LISA DAILEY’s (she/her) art is a celebration of color, texture, and the beauty of the natural world. A mixed media artist, she brings unexpected elements together to create work both vibrant and expressive, drawing inspiration from the intricate patterns and designs found in nature—whether the texture of a leaf or the colors of a sunset. Lisa’s practice incorporates embroidery, crochet, watercolor, and acrylic painting, and she is always experimenting with new and exciting materials for collage. When not in her studio, she can often be found cooking (and writing a soup blog), capturing life’s little moments through photography, exploring off-the-beaten-path destinations around the globe, or picking up shiny things.
The Vatican’s senior accountant started locking her office door, ignoring emails. Calls. Knocks. From out in the hall, her colleagues of the Holy See heard sobs. Invoices needed to be processed. No one had any idea how much they’d gone over budget, if they’d gone over or if not, how close they’d gotten. When greeted on the stairs, she’d walk faster, graying head down. She’d jet out at odd times, once immediately after coming in and shutting her door behind her. “Boss Macabre,” The Pope dubbed her over coffee with a cardinal, according to a rumor. Dozens of theories proliferated. The HR director prayed for her before every meal. What no one guessed was that the sixty-five year old was months pregnant and suffering a nightly nightmare: Jesus enraged in Herod’s Temple, flipping the tables of the money lenders. Her child was obvious— his Second Coming had been prophesied. She’d never taken those stories seriously, but for the first time in her life, she surrendered to His power. She confided all this over the phone one night with her ex-husband, the con artist, the last person she’d been intimate with over a decade ago. He told her she should be institutionalized. That’s exactly it, she thought. I’ve become institutionalized. Her stomach sank. Then a kick.
Pussy
Wire taped to my chest, I stared at my crotch to avoid looking at the open shirt in the dresser mirror’s reflection. Green boxer briefs with tropical flowers and flamingos on the waistband. The phrase ‘big pussy’ flashed in my mind. Imagining Big Pussy from Sopranos in the mirror instead of myself made it bearable to button my shirt— it wouldn’t be me kissing the neck of my crime boss wife, asking questions about slush funds pumped with funny money over slow jams at Easter Sunday brunch. It’d be some other rat in my place. It’d be Big Pussy. I saw Big Pussy, sauced on a boat, riddled with bullets that never paused for a reload by my towering wife. My dick stood up at the thought. “Wait, what the fuck? Why?” I asked my crotch. My FBI handler, coming in from the bathroom, cleared his throat and tapped his watch.
Cleo
Her jeweled hands passed over the crystal ball like ocean waves. She told me exactly how I’m supposed to die— an infection in my skull after a fall from a stranger’s window. At one point, I asked her how she could be Miss Cleo when the Miss Cleo from TV had passed away. She froze, index finger tickling my palm’s heart line, candlelight painting the maroon of her nails a deep shade, and took a breath of the Nag Champa basement air. She exhaled with a chuckle and, dropping her Caribbean accent, she said, “it’s a persona owned by the company I work for, my dear.” I thought then that I’d fallen for a scam, but she proceeded to lay my life open like the tarot cards she had me shuffle. She knew me better than anyone ever had— every embarrassing habit, every good thing about me. She said I would soon go through tough financial times— this was a couple weeks ago— then yesterday my boss called me into the conference room and told me I was being laid off. Miss Cleo said I’d be falling in love sooner rather than later, which I found hard to believe, until the memory of her dark brown eyes and silky fingertips kept me up all last night. I came back for another reading this morning but the neon sign in the house’s window is gone. I called her company’s 24-hour hotline a dozen times but it was never her, the ladies’ Caribbean accents sounding forced and offensive coming out of them. They all said they were Miss Cleo, but the real Miss Cleo is out there. Not the real real Miss Cleo, but my Miss Cleo. I love her. I need her. I don’t care how I die anymore. I need her to tell me how I’m supposed to live.
Julián Martinez loves Chicago so much, he’s marrying her. Find him @martinezfjulian or martinezfjulian.com.
Spitgum sprawled down the hillside like the shadow of a falling tree. Telescope in their one hand, my walking stick in the other. All along the way they stopped in bright clearings to peer out at the shapes of distant leaves and at the bodies of darting birds, and they asked me a lot of questions. What’s that bird’s name? What tree’s this? My fever blazed and flared in the late morning light, yet I couldn’t believe how clearly I could see. To reveal, to uncover, to unveil, I thought. I put my sunglasses on. Did my best to answer Spitgum’s questions. Dragging the heels of their boots down the hill they had kicked up trail dust and now it settled into hollows of woodbine ivy and wine berry brambles, the air all aswirl through streams of sheer light. That’s when I noticed for the first time how the leaves of certain trees had curled inward, burning a yellowish red. Drought-sick, I thought. Or like a kind of blight. I touched the trunk of a rock oak tree. Identified the call of a wren. Spitgum babbled on and on about nothing. I felt drought-sick too. I could feel the birdsong vibrating in my hair.
Arriving at a ridge halfway down the hill I noticed what looked like a ribbon of wood-smoke rising up from a field just south of the farmhouse. Art was walking slowly down the freshly mowed slope, a five gallon bucket full of tools in his hand. In the other was a plastic gallon jug of water. Alma’s garden gate gently opened in a gust of wind and I scanned the landscape searching for her, tracing the tangle of wisteria vines along the winding road, the tall swaths of summer flowers leaning over stone paths as they dove down and snaked around the farmhouse and woodshed and the garden. A rain cloud had gathered above the sloping fields. Art took off his hat and stopped to rest at the stump of the lightning struck black locust tree, his body no bigger than my thumbnail. I could picture the tree even though it wasn’t there. Apple. Purple. Fountain. Paint. The rain cloud came apart. Art looked up into the absence where the tree had once provided shade. Saw us at the edge of the wood, waved, and walked on. Spitgum led me down into the field and we met Art standing by his van in the shade of the barn.
“Didn’t Hippie just mention something about a fire ban?”
Art looked up from the messages on his phone. His phone is a Samsung Galaxy. It looked like a tiny stone tablet in his hand.
“That’s not a fire, Sunshine. What you see up there is worter.”
“Water? Up out of what, the well?”
Art set his phone on the dashboard with some dark green gloves, then he opened the van’s side door to unload his bucket of tools. “Just west of that well’s a quick-coupler. Like for hoses. Found this cap shot way out into the field. I guess the pipe must’ve burst once I got the water back on.” Art turned to show us the metal cap. It said Rain Bird on it. Spitgum snickered. “First thought was maybe I’d run something over with my mower. But the situation seems more mysterious than that. Look at all thatpressure, Sunshine. Never seen anything like it. Must be something to do with the hydrostatic pressure of the ground. Like at Yellowstone, you ever been to Yellowstone? I hear springs out there bubble up all scalding hot from magma. At least in our case the farm water’s cold. Cool clear worter. Just mysterious is all. A mysterious mist. Looks like we won’t be needing the telescope, Spit.”
“I’m so grateful for the mystery,” they said.
Spitgum and Chris have the same exact smile.
Art looked at them and laughed.
“Anyway, Sunshine — I’ve got to get going in a hurry. Emergency call just came from up on the mountain.”
The van with all its black and blue graffiti shone purple in the barn shade glow. Art slammed the side door shut and handed me the empty bucket. It took me a moment to remember which mansion he meant when he said up on the mountain. Art looked at the sun. Nearly noon. Then he ducked into the dark of the barn.
Spitgum kicked a rock and followed it out into the road. Picked at a runover snake with their stick. I took my dead phone from out of my pocket. The screen was cracked badly, but I thought it should still work. I plugged it into the charger I leave in Art’s van and noticed a giant book on the passenger seat. It was Lumbersweeney’s copy of Capital Volume 1 by Karl Marx. I had no memory of stealing the book. It still had his highlighter in it. Art emerged again with the jug of fresh well water and a plate of microwaved pizza from the night before. The two inverted phases of the movement which makes up the metamorphosis of a commodity constitute a circuit: commodity-form, shedding off of this form, and a return to it. Grease threatened holes in Art’s paper plate already. Spitgum’s shoulder blades rose up into the light like demon wings, or maybe angel wings, and I felt increasingly sick.
“The wren came back,” Art declared. He handed me the jug of water. I took a long drink, and then I pointed up toward the well with Lumbersweeney’s book.
“You’re saying that call is more of an emergency than this?”
“Correct. It’s their furnace, Sunshine. Bad oil leak. And there’s nothing to be done here for now. Those fields will happily soak up all the worter. Let me show you the work I have planned for you at Diane’s.”
Spitgum and I followed Art to the north side of the barn where the truck and tractor had been parked in the sun. I looked up the hill through the field toward the well. The fountain spray looked like a kind of endless explosion outside the farmhouse. Art had leaned several shovels against the truck along with two iron prybars for rocks and two posthole diggers. I loaded the tools into the truck while Art stood there eating pizza. Spitgum had already wandered off again and was looking into the back of my Volvo, their pink skull pressed against Chris’s in the glass. I sighed loudly and wiped the sweat off my face with my shirt.
“I went to Diane’s this morning and marked out where I want these holes.” Art lowered the tailgate and flattened out a piece of paper. A drawing in red pencil of Diane’s yard and house. “About a half dozen holes. You’ll see the red paint in the grass. I also marked the handles of these shovels here for your height. You’ve got concrete form tubes too. Those are in the barn. For the footings of the deck. Just do your best, Sunshine. There will be rocks.”
“Yo, Billy—what’s up with this CitiBike back here? You steal this thing or what?”
I locked eyes with Art through my sunglasses. He shrugged as if to say, What the hell’d you want me to do about it? I’d forgotten all about that bike, the city. The Tarot Card Guy named Calder and all the things I’d taken from Chris.
Daylight glanced off the body of Art’s truck. I went to pick at some rust at the bottom of the tailgate where it joined with the busted light, but stopped myself. Art saw me stop and smiled. The truck was essentially disintegrating, falling apart. Everything was. I almost said so, but I couldn’t bear to repeat the same old endless conversation about chaos and entropy and the truck, its low mileage in spite of the rust, all that salt they spray on the roads in winter and on and on and on and on. My fever deepened like a cave. Entered the bones of my back. I folded Art’s drawing into Lumbersweeney’s book. Art had fixed the busted taillight with some see-through packing tape and red spray paint. I could still see the rock Spitgum kicked into the middle of the road. It was the size of a little dove.
I ran a cold hand trembling through my long wet red dirty hair and decided it was time to lay down in the grass.
Art turned over the empty bucket and took a seat above me.
He chewed on his last bite of pizza. Wiped his beard with a rag.
“You drank too much again last night.”
“You’re the one whose eyes are all bloodshot,” I said.
“That’s just the dust. You don’t see me coiled up under no tailgate.”
“I was fine an hour ago, man. That kid did something weird to me.”
Art looked back across the lawn, chewing.
“I did nothing weird,” Spitgum yelled over my Volvo by the road. “All I did was fix the hater’s eye.”
“I have this fever now, Art. I can’t shake it. The breeze cuts through like November and all the leaves look red. You didn’t even ask if I wanted it fixed,” I yelled at Spitgum.
“You just feel sick because you’re scared,” Spitgum yelled back. “Bill went and betrayed his only brother and now he’s blaming me for the fact that he’s scared and lost and probably just sick from the guilt. Who would our Billy Willy be if not his brother’s half-brother? That’s a scary thought. Enough to make anybody sick. No — I’d come over and unfix your eye right now if it’s what you really wanted. But I don’t think it is, Bill. Pretty sure that would just hurt.”
“Come out from under there and let me see, Sunshine.”
Art nudged my busted rib with the toe of his boot until I came out from under the shade of the tailgate, groaning.
I took my sunglasses off.
“Jesus Christ — it’s an actual miracle. Barely a scar, Sunshine. Did you see your eye turned blue? The right eye’s still green, but the other one went fully blue.”
Art handed me the jug of water again. There was pizza sauce on his dark green shirt. I thought it looked like a blood mark. I drank the fresh water and poured some on my head and then I struggled to my feet to look at myself in the driver’s side mirror. Art was right. My left eye was blue. I immediately new that I liked it. Somewhere in the distance someone stopped shoving tree branches into a wood chipper. I hadn’t noticed the sound, but now I noticed the silence. Spitgum came up from behind me and I jumped. They had Calder’s wizard hat in one hand and a big chunk of green chalk in the other.
“And now, for my third trick, I will make a horse appear out of thin air.”
“Third? What the hell was your second trick?” I demanded.
But Spitgum stepped toward the side of the barn, fit Calder’s hat onto their shaved pink head, and with the green chalk against the red barn they drew another weirder, smaller barn, and inside that barn they drew a large strange green animal and a big green circle with wavy rays of green falling down on the animal like the sun.
“Horse,” Spitgum said, pointing at the horse and writing out the word. Art laughed and clapped. I was going to ask why the green sun had been drawn inside the barn with the horse — but out of the corner of my new blue eye I noticed a flutter of paper pinned under the windshield wiper of my Volvo.
I went toward it.
A letter from Alma.
Her handwriting wide and open and blue:
Hi — I want to write down these things which feel like the harder things before we see each other again in person…
Two black lumber trucks boomed passed the barn. The first swerved violently to avoid Spitgum’s rock, its six tires screeching as it burned marks onto the wavy blacktop road — but the other truck floored it right up over the rock and drove on as if it had been nothing.
I walked out into the road through a whirlpool of dust.
….hesitancy or space coming from my side is most likely a reflection of where I am in the circle shape, and not a difference in care…
Unthinkingly I picked up Spitgum’s rock.
…but my heart is still craving time to untangle myself from him so I can rebuild…
And that’s when I stopped myself. Folded the letter back up. I needed to be alone to read it. I took Spitgum’s rock back toward the barn where their picture had been wiped away already, and in its place Art was drawing a giant green illustration of the light spectrum while lecturing Spitgum with the telescope in his hand.
The diagram looked like this:
“Take this light inside Bill’s telescope for instance — we’re talking about just a sliver of what’s actually expanding beyond the visible eye. Infrared light, ultraviolet light. You want to talk about the mystery, Spitgum? Let’s talk dark energy, dark matter. Almost everything in our observable universe is invisible. Not to even mention space time or the speed of light or how with a serious-enough telescope, these scientists have seen all the way back through the fabric of earth time already. Right straight through to the very beginning of. I just heard it on the radio again today — I’m talking James Webb again, Bill — it’s happening as we speak. A telescope that can capture pictures of First Light.”
Spitgum took the telescope back from Art.
“But that would just be God,” Spitgum said. “You’re saying they took a picture of God?”
“Correct,” Art said. “Widen out far enough and we’re nothing but tiny particles in an unspeakable pattern of light that is everything. Particles of dust. I’ve seen videos of it on my computer.”
From where I stood I could see Chris’s two favorite trees. A pair of sugar maples which always merged into one great giant-looking tree in the window of Alma’s kitchen.
In that moment I wanted nothing more than to know what Chris was reading.
“You know Cain killed Abel with a rock,” Spitgum said, pointing at the rock with my telescope.
“Excuse me?” I said.
Just then Art’s wren landed in a barren patch of grass at our feet.
“Wow — there she is,” Art whispered. “Spitgum, look — she comes back every summer to nest on the sill above my saws. How was winter down in Florida little birdy? Bring us back any plastic from the beach?”
“I wonder, Bill — Do you think bodies decompose more slowly during drought years?”
“What kind of fucking question is that, Spitgum? What, are you threatening me?”
“No, I meant it from a scientific perspective. Seeing as all the worms are probably dried up.”
I experienced a sudden and confusing urge to injure Spitgum physically.
Fugitive. Mountain. Flower. Fist.
Instead I set the rock down slowly, picked up Lumbersweeney’s book, and then I started for the farmhouse.
“Sunshine, wait — I figured you would give Spitgum a ride to the church on your way to Diane’s. My oil leak is in the opposite direction. It’s coming up on noon. ”
“I’m not taking that kid anywhere,” I said. “First of all, Art, I already told you I’m sick. Second of all, just make the kid drive their goddamn self.”
“Ain’t allowed to drive no more, hater. Hence the whole reason why my meeting’s inside a church.”
Barn swallows swooped in and out of the barn, spiraling in the shape of an eight.
The wren wrangled up a living worm. Looked me in the eye. Flew away.
“Sorry, Art. But I need to go find Alma.”
I started for the farmhouse again.
“Wait — I have a deal for you, Billy Willy. Lend me that CitiBike, just this once, and I’ll get your Volvo running again for free.”
I turned back around.
“No,” I said.
“Look, Billy — Art says all your Volvo needs is a starter. That’s kid stuff. Let’s make this happen like a barter. You pay for the part and I’ll be your mechanic. Free labor for free rides on the CitiBike this summer. I’m desperate for a way into town. It’s a win-win-win for all three of us. Just like Marx.”
Spitgum presented their pale hand as if I’d shake it just like that.
“What do you know about fixing cars?” I asked.
“My best friend back in the desert’s a mechanic. Name’s Ever. I helped him here and there, could easily call if I run into trouble.”
I looked over at the Volvo. It looked like a bottomless pit of black dead moon water.
“Consider it fixed, Bill. Seriously. Let’s shake on it. Fair and square.”
Art laughed. Shook his head. Shrugged.
“Deal?”
“Whatever, man. Fine. Deal.”
After shaking my hand Spitgum said, “Ready to see what my second trick was?”
“No,” I said.
They reached out toward my face again and before I could get my hands up to defend myself they’d pulled a ring out from behind my ear. “Tadaaaaa,” Spitgum said. They dropped Alma’s engagement ring into my hand and broke off into a run toward the Volvo. Before Art could bend down to pick up his empty bucket they had already pulled out the CitiBike onto the grass, Calder’s wizard hat like two hands clasped into prayer atop their wild pink head.
“Kid’s a total trip, Art.”
“You got that right. Like the drum major of some kind of fucked up parade.”
“Battery’s still some life in it!” Spitgum shrieked.
Art had leaned over to look at the cover of Lumbersweeney’s book, his head almost upside-down to see it. It’s a dark painting on the cover. I showed it to him. Three men working in an old iron factory, a kind of spiraling white fire burning at the center of it.
“The Forge (A Modern Cyclops),” I read. “By Adolph von Menzel.”
“Looks like they’re working an old rolling mill,” Art said. “I’m guessing for the railroad tracks. See how they don’t have any eye protection? All they did back then was squint. No gloves either. That poor bastard doesn’t even have shoes. I guess some things never change, Sunshine. Reminds me of this old timer I knew back out in—”
“Shouldn’t you be heading up toward that oil leak?”
“Oh, shit. Yes. Thanks.”
I handed Art the water jug. He took a long, slow drink, then sighed.
“Everything returns to chaos, Sunshine.”
“I know, Art. I know.”
“Tell Alma I’ll be back down tonight to fix her worter.”
“Is anything reaching the house?”
“Nope.”
“Alright.”
After shaking my hand Art patted me on the back in a paternal way that actually made me feel a little better. Turning to go I heard the familiar quiet vroom of the CitiBike taking off toward the south, and turned in time to see Spitgum speed off shrieking for the church with my walking stick.
I walked up the slope through the field toward Alma’s well.
A storm had established itself above the mountains to the west, and that fountain beside the well looked like a tower endlessly falling.
Dylan Smith works at Brooklyn Botanic Garden and lives in a shared house with nine people and a Steinway piano the size of a boat.
I put a quart of blackberries in the work fridge to snack on over the next couple days, go back an hour later and toss one in my mouth. Don't even have to bite the fruit is so tender, just squeeze it between my tongue and the roof of my mouth, feel it pop, sweet juice squirting out in every direction, coating the inside of my cheek. Flip it to my teeth to finish the job, chomp once, twice, then get that perfect berry down my throat and grab for another except the second berry is sour, a slightly too firm dud, the third even worse. Fourth, fifth, sixth - sour, sour, sour. The seventh tastes a little metallic but isn't so bad, the texture is right and I have hope when I eat the eighth— sour. Sour, sour, fucking sour. Firm, gritty. By the thirteenth my palette has no memory of that first, perfect berry but I can't stop, the tingle in my tongue demands retribution, solace from bitterness, yearns for satisfaction. The container is low, the plastic of the bottom showing. One sweet berry and I'm done. It doesn't even have to be as good as the first, only needs to provide a glimmer that I can take into the future, a belief that what I'm left with is better than this. Sour. Sour. Sour. I'm not hungry. Wasn’t hungry to begin with. Two left. Please, I think. Sour. FUCK. One left. I pick it up, hold it between thumb and forefinger, bring it to my eye. Solid, deep coloration. A little squeeze— just enough give. I allow my hopes to rise. I have confidence. I run my tongue through my mouth, searching for the taste of that first berry under layers and layers of sour. I place the final berry on my tongue, shift it between my teeth, and bite.
Alex Rost runs a commercial printing press outside of Buffalo, NY
Hi — I want to write down these things that feel like the harder things before we see each other in person. They are things I want to be transparent about before anything more happens between us, things I know to be true for myself but that might affect you if we continue down this road together. I think writing them down will help me understand them and clarify them and even though they are somewhat future-oriented they feel like a future I feel really sure about. I’ll write them out as a list even though they are a little looser than that and tie into each other more than a list format would make it seem.
1. The biggest one of the momentis where I am around heartbreak. I have been seeing heartbreak as this kind of cyclical circle shape and I worry maybe we are on opposite sides of it. One of the most confusing things about Chris being gone is that his hands once felt like extensions of my hands and I don’t understand where they will go now that we’ve broken up. I feel like I am still untangling our bodies. Rationally I understand the absence of his presence but my heart is still craving time to untangle my body from his so that I can rebuild. New love for me would have to be like faint music. But I still want you to experience all you are experiencing from your side and am writing this just so you know that any hesitancy or space coming from my side is most likely a reflection of where I am in the circle shape and not a difference in care.
2. Future Thing #1: Something that started coming up for me with Chris was realizing an excitement I have around exploring non-traditional relationship dynamics. Something I do know about the future is that when I feel untangled from Chris and have found some of those parts of myself I lost I will want to put romantic dating energy toward exploring these different relationship structures and communities. This is in part why things didn’t work between me and Chris. I think non-monogamy really freaked him out and threatened him and made him crazy controlling and jealous which is probably why he cheated on me and now I just feel like I have a lot of healing and exploring to do in this area of my life and have really no interest in falling into another monogamous relationship for the time being.
3. Future Thing #2: This thing is in the intense future and probably doesn’t need to be discussed or thought about too much, which is that after understanding what I want to incorporate from Future Thing #1 I want to experience the stability and excitement that comes from having a more traditional relationship and family. I am talking about kids. I do feel like because God hates women my timeline for figuring this out is short, which is why it feels worth mentioning. Like if I were 27 instead of 33 this would not be in this letter.
That’s all! You now have all the information that I have. I just wanted to set everything out on the table for both of us because I have no interest in having a hint of sneakiness or dishonesty between us now or ever.
Alma
Dylan Smith works at Brooklyn Botanic Garden and lives in a shared house with nine people and a Steinway piano the size of a boat.
I didn’t know what it meant to stick it to the man back in 1987. I didn’t know who the man was. Statements like that can be ambiguous. But I remember Lyle Lovett, his tall hair, the height of a new capitalism. My hair was as long as his was tall as he sang about things he wished he had and what he’d do with them. It sounded as strange as his tall hair looked by 1988. But now, many years later, and understanding who the man is, now that my hair is long gone, I yearned or the simplicity of a riding pony, perhaps on a boat, my boat, which would have to be a really small boat because I am not that kind of man, making my pony even smaller. I bought that pony, because that was what I could afford. I looked up Lyle and messaged him. I figured he might have a boat by now. He texted back, plainly, kiss my ass. I knew what he meant. I knew it was a kinship, of not sticking it to this man.
Thad DeVassie is a writer and artist/painter from Ohio. You can see where he’s been and what he’s up to next at www.thaddevassie.com
Gossiping with Alyson and Alys. Fika, visiting cake. Nobody is Swedish although Nadia is the type of blonde you’d kill a prime minister for. I read the papers and gamble on papal elections. To think of all the beauty and bloodshed, fuck it. I’m lying to myself and others. Artifice in loud terms.
Nadia gives me a jagged hump and I’m on the oozy brink when she starts talking about Irish writers and some esthetician in Palm Springs nicknamed Jack the Ripper. It’s strange how people cling together. Darling, don’t shoot until the subject hits you.
I’m barely awake when you call me Finnegan stately, plump (picnic, lightning). I mock the myths I help create make faces in the surveillance camera. Where we’re headed, where we are halfway down the coast I lost the comic timing, pick up the phone like a cold kiss— yes, Nadia, the fire escape is burning
and I’m watching the deaf republic under a wild pack of stars. I’m thinking about the poet who dropped an electric toothbrush into her cunt and fried my cock. Love after love after love I’m pissing like the Colosseum in full view listening to the pretty tyranny of the wind.
Patagonia Picnic Table Effect
Somewhere between night and the morning after queer shades of future dusk Berluti knot, orange wine, lips like an extra maraschino
we talk about art and Genet and the birdshit on the bench. “You should write a poem about birds,” she says, not knowing I’d sworn off bird poetry
preferring to write poems about petite mort and 21st century malaise clubby androgynous youth, gobs of spit, vape girls, egirls empty theaters and red latrines, Aslan’s pin-ups, lui magazine
desire that isn’t explained, desire with a mouth like a dirty rest stop, Vogue Italia, dressing for the rapture, what it means to be exiled, what it means to be stripped of happiness, what it means to be stripped
like a saint, murder holes, arrow loops, Divine’s funeral, my complete fear of list poems, biographies, throat cancer, my complete fear of Kathy Acker, Trazodone, nightstands, spotlights, Piss Flowers, the exquisiteness
of tiramisu, the slippage between desire and disgust, the foil to her flamboyance, Stabat Mater, my complete fear of Connecticut, the insurance man, the cricket-impresario, tennis elbow, preferring to
write poems about coupling, decoupling, parallelism, lines of influence and what it means to find a rare species, and another, and another — Yellow Grosbeak, Thick-billed Kingbird, a nesting pair of Rose-throated Becards.
Damon Hubbs is a poet from New England. He’s the author of three chapbooks and a full-length collection, Venus at the Arms Fair (Alien Buddha Press, 2024). Recent publications include Apocalypse Confidential, The Crank, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Spectra, the engine(idling, HorrorSleaze Trash, & others. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net.
On Saturday morning, before lunch at the food court at the local mall, before hitting the Shoe Dept and catching the 1:40 showing of Avatar 4, is a perfect time to stop off at QuikCuts and get a trim. The hairdressers all have certificates from beauty school and love to chat with customers. They make you feel right at home.
Jesse Hilson is a writer and artist living in the Catskills in New York State. His work has appeared in Hobart, X-R-A-Y, Apocalypse Confidential, Scaffold, Farewell Transmission, Excuse Me Mag, Expat, Misery Tourism, and other venues. He has written two novels, Blood Trip and The Tattletales; one story collection, The Calendar Factory; and a poetry collection, Handcuffing the Venus De Milo. He can be reached on Instagram at @platelet60 and he runs a Substack newsletter called Chlorophyll & Hemoglobin.
Are you, he coughs, are you, he coughs, are you coming, he coughs & then he coughs again, excuse me–are you coming, he coughs 3 times, oy ya yoy, he coughs a little, excuse me, clears throat, are you, clears throat again, what is up with me, he coughs,
am I gonna see you for Christmas this year?
dizzy turek writes in Chicago but is originally from Ohio. find all writing on: instagram: dizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzyy & twitter: @dddddizzzzyzzz . he also does theater.
My revenge will be to live well. I’ll sink my teeth into slabs Of steak, Let the garlic butter ooze From my lips As Weiss beer bursts Upon my eager tongue. I’ll dream of ice-cold water Pooling around my feet And watch the evening game While chaining cigarettes— Blowing rings of smoke At the waning moon, Creating new plateaus Of beauty From my idle thoughts. And yet, what good does living well Really do? We cruise Through worlds aligned But are judged by different gods— Indifferent gods, Not worthy of our prayers. You’re a phantom figure Beyond my vengeful reach. So do your worst, my simple friend— Set fire to your block Make your children cry
Tim Frank’s work has been published in Bending Genres, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Maudlin House, The Forge Literary Magazine, The Metaworker and elsewhere. He has been nominated for Best Small Fictions. His debut chapbook is, An Advert Can Be Beautiful in the Right Shade of Death (C22 Press ’24) and his second chapbook of poetry is, Delusions To Live By (Alien Buddha Press, ’25)
William Schaff has been a working artist for over two decades. Known primarily for his mastery at album artwork, (Okkervil River, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Songs: Ohia, etc.) Schaff is also the founder of Warren Rhode Island’s “Fort Foreclosure”. The building, lovingly named without the least bit of irony, serves as Schaff’s home and studio as well as home and meeting place for other artists (most notably former resident musicians MorganEve Swain, and the Late David Lamb, both of Brown Bird). William also performed for a decade with the What Cheer? Brigade, as one of 20 musicians in a brass band that travelled the U.S. and Europe. An experience that shaped so much of his life. In 2015, recognizing the importance of art in this world, he expanded his community to the West Coast, where he started “The Outpost”, in Oakland, California. There — financial earnings be damned! — William filled his days creating works of art for private commissions, bands, exhibitions and his own examinations of human interaction. He has since returned to Rhode Island and can be found, daily, doing the same at the Fort. He has a Patreon page if you’d like gifts in the mail and to help keep the lights on.
Michael Pershan is a math teacher and writer living in New York City. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in BULL, hex, Outlook Springs, and The American Bystander.
they undressed methodologically. unprovocative. like they were about to examine each other for lumps. folding his clothes neatly into rectangles. those worn brown chinos. the chambray button down shirt with underarms that smelled with years of his bitter sweat. sweat that at one time, attracted her. she used to liken it to “my salty Mediterranean man that smells like the rind of a lime.” where that man went, neither of them knew. the fauvist views of succulent fruits clinging to branches above a sparkling sea are a lifetime removed. she, folding her jumper into a square that ballooned at the edges. never had a penchant for perfection. their bodies were cold and clammy as they came into mutual embrace. they tried to make love. tried pressing the atoms of their bodies into some form of miracle. paused at each others lips, not moving, but waiting for some sort of momentum to build. nothing. barely air passed between them. they tried in the kitchen. in the bathroom. on the couch. looking around at the set of japanese steak knives, the Breville, a distressed velvet ottoman. as if to put the blame on them for lack of ambiance.
checking into The Schofield. Corner suite (always wondered what it looked like). Lots of mirrored surfaces. their bodies moved like lava in a lavalamp from one distorting surface to another. two beds. weird, he forgot to request one king. lots of vague objects. a miniature Calder mimic. she put pressure on one pendant. let it ricochet. watched it ease back into balance. then into stillness. the lack of its optionality into a chaotic form was upsetting. couldn’t be broken. he went into the mini-fridge. two bottles of tonic. little bottle of bombay. grabbed glasses from the desk. they had a nice weight. a weight that felt official. called for ice. and a lime. two thank yous and a $10 tip later, he mixed them a drink. thumb stung from the lime juice. she was sitting on the edge of her bed. patting her skirt. she wore that perfume. he sat at the desk chair. swiveled around to cheers her.
“i used to wear a beret.”
“and smoke cigarettes.”
“i once knew Yves Klein. he asked me to be one of his brushes.”
this went on. the days in montmartre. maybe it was true. he was no Yves Klein. he could see it. her body draped in that ultramarine. being spread across a canvas. the gushing figures materializing on canvas.
this aroused, then irked him. didn’t dr. muchlenbach teach her not to bring french painters to romantic getaways.
he downed his drink. she hadn’t touched hers. the ice had melted and it looked diluted. he went and sat on the bed opposite hers. turned the tv on. Joe Rogan’s Fear Factor, Couples Editions. the programming at this place was meant to keep things spicy. she sighed and got up off the bed, placing the drink down on the desk. walked by him without any acknowledgement. he heard the bath turn on. ran for a while. this episode, contestants had to stand on top of a moving vehicle and grab flags as they sped by a set of markers. she, in a bathing suit (why were they always in bathing suits) and he, a muscle shirt, cutoff jean shorts. after they win first place, they’d go back to their trailer and have mind-blowing sex. maybe the exercise the entire kama sutra. this irked, then aroused him. annoyed at the thought of an erection through jean shorts. felt like an insult. the faucets turned off with that creak that the old guard turnstile knobs made. he could hear her swishing around. sitting up. falling into the water. now she was rolling onto her stomach and back. now she was—
the second task was a water one. one of the team would be submerged underwater. the other would have to crawl through a tunnel of roaches to find a key. the key opened the tank and let the water out. jean shorts muscled through the tunnel. even ate a roach for style points. bathing suit floated glamorously in the tank. did a twirl to the right, then to the left, then winked at joe. then to the camera.
drive home was eventless. across the bridge. down the parkway. Nicholas greeted them at the door. Said something about the dogs behaving well. they sat on the couch. he turned on the tv. maria appeared from the linen closet with a “miss, the blue does not come out of your underwear.” she blushed.
“I used to wear berets.” she uttered. “and smoke cigarettes.” she was speaking to a void. he went to the refrigerator. took two bottles of tonic. he put ice into his. lime into hers.
Yves is dating Alfonse who’s in love with Paulo who’s fucking Stefan who’s focused on his career but married to Sydney who knows he’s gay but feels safe because they’re best friends, which makes Cristof jealous because he’s pining for both of them; and Cristof’s brother Rosco is dating Nifath, mysterious Nifath, and they’ve been in an open relationship since July when Nifath got distant and Rosco suggested they experiment; but Nifath’s been fucking Conroy since May of last year and Conroy hasn’t been tested for decades (no self-reflection); he’s been drinking with Jason who can’t get his dick hard but has been thinking it’s because he has feelings for Seana, the trans girl, who dated Sarah all throughout undergrad; and Sarah, stubborn Sarah, feels cheated because Seana’s not Sean anymore, in fact she’s never been, just appeared that way, and Sarah’s straight and sure of it, but did have a few experiences with Massie, the Bohemian, who swears relationships are soul-suckers, monogamy equals weakness; though in high school Massie dated Scottie, who is a cheater with a big ol’ penis, and has never once been loyal, but is charming, and still supported by his mother, who’s having an affair with Aldo, her personal trainer who does this frequently; and Aldo’s brother Santo is in prison and having a hard time while doing hard time because his girlfriend Mary is pregnant and works at the ShopRite which Peter has managed for sixteen years; and Peter, peculiar Peter, has had physical contact with another human only once during his entire adult life, instead he looks at little kids on the dark web; and sometimes, around lunchtime, he’ll make a detour carrying his canned tuna and pass by the elementary school’s playground where Fanny, Ms. Fanny Appleton, is the teacher and always gazes warily around the perimeter, because she’s worried about just this kind of thing; she purses her lips, eyes vigilant, and waves at Peter but doesn’t suspect him, because at the ShopRite he’s always been a nice man, a little sweaty, true, but even makes Ms. Appleton’s nephew laugh; this kid’s name is Stephen, and when Fanny’s babysitting, they stop by the store for ice cream sandwiches, but she has never noticed Peter touch him inappropriately, which, on one occasion, Peter has; anyway Ms. Appleton is single, has not had a boyfriend since college, where she was manipulated by Michael into doing things that didn’t feel right; and then one night Michael snuck into her dorm room, wasted, and raped her; now Fanny trusts no one and lives a quiet life but has a crush on Lucien Carr (no relation to the murderer), who teaches English and seems in Fanny’s opinion sweet but sad too, and everyday she swears she’s going to ask him out for coffee, but just hasn’t committed yet; and Lucien doesn’t realize she’s even interested, because the truth is he has a drug problem, and every day after his class he goes home alone, draws the blinds, snorts cocaine and drinks alcohol until he’s completely deranged, then sleeps for two hours, wakes up the next day, and repeats the same thing; sometimes he picks up his phone to call Courtney, then changes his mind, because Courtney was his wife and his best friend but then got sober, they both went through the Program, and she changed, he couldn’t beat it, so she left him, and now he’s back on a bender; and Courtney, somber Courtney, sweet, sad Courtney goes to meetings every evening and spends her days working at T-Mobile, just trying to get by; on occasion she flirts with Teshawn, her co-worker, he makes her laugh, they take break at Chipotle; Teshawn’s twenty-one and goes to the community college with Rasheeda, who he’s in love with, and she likes him, but he’s so nice, she finds that off-putting; plus she likes to go out on the weekends, in the city, where she meets Sky Pepper; and Sky Pepper, so Sky Pepper, is a model and comes from money and once her and Rasheeda went home with Sven Odenfield, the photographer, and they had a threesome, which was fun but a little intense for Rasheeda, though Sky doesn’t remember it; Sven remembers it, in fact he catalogued each moment of the evening in his Moleskine, because that’s his thing, along with photography, he’s in love with pleasure, has fucked half the city, and meticulously records each conquest; but Sven, complex Odenfield, still Facebook stalks Nadia, his step-sister, who lives in Berlin and will not return his phone calls, plus things were never the same after what happened that one night, when they shared a hotel room next to their parents and both got drunk off the liquor in the mini-bar; and their parents are swingers, they go to the private parties that Thor hosts; and Thor is from the midwest but got outta there the day he turned eighteen, and lives glamorously, hosting orgies, with celebrities, but has a soft spot for his sister Irene, who moved to New York, but couldn’t make it and so moved back home and married Alan, her high school sweetheart, who’s perfectly content in Wisconsin, he’s an engineer, would never leave there, couldn’t imagine life outside of Waukesha; and now Irene’s pregnant, she’s only twenty-five, and Alan is overjoyed (also in debt) and Irene is happy, she has always wanted to be a mother, but she wanted a career too, that’s why she moved to New York, but now it seems that ship has sailed; so once a week Irene FaceTimes her best friend Meredith, who moved to LA, and isn’t sure exactly if she’s the only one but is pretty sure she’s now dating Smash Lowe, yes, that one, the movie star, and is having so much fun and, “No, no, Irene, I do not have a coke problem, I don’t do it during the week, okay? Anyway I’m young! And Oh Irene, oh my god, you’re so freakin’ preggers!!!” and Meredith is having a great time, really living life, posts often on Instagram, but she’s secretly jealous, because throughout childhood she was in love with Alan too; her, Irene and him were inseparable, sometimes they all slept in the same bed, and Meredith once even, just once, after they’d been drinking, tried to kiss Alan but he was honest, he was loyal, he said, “Gee, Mer…I….I’m with Irene!” and was truly baffled, simple Alan, he was embarrassed, felt his honor compromised, but Meredith sobered up, she said, “Of course, no, you’re right, I’m sorry, can we just forg”—and Alan interrupted her, stood up very straight and said, “Enough,” then went into another room of the party and spoke to Johnny who developed his alcoholism at a young age and now is dead after taking too many Lorazepam on a March night, after a long bout of drinking, a few years ago; and at Johnny’s funeral his mother Aubrey cried, and his father Alec held her, stoic, but his mouth twitched and he thought that later that night, he’d sit by the fire with Skaal, his brother, who just flew in from Norway; and Skaal used to be easygoing, believed in the essential good of things, was always smiling, didn’t watch indie movies, liked buddy comedies, but that was before the Norway massacre, which killed 77 people, one of which was Anita’s little brother (that’s Skaal’s girlfriend); I shall not say her brother’s name, respect for the family, understand, but after the murder Anita became focused, she became political; Skaal, in contrast, became quieter, more sensitive, had less conviction, the world made less sense to him, and so when Alec called about his son’s death, Skaal’s nephew, Skaal blinked twice, held the phone and felt utter numbness; that trance persisted the entire flight to Chicago and still at the airport; and walking through the long terminal, dazed, startled by ascending airplanes, Skaal accidently bumped right into Olivia; and Olivia, who was about to board her own flight, took this as a sign; she turned around, left the airport, and caught a taxi back into the city, and ran to Henry, he was just stepping out of his apartment, she embraced him, and Henry was shocked, he thought he would never see her again, and he held her, but was anxious, frankly part of him had been excited for his new life, and thus was not expecting this return; and one night a month later, Henry got a little drunk and struck up a conversation with a woman at the bar near his office, she was wearing a black slip, her name was Terry; and Terry knew his type, she did this often, she got him wasted and then she fucked him, then kicked him out of her apartment and smoked cigarettes, thinking men are idiots, they are malleable, they are so easy; and Terry was the hostess at a very upscale restaurant on the Northside; and one night the famous musician and notorious womanizer Augie Rainwell came to the restaurant and ignored Terry, he did not seem interested, she was astonished; the fact was, however, that for Augie it was nothing personal, he was secretly dealing with an eruption of genital herpes, and that was affecting his confidence, he looked around the restaurant warily, helplessly, thinking everybody knew his deformity, everybody was doubting his masculinity, his sexual viability; he had no idea who had given him herpes, there were about seven women and two men that it could have been; and what was worse, the worst part of it, was that Augie was married to Jaclyn, and he had slept with her twice, without protection, since fucking strangers, without protection, and so now it was possible, perhaps likely (who knows how it really works), that Jaclyn also had genital herpes and would, once and for all, know that Augie was cheating on her; and Jaclyn, fed-up Jaclyn, would finally move out and go stay with her mother; and her mother, Avi, in the living room, would say, “I knew that boy was no good for you,” and Jaclyn would say, “Oh mother, please!” and turn away, look at their wall of photographs, where her grandmother Maya is featured prominently; and Maya was a Holocaust survivor whose husband Ira didn’t make it, but whose best friend David made it; and after the Holocaust, David wrote a book about the horror, but it was never published, and so he became a businessman, was quite successful, he married and lived a long life, ending up in a lovely home where he had a nice relationship with the nurse Genevieve, who is a redhead; and Genevieve loves to fuck, but has this feeling, this deep-rooted conviction, that abstinence is the only true path to happiness, but if that is the case she prefers unhappiness, and so has many lovers, and many secrets; and each one of these lovers say the same thing: “Genevieve was, by far, the best I ever had, but honestly, to this day, I know nothing about her;” and one of these lovers was Elliot, and Elliot has had a strange life; not only did both his parents die on 9/11 (one of those freak things, they were just visiting), he also happened to be in one square mile of two mass shootings in real life (one Isis-related, the other a white kid, with a micro-penis and a manifesto); but Elliot is committed to mathematics, he refuses to become superstitious, and right now is in grad school, getting his PHD; and Elliot, ponderous Elliot, the orphan prodigy, has never been in a relationship that lasted more than six months, they’re not practical, plus he cherishes his alone time, takes long walks, and thinks about probability, possibility, the infinite number of things that could happen to you, the infinite ways in which they could happen too, and the ways that lives intersect and influence each other, or maybe never cross paths at all, he thinks about all of this; and one day Elliot passed a family on one of his long walks; it was a mother, father, and their young boy; and that little boy was me, many years ago, my family lived around the corner, in that neighborhood, this was our park, it was small, now I see that, but back then it was the world to me; I held my mother’s hand and looked up at my dad’s body, obscured by sunlight, a vague shape, this awesome bulkiness, I tried to grab his leg, but he was too far ahead, didn’t even notice I wanted him; not at all; my father was focused on a sculpture, in the garden; this sculpture was a rabbit with big and ugly, rotting buck teeth, it wore a top hat and a sports coat, it held a watch in one paw and between two fingers on its other hand it balanced a scale, but unevenly; this rabbit smirked, taunting, mischievous, he knew everything, she was not impressed with it; they were sexless, gushing with sex though; I stared at my father and squeezed my mother, tighter, tighter, but then some smell, a floral fragrance, with the slightest rot in it, made me look away; I saw a man with long hair, very thin, very feminine, his shirt was see-through, rib showing, he was almost glowing; getting closer to us; he was not my parents, this excited me, my eyes opened, I tore from the woman who gave birth to me and ran, past the man who fucked her, I ran, and almost tumbled, but stayed on my feet, I ran forward and reached for
Kyle Kouri is an award winning actor, writer, filmmaker, and producer. He received his MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, where he served as the online arts editor for the Columbia Journal. He is the co-founder of Slashtag Cinema, a film production company. Slashtag’s first film, the multi-award winning KEEP COMING BACK, which Kouri directed, co-wrote, and stars in, premiered at Screamfest in October 2024. His writing has appeared in Cleaver Magazine, the Columbia Journal, Ghostwatch Zine, The Los Angeles Press, and Maudlin House. His first book, THE PROBLEM DRINKER, is forthcoming from CLASH Books in 2026. He lives in and around LA with his four rescue dogs and his girlfriend, the writer CJ Leede.
We weren’t getting along too well just then, so we went bowling.
We walked in at the far end of the alley.
“I love how it smells in here,” I said.
You wrinkled your nose. “It smells like dirty socks and stale beer.”
“I know, right?”
It was a long way to where we had to pay and rent shoes – past rows of alleys, past bunches of people milling about, talking or not talking or whatever.
“No one is bowling,” I said.
“Yeah, what’s up with that?”
“Why isn’t anyone bowling?” I asked the employee after we covered the ten fucking miles to the register.
“League play,” he said. “Hasn’t started yet.”
“Oh,” I said. “That makes sense.”
Now I could feel it – anticipation. That was what really smelled.
The employee must have said something, because he was staring right at me.
“What?”
“It’s gonna be like twenty minutes. We only have the last ten lanes for open bowling tonight.”
“Only ten lanes?”
“Leagues,” he said, and pointed off behind me.
“Okay.”
“Or thirty.”
“Or thirty what?”
“Or thirty minutes. Twenty to thirty minutes.”
I turned to you. You shrugged and nodded at the same time.
“Okay,” I said to the employee. “Let’s do it.”
“How many games do you want to play?”
“Three. At least three, I think.”
I turned to you again. You shrugged and nodded at the same time.
“Three games,” I said to the employee, with confidence.
He typed something into the computer on top of the register.
I noticed an index-sized laminated card propped on the counter. It said, ‘Buy three games, get a $5 arcade play card.’ It said, ‘STATE OF THE ART ARCADE!!!!!’ with all those exclamation points.
“Hold up.” I flipped the card around and showed it to the employee. “What’s this all about?”
“You get a free play card with a purchase of three games,” he said.
“Both of us?”
“Yes, both of you.”
“Were you going to say anything? Like if I didn’t notice this, would you have given us the arcade cards?”
The employee raised his eyebrows.
“Is it really state of the art?”
He pursed his lips, glanced at the line behind us.
“I mean, is it worth it?”
“Are you going to buy three games?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Then I’d say it’s worth it.”
“Okay,” I said. “Done deal.”
I turned to you, grinning, and said, “State of the art, baby.”
You shrugged and nodded at the same time.
“What size shoe?” the employee asked us.
You told him your size and I said, “Sometimes a twelve, but sometimes a thirteen.”
He slapped a size twelve and a half onto the counter.
“Whoa, man. Twelve and a half? Thank you.”
We paid and headed to the bar. I held my shoes up, showing you the 12 ½ printed on the heel.
“I can’t believe they had a twelve and a half,” I said.
“I think it’s pretty standard.”
You didn’t understand.
“I feel like I should tip him.” I looked back at the employee. He was helping someone else now, looking sleepy and annoyed.
“He was kind of a dick.”
There was one bartender, busy filling a tall tube with a spout at the end full of beer.
“Check it out,” I said. “A hundred twenty ounces. That’s like a full twelve pack.”
“That’s ten beers,” you said.
“Sure is. Should we get one?”
“No way, that’s fucking gross.”
“Really? Why?”
“How do you think they clean those? Rinse them out with a hose? No way they’re sanitized.”
Maybe they had a sort of chimney sweep tool they jammed in the tube to scrub it, but I doubted it.
“You’re right,” I said.
“Plus, it’ll get all warm and flat before we drink it all.”
“You’re right,” I said again. “Fuck.”
We ordered beers – boring ass regular size beers – and took them to the arcade.
It’d been a while since I’d been in an arcade, and this one being billed as state of the art had me all excited.
“What the fuck?” I said when I saw it. I said it louder than I meant to.
“That guy said fuck,” said a little kid, walking past.
“I heard him,” said his little kid buddy.
The arcade had a bunch of claw machines in the middle, like an island, and your standard ticket winning games like basketball toss and whac-a-mole along the walls. The featured attractions were two ten-foot screens – one showing a giant version of Pacman, the other Asteroid.
We stood under the ten-foot Asteroid screen.
“State of the art?” I said. “You can’t take a forty-year-old game, put it on a big ass screen, and call it state of the art.”
“So you don’t want to play it?”
“God no.”
We picked the basketball toss. You were a hotshot ball player in high school, supposedly. You were also super competitive.
A couple kids came over holding basketballs from the game.
“You can pull them out from underneath,” one said. “You don’t have to pay.”
“Yeah,” you said, “but then it doesn’t keep score, right?”
The kid stared off, passed his basketball from hand to hand.
“Which machine did you take that ball from?” you asked him.
He pointed at the one you stood in front of.
You held out your hand, made a beckoning motion for the ball. The kid handed it over. He looked defeated. I knew that look. It said, ‘I tried to help someone and got fucked over.’
“Good idea though, man,” I said. I brought up my fist for a bump. There was a second where he just looked at my fist. Like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to touch it. Another second passed – enough time to wonder if the little shit was really gonna me hanging.
But he didn’t, thank God. He balled up his fist and gave me a hesitant little bump.
Fuck yeah, brother.
At first I threw up bricks, one after another. I could see you from the corner of my eye, in the zone, knocking down baskets.
Then I made one.
Swish.
And another.
Swish.
I caught a rhythm, didn’t look down to pick up fresh balls, just locked in on the front of the rim and let my hands work their automatic magic.
Swish. Swish. Swish.
“Three, two, one,” the kid behind us announced.
The buzzer buzzed.
I looked at my score, at yours. I won, by one basket. You looked pissed.
“Again,” you said.
We inserted our prepaid arcade cards and the balls released.
Swish, my net went. Swish. Swish. Swish.
“Three, two, one,” the kid announced.
The buzzer buzzed.
I won, again. By one point, again. You looked pissed, again.
“One more,” you said.
I pointed at the card slot. “It says two fifty a game. We’re out of money.
“I’m getting more.”
Most of the balls were still free of the game’s lock, and I motioned to the kid, told him the balls were all his.
“Thanks,” he said, and started to toss them at the basket.
The balls went – Swish. Swish. Swish.
“Kid’s good,” I said and followed you to the kiosk, but right when you were about to slide your credit card, they announced our name.
Our lane was open.
It was time for the main event – bowling.
But I don’t want to talk about bowling.
What I want to talk about is the people dressed as animals in the next lane. Furries, they’re called.
We were assigned to the first of the regular walk-in lanes, and both teams in the league game next to us were fully geared up furries – dogs, a bear, a cute little wolf in a tutu, and all sorts of animals in the greater cat family.
Most of them seemed peaceful, but there was a faction wearing leather jackets and heavy chains and studded collars. One of the rough bunch was dressed as a fox with a spiky mohawk, completely immersed in his sly routine. I watched him sneak behind the bear furry, do the old tap-one-shoulder-but-stand-on-the-other-side. The bear’s head blocked his peripheral vision and he kept falling for it.
“I can’t keep my eyes off them,” I said while lacing up my sweet size twelve and a half shoes.
“They want you to watch,” you said.
The fox was onto other mischief, like stealing people’s beer and running a few steps away and pretending to drink them. All sly like.
“This guy is great,” I said.
And we bowled.
Everything was going pretty well, but a tiger from the furry crew kept crossing over onto our side. It wasn’t intentional or anything, but there were a few times where we were winding up to roll the ball and the tiger’s ass backed damn near into us and we’d have to give each other lame, embarrassed-to-be-dominated looks.
“Next time he does it, I’m gonna grab his tail,” you said.
“No. No way. You never grab an animal’s tail.”
“Watch me.”
I didn’t doubt you. I never doubted you.
Sure enough, the next time the tiger’s ass came pushing its way into our lane, you reached out and gave his tail a proper tug.
The tiger turned and said, “Hey! Did you just pull my tail? That’s not cool.”
“Then quit wagging it all over our lane,” you said.
“You never pull an animal’s tail,” said the tiger.
The cute little wolf furry came up beside the tiger and bent over in front of you, lifted her tutu and exposed her tail, swayed back and forth seductively to make it wag.
You giggled and gave the tail a tug.
The wolf put her hand over her mouth all bashful and skipped away giggling. You came and sat next to me, a grin across your face.
We watched a bulldog furry follow around the cute wolf and act theatrically jealous until the wolf finally relented and bent over and lifted her tutu. The bulldog gave her tail a tug.
The wolf straightened and hugged the bulldog, her head against his chest. She was tiny and looked safe in his arms. They stood together like that, slightly swaying to the melody of clattering pins.
“I like bowling,” you said, and interlaced your fingers in mine.
I lifted your hand and kissed the back of it.
“Me too.”
We were getting along really well just then.
AlexRost runs a commercial printing press outside of Buffalo, NY
