire.  We spent the next week watching Kubrick on couches we salvaged from curbs around town. I was working a library shift when Otis fell asleep during a Cheers marathon. A few embers popped past the metal mesh and landed on the carpet. Smoke filled the living room. A house party regular named Cody showed up and found Otis snoring. “Yo, wake your ass up!” He slapped Otis awake and stomped the smoldering rug. Otis rubbed the crust out of his eyes and peered through the haze. “Shit,” Otis said, “that was a close one.” He cracked a window, shut off the TV and went back to sleep.  Lou came out of the bathroom, slicking his hair back with a brush.  Steam followed him like a fog.  We drove to Chinatown for five-dollar soups. We cruised. Marquee Moon played from the car stereo.  We glided through the dirty slush with no plan, no discussion about what we’d been up to, no talk of what came next. We were full of broth. And we were warm. 

Ed Komenda is a writer based in the Pacific Northwest. Follow him on Instagram @ejkomenda

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

Leaky Boat

By Dylan Smith

They put a perfect

Cathedral in my phone 

an endless Barn

gets Spiritual inside 

Wordy Mountain 

Brand New Bible

for every War 

and all its Trees

like an Ark 

Take that apocalypse

out of your pocket  

Google the Word 

Tevah—haha

why not, Put an-

other Endless War

in it, Put all of 

Moby Dick 

in it and

every Name 

of every Tree 

and all that Math 

My phone is a

leak in the Alphabet 

Proof of Space 

I loved your name 

absorbing Light

and Water and

this is the Way

we’ll be told 

our Mothers

are dead

Dylan Smith is serializing a novella-length fiction thing called Crayon Barn Chris and plants flowers for money in Brooklyn, NY.

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

Wrong Currencies

By Sy Holmes

I stood next to Julia, holding a portion of Lou’s ashes in a Dixie cup. The air was calm, and it was cold, but not snowing yet. We were in a scrubby half-acre out behind Lou’s friend’s house, near Rochester. It was short on views, but my late father-in-law had claimed it was his favorite place on earth. He had hunted deer here. He could sit in his tree stand, drink Black Velvet, and be at peace. No memories of 9/11. No stress from the firehouse. No kids asking him for money. No cops bringing his drunk wife home. Just him, a rifle, a pint, and the deer that sometimes decided to show up. It was beautiful. He wanted his cremains scattered here. 

“Dixie cups?” I had asked Julia. 

“What the hell else are we supposed to scatter him out of, Ben?” 

“I don’t know.” 

I really didn’t. Maybe they made special ash-scattering cups. I had always assumed that was something the funeral home would give you on the house.

“Ben, baby,” she was talking slowly, like I was a kid in her second-grade class, “we’re giving him the best we can.”

“Yeah, I know, but I used to drink Sunny D out of these after church.”

“We’re doing the best we can.”

“I know, babe, I know. He’d just think it was funny too, probably.”

“I don’t think it’s funny, Ben. He’s my father. He’s dead. We’re honoring his memory.”

“I know, I know.”

Lou had been a man dedicated to his college rock. On late-night shifts in the ‘80s, when there was nothing else going on, he’d call radio stations until he became caller number five or whatever and win records. Eventually a couple of them had to ban him. His wife got herself banned from the local Chinese place, the school where she worked as a teacher’s aid, and most of the bars in Queens. His kids had gone to Catholic schools. It wasn’t a bad life, he’d say. I was from South Carolina, which was close enough to Georgia for him, so he always told me about how much he loved R.E.M. Murmur, Fables, and Automatic were classics, of course, but his favorite album was Monster.

 I’d come up to his retirement place – the house in small-town Pennsylvania – on Christmas and sit in the garage with him, listening to it as he got drunk and nodded along. He had the album on a moderately-scratched CD. Some friends I have are all about sound quality, fancy speakers. Not Lou. Lou was a man for the people. If the boys from Athens repeated a couple lines, that was alright with him. He wanted “Strange Currencies” played at his funeral. It felt weird holding him in a paper cup next to a picture of him, young and thin in his FDNY turnouts, CD player ready to go on the leaning folding table.

We were all going to walk around the woods, sprinkle out his ashes, then reconvene for the final goodbye. I split off from Julia and wandered, sprinkling the ashes into a bush here, in some moss there, trying not to create little piles of Lou everywhere. I loved the man. I don’t want to make light of his memorial. It was hard looking at Julia through the trees, trying to do the same thing. I liked to think Lou would think it was ridiculous. I liked to think he was looking down on me from somewhere. It made it easier to cope with the fact that he was gone, and this was all I could do about it.

We all made it out of the trees. There was a tasteful trash can for the Dixie cups. I crushed mine and put it in my pocket, promising myself that I would burn it in our backyard later. Hell, I might take the whole bag back in the car with Julia. Just her and me and the cups contaminated with the remains of her father. I would build a bonfire and hope the HOA didn’t bitch. 

Mikey, Julia’s younger brother, was standing by the table. He was wearing a black suit with a black shirt, a red tie to round it out. He was ready. Ready to play the disc. Ready to inform me that it was time to leave an Italian restaurant. I was in no state to judge Mikey’s fashion choices. I was freezing my ass off, an old down coat over my blazer. When you’re thinking about an outdoor memorial service, you really never consider that no one is going to lug fine wooden furniture out to the woods, or that maybe your dumbass family and friends won’t look like a Brooks Brothers catalog. You never think about Dixie cups and the fact that it isn’t going to be the classiest thing on earth unless you’re mob-connected. It’s hard to fuck up R.E.M., though, unless you decide to play “Everybody Hurts.” At least Lou could have that. 

Mikey pressed play. I was waiting for the feedback. I could almost see Lou, drunk and leaning his head back, tapping his foot, smiling. Instead I got the click and piano riff of the song after it, “Tongue,” the band’s ode to the cunnilingus, desperate yearning, and the pain of feeling like a last-resort lay. As I heard Michael Stipe’s falsetto start, I tried to bury my face in my hands and act like I was overcome with emotion. It didn’t work. I was cackling, man, not a shred of dignity left. 

“Ben,” Julia hissed at me, “this was the song he wanted. I don’t get it, either, but could you stop being an ass for five fucking minutes?”

I’m sorry, Lou, we fucked it all up. I should’ve known. You should’ve known. I hope you’d have done the same. 

Sy Holmes is a writer from western North Carolina. He lives in Montana with other people’s dogs.

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

If we make it through December

By Sheldon Birnie

Some of the neighbourhood dads are planning a trip out of town to harvest Christmas trees. 

A little jaunt to the great outdoors sounded swell, just tickety-boo. Pocket flash full of rye, maybe sneak a toke or two after the kids run ahead. Good clean fun. Only we got this giant fake tree off my wife’s parents like 10 years ago, when they were downsizing. Seven feet tall, big fucker. I’m spitefully committed to putting the son of a bitch up every year until all it’s plastic needles fall off and it’s just a metal skeleton, or I die, whichever comes first. 

I send our regrets. Leave another one to grow out there in the orderly wilds of southern Manitoba. Maybe next time, I tell ‘em. Sure thing, dudes. Sure thing.

Every year, when we set this big bastard up in December and take it down again in January, we vacuum up at least a cup, maybe two, of green little plastic needles. But it doesn’t show. This thing might as well have come outta the box yesterday, fresh off a boat from China and a transcontinental shipping container ride by rail to the middle of fuckin nowhere.

At least the kids still get a real kick outta setting the thing up. Pulling out the bins of decorations – some as old as my wife and I, some older, even – and dressing the tree. Seasonal tunes playing in the background. The classics. Please, daddy, don’t get drunk this Christmas. I try to soak it all in, but it isn’t always easy. Merry Christmas, I don’t wanna fight tonight. They’ll be grown before I know it, uninterested or feigning so in all this seasonal mumbo-jumbo, and then they’ll be off on their own and it’ll be time for my wife and I to downsize ourselves. If we make it through December.

The tree, I’ve no doubt, will still be standing. An offgassing ghost of Christmases past. Unless we suffer a house fire or sewer backup in the meantime. Maybe I can pass it on to one of the kids, once they’re grown. Keep the tradition alive. Will they still celebrate Christmas, as the world spirals inevitably into climate catastrophe? At least the bulbs burning upon its boughs are LED.

And they do look lovely, late at night when the rest of the house is sleeping, all the lights out but one I read by. A tall dark rum with a splash of coke for colour close at hand. But most nights I’m not reading. No Chuck Dickens for me. I’m just staring at the tree – lights twinkling, sparkling, anytime my eyes tear up – until the morning comes yet again.

Sheldon Birnie is a writer, dad, and beer league hockey player from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. 

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

Tiny

By David Williamson

The day Rosie was sick and stayed home from school, her daddy stayed too. He worked from his home office and sat in his chair and clicked on his laptop and looked at reports. Every few minutes his hand reached down and ruffled Buck’s golden doggy ears. Automatic, unthinking affection. 

Because he had to work most of the day, Rosie could do whatever she wanted. All morning she streamed musicals on her tablet. When her eyes dried out and started to itch, she switched off her tablet and plugged it into the charging station in the kitchen. 

She pulled a near-full gallon of milk out of the fridge, poured four giant glugs into a plastic salad bowl, squeezed eight seconds of chocolate syrup into the milk, and whisked it up until it frothed. She put the bowl on the ground, crouched on all fours, and lapped it up like Buck would do with his water, but it didn’t make her feel like a dog.

Rosie grew tired. 

Her bed faced the windows in her room, but too much sun came through for her to sleep. It cut chaotic scraps of light all over her bed like the throw-away parts of a paper snowflake. 

She gathered up a thick quilt, her pillow, and armfuls of her stuffed animal friends – Night-Night Bunny, Team Owl, Ogre, Jelly, others – and carried them into the bathroom, lined the tub with them and climbed in. The curtain screeched as she closed it. She lay in the tub thinking about chasing squirrels in the backyard until she fell asleep. 

When she woke up, the first thing she saw was a giant chrome cobra hanging over her. She shrieked, then remembered she made a bed in the tub, and the cobra was just the showerhead. She climbed out of the tub and called for her daddy. He didn’t answer even when she knocked on the closed door to his office. 

She moved like a ghost through the hallways, down the stairs, in and out of rooms.

Daddy, where are you? bounced off the walls. 

She ran back to the office and threw open the door.  Her daddy’s chair was gone. Where his desk should have been was a cardboard box instead, sealed with rainbow-colored tape. 

The insides of her body rattled. She floated through the house again, calling Daddy! but there was no Daddy, and – a thing she hadn’t noticed a moment before – there was no furniture. No pictures on the walls. No charging station in the kitchen. No tablet. A house emptied of everything but her and the box. 

She went to her daddy’s office and picked up the box. The rattling in her body, now a steady vibration. Her fingers trembled so the tape was hard to peel at first, but once she got a corner free, it came off in colorful strips. 

Inside was a miniature stuffed version of herself. She and the tiny Rosie even wore the same clothes: purple pajama pants and a t-shirt that read “Good Vibes Only.” The tiny Rosie clasped a rolled-up piece of paper in her tiny, stuffed-toy hands.

The real, life-sized Rosie unrolled the paper and read the message typed on her father’s official letterhead. 

Dearest Rosie,

I looked for you but couldn’t find you. Just this miniature stuffed version of you in the tub. I looked for you in your closet and in the crawl space. I looked for you in the attic and inside Buck’s doghouse in the backyard. I called your name, but you didn’t answer. I looked for you in the linen closet and the small cupboard where only your little body could fit. I looked for you in the sofa cushions and in the trunk of the car. I looked for you in the neighbors’ houses and under their beds and in their cupboards. I called the police, and they looked for you in the sewers and the woods and the tree forts that the neighborhood kids build. They looked for you at the school and the playground and at the bottom of the pool at the community center. They looked for you inside of wells, as children your size can fall into them, but you weren’t anywhere.

I don’t know how I could have missed you. Why did you leave? It’s been so long. I’ve gone now, still looking for you. I miss you terribly. 

Lots of love,

Daddy

He signed the letter in his official-looking signature. 

Rosie felt too sad to cry. She rolled the letter back up and hugged the tiny Rosie. Then she went downstairs, opened the front door, and walked into the yard. The grass under her feet was soft and fine like Buck’s doggy fur. The giant maple tree with leaves that caught fire in the autumn was now a thick column of knotted yarn. Wisps of batting poked out where the knitted bark came loose. Buck curled up in the corner of the yard, billowy and still. His eyes, hard disks of glass. The neighbors’ houses were enormous downy things that looked as soft as marshmallows. The sky was an unrolled bolt of felt. Clouds of stuffing hung down from fishing lines, and the sun was a bright golden pillow. 

Everything was stuffed except for her body. She felt the bones inside her arms, the tremors running through her muscles. The organs inside her hardened and squirmed as if she were hungry. 

She cradled the stuffed version of herself, lay down on the fluffy grass, and shut her eyes. Moments later she fell asleep and dreamed of her daddy at his desk, clicking away on his laptop, his head, inches from the monitor. His lips muttered words, but she couldn’t tell what he was saying. She called out to him from the doorway, but whatever words each said never reached the other. Their speech came out too softly. Whispers in cotton.

David Williamson is a writer living and working in Richmond, VA with with his family and a whole bunch of animals. Williamson’s stories are forthcoming or have been published in Short Story, Long, X-R-A-Y, BULL, Maudlin House, HAD, and others.

Categories
Across The Wire Vol. 2

I Want to Tell Secrets to the Rhythm in Your Bones

By Leigh Chadwick

You put your leftover orgasms in a Tupperware container in the back of the fridge while I recycle the night on the futon. I spend the weekend in your weather. It’s good, the sounds you make before breakfast. The sounds after. Outside, snow covers what snow is meant to cover. I dream you dressed in all white on billboards skyscrapers tall. You, all glow. You, a halo covered in snow. You, talking in touch. I always get turned on watching you put the moon to sleep. I’ve got a silly feeling about my silly feelings, so watch me get drunk in your wilderness, fall asleep beneath a blanket of linden, and wake up before my alarm to tell secrets to the rhythm in your bones. I never finish my dinner because your thighs are my favorite dessert. You, the shape of last night’s clothes strewn across the floor of the Comfort Inn. You, the tavern filled with smoke signals. You, the tambourine stuck to my chest while I use my tongue to build a karaoke bar along your ribs. You, the dim lights before last call. You, all hips pointing south as I crawl toward the closest mirage.

Leigh Chadwick‘s most recent poetry collection is Sophomore Slump (Malarkey Books, 2023). 

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

I Ate Around the Loss and Was Still Hungry

By Joshua Vigil

Gordo pushes a damp kitchen towel into my hands. Shaped like a cylinder, it’s vegan banana bread. He does this every week, ever since we first met. Gordo believes an alien invasion is impending. He says we should eat up. Am I fattening myself for the aliens, or for him? Gordo tosses another bunch of bananas into his shopping cart. Gordo thinks that love is a lie. I tell him friendships are just as deceitful. My pants stop fitting and so I buy new ones. Gordo is a little ghost. A bed sheet draped over his body, thin slits for eyes from which blood drips. I tell Gordo this is the only time I’ve ever enjoyed Halloween, then I have the dentist fix my five cavities—he does this every year now, since the gifts started coming. It’s always the same five cavities. Is he a bad dentist but a good businessman? Once I asked Gordo, Would you still be my friend if I was a capitalist pig? Gordo said he’d marry me right then and there. I was dreaming of squat brownstones in Brooklyn not far from the water. He was dreaming of pigs. I start wearing sweats and only sweats. When I’m not home, Gordo slides the bread through the mail slot. I scoop it, flattened, and eat it watching  the news. The floorboards creak as I hobble past now. The downstairs neighbors say cracks have formed on their ceiling. I tell them mine is water-stained, and what’s the difference? Gordo says the aliens are coming any day. He pushes two loaves through my mail slot. Gordo snaps at me in the car, on the way to the movies, after the movies, in the parking lot, at the potluck. He’s getting evicted. Gordo snapped at me once in bed—this was before, when we were still together. He has anger problems and drops people easily. Will we be friends for the entirety of our lives? Three loaves fall to the floor. I unwrap them, pick at them, leave them for the flies. On the phone, Gordo is terse. He doesn’t know where he’ll live. I ask him if it even matters if the aliens are coming. He snaps—this isn’t a joke, this is my life. I am teaching for the first time this semester. A student kept Mick hostage last year. Another made sexual advances towards Lily. My students look at me with pity. It’s a look I’ve seen in Gordo. His loaves of banana bread pile up and pile up. He says the aliens arrive tomorrow. I should really consider eating more.

Joshua Vigil lives in the Pioneer Valley. His work has appeared in Hobart, HAD, Maudlin House, and elsewhere.

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

His Heart is Like an Open Turnpike

By Jon Doughboy

Chris Christie gifts Zelensky handwritten lyrics to Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” as “inspiration” while inhaling cold borsht at a state dinner surrounded by dour looking-icon paintings of the geniuses of Slavic history framed in glitzy gold, then burrows inward and downward, like the history of 20th century literature, entering the maze-like intestines of memory, wading through layer after layer of performed selves—the attack dog attorney, the lobbyist, the Governor, the scandal-maker shutting down bridges to crush disobedient mayors and making unapologetic rogue picnic trips to shut-down beaches, Romney’s potential bestie, Trump’s plus-sized lapdog, a would-be sportscaster, and the current long-shot candidate campaigning to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee—Christie is inhaling borsht but yearning in his heart of hearts, brain of brains, gut of guts, for a deep-fried ripper from Rutt’s Hutt, the snap of the crispy hot dog skin, the sun bouncing off dilapidated guardrails and the hot and cracked Clifton pavement, the cool yellow relish, the onion ring grease soaking through the paper plate, the ice bobbing in the red birch beer, and he travels under the Hudson of memory via the ARC Tunnel he aborted but which lives forever in his imagined accomplishments and he’s suddenly a giant, Gargantua astride the Garden State, and he’s bellowing across this armpit of America that he knows and loves and hates and lives and breathes, “It’s my life, it’s now or never,” and who does this Zelensky think he is? Has he ever even heard of Rutt’s? Has he ever swum naked across the Passaic? Has he ever crushed the throats of the Hudson County political bosses? Has he ever won an eating contest against the entire Genovese crime family? “My heart is like an open highway,” he’s singing and all his Jersey brethren join in, a chorus to their beloved big man, from their cars stuck in the Holland Tunnel and idling on the turnpike and speeding on the shoulder of the parkway, and a charm of goldfinches roosts in his cavernous nostrils and violets bloom out of his ears, “Better stand tall when they’re calling you out,” and it’s raining fat beefsteak tomatoes and assorted bagels, “Don’t bend, don’t break, baby, don’t back down,” and with his massive, life-giving hands, he is sowing liberty and prosperity from the Tri-State Rock to Cape May Point, the Delaware River rushing along to his right, the Atlantic eating into the sandy shores on his left, as he marches towards D.C., towards relevancy, the presidency, his destiny—“Mr. Christie, sir, about NATO, as I was saying, are you aware that a single F-16 could…” and the ripper is once again cold beet soup and Bon Jovi isn’t playing and Trenton is 4,700 miles away and Chris isn’t an attorney or a governor or a giant, he’s just a man sweating into his dark suit and getting pricked by his American flag lapel pin under the judgmental eyes of icons he doesn’t recognize, talking about military tactics he doesn’t understand, and singing softly to himself, “I just want to live while I’m alive.”


Jon Doughboy is New Jersey’s Poet Laureate currently completing a writing residency at the Walt Whitman Travel Plaza on the southbound side of the turnpike. Watch him relish his rippers @doughboywrites

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

Drinking At Home

By Phil Earle

The morning after, I decide it’s over. Making breakfast and doing the dishes at the same time, I say to myself, “Never again.” The baby on the hardwood between my feet pulls a pan from the cabinet and the crash sets my eyes herky jerky. How nice it will be, to be past this eight drink a night prison. How liberating to break the shackles of this routine: drinking and vaping and checking baseball scores, then YouTube NFL highlights, then rearranging my golf clubs. Not Leaving Las Vegas, but Staying in Milwaukee. 

I pick up the baby and hold her. My hand covers her entire back. Middle finger snug between her shoulder blades. A cube of butter collapses in the hot pan. Yesterday I started drinking at 4:37 PM. The headache stabs as feet pomp pomp pomp down the carpeted stairs. One, two, three kids—Where is the juice? Shit. We just ordered groceries but had forgotten the juice. Juice the life blood for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, for smoothies, for everything. The boys amble to the table like it’s a board meeting.

Out the picture window, Beth kneels in the garden. She planted corn and squash and beans and lettuce and strawberries and a wall of tomatoes outside of the garage. Every day the vegetables seem to multiply. The sunflowers grew fifteen feet tall and bowed so far into the neighbor’s yard, Beth had to tie them to the fence with twine. She likes to talk to me about her garden, usually when I am on my phone, ordering vintage band t-shirts or Super Nintendo games, checking the scores. 

I make eggs like every morning: scrambled for the children, fried for Beth, and Diet Coke for myself. Then I am holding the baby in the crook of my arm and bending over to pick up toys in the long grass of the yard. I am up and down the stairs doing laundry. I am taking all the children to the park while Beth works in her office with the door shut. I am up the steps, down the slide. I count to ten thousand, check baseball scores. Check my high school friends on social media. Some have become fascists. A black butterfly flutters up and away across the playground. I walk around the jungle gym to make sure my kids didn’t get their necks caught in the monkey bars. I count to five hundred and watch them swing sticks at each other. They wear the jeans and sneakers and haircuts of older boys now. A strong slow breeze moves around my face. The baby grabs at it. There are cigarette butts below the bench by the playground, and I imagine hitting that smoker so hard that they shit themselves. There are still two Coors Tall Boys in the fridge, I think.

By 4:50 PM, the van is parked for the night, and I drink White Claws in the shadow of the garage door. A ghoul with a stomach like a Chevy rusting and forgotten in a riverbed. Alone for a moment with the heat and the gardening supplies and ripped inflatable pool toys, I commune with the smell of gasoline and my sweat. Then I vape weed, and then the Juul, and then I reset the sprinkler out in the stiff, blanched grass of our yard.  

The boys are busy in the basement and Beth is inside breast feeding the baby when a rabbit hops under the swings, and stops between the lawn chair and the fire pit. I hit the Juul and record the bunny on my phone. It’s big marble eye records me back to infinity. A black butterfly, like the black butterfly from the park, swoops down and lights on me, walks down my arms until my trembling hand sends the butterfly skyward, tottering upward, along the garage gutter, between the power lines, up and up, racing the airplanes to heaven.

“I have to grab a couple things for dinner,” I tell Beth. She wants me to go, and knows how much I like riding my bike, knows how I need my privacy, though it worries her.

On the hill overlooking the airport, a plane comes in, and a plane goes out. What looks like a death ray rotates on the top of the control tower. The panorama is inspiring, then uninspiring as I watch the traffic move down Layton, the smoke billowing from the power plant in the distance. Notice the small plane tooling, remember the Hardee’s I cannot see. The Great Lake I cannot see. I drink one of the White Claws I’ve just purchased but hold it close to my bag, in case a cop is around. 

I have written down inside myself a disappointed prayer: a summation of desperately low bar hopes. I thank whatever god that I will soon be over this, one day. Then Don from work texts me, asking me to cover for him tomorrow, and I fill my belly with White Claw, crush the can and quick open another. A plane comes in. A plane goes out.

Chicken sizzles in the pan with yellow, red, and green peppers. I chop a handful of mushrooms. Then an onion. All for curry. Beth comes down and kisses me. The baby is sleeping. My gut is rotten but I still eat chips and pretzels and dip and sour gummy watermelons at the sink while the chicken fries. I listen to my football podcast. I have another drink in my hand, twin to the one on the workbench in the garage. I move back and forth between them. 

After dinner, I am tired. Beth and the boys play piano in the living room. I lay on the floor and my legs ache from all the standing. I take the boys up for bed and they fight me. I yell at them, want to cry but don’t. Their pajamas are getting too small. Lightning fills the sky outside their window, illuminating the tin Jurassic Park Raptor Containment Area poster I ordered for them off Amazon. I fall into a short narcotic sleep with my arm around one. Then I stumble down the stairs an hour later, or maybe years. 

I look at myself in the bathroom mirror, older now, hair messy in a ponytail, a scribbled self portrait. Then I try to brush away that sick-sweet White Claw smell for Beth until my gums start to bleed. 

I look at the darkened ceiling above our bed. Beth and the baby are asleep beside me. A twist of blanket keeps my bad right foot elevated. I listen to the noise machine hum, the cars ghosting through our neighborhood. I already feel hungover.

Phil Earle works as a fry cook down by the port. His writing has been published at Fence, Post Road, Beloit Fiction Journal, Juked, Hobart and The Millions.

Categories
Across The Wire Vol. 2

The Blur of Things

By Sophia Popovska

Sophia Popovska is a poet and translator currently living in Germany. She works as an Editor-at-Large for Asymptote Journal, and her work can be found in Circumference Magazine, GROTTO Journal, and Farewell Transmission, among others

Categories
Across The Wire Vol. 2

Two Poems

By Michael Gerard

Spikes on Your Lapel

Spikes on your lapel
Rocks popping 
Trucks stopped
Slugs draped in 
Vinegar finesse 
Limbs trudging
Across outhouse
Doorways 
Snake oils of 
Reputable sources
Heaven sent critical
Acclaim dropped in
Your lap, slit from my
Decrepit gums and rotting
Cortex,
Can you smell the bile?
Till the filth?
Carcass stains on the 
Living room floor
And all over the 
Entrance rug
Look at me and my
Jumpy nouns
What a party 
For you
Edgy types 

****

Indeed

I’m a fucking loser and a bozo
Indeed
Hanging from the dry cleaner
Rack sipping winner’s champagne
Of beers like a broke ass painter
Of houses in the suburban desert
Stuffing dry snuff up his nostril
Puffing through the apple pipe he found
Behind the Texaco station
I’m a fucking charlatan and a fraud
Indeed
No sense in dropping in tonight
I won’t be home and neither will my
Bitterness, as I bring it with me everywhere 
I go

Michael Gerard is the author of Rust on the Water Tower, Rust as a Constant, a poetry booklet published through Gob Pile Press. His poetry has also been featured in publications such as The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts and Literary Yard and he is the author of books of fiction such as Switchboard Rot (Anxiety Press) and After All (Sweat Drenched Press). Michael currently resides in Kansas City.

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Across The Wire

Pothole Eyes

By Jon Berger

Valentine’s Day

Pothole emergence time

Miles Teller drives down to Detroit

Miles Teller refers to Detroit as NPC land

An NPC 

Driving an NPC car 

Ass packs an asphalt truck

You know the type

The road crew who shovels asphalt into the potholes on the highway

The asphalt is hot and steaming and molten and black

They take up a lane of traffic and have a giant blinking arrow sign on the back of the truck 

But the NPC people cannot see the Asphalt truck

Miles Teller keeps driving on I 96

Because this happens all the time in Detroit

Miles Teller Hates Detroit

Miles Teller Hates Traverse City

Miles Teller lived in Traverse City when he was too young to remember

He moved because a bunch of Detroit people bought second homes in Traverse City 

And Miles Teller’s family could not afford to live there anymore

Now

Driving in Traverse City

Is just like driving in Detroit

Miles Teller drives everywhere in Michigan

In every condition

Miles Teller can feel the curvature of the earth when he drives

Miles Teller drives a delivery van with over 300,000 miles on it

With brakes that go to the floor

Miles Teller delivers tools or parts or some bullshit to machine shops

Miles Teller does not know what he is delivering

Ever

Miles Teller’s boss 

Sits in his office and watches

Right wing conspiracy theory videos

On YouTube 

Miles Teller’s boss owns a bunch of tactical guns 

Miles Teller’s boss doesn’t know anything about tactical guns

Miles Teller had to tell his boss which caliber of bullet each gun shoots

Miles Teller only owns two old hunting rifles

That were given to him by family

Miles Teller’s boss is an NPC

Miles Teller’s existence is an unbearable burden on the world

Just ask everyone in the world

Everyone yells at Miles Teller and tells him what to do 

All the time

Miles Teller gets yelled at everyday

When Miles Teller gets back from Detroit, he has to figure out what all this paperwork from Detroit means

Nobody else knows what the paperwork means and the order for the tools is always wrong and Nobody knows why

Miles Teller is standing in the warehouse and all these people start crawling out of their cubicles To yell at Miles Teller as a group crucifixion activity

Miles Teller gets accused of stealing parts for CNC and Mills and Lathe Machines

Miles Teller doesn’t know what CNC, Mills and Lathe Machines are

Miles Teller did not steal the parts 

And even if he did, he would not know what to do with them

Miles Teller imagines that if he did steal the machinist parts, he would try to create a giant mech Robot in his basement and use the robot to gain freedom

When Miles Teller gets yelled at, he doesn’t do anything

He just stands there motionless and without expression

But his eyes change

Miles Teller’s eyes sink in and become pot holes

They don’t see anything in front of them

Instead

They see tentacles reaching up from the dark below

They see a beast sunk so far down it has intertwined with the core of the earth and the earth can’t get rid of this beast and overtime the earth has learned to rely on the beast for survival

The tentacles shoot up from the core of the earth and through Miles Teller’s feet and then out of Miles Teller’s eyes and the end of the two tentacles have mouths and inside the tentacle’s mouths Are serrated teeth. The mouths open and hiss and venom drools down to the floor and one of the tentacles chomps off the head of a sales person and another tentacle chomps off the head of someone who works in the billing department

This makes everyone feel uncomfortable around Miles Teller

Miles Teller’s boss calls him into his office and tells him that he can’t shoot evil tentacles out of his eyes and bite people’s heads off anymore. If he keeps doing it, he will be fired

Miles Teller reminds his boss that he makes the same amount of money as unemployment benefits provide

The eyes of Miles Teller’s boss are not connected to the beast at the center of the earth. Instead, they’re connected to a cotton candy machine at a community center downtown

Hot Pink and Baby Blue cotton candy blooms out of Miles Teller’s bosses’ eyes. His boss screams in terror and tries to keep the cotton candy from spilling out

While this is happening Miles Teller begins to tell his boss how a junkie has recently stolen sentimental belongings from his mother, who is sick

Miles Teller’s boss is sobbing now and the cotton candy is coming out of his eyes and is getting wet and deflating kinda like how cotton candy does when you eat it. But instead of saliva its tears

Miles Teller tells his boss he needs to take a couple days off work to locate the junkie and get the stolen items back or get revenge

Miles Teller is good at locating people like this

Miles Teller still has lawyers call him and ask him to locate people for them but Miles Teller hates lawyers

Miles Teller is owed favors by the most bellicose spirits in the cosmos

Miles Teller’s boss wretches his head back, holds the sides of his head and screams in agony as more cotton candy comes out of his eyes and melts from his tears and runs down his stupid face

Miles Teller’s boss shoos him out of his office and tells him to do whatever he wants

Miles Teller leaves work

It is a blizzard outside

Miles Teller’s Ford Fiesta is stuck in the snow

Miles Teller furiously shovels snow out from around his piece of shit car

Once unstuck, Miles Teller drives down the decrepit and abandoned and snowy streets

The icy shovel is in the back seat of his car. Ice is melting off the shovel and getting the seats
Wet

Miles Teller has thoughts of taking the shovel and digging all the way down to the core of the Earth and untangling the beast and bringing it up to the surface

___

Jon Berger lives in Saginaw, MI. His short story collection GOON DOG is available at Gob Pile Press. His poetry collection SAINT LIZARD is forthcoming at Gob Pile Press. He tweets @bergerbomb44.

Categories
Across The Wire

I Came to a Place of Rough Neglect and Left Myself There  

By Scott Mitchel May

Notes From The Scene

We found a pear.

We found it near the lobby’s desk and it was chewed.

Chewed and also rotten. 

By the time we found it.

She was behind the lobby’s desk.

She had a gunshot wound to the head and the bullet was lodged in the wall behind the desk, behind where she was standing.

Unclear if she was given a chance.

Supine.

Peaceful.

I’m so sick of this shit, this cocked-up shit; the whole world is full of this cocked-up shit.

We found a tooth.

In a drawer.

Of the desk.

Renaud says it’s a baby tooth.

Bagged and logged into evidence; file #46568.

Other than that, nothing of note.

I hate

The Doins’ Within the Room

“He said he was comin’, so he is comin’. Watch cable and chill the fuck out.”

“My momma says don’t trust nothin’ you can hold and I can’t hold HBO and I can’t hold happy-horse-shit.”

“Your mama was an ignorant Gypsy whore.”

“Be that as it may…”

“He’s comin’”

“When?”

“When what?”

“When he gets back from the place.”

“What place?”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“What place?”

“The gettin’…”

A knock at the door snags his attention and eases her mind. There is a green-yellow light outside and the shadow it casts against the cement looks about right for who they are expecting. They hold still. Quiet. The rate is $7.50/hr. They are running low on time.

“Get it, damn you!”

“Well, now how do we know it’s him back from the place?”

“How do we know? Who the fuck else is it gonna be?”

“Intruders.”

“What do we got so good that intruders would want to intrude upon it?”

“We got the stuff; when he gets back.”

“He ain’t back. Or, he is but we ain’t let him in. Either way, we ain’t got the stuff.”

“They could know we gettin’ the stuff. They could be knocking and anticipatin’ us gettin’ the stuff. We answer, they hit us, we wait with them, then, when he shows, they kill us and him and take the stuff.”

“You are a dumb-fuck.”

“Ok.”

“Yeah, ok.”

He answers the door and when it opens wide enough he is hit on his head with the butt end of a Maglite Flashlight that takes four D Cell batteries and is knocked unconscious and They come through the room’s door with guns drawn which they use to glue her to the bed and they yell “Don’t move a fuckin’ hair or I’ll…” and the rest she misses because she’s watching him bleed and she’s thinking that this is the stupidest time for him to be fucking be right about something he speculated on.

Notes from the Scene

Her dress is hiked up and she’s not wearing underwear.

They never tell you how you’ll feel in the academy about such things.

Roderick finds a shed pubic hair three feet away but it’s brown and hers are yellow.

Fuckin’ hourly rate shit-hole.

A casing is found.

.22.

Varmint round.

Must’ve put it right to her forehead.

No explaining it otherwise.

A chill to the air.

Her face is pocked with a lifetime’s regret.

Her teeth are a shattered ruin.

No witnesses.

No one left around.

The no vacancy light is on.

The rats know when to do their thing and go.

Rm 465 has been swept.

A bowl of pears was found.

More  Doins’ Within The Room

“I keep tellin’ everyone he ain’t back! He took the money and he left.”

“That he did.”

“You got money! You got dope!”

“We ain’t got shit!”

“He’s right.”

“Don’t you motherfuck to me!”

“I ain’t motherfuckin’ to nobody! If I was high, you’d know it.”

“We wait.”

“I told you…”

“Shut the fuck up, Leonard!”

“All I’m sayin’ is I never get credit for when I’m right.”

“I tell you plenty!”

“You never tell me squat!”

“I tell you all the damn time, you just ain’t listen!”

“Never say you’re sorry neither…”

“Well, I’m sorry you got us hogtied, that’s for sure.”

“I hate you so much.”

A knock at the door. He is back from the place from which things are gotten. One of them bites a pear. They answer.

Notes from the Scene

Three bodies upstairs.

All shot in the head.

Three .22 casings

Looks like four coffee mugs.

They were waiting a while.

No clue who did this.

Three males.

Drug-related.

Coke, likely.

Three out of state Drivers Licenses.

God damn it.

Nothing left to do but the paperwork.

See you down the road a piece, Scumbags.

___

Scott is the author of the short story collection DeKalb Illinois is a Paradise What Eats Its Own (Alien Buddha 22), the novels Breakneck: or it happened once in America (Anxiety Press 23) and Awful People (Death of Print Feb 24), and the novelette All Burn Down (Emerge Press Oct 23). His short stories and essays have appeared in many magazines across the internet.

Categories
Across The Wire

Gulls

By Bram Riddlebarger

Mariner Market
Cannon Beach, Oregon

“Why don’t you guys wait outside?”

Less question than directive.

“I’ll get the tide map and be out in a minute.”

I grabbed my son’s hand and left without any beer.

I saw a pair of seagulls in the parking lot in the back of a truck. The truck had a cap, but the rear window was missing. The gulls breached the entry. A mound of household goods filled the bed.

“Get all your stuff and get out!”

“But I don’t want to.”

The gulls rummaged the debris. The larger gull dislodged a package of Tide washing machine tablets. The gull tossed the Tide, but the Tide stayed in.

No one paid any attention to the gulls. Everyone in Cannon Beach was used to the tide coming in and out every day.

Making no headway the bird tried to fly, but the Tide was too heavy. The small gull got in on the action. Crows swooped down. A group of tourists murdered the saltwater taffy across the street.

I shooed the gulls away.

The gulls asked who was going to do their laundry now. I tossed the package through the invisible rear window.

“Get all your stuff and get out!”

She held the tide map in her hand.

“But I don’t want to.”

Buckling up I saw the owner of the truck, a case of beer like a household good, thwart the gulls of their soapy desire.

I wondered out loud what would make those gulls so fixated on that Tide.

My youngest daughter said

“They longed for that Ocean Breeze.”

___

Bram Riddlebarger lives in SE Ohio. He’s written a number of books including Golden Rod and A Settled Ship in an Ocean of Hills. “Gulls” will be in a forthcoming collection titled The Way It All Must End.