“I ever tell you about the time I struck out Ted Williams?”

Lefty Clarkson had told me this story at least half a dozen times, but he never waited for an answer before continuing. Besides, when you’re a kid and a former baseball player talks to you, you don’t really care how many times he tells you the same thing. It was like being invited into a secret clubhouse. He had dozens of stories like it, each a tale of a minor league pitcher’s fleeting victory against one of the game’s greats.

“We were playing an exhibition game in spring training; that’s a game that doesn’t count. It was just after he got back from the war, and was still getting himself into top form, but for my money he was the best pure hitter ever lived. You design one of those robots they make in Japan and teach it to swing a baseball bat, you’d make it copy Ted Williams. Sweetest swing there ever was.”

Part of what made Lefty such a great storyteller was the way he used his hands. He was already old then, well into his seventies, with a paunch that hung precipitously over his belt and shoulders permanently rounded forward. The overall effect made him seem more like a lifelong office worker than a retired athlete, but his hands were different. They were wide, with long fingers, and the overtaxed veins still prominently featured. When one of my friends would bring him a baseball to sign, his hand practically enveloped it, and it was easy to imagine him adjusting that grip to cut his fastball or add a little breaking action.

“I was as nervous as I’d ever been on the mound, but I don’t think you can blame me. My first pitch went straight into the dirt. The next one went low and outside, just missed the corner. Third one was a few inches in from that spot, a strike, but I could see Williams was just trying to time me. He didn’t even move the bat, and he was still watching me instead of the ball.”

My father was the reason I knew Lefty. Pop had played baseball in high school and loved it, though he was never good enough to continue past then, and the combination of a broken foot and my being born meant he even stopped playing recreationally. He was thrilled when I started taking an interest in the sport in fifth grade, and had the excitement of an eager child when he told me he met a guy at work who used to be a professional pitcher.

“Now I was down 2-1, and I knew he was looking outside, so I tried to surprise him. I switched to a four-seamer and busted him inside. I missed, and it should have been ball three, but the umpire gave it to me. Williams didn’t take it well. He was a cantankerous sort in the best circumstances, and he gave me a glare that could’ve stopped my heart. I gulped so hard I bet he was watching my Adam’s apple swell up like in a cartoon.”

Pop worked at a men’s clothing shop on the south side of the city, back when people still went to their local store and always picked the salesman they knew, instead of just going online and searching by price. At least once a month, Mom dropped me off at Sunday school in the city; afterward, I’d catch the #50 bus south to Pop’s store so he could drive me home. Sometimes there would be little chores I could help with, but I usually just read a book or, when I got older, played video games. Of course, I also talked to Lefty on many of those occasions, since he visited the store almost every day.

“Next pitch, I aimed near the same spot, but it got away from me and turned into a prime pitch right down the gullet. I knew it was a mistake the second it left my hand. Williams swung hard, his body turning like a ballet dancer in motion, and pulled the ball down the right-field line. It looked like a home run off the bat, but the wind held it up and it drifted just to the right of the pole. He gave me a nod, like he was acknowledging that we were even and the count was deserved.”

Pop said he never saw Lefty buy anything, but he came around nearly every day. He lived just across the street from the shopping center where Pop worked, in the kind of black concrete building that looked like it had been around forever even when I was a kid. If he’d ever been married, he definitely wasn’t anymore, and none of his stories involved people he still knew or kept in touch with. I once asked Pop why Lefty came to a store all the time to tell stories to the salesmen; he thought about it for a moment and said, “I guess he must be lonely.”

“In all my years pitching in the minors, I never saw one of my pitches hit that hard, and I promised myself I wouldn’t throw anything anywhere near that last pitch. With all the concentration I could, I set myself and hurled a fastball to the outside corner. Williams fouled it off. I did it again. Same result.”

I wasn’t able to visit Pop at work much by the time I got to high school; Sundays started to mean group projects and movies at the mall with friends. In October of my freshman year of high school, he mentioned offhand that Lefty hadn’t been coming around for a couple of weeks. We got the word that he died not long after that. There wasn’t a funeral — an out-of-town relative took care of everything — but Pop and the other salesmen held a moment of silence for him and raised a toast to Lefty at the bar after work.

“He did it five times in a row, but the next one broke just a little at the end. I’m still not sure which seam I gripped differently, but it dipped just enough that he missed it by a fraction of an inch. He sauntered away, shaking his head and letting out a stream of cuss words, including a couple that were new to me. Not that I’m going to say them to a young man such as yourself.”

To help with homework during my senior year, Pop installed America Online from one of the discs we got in the mail. One night, I was watching a baseball documentary and it gave me the idea to try looking up Lefty’s stats. I tried dozens of sports sites, but couldn’t find any mention of Lefty Clarkson. Nothing under his birth name of Reginald, or even Reggie, and the only Clarksons I found played at the turn of the century. I still check periodically, since more of that stuff has found its way online, but still no luck. I’m honestly not sure if the minor league records were incomplete back then, or if Lefty just made it all up to impress people. I’ve never said anything about it to Pop; I’m not sure how he’d take it. He really liked knowing a ballplayer, and I don’t see any reason to potentially burst that bubble.

“It took a dozen pitches, but that’s how I struck out the great Ted Williams. You have to admit, it’s quite a story, isn’t it?”

Jeff Fleischer is a Chicago-based author, journalist and editor. His fiction has appeared in more than forty publications including the Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row Journal, Shenandoah, the Saturday Evening Post and So It Goes by the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. He is also the author of non-fiction books including “Votes of Confidence: A Young Person’s Guide to American Elections” (Zest Books, 2016 and 2020), “Rockin’ the Boat: 50 Iconic Revolutionaries” (Zest Books, 2015), and “The Latest Craze: A Short History of Mass Hysterias” (Fall River Press, 2011). He is a veteran journalist published in Mother Jones, the New Republic, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine, Mental_Floss, National Geographic Traveler and dozens of other local, national and international publications.

“Do we have to listen to this crap right now?” Holly asked.

Charlie shook his head. “How many times I gotta tell you? Sports ain’t crap.”

Holly made for the radio dial real fast, like she was going to change the station. Charlie tried to smack her hand away, but she pulled hers back before he could.

“Football ain’t crap, woman. Real men watch and listen to football and baseball and sports stuff.”

“Real men get jobs,” she said half under her breath.

“What you say?”

“I didn’t say nothin’. Just askin’ why men love sports so much.”

Charlie took his eyes off the road and looked at Holly for a second. He smiled wide.

“Guess it gives us something to look forward to.”

Holly shook her head. “Well, women look forward to men being busy with sports. That’s when we can really do what we want.”

That knocked the smile right off Charlie’s face.

“What you really wanna do, woman?”

“Hurry up, Charlie,” she said, ignoring the bait. “I don’t want to be late for this one neither.”

Charlie pressed down on the gas. Maybe he was trying to get her there. Maybe he just wanted to scare her by going fast.

They drove in silence for a few minutes then pulled up to the diner. Holly looked at her watch. She was right on time.

“Well, get goin’,” Charlie said. “And try not to screw this one up.”

Holly got out and slammed the car door.

Charlie rolled down his window and called after her. “I’m sorry, baby. I love you.”

She didn’t turn around.

Holly walked into the diner and was hit with something that smelled like Thanksgiving dinner. Her stomach rumbled. A haggard looking waitress flew by her and out the door.

“Hello,” a teenage girl said. “Table for one?”

“Oh, no, no,” Holly said. “I’m supposed to meet with a Mr. Winter for an interview. For waitressing.”

The girl smiled and quickly looked Holly over.

“Oh, how great! Let me get you a seat, and I’ll get him for you.”

The girl led Holly to a booth near a window. She could see Charlie in the car in the parking lot from there. He was talking to the waitress that had left the restaurant just as Holly came in, smiling and flirting like he was single.

“You want a drink?” The teenage girl asked.

“Oh, no, no,” Holly said. “I’m nervous as heck.”

The girl smiled. “I’ll get you something to make you feel a little better.”

The girl turned and walked out of sight, and Holly took off her jacket and sat down. Her fingers fumbled with her hair and tried to smooth it out a little. Then they tried to straighten out her dress.

When she felt together enough, she looked around. It was busy, for sure. Forks clinked and clattered against ceramic plates. A low rumble of voices came from everywhere and nowhere. A half dozen other waitresses were zooming around, all wearing the same bluish maid-looking dress. In the booth next to her, there were a bunch of fat teenagers. They were giggling about some nonsense. In front of her was a mom with three little kids. One of them climbed onto the seat and started looking at Holly. Somewhere on the other side of the diner, a baby started screaming.

The girl came back and put a big glass of iced tea in front of Holly.

“Some sugar’ll help,” she smiled. “Mr. Winter’ll be right with you.”

“Is it always this busy, hon?” Holly said.

The girl looked around.

“Well, just mainly during lunch and dinner times.”

“And how do you like it here?”

“Hey, young lady?” A man in a suit said from a few booths away. “Can you come over here and fix my order?”

The girl turned on her heel and went over to the man.

Holly watched. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, with all the talking and noise and such, but the man was pointing to the plates on the table and then back to the one in his hand. The girl took it and came back towards Holly. Her face was red, and that smile was gone.

Holly looked at another waitress not too far away. She looked like she’d been doing this for sixty years. Holly bet that her shadow probably looked old, too. Another one looked like she hadn’t had a bath or a shower in a couple of days.

Holly swallowed some air. “Oh, no, no.”

She looked around real quick. She didn’t see that girl or nobody that looked like a Mr. Winter.

She gulped down that iced-tea as fast as she could. She even took a few of the sugar packets from the table and put them in her jacket. Then, she got up and walked out of there fast enough, but not too fast to look out of place.

When she got back to the car, she didn’t see that other waitress anywhere. And Charlie had his head leaning back on the headrest, already napping.

She looked at him for a second. The bum.

“What’s he so tired for?” she thought.

She knocked on the window, harder than she really meant to, and he jumped straight awake. He looked around, trying to figure out what he heard. He saw Holly standing outside the passenger door. He wiped his mouth with the back of his fist and looked like he was trying to remember how to unlock the door.

After he finally found it, she jumped in.

“Well?” He said.

She turned and looked at him. Then her eyes narrowed.

She smacked him on the shoulder real hard.

“It’s all your fault. I told you I wanted to be early.”

“What are you talkin’ about, woman?” He half yelled.

“That manager, he said I was late. Said if I couldn’t be on time for the interview, I wasn’t gonna be on time for the job. He didn’t want no excuses neither.”

She folded her arms and leaned back in her seat. “I ain’t never been so embarrassed. Take me home.”

Charlie looked at Holly for a second. When she didn’t say any more, he turned the car on. He started backing up out of the parking spot.

Holly slapped her hand real quick at the radio station. This time, she didn’t fake it and changed the station to some music.

“I don’t want no more of your nonsense today, Charlie.” She said it without looking at him.

He didn’t answer. And he didn’t change the radio back to the football game.

She made like she was looking out the window, but really, she just had to turn her head, so Charlie wouldn’t see her smile. She put a hand over her mouth and tried not to laugh.

Oh, yes, yes, she thought.

She got him good this time.

THE END

JC loves all things story, health, fitness, and wellness, and is a nerd (a proud one) in too many ways to list. He and his wife have a clan of six pooches.

The man had done all he could. It had been decades since he first found shelter in the cave a short walk from the edge of Yorktown village. The natural formation of rock led inside under an overhanging cliff that wrapped in on itself from the verdant hill above like a cleft, upper lip. Submersed in its cool, unchanging dark, he did not emerge. To some, he was a simple recluse. To most, he was a filthy pest.

At times, he was revered in whispers after dark. He was more than a homeless man. He preserved the meaning of the cave. The eldest townies occasionally glanced into the opaque black of its mouth. They would return home, and rock on the porch for days through the mild winters of Virginia to tell unending tales of the solitary, eccentric man and the invisible home he kept.

In bygone days when war came to them, the cave was a refuge for noncombatants who endured the worst amid food shortages and rampant violence, followed by moral corruptions in its wake. It was a hallowed ground of ancestral suffering, where raped prepubescents and childless widows sat together and mourned before reentering society. They crept out into the sunlight maimed and traumatized to paralysis, weakened more and more with each empty, distant rumble of cannon fire.

“Human dignity is lost when working men compete for the most inflated chests, and desire medals of cold-blooded victory,” one grandpa told some children, who swallowed the hard kernels of wisdom from the war stories over watermelon and corn in the balmy air. “Before ever crossing no man’s land, they were defeated by the idea of heroic death.”

Susan was a flower for the picking. She ran away one midnight to greet the caveman. She did not know his name, but had heard of him for as long as she could remember. Dinners began at the table with her father praying for him, “Praise him, the meekest among us”. He had a mystic lure. She clasped her hands at the edge of her bed every night wondering how he lived and who he was. One night, she could not sleep. The seasonal winds whipped against the clapboard exterior of her family home. There were cannon blasts and rifles ablaze in the fields, muffled by distance.

After a fervent devotion, her eyes streamed tears onto her taut, prim bedding. She imagined the caveman’s face lonesome. She wanted to introduce herself before womanhood, while her innocence was still believable.

Her bedroom window opened with surprising ease. Her two younger brothers were asleep and did not stir. They dreamt away the humdrum domesticities of their daily lives. Her father had built the house so that the children’s bedroom was by a thick growth of brambles, to discourage escape. And thieving only increased with every hour as wartime rationing worsened.

Susan was undaunted. A slight prick caught her arm and let the tiniest stream of blood as she passed with a smile into the gusty air. Impassioned by her fright and naivety, she wrapped her nightgown in the thick, heavy woolen coat that her father kept by the shed. A thrill coursed through her. She marched confidently along the shorefront to the carriage road leading out of the village.

The windows of the town were sparsely lit with candlesticks low for the scarcities of wax and oil. It seemed unusually dark under the cloudy winds of the moonless night. There was a thin fog on the sea horizon, and a lighthouse flickered in the sound. The sea had never looked so perfectly black, she thought, feeling an unbearable mix of excitement and worry. She wondered what her father would say, if her brothers would be proud of her bravery. In the moment when her mother occurred to her, she saw the gaping maw of the path before her. It was like a wall of sooty brick. After the last house in the village all was unseen. She had never walked so far alone. It was only a few feet to enter the overgrown forest, where a narrower path led to tobacco fields, and to the battlefronts.

The coastal land transformed abruptly to ascending cliffs covered in vines and sloping trees that were bent from the sheer weight of gravity along the steep overgrowth. She once met Jacob, one of the sons of the family who lived in the last house, at a village fair. He was bragging to his friends at the center of a rowdy gang.

Jacob said he bested the caveman with a slice of his mother’s pie and a knack for pickpocketing. He showed a beheaded frog, saying he stole it from the fabled hermit. He told of how the gnarled man attended to a glowing red-hot, boiling cauldron overflowing with hair, and filled with bones, insects, beaks, snouts, tails and the foot of a human infant. And he was drooling while stirring the pot, and had slimy jars all around, caked in smears of putrid stains from the excess of his carnivorous concoctions.

“The man is a warlock,” said Jacob, through his browned and sugar-stuck teeth.

His words seethed with the spittle of a boy greedy for attention.

“I’ve seen him skin alive the bodies of the recently deceased. He is a grave robber, and wartime has made him rich and fat with the ingredients for his potions and tricks. My own mum tells me to keep my wits about me in the night, to sleep with one eye open and never to submit to feelings of temptation, as he fishes sleepwalkers into his bed, wooing women and children with the softest fur and feathers cleaned from catch about his thicket.”

A shock of white hair flashed at the mouth of the cave, lit by a momentary beam of moonlight before fading back into the deep. Susan stepped ahead nervously, and cracked a twig that to her heightened senses felt like a resounding pop in the strange silence of the night. The war must be on break, she thought, and dilating her pupils to the extreme, went closer into the yawning stone that tempted her unshakable curiosity. As from the black void, a hand reached out from the cavernous interior and pulled her inside. The dank walls smelled of a fungal must. Her heart beat to a pitch of feverish enchantment.

His fingers alone felt strong enough to pick her up by the skull. His wide palm stretched over the length of her shawled scalp and tightly braided hair. Her body exuded pure naivety, disarming him. He let go and struck a match. She saw his tired, but powerful eyes, the runnels and furrows of skin that wore his face with age. The low fire grew brighter against the humid, craggy subterranean home. Its warmth held them close. She could smell the cold sea outside. He was missing half a leg and many fingers. One of his eyes remained closed. She did not break her harmless stare. His face was half-burnt. He had scars all over.

“You’re a venturesome gal, aren’t ya?” he said with a surprising clarity, even eloquence, addressing her in a learned accent. “Have some herbal tea before your return home, my dear.”

His accent was thick, a tinge of brogue with a stranger, native element. His hair was thicker and shades darker than anyone of English stock that she had known within the close-knit village round. Everyone at home and all of her neighbors seemed to keep to themselves. If the militias the village had defended and supplied for generations were defeated, they would leave them, unarmed domestics, to a fate worse than the battlefield.

The tea tasted like nothing she had ever had at home. It was sweet, which was rare in days of rationing. She did not talk over his heavy silence. It was comforting. She remembered why she left home, to meet the invisible and unknown, to leave her childhood behind her. She wanted to greet him. He asked her why she had come, but she could not say then. Her thoughts felt too plain.

“What is your name?” she asked quietly.

“I’m Jack, but not from birth. That’s what they called me in the army.”

She began to feel like an adult speaking with him, more so than with her friends and family. It was alleviating, empowering to exchange words with him. He spoke to her intelligently and she responded with respect. Most importantly, she was satisfied with his answers.

She finished her tea and placed the roughly fired ceramic mug by the fire. For a long moment the friendly interactions over a hot, soothing drink and a crackling fire transported her to the warm homes of her extended family, when she would visit relatives and see playmates during the harvest. Her mind drifted to the beloved bonfires of autumn.

The next morning, she woke in her father’s home. But she had an unfamiliar sensation that night. Her brothers looked more disheveled than usual. They had risen well before dawn. Her mother, Rachel, was beaming with pride. Susan’s pelvis was aching. The boys ran off. Blood was on the bed. Her aunts appeared. She smiled at her favorite, Thelma. Her grandmother, Anne, sewed a new shawl.

“My daughter is a woman now. You will bathe in the the spring of St. Josephine,” she said with a soft tone. “How did you scrape your arm? I trust you had not found out about your maturation before dawn and then attempted to wash by the well?”

“The blood frightened me. I couldn’t bring myself to wake you and Papa. I thought, I am old enough so I should resolve the problem on my own. I climbed out from the window to soak along the shore and was caught in the brambles. You should have seen the tide, Ma! It was low, and the moon gleamed bright over the waves. Our village looked so beautiful. Do you forgive me?” she pleaded with a mischievous grin that sent Thelma through the roof with adoration. “Now, when are we going? I am in need of that bath.”

Anne wove the last knit of her ceremonial shawl. They gathered at the doorway. Thelma patted her lightly on the back. They wore protective clogs for the forested, wetland walk through the thorny bush. Arm in arm with Anne, one foot in front of the other, Susan walked off the unfamiliar pains. Her father’s sisters, Jane and Ruth, accompanied.

They neared the cave at the edge of the village and said a quiet prayer before moving up the path where it led to the tobacco fields. The earth quaked as they approached the advancing enemy front. Instead of stamping over pasture, they entered the densest part of the forest. A distinctive patch of shrubbery stood out. Anne knew exactly which branch to lower. She placed a knowing hand on the one that bent easiest for Susan to pass.

The way snaked through overgrowth, by a deer trail, to a clearing. There were wild blackberry bushes and holly trees under a stand of ash, leading to a round of high, lush oaks. A willow was bending over in dead center. Anne sat inside under the hanging branches on a bed of leaves. Her aunts positioned themselves across from one another under the taller, sheltering boughs that dropped acorns in the light wind brushing up against the sturdy trunks. The seaside cliffs of the marine horizon stood against the sea only a short walk from the clearing in the forest. It cultivated introspection, which Susan felt well, and saw in the eyes of her elders. The village back home was suddenly no more than a passing thought, invisible in the fertile backwoods.

Susan followed her mother down another narrower path, carefully brushing back twigs and leaves, moss and spiderwebs. The still morning air dampened and cooled as she climbed over a felled tree, entering deeper into the woods. She was alone. The silence itself listened. She heard the spring. In all of her days playing about the groves, she had never felt it so coolly running through her toes, and now it pulsed like an ocean wave over her body, knee-deep in its icy flow. The clear whirlpools washed past her exposed navel, holding her dress in a knot at her ribs to save the last of her clothing that was well kept in such times when every rag was valued and reused. All work was done to survive the war. Silvery foam spurted about her skin. She ipped her lower half in the stream, and heard her mother’s voice, gently, from behind the leaves.

“The water you sit in runs apart from that which fills our village well. It pours out through a mouth all its own into the ocean. Your body sits within its eternal cycle. It encompasses nature, from the roots of our virgin forests to the wings of our strongest eagle.”

“Do not fear, my daughter, never hesitate for a moment. You are one and the same with every bit of creation. Like the stream that now cleanses you, think of your power. It is unique. You may now think and act for yourself. You are a woman, equal to your aunts, your grandmother and I. We are your body. We love you. When you love your body, and are cleansed by these waters, you show your love to us.”

Her body was numb, but she sat, absorbed in the peace of mind she had, knowing that she was making her mother happy. She based in her contemplative mood. What she felt was as new to her as her secret meeting with the caveman. She drank his tea and woke to another life. The cooling flow relaxed her as she let it run through her legs.

Straightening her back to rise, she slipped. She was flexing her legs, and rocked by a tremor, tumbled headfirst into a shallow puddle over the exposed bedrock. Like thunder after a lightning strike, pulsing booms followed. She held her bruised forehead, and ran to her mother. The women were there, lost to the bliss of her day. They held each other, as their tears fell, fighting audible sobs. Tragedy had come for them at last. Galloping warhorses approached.

Under the warm shade of the summer day, Susan cowered in disbelief. Her father’s pale face flashed into her mind. He was wounded with frustration, wrinkled and confused. They would have to huddle in the forest until nightfall.

Hours passed like days. Mortal fear hung in the air like a man from a tree. Rachel developed a nervous tick, flicking her pointer finger till it bled. Anne bit the inside of her cheek with a vacant stare. They both looked strange, unfamiliar. She could hear skin breaking. She was entranced by the soggy decomposition of leaves and soil on the forest floor. The women prayers in rushed, strained mumbles, like a mad glossolalia. Thelma put her face down into her palms.

“They came,” Thelma kept saying in a daze, half to Susan, half to herself. “Let our people live.”

Her voice trailed off into the emptiness above the round of oaks. Dusk chilled overhead with amassing cloud cover. The light waned. Susan felt abandoned. She did not know what to do, and neither did her elders.

She crouched, and finally sat down before laying out flat to stretch her muscles from her toes to her fingertips on the bare earth. She played with the focus of her eyes, in and out through the spaces where the slow-moving leaves of the treetops were covered in sea fog. Her mother kneeled by her, and placed both of her hands on her to stroke her hair. Her mother pressed her fingers against her cold face. The sun slowly disappeared.

Night came. One by one the women rose from private genuflection. They thought together while listening closely for wayward soldiers in the dense forest. They decided to leave. Thelma led the way as the most limber of the five. They crossed the felled tree, careful not to snap a twig. The enemy soldiers were rumored to be bloodthirsty rapists. The path already crawled with men tasked to march any survivors left from the village to the nearest prison camp.

Jane and Ruth held the front and rear. Susan watched Thelma stop abruptly where tobacco farmers had long ago cut through the coastal forest. At a standstill, for a moment’s pause, Thelma turned to Susan, and then looked at Anne behind her. A rush of blood swept through them all at once as Thelma’s face contorted with shock. She could see it in the sweating, panting, dilated pupils of her sister, Rachel, whose worry had thrown her to the brink of sanity. And then, she pulled back the bundled tangle of knotted branches. The road was clear, and they could hear nothing.

“How do they know?” thought Susan.

Thelma looked through the bushy overgrowth, poking her head into the open space. She motioned for everyone to come closer. Then she ran off with a light patter, skipping swiftly to the edge of the forest. Susan never witnessed such extraordinary athleticism from her favorite aunt Thelma. Almost as soon as she dashed away she was back.

“No one,” she said, panting.

They were not interested in surviving alone. The village was unguarded, but eerily unpeopled. They would soon see it under a painfully clear, dawn light. Anne was overtired. They tip-toed on the path. The wind picked up in sporadic gusts. Susan saw dark clouds overhead. She could feel the nerves of the woman pulse erratically, she who had always been her refuge was a tangled mess. When she locked eyes with her second aunt Jane, she was ghostly pale, her hair stuck across her hollow cheeks. Hunger hit her like a smack against the inside of her stomach. Thelma spoke quivering through her rapid-fire heart rate. Her pulse visibly rattled her jaw. Her slender figure, which had always been one of her famous lures, looked weak, sickly. She waved for the rest to hurry so as not to remain in plain sight for too long.

They smelled the char of burnt wood, homes and gardens swallowed in flames. Smoke still rose and lingered against the darkening clouds. They came to the end of the path, and hesitated. Thelma went on ahead when the others could not yet. Only Susan followed as Jane and Ruth kept the eldest among them company. Susan and Thelma would never be able to render the sight into words. It would stay with them like a recurring nightmare. They turned back and told the women one unavoidable fact.

They would have to take what chance they had left by hiding in the cave. They stared into the inky abyss horrified. They huddled close together, observing the cleft stone of the cave’s mouth. Jane took half another step toward the beachfront of the village. She trailed behind and could not help herself. An inner compulsion caused her to steal a glance at the sea. The sight burned into the deepest part of her psyche. She was traumatized for life.

It was a man, bent with age, looking back towards her as the dawn light glowed over a crystal glass sea, stroked with blood-red rays that blazed over the horizon. The man then fell. His face was covered in soot, a part of his beard sliced clean off his chin, the stump of his only leg failing to hold him up as he pressed one of his hands to his gut. He looked at her, and sprawled out flat on his face.

Susan remembered him. His glance stunned her. Till her last breath, the thought of him there would move her to tears. The village where she was born went out of focus for her. It became a mirage. She descended into the cave, behind her aunts, mother and grandmother, into the lifeless dark. The others did not notice then how much Susan was changing.

As they went inside, the smell of the burned homes where they once lived dissipated. It was replaced by a soothing aroma. Tea had been left brewing overnight. It was the same herbal concoction that Susan drank with the caveman. Its aromas brought out a child-like feeling in her, a remote happiness that had faded to black since her rite of passage culminated in her confrontation with the war. For an instant, she overcame the wretched gloom that fatigued her heart.

They followed the warmth of the tea’s steam. The involuntary urge to satiate thirst, and with a familiar drink no less, had them on their knees. The air warmed until finally they gasped with jaws frozen open in disbelief. It was Jacob.

As they approached, Jacob wept at the sight of the women before they noticed him under a dim candle at the end of its wick. Jacob led Susan to the store of preserves in the back of the cave. As the elder women went back to tend the pot of tea, Jacob and Susan saw each other. They realized how hungry they were around the smell of the nuts, seeds, berries, herbs that the caveman had kept.

Jacob leaned in to peck Susan on the lips. He then ran away. She stood for a moment, and then walked back to sit with everyone in silence around the low embers under the kettle. They listened to the water simmer. It sounded like every reason to live.

“Did you see him?” asked Anne.

“He was a dream. Oh, he had a handsome face, a great, clean beard and as strong a pair of legs as any on this side of the world. And he wanted me. I was never his, and he was never mine, but we were close at times, to breaking away and making something new together. He did tell me once that he wished we would just take each other and run. Oh, how I wanted that.”

“He’s gone now, though, you see, not before we made it back alive. There will be light again on your face. And Jacob will be here,” she grinned.

Matt A. Hanson is a writer in Istanbul. He produces weekly and monthly features from across Turkey, Europe, the Middle East and the U.S. covering art, books, history, travel, and food. His work with various international newspapers and magazines is translated into Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew and Ladino. He is also an author of poetry and short stories, currently writing a series of historical novels set in Greece.

The Orchard
or
On the Edge of the Dark

“This saying good-by on the edge of the dark
And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark
Reminds me of all that can happen to harm
An orchard away at the end of the farm.”
—Robert Frost

He wasn’t exactly surprised when it happened, no not exactly, not at that deeper, primal level where dark things grow. After all, she told him once that sure as he was born, she’d poison him if he was ever unfaithful to her. She said she wouldn’t even tell him if she found out, she’d just bring him his nightly scotch and the Holy Ghost would take care of the rest.

“Oh, yessir,” his wife said. “The Holy Ghost most surely helps with matters like that, rest assured.”

Nathan smiled and took a long drink of the scotch she’d just set down in front of him.

“Good thing we’ll never have to worry about that,” he said. “I’ll be loving you into the grave, darling.”

Nathan Slaughter had long been suspicious of people and especially those who said they loved him, a trait that was inherited in both blood and word from his father. Never give your soul away when it’s the only thing you have left, his father told him. Whoever takes it won’t be around when God asks for it back. Nathan knew that people would take all you had if you weren’t careful; and when all you had left was a little happiness and love, that’s when they came prowling like wolves.

Nathan Slaughter vowed he’d never marry or give his own heart’s blood for someone who didn’t give something back, but somehow, he knew it was providence the day he saw Susan Moore stealing apples from the orchard.

As he watched her climb up into the trees and search for the ripest ones, dropping them into a sack on her shoulder, he swore then and there that he felt his heart leap in his chest. He swore again that when she took a bite of one of the apples and the juice dripped down her smooth, round chin, that was the exact moment he fell in love with her. He walked out to the tree and stood on the ground below. He smiled and told her that he could hand her over to the Sheriff for robbery, or she could let him take her out sometime.

They were married a month after the harvest, and Nathan spent near every dime on preparing their home: a new comfortable bed, a new stove, sofa, and all the dresses and hats his young bride could ever want. He gave her all he had to offer and in return she loved him and the orchard.

Of course there were some who thought it was a thing of great misfortune that she was forced to take the surname of Slaughter. But neither Nathan nor Susan ever paid it much mind. The Slaughter Orchard became something of a tourist trap as families passed through town and saw the signs for the orchard on their way to the beach: SLAUGHTER ORCHARD BEST APPLES IN THE STATE. The sign was a curiosity that couldn’t simply be driven past. Pictures of the signs filled tourists’ cameras and such free advertising gave Nathan and Susan a yearly boon of customers that made the difference between keeping the farm or going on the county. But more so than the name or yearly tourists, Nate Slaughter’s apples were second to none anywhere in the country. Crisp, sweet, with the perfect amount of tart, the juice seemed to pour out on the first bite like some ambrosia Nathan had been gifted from God, his reward for living a good, simple life.

Part of why Nathan Slaughter believed his apples tasted so good were their proximity to the old highway and its ever-increasing volume of traffic. Every other day, Nathan would go out at night and walk up and down the road, gathering the carcasses and carrion of creatures that died under the wheels of progress. Opossums, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, Nathan would get to them in the earliest breaths of morning, before the vultures and scavengers, and add their broken bodies to the compost for the trees.

The way Nathan saw it, he figured trees would be the one thing he’d miss most from this earth. He had grown up under their arboreal presence, had touched their bark and eaten their fruit ten thousand times before. They had carried him in their branches and heard his most private confessions and dreams, though they never spoke a single reply. He now cared for the orchard as he would have the child that was taken from him and Susan. Even before the infant could take a breath, such breath had already been taken from it. Nathan buried the boy under a tree in the center of the orchard, the oldest tree that had been planted long before any of the others.

As he walked the rows he whispered good-mornings and dragged his fingers across their skeletal branches. He would pluck an apple every few trees to test the fruit, and then leave the core on the ground for the worms to finish off.

Of course an orchard doesn’t make a man rich, but it gave just enough for many years. Nathan and his wife never had much extra, but they rarely were left to worry about things.

Nathan Slaughter loved his wife and took care of her throughout their forty-seven years of marriage. He planted and pruned and took care of his orchard every spring and summer, and by autumn the harvest was always bountiful. Nathan plowed his own plot, he chopped wood and carried water, and he considered himself a bird of the air, another lily of the field, and what little they had always seemed like more than what they deserved.

As the years passed on and the old mountain roads gave way to highways fifty lanes wide, as new cities were built where small towns once thrived, the highway and all the roads around the orchard were bought. Nathan prepared the orchard in the spring of that year, but by the time harvest came, the trees were heavy and full under the impossible weight of apples with no customers come to pick them. Nathan drove a meager several dozen bushels to the farmer’s market in his truck each week, but it would never be enough.

It was a Wednesday when the letter arrived in the mail and neither Susan nor Nathan gave it much thought. It just sat in a basket with all the other bills they wished to forget for another week. They forgot about the letter entirely until that following Wednesday when Susan opened the envelope. She read it twice just to be sure her eyes weren’t playing any games. She had been correct on her second read, and put a slender hand to her mouth to keep an elated scream from escaping. She folded up the letter and ran out to the orchard. Her husband was walking the rows, murmuring things to himself and to the trees like an open wound. Never had Susan interrupted Nathan when he walked the rows, but she felt the letter seemed cause enough today.

“This came for you,” she said, hurrying down the row to catch up with her husband. “We might have solved our troubles!” He took the letter, read it, and folded it back up neatly. He slid it into his back pocket and smiled at his wife.

“It’s one fine morning isn’t it,” he said.

She nodded, waiting for him to say something about the letter.

“How about some lunch, darling?” he said.

Susan was unsure what to make of this and his rather dull expression. But she nodded and went back to the house to prepare lunch all the same.

When Nathan came in a half-hour or so later, he washed up at the sink and sat down across from his wife and said the blessing.

Susan waited for as long as she possibly could for Nathan to say something, but as she watched his jaw bounce and gnaw on his lunch, she saw no words were going to come.

“What do you think about the letter from the county?” she said.

“Not a whole lot,” Nathan said.

“Two-hundred thousand dollars sure is something to think about, Nathan.”

He stared at her, feeling his heart sink. He wasn’t exactly surprised about this, not exactly, not on the deeper, primal level where dark things grow. He knew what was happening, what was coming. No, he wasn’t surprised, but sad. Yes, that was the word. That’s what was making his heart bleed in hopeless murmurs like a wailing animal. He wasn’t surprised. He’d been waiting for it after all.

“Don’t you think it’s time to let this place go?” she said. “Don’t you want to live in a city for once, to have neighbors? Don’t you ever think about seeing the world?”

“No, I don’t,” he said.

“Goddamnit, Nathan, it’s dead, the orchard is gone. I want to be around people, I want to go to parties and cookouts. I want to go to the ocean in the summer. I want to be in the world, like how people are. Not stranded on an orchard in the mountains. I’ve done this for you for almost all my life. I can’t anymore. I can’t! I can’t!”

He helped himself to an apple from the bowl on the table and took a large bite. He chewed and thought, holding his sharp blue eyes steadily on his wife.

“Sign the papers, Nathan. For me. Or at least, call that office and talk it through. You can do that, can’t you?”

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “Thank you for lunch, darling.” He stood, cleared his dishes, and walked back out to the orchard.

As he spread fresh compost dirt around the understory of the orchard, Nathan did think about the letter. He knew what it meant. He knew that a group of men somewhere wanted to take what little he had, so they could destroy it. They destroyed the things they didn’t understand and the things that frightened them and the things they could never have. And Nathan knew the orchard was all of these things to those men. They bought up land to burn it down and create a new earth on top of it, an earth they could own and ruin. Progress they called it, industry and innovation. But Nathan knew it wasn’t anything more than rot and decay. If Nathan signed those papers he would just be another coward bending the knee to greed. Thesemen felt that the price of Nathan Slaughter’s soul was worth two-hundred thousand dollars, and he laughed at the thought just then. Who would be left if he sold? If all the land goes to the fire, what will be left for the people? Surely Susan saw this, dear God she must see this as clearly as he did.

He had been born on the orchard; he had eaten and found sustenance from the land. This plot of earth had heard his cries, dreams, and sorrows. He had bled on this earth, wept on this earth, slept, ate, thought, pissed, walked, dreamed, loved on this very earth he stood. He had given the orchard his own heart’s blood and it had given all of itself back to him.

He stuck his shovel in the dirt and lay down under the shade of the apple trees. Below him, he could almost swear he heard his son’s voice whispering, he could hear the entire line of his people back to the beginning, all buried in this earth, calling out to him. Above him, the sky murmured in a soft August song as sunlight dripped like honey past the cloudbreak and rested evenly on his old, tired skin.

“To whom would I go,” he said to the trees. “You have all a man could need.”

Susan stared at the letter. She read each word carefully, wondering if there was something she was missing that Nathan saw. There wasn’t. She saw it all, saw it clearly. They had lived every single day of their forty-seven years of marriage in this house together, on this orchard, and that was more than enough in her mind. The way she saw it, it was simply time for something more, something just . . . different. That was all. She’d given all she was to be with Nathan on this land, had stopped her own ambitions and killed her dreams, so he could fulfill his own. Now, all she wanted was to feel the ocean. She wanted to lay down on the warm sand and feel the tide wash over her as the noise of the world fell away.

She looked out the kitchen window and could see Nathan lying down in the orchard. She felt her heart sink. She had warned him of this. If ever he was unfaithful to her, she told him what she’d do, and in that moment, she finally saw it. He loved the orchard more than he loved her, more than he ever would love her. She wondered if perhaps she wasn’t also partly to blame in the matter. She let him go off like he did, let him grow more and more quiet and spend all his time among the trees. She never spoke up about her feelings, and while that may have been a splinter in her wounded heart, Nathan was to blame for the beam stabbed beside it.

She picked up the house phone from the wall by the refrigerator and dialed the main office number provided on the letter. She lit a cigarette, smoking it in quick, anxious puffs, and waited, watching Nathan lying in the grass through the window.

“Mr. Blackburn, please,” she said. “This is Susan Slaughter . . . Slaughter . . . yes . . . It is about the eminent domain letter we received . . . yes, yes, I’ll hold . . .”

With the telephone cradled between her ear and shoulder, a handful of warm gray ash in her palm, she stared out at the endless rows of perfect apple trees. The taste of apples seemed stained on her tongue and apples was all she could smell anymore. Just then, the timer on the oven sounded a dissonant bell, the sweet brown sugar smell of caramelized apples in the pie drifted from the stove and blended with the ribbons of Pall Mall smoke. She felt sick at the smell of apple pie.

“Good-bye,” she whispered towards the trees. “Good-bye and rot in the cold.”

When Nathan Slaughter saw the car coming up the long driveway he wondered if his prayers didn’t change God’s mind after all. The late October air was warm and balmy. Nathan wiped the sweat from his forehead as he leaned on the fence post, watching the car he hoped were customers pull up. It didn’t look like any of the normal cars that tourists drove to pick apples though. But he wasn’t about to turn away customers on account of his own judgments.

The car stopped in the driveway near the house. As the man stepped out, Nathan immediately saw he wasn’t there for any apples. The man wore gray suit pants, a black tie, and a clean white shirt, rolled up to the elbows and watery stains of sweat soaking the underarms. The man’s dark brown hair was smoothly combed back and shimmered in the warm autumn sunlight. The man looked around a moment, at the humble little farm house, at the orchard, at the mountains resting in a blue haze and cutting like a dragon’s back across the horizon surrounding him. His eyes settled on the old man’s.

“Afternoon, sir,” the man said.

“Howdy,” Nathan said.

“Mr. Slaughter, I presume?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m Daniel Blackburn, of the firm MacIntosh and Otis. We’re representing the county of New Oxford.”

Nathan stared at the man, chewing on the filter of his cigarette.

“I’m here to discuss our offer,” Blackburn said. “Or, well, your acceptance of it. There are just a few things to sign and look over.”

“Acceptance?”

“Yessir. You received our letter?”

Nathan wiped his brow again, holding his eyes on the man.

“I believe I spoke with your wife, Susan is it?” he said. “Is she around by chance? Perhaps we can all speak together.”

“She’s inside there.”

“Oh, great,” Blackburn said, shifting his briefcase from right hand to left in a wave of unease.

“But there’s nothing to discuss. You must have the wrong place.”

“No, sir, I don’t believe so.” Blackburn reached inside his briefcase and pulled out a few papers. “Is this your information?” he said, and walked over to hand the papers to the old man. Nathan read it and nodded. “And your wife’s signature there, just above yours?” Nathan recognized his wife’s tidy print, and saw a strange, monstrous version of his own name.

“Well, it appears so,” Slaughter said. He looked past Blackburn and past the house and through time. He didn’t feel the poison, not at all, not until right then. How bitter it was. He felt his heart bleed and let out a long sigh as he lit a fresh cigarette. “So you’re taking the orchard, that it?” he said.

“Well, not me, sir. The county. They’re breaking ground on new plans to build a highway that’ll connect 52 Southbound and 40 West. Gonna change the whole state, and for the better, too.”

“How’s that?”

“Everything will be connected, see. People really hate having to change highways at the connector, so we’re making it a straight shot. They’ll be able to go from Ohio to South Carolina in three hours less now. No bypass, no changeovers. And it’ll be safer roads, too. Means business, housing, the whole kit-and-caboodle.”

Nathan Slaughter nodded and smoked. “Say, you ever been on an orchard before, Blackburn?”

“Geez, not since I was a kid,” Blackburn said.

“Follow me over yonder. We’ll get to the papers, but you have to taste a real piece of fruit.”

Blackburn smiled, left his case, and followed Slaughter through the long grass and they disappeared down the orderly rows of apple trees.

It was late in the afternoon by the time Nathan got home from walking the orchard. He’d walked almost twenty acres all told, but somehow he didn’t feel a bit tired. He leaned the shovel against the doorframe and walked inside. He took his boots off, poured himself a generous pour of Cutty Sark and sat in his favorite chair.

“My Lord, old man, how many times do I have to tell you to take your boots off outside,” Susan said.

Nathan nodded absently as he took a sip and stared out at the evening sun falling behind the orchard. She saw the black briefcase beside the boots.

“Where’d you get that briefcase?” she said.

“At the getting place,” he said.

Susan picked up the boots with a sigh of disgust, as she had done a thousand times before. She stopped suddenly as she dropped them on the stone steps by the door. She picked up one boot and, there on the gray stone, was the worn pattern of her husband’s left foot print in bright red blood. She stepped out onto the porch to get a better look and saw the car in the driveway. She paused in the doorway and looked at her husband sitting in his chair. The evening light illuminated his scruffy white beard and balding head.

“Nathan,” she said in a soft tone. “Why is there blood on your boots?”

“There was a fox caught in the fence down by the holler, trying to get into the orchard,” he said. “He was past any help so I had to send him on.”

She swallowed at the sudden dryness in her throat. “Oh, all right then,” she said. She looked at the boot print glowing in the waning light, then at the car again. A clean, black Ford Crown Vic. She felt her jaw hanging loose like a dead man’s and closed it.

“Nathan, honey,” she said. “Why is there a car out in the driveway?”

He took a drink and stared at the orchard. “I was hoping you might tell me, darling.” His pale blue eyes rested on hers. They seemed watery, brimming with tears.

“Customers?” she said.

“No. No, I don’t think so.” He finished his drink and stood. “It’s all right, darling. Just go ahead and tell me.”

She was weeping even before she realized. Forty-seven years of a sheltered life came bursting out. Forty-seven years of unbridled devotion and love. Forty-seven years of cleaning, dishes, laundry, pouring drinks, cooking meals. Forty-seven years of eating apples: apple pie, apple turnovers, apple streusel, apple sauce, apple cider. Forty-seven years of staring out at the orchard, of dreaming about a life that would never be hers.

“I called that office, Nathan,” she said.

He stood there quiet, patient and chillingly calm as he let her speak.

“And I signed those papers. I had to. You aren’t thinking clearly about this. You’re so goddamned obsessed with those trees that you’ve forgotten about our lives, you’ve forgotten about me, Nathan. You’re in love with a damned orchard, not me. I warned you. I told you I couldn’t let that happen. This is a way out. We can finally be happy for once. God knows I deserve it. I do. And whether you come with me or not, I’m going. I’m going to see the ocean.”

Nathan bent his head and looked out at the trees again.

“Where is the man? Mr. Blackburn,” she said. “He’s come to talk it all through. He’ll tell you. There’s nothing we can do anyway. We have no say in it. We have to sell. You’ll see, when you talk to him.”

“I talked with him,” Nathan said.

“Where is he, Nathan? Where’d he go?”

The old man continued looking out the window at the trees bending in the wind. The crooked branches bounced in the breeze, heavy with the weight of the fall harvest waiting to be picked.

“Where is he, Nathan.”

“He’s out in the orchard, darling.”

“My God, Nathan, oh God, what did you do?”

Susan ran out the door and out into rows of trees. Nathan walked calmly towards the door, stepped into his boots, and picked up the shovel. He held it across one shoulder as he came through the rows, walking among the trees as he did each evening, as the October breeze brushed against his skin with familiar coolness.

“Darling, come on out now,” he said, coming through the grass.

He saw her kneeling under the old tree in the center of the orchard, crying and gasping for breath.

“We can’t leave here, Susan,” he said, standing behind her. “This is our home. We have lived here all our lives and we will die here. They can’t just take what they want. They can’t just take our home from us. We can’t let them.”

“No, no, Nathan, I sold it. We have to leave. We have to! Please just do this for me. I’m going to call that office and we’ll get our money and we can be happy. I promise that we . . .”

Nathan brought the shovel down across the back of his wife’s head before she could finish. She froze for a moment where she knelt, then fell over into the soft green grass.

“Hush now, darling,” he said. “We can’t go anywhere. The trees need us. This is our home.”

He buried her beside their son under the tree in the middle of the orchard. He smiled as he gazed at the night sky being cut open by the mountains just above the tree tops. We’re not going anywhere, he whispered to the trees. He packed the dirt tight under his feet and spread a healthy layer of fresh compost on top of where Susan lay. “Just wait till next year,” he said. “They’ll be the sweetest apples yet.”

It was spring when the sheriff’s Bronco came bouncing up the long driveway. Nathan watched, smiling, as the car slowed and parked near the house. Sheriff Moss stepped out, putting on his tan cowman’s hat. His face was stern and tired and held steady on Nathan’s as he walked over to the old man.

“Morning Sheriff,” Nathan said. “One fine morning today, isn’t it. Bright shiny morning.”

“Nathan, can we step inside, please,” Sheriff Moss said.

“What’s the trouble, Larry? We can talk out here.”

“Look, Nathan. I’m not sure what you think is happening or if you know all the details here, but the county has the right to take the land. Your wife has signed the papers, last fall even, so I’m not sure why you’re putting up a fuss now.”

“No, that was a mistake, Sheriff. You know, she had thought those papers were for her catalogues or something. Honest mistake. I believe we even cleared that up with the office.”

“Yes, but, it doesn’t change the facts of what’s happening here.” Sheriff Moss looked back to the house. “Is Susan around?”

Nathan shook out a cigarette and lit it.“

She’s out in the orchard, Larry. With a fella from that office. Out there now.”

“Well maybe we can all talk and settle this once and for all, how about.”

“Oh, no, no, I don’t think so . . .”

“Nate, I really need to speak with her.” Sheriff Moss stared at him dead on.

Nathan looked at the sheriff and broke into a wide, toothy smile.

“Sure, sure, where are my manners. Of course, Larry, you can speak with her. Let’s go and get this cleared up, eh?”

The men walked out into the orchard and down the long neat rows.

“Beautiful spot, Nate. Truly beautiful.”

“Thank you, Larry. There’s plenty that can harm an orchard, but I keep her safe.”

“Damn shame though. Damn shame you have to sell.”

The old man was quiet, switching the shovel he carried from one shoulder to the other.

“Know where they might be?” Sheriff Moss said.

“Just up yonder,” Nathan said. “But first, you have to try these apples. Bloomed early this year. Damnedest thing. Apples in May.”

They paused at the tree in the dead center of the orchard. The tree was littered with large, beautiful apples.

“They’re unlike anything,” Nathan said. “Here, you have to try one.”

He handed an apple to the sheriff and Moss took a bite. The juice dripped down his chin like honey.

“My God, that’s delicious,” Sheriff Moss said between bites.

Nathan smiled.

“Damn shame you have to sell,” the Sheriff said, and took another bite.

The Sheriff turned to look down the rows and Nathan raised the shovel and swung. As Sheriff Moss fell, the apple rolled from his hand and into the grass. Nathan bent and picked it up. He took a good bite and bits of apple and a spray of juice flew from his mouth.

“Told you, this is the best crop yet, and in spring! Who would have thought.”

Nathan Slaughter walked on down the row eating apples, dragging the sheriff behind him. A roar of trucks and machines quaked through the earth, coming up the old highway, but Nathan didn’t hear it.

“What a morning,” he said, pausing in the rows. “What a fine morning.”

He smiled and helped himself to another fresh apple from the tree and let the juice drip down his chin like honey.

“My Lord, what a fine piece of fruit,” he said.

Spencer K. M. Brown lives in North Carolina with his wife and son. As a father and teacher, he writes in the brief moments his life currently allows: at stop lights, while his baby sleeps, while his students are taking tests, in line at the store. His debut novel Move Over Mountain will be published in November, 2019 by J. New Books.

I.

The moon passes between Earth and sun,
its shadow crossing the crust of our lives.

History eventuates into now.
The sun shrinks, dies away—

the dark’s aperture swallows us
whole. This passing into blackness

completes itself in scalding light,
ringing the disk with torrid flame.

Spectacle of story, recollected
by belly, retina, brain—indelible as pain.

II.

A box truck stalls on the hill.
A dump truck tows a trailer up,

a planned rescue. A pick-up above
the box truck begins to push it

onto the trailer, its tongue popping up
from the cargo’s weight, the dump truck’s

back wheels leaving the ground,
its brakes helpless in mid-air. The box

truck, only half loaded, and the trailer,
the dump truck: all lunge downhill,

a parked forklift straight in their path,
the back wheels and tongue still raised

high—a triangular cavalcade skidding,
barreling, a dreadful behemoth on the lam.

III.

The son rushes to mount the dump truck.
His panicked father hastens down front,

angles his pick-up to halt the sliding
mass of steel. Unable to see his son

hurtling for the door, the levers, he crushes
him between dump truck and pick-up.

His son’s body crumples under the trailer.
The hoisted wheels drop from the sky, pinning

him again. He is broken. The silence
is staggering, shrill. The damage eclipses belief.

IV.

The piercing scream of metal on asphalt,
the father’s lurch of knowledge, riot of gut.

His spiraling agony—cataclysm of seared
retina, sun effaced by a fractious moon.

This father treads a relentless crepuscular
earth. His light passes each morning.

The shroud slips over him, envelops
him, nullifies thought, seals him up.

Annette Sisson lives in Nashville, TN with her husband, dog, and a small flock of hens. She is Professor of English at Belmont University, where she teaches and mentors students. In her free time, she enjoys baking, hiking, supporting local theater, watching the birds at her feeders, reading, and writing. Her publications include Zone 3, Rockvale Review, and Nashville Review, and she has poems forthcoming in Passager Magazine and The Blue Mountain Review. Her chapbook, A Casting Off, was published by Finishing Line Press in May 2019. She recently won The Porch Writing Collective’s poetry contest and was awarded honorable mention in Passager’s spring 2019 poetry contest.

Elizabeth ducked just in time to avoid the clump of spaghetti that flew through the air. Passing over her head, it hit the wall with a wet splat and stuck in place. Susie squealed in delight from her high-chair, it was an amusing sound to a baby. Elizabeth had only turned away for a second to grab the bottle of milk from the fridge and evidently this was long enough for her daughter to turn her plastic spoon into a catapult.

“Susie, you know you’re not supposed to make a mess,” Elizabeth said. She aimed to strike a balance between stern and mean. “Are you going to help me clean this up?”

Susie gurgled in her seat. Of course she wasn’t.

Elizabeth grabbed the roll of paper towels off the counter while her daughter amused herself eating bits of mushed up spaghetti with her bare hands. She tore a piece off and wiped the pasta strands from the wall. She held another piece under the tap to dampen it in an attempt to soak the sauce that splattered across the light-blue wall. The resulting orange stain caused her to stand there with a furrowed brow as the phone started ringing.

Not the phone on the wall, but the other one she kept in a non-descript box inside a drawer underneath the microwave. She pulled the phone from its hiding spot and flipped it open.

 “Go,” she said.

“Behind the dollar store at Kent and Duchess. One hour. It’s forty-five degrees outside,” the voice told her. His slight accent still broke through on the vowels, despite his attempts at concealment.

“Confirmed.”

 Elizabeth closed the phone and placed it in her pocket. Turning around, she found her daughter draping long strands of spaghetti across her head, a makeshift pasta wig to cover up a hairline that was still growing in. Elizabeth picked Susie up and out of her high-chair, pasta locks included, and headed down the hall to the stairs.

“Mark,” she said as she climbed to the second story of their house to locate her husband. Elizabeth found him in the baby’s room underneath the change table that had recently broken with only his lower half visible.

“Almost done.” The sound of a screwdriver breaking through particle board carried with his voice.

 She couldn’t wait for him to be done. “I have to go to work. You need to look after Susie.”

Mark sat up from the floor, small wood shavings falling off of him. He hesitated for a second when he spotted their daughter’s pasta and sauce hairdo, but they had both moved through the stage where they were taken aback by how weird babies could be.

“Alright, alright,” he said. Mark stood up and took Susie into his arms. “Hey, wanna hang out with Daddy? Wanna play with me when Mommy goes to work?”

 Elizabeth was planning to wait another month before instigating a discussion about cutting out the amount of baby talk. It wasn’t good for Susie’s long-term cognitive development, but Elizabeth could just be silently annoyed for a few more weeks. In the meantime, she leaned in for a quick kiss from Mark.

“I’ll be right back. And you better be in bed by then.” She lightly rubbed the baby’s nose, which made her giggle.

“Be safe,” Mark said to her, before he lifted up one of Susie’s chubby arms. “Wave goodbye to Mommy.”

Elizabeth smiled and waved back. It was time to go. She made a quick stop in the bedroom to change into some dark clothes from her work bag in the back of the closet. A minute later, she was sitting in the car reversing out of the driveway. She kept her eyes open for kids playing in the cul de sac before driving away.

Elizabeth made sure to turn off the GPS in the car. She didn’t have to worry about her work phone, burners don’t come equipped with those. She knew where she was going. She merged onto the highway just as the last glimpse of the sun faded away. By the time she pulled off at the right exit, it was completely dark.

The strip mall was empty. It was composed of a group of barely-operating stores and restaurants in a crummy part of town, so it was always empty. She parked in front of one of the restaurants so that anyone passing-by would assume she was there to satisfy a late-night poutine craving.

Elizabeth waited patiently at the stop lights until the walk sign lit up. She crossed over into the adjacent parking lot and walked around to the dollar store. There was a prominent security camera pointed directly at her from the top of the wall, but she knew it had been deactivated years ago. It hung there now as an empty threat.

Rounding the back corner, she found two middle-aged men standing in front of a parked older-model sedan. Greg and Ras were expecting her. She wasn’t supposed to know their names but she would have been very bad at her job if she was unable to gather that information. They wore matching dark pin-striped suits that had gone out of fashion years ago, with the lapels pointed into the shadows. She had never seen them wear anything else, and she liked to imagine they even had identical striped closets.

The wind picked up as the two men moved towards her. The leaves were going to start turning soon. The scent of hair gel and too-much cologne reached her nostrils.

“Excuse me, miss. Do you know what the temperature is?” Greg asked her.

“It’s forty-five degrees outside.”

His thick face briefly twisted turned into something might have been a smile. “Indeed it is.”

Greg reached into his pocket, the smaller one, not the inside pocket with the gun-shaped bulge. He pulled out a set of car keys and held them out for her. Elizabeth grabbed them with one gloved hand and headed for the trunk of the parked car. It was time to survey the damage and see how much of a scrape job this was going to be.

She opened the truck and instead of the mess she was expecting, all she found was a medium size plastic garbage bag. The bag was semi-transparent, especially in the bottom where it all had settled into an indistinguishable darkened wet mass.

 Elizabeth was confused, but was sure not to show it. “Where’s the rest?” she asked.

“That is all that is left,” Greg told her.

Elizabeth had seen a lot of things on the job. Normally there was just more to see.

“You have something else for me?” she asked. She didn’t hesitate in case they had decided to test her for weakness for some reason. They didn’t need to worry.

The two men glanced at each other and nodded. Apparently she had passed the test. It was Ras’ turn to reach into his pocket, this time to remove a thick envelope to hand over to her. Elizabeth placed it inside her jacket without opening it to count. She wanted to, but these guys looked at that sort of thing as a sign of disrespect. Besides, the weight indicated that it was close enough to the right amount.

Elizabeth walked between the two men to get to the drivers’ side door of the car. “Don’t follow me,” she said. Climbing inside the sedan, she noticed the harsh bleach smell that still lingered. She closed the door and started the car, listening to the old engine struggle to turn over. Greg and Ras kept their eyes on her as she pulled out of the parking lot and left them standing in the dark.

 The silence in the vehicle became a comfort to Elizabeth. At home, silence meant that something was wrong, that the baby could be in trouble. Out on the road, silence meant everything was going fine. It felt like she was wearing a favourite sweater again.

Her route made no sense, filled with extra turns, reversals and frequent street changes for no apparent reason. All to avoid any possible followers. She didn’t mind the added time and mileage. It’s not like she was paying for the gas. Greg and Ras probably hadn’t paid for it either.

Elizabeth would have claimed that it was just a coincidence that her route took her near the school she wanted Susie to attend, but in truth she just liked to scope the place out from time to time. Not private, but in the upper tier of public schools. Nice but not too nice. She wasn’t raising her kid to be an asshole.

She drove to the junkyard out by a nearly forgotten highway exit, one that couldn’t handle the traffic when it expanded to eight lanes and now was there mostly to confuse lost drivers. Elizabeth wasn’t lost.

The junkyard was blocked off with a rusty old gate that had been left unlocked. It was always unlocked for Elizabeth, and she wondered if it was like that all the time. The sedan crept slowly toward the very back of the yard where all the heavy machinery had been lined up. A makeshift metal wall between the scrap heap and the clearing behind it.

She reached the machines and pointed the front of the car towards what looked like a giant metal box. Elizabeth gently drove over the edge and parked the car inside, like a toy being returned to its packaging.

Any other junkyard would have had a million safety features in place to prevent her from driving directly into a hydraulic crusher. The fact that these had all been disabled and removed meant that the nominal owners of this place had to know her pin-striped acquaintances.

Elizabeth left the keys in the ignition and climbed out of the car. She stopped at the trunk and popped it open to grab the bag. Holding it casually, she exited the crusher and walked to the control panel that stood in front of the industrial-sized piece of equipment.

A machine this big looked complicated but its appearance was deceiving. These things were designed to be idiot proof, so all it took to power it up was turning a conveniently left behind key and pushing a button. The machine rumbled to life as the pistons fired and began to push the walls together. She heard metal snap and glass break as the sedan folded inwards like an accordion.

Elizabeth walked away with the machine running, having heard this part enough times before and knowing that it would be disposed of the next day through another secret arrangement Greg and Ras had made.

She slipped through the line of machinery and stood on the edge of the clearing that bordered the junkyard. Once a landfill, it had been turned into a large field as the first stage of a land reclamation project launched by the city. Elizabeth was glad that she and her husband had chosen to settle in a community that cared about the future.

The next phase had already begun, and the clearing was dotted with dozens of recently planted trees, framed by a tool shed and tree nursery near where she stood.

This would all be a beautiful park soon. One where they could bring Susie to play. She could stack her blocks in the sun while Mommy and Daddy watched and tried to get enough exercise to stave-off middle age for another few months.

The city workers had left all their tools in the shed, secured with a lock that was too easy to pick. Elizabeth helped herself to a shovel and canister of gas that was used to fill up the landscaping tools. She headed for the point in the clearing where the latest trees had been planted, marked with a large steel barrel that the workers used for garbage and cigarette butts.

 Elizabeth dropped the bag into the opening and it disappeared into the darkness. A wet plop signaled its arrival at the bottom. She opened the canister and poured gasoline on top of it. The smell still tickled her nostrils and she made sure not to breathe in any of the carcinogenic fumes. Reaching inside her jacket, she pulled a small pack of matches. Removing a single one to use as a fuse, she struck it and placed the burning match back between the thin cardboard facing out from the rest of the pack. The flame was small but it would be enough. She dropped the entire pack into the garbage barrel.

The flames shot up in an instant casting long shadows behind all the new trees. Daggers stretching across the earth. The smell of petrochemicals and burnt plastic only lasted a moment before being replaced by the gentle aroma of smoke.

It was easy to envision her family enjoying a campfire in the park, snacking on toasted marshmallows after playing hide and seek among the trees. They could even invite a few of Susie’s school friends along. Hopefully friends from the nicer school. Elizabeth knew how important it was to socialize children and she had every intention that Susie would have the skills she needed to be comfortable and, more importantly, confident among her peers. If she could just get Mark to ease off on the baby talk.

Once the flames shrunk down and grew faint, Elizabeth used the shovel to break up any remaining pieces. She stabbed at the bottom of the barrel and each thrust sent a small gasp of embers into the air, along with the occasional blackened shard.

Satisfied, she walked to the last row of trees and used her soot-covered shovel to dig a shallow hole. It didn’t have to be very deep this time. She gently dragged the barrel over to the hole and could feel the residual heat along the metal rim through her gloves. She tipped the barrel onto its side and let the new ashes fall into the hole. With the light from the sun gone they were indistinguishable from the dirt.

After a quick trip to the tree nursery, Elizabeth returned to the hole with a small sapling. Despite its modest size it had strong broad leaves that could survive a storm. Full of potential. She placed it gently into the hole so that the roots would sink deep into the ashes. She filled the hole back up with dirt and when she was finished it looked just like every other tree in the row but Elizabeth walked away knowing that she had given it an advantage over the others.

Matt Dodge is a Toronto-based author of short stories. Educated at the University of Ottawa, he is currently working on novel while slowly paying off his student debt. His work was most recently featured in the Cold Creek Review.

MORNING RUSH

The downtrodden in loose
bits of dried red mud
caked to their work boots
shirt-tails hanging out. A teen
squeaks hot pink sneakers
on the recently mopped floor.
Half asleep, children whine
about the cold, hair marred
by a hard ruthless pillow
instilling cow licks and sleep
in the corner of the eye. Sales

Blossom as the, good mornings
are checked out. Customers pack
the deli section for on-the-go cold
cuts and breakfast bagels. Workers
finish their nightshift on cheap
cole slaw and bar-b-que sandwiches
before heading home. Poured
cups of steaming coffee
heat up the air. Coughing,

Sniffling, sneezing, and one hacker
of last night’s cigars wait in a
line extending backwards from the
sales register. Linemen tuck hard
hats under their arms, sleeves
rolled up, forearms greasy
from work. A father mothers
his rebellious child forward. They bump
into the always nicely dressed
Mr. Robert, an elderly gentleman
with thin lips and a bowtie. Another
follows wearing a tee saying, Believe in
the Lord, but places her faith
in lotto number nine. Brother Joe
the wannabe preacher from across town
prays loudly for all their souls. Escalating

Purchases peak for the cashier
money exchanged, credit taken
goodbyes given. Headache
powders, caffeine pills, and packs
of cigarettes are dealt out like
tarot cards. The line extending
backwards shrinks. Time for a quick
bathroom break and smoke. Sales
dwindle as the noon day rush begins.

BROAD & MAIN

Congestion begins at seven
and ends at ten on the nights
hoisting TV specials. The arena
dumps cars, trucks, and buses
into the intersection. A station wagon
and sedan nearly collide, dodging the
pedestrians crossing Broad. An activity
bus packed with rowdy children
takes the crossroads. Construction
trucks scatter gravel onto the
asphalt. The red “Don’t
Walk,” flashes, changes to a
green “Walk.” Several well-suited
businessmen dash to the other
side of Main. The public transit
makes the connection to the right. A
harsh-mouthed Latino taxi
driver spews Spanish curses at a
mom and two kids spanning the crossway.

A tractor trailer jack-knifes
crashes into a blue RV, three autos,
and a mini-bus with eight elderly
shoppers returning from the mall. The
eighteen wheeler smashes into a flatbed

truck and burst into flames. The unbuckled
driver slams his head against the windshield
blood gushes from the wound. Emergency
crews arrive on scene, blue lights flash
sirens scream. The crossing is blocked off
by rescue workers who save lives, pull
charred mangled bodies from the wreckage. News
vans arrive, set up. The reporter straightens
her hair, checks her makeup, flashes a smile.
We’re on. She whirls about, candidly addressing
the camera, Breaking News,there’s been a tragic
accident at Broad and Main.

Randy Lee White is the author of a collection of stories titled, “Yearnings: Rendezvous.” His poetry and prose has appeared in Sanskrit, The Helix Magazine, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Gambling the Aisle, and The Monarch Review. For additional information visit the author’s website: www.randywhitenow.com.

October 4th, 1904 was Zipper’s fifth birthday. It was also the day he watched a black man get stomped to death in his front yard. Men in white, pointed hoods with no holes for their mouths circled the man like vultures after a piece of carrion.

“Don’t let him crawl back onto his feet!”

“Make him think twice about showing his face around here!”

“Yeah, kick his teeth down his throat!”

Zipper’s father lead the charge. He knew it was his father because the boot that folded the man’s forehead like a pie tin was the same steel-toe boot his father laced up every morning before going to the sawmill. Zipper recoiled from the window and felt ashamed that he looked away. The thuds of boots to flesh kept going long after the screaming stopped.

A year after the front yard stomping, the sawmill closed down and Zipper’s father made a financial move that raised his net worth threefold. He caught the first train out of Thomaston Georgia and left the three mouths that ate all of his paychecks to fend for themselves—a real fiscal wizard. Mother managed to put food on the table. Their neighbor, Tacket, said Mother looked good for her age; Zipper figured that had something to do with how she made ends meet. Even at six years old, he could tell pretty folks got by easier. Too bad he had a cleft lip just like father, and one of his legs came up two inches shorter than the other—putting a natural hitch in his step.

****

His hitch helped him make the acquaintance of the Spriggs brothers. Varun and Sid Spriggs, shared a fourth grade classroom because Sid failed third grade two years in a row. They made up for their lack of book smarts with creativity. They poured their creative energy into inventing the games Kick-a-Gimp, Zipper Nipper, and Flip Zip. Mother told Zipper to stand up to them or it would only get worse, but he was a head shorter than Varn and two heads shorter than Sid. So on his 10th birthday, Zipper hoped the white spiral of smoke from the candles on his cake would carry his wish to be taller to someone important.  At recess the following week, Zipper quit believing in wishes and dreams.

Heavy April rains left stagnant puddles all around the playground that were full of snot-green algae and tadpoles. Zipper liked to catch the little swimmers and squish them in between his fingers. As he was relishing the gush, too enraptured in the strange thrill to notice anyone around him, Lacy Valcroy squealed in horror.

“That was going to be a baby frog!”

 An image of himself mashing a baby frog into a bloody mess flashed into his mind’s eye. He didn’t recoil; he felt empowered by his bravery to look on. She ran off in tears. Zipper went to find more tadpoles.

He came upon a pool on the edge of the woods where the ancient oaks reached over the recess yard and cast long shadows that kept the tadpole pools moist and fruitful. Zipper found one teaming with life. Bent over and enjoying the chase, he was closing in on a fat one when a heavy hand pulled him up onto his feet by his shirt collar. He choked. Sid and Varun laughed.

“Hey Zippy, what’s the matter? Can’t breath out of your bad lip?” Sid howled at his own joke.

Varun punched Zipper in the stomach. Zipper went down and it felt like a hot coal had been dropped into his stomach, burning up all the oxygen in his body. He couldn’t cry if he wanted to—no air to cry with. Varun jumped on his chest and pinned him to the ground.

“You got one Sid? A big fat one like we said we would get?” Varun slapped Zipper in the face a few times as he inquired of his older brother.

“Yeah, I got’em riiight here”. A crooked grin spread across Sid’s freckled face as he held up a  grasshopper the size of a roll of pennies pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

“Okay, I’ll hold Zippy still, and you make that thing spit like it has a big chaw in.”

A high pitched wheeze escaped from Zipper, and he thought his chest might cave in. Varun shifted his weight so that his kneecaps dug into Zippers bicep muscles. A white-hot pain shot through his arms rendering them useless. Sid bent over him with the grasshopper, grabbed Zipper’s eyelid, and brought the insect down. A surge of adrenaline kicked in and Zipper jerked his head away from Sid..

“Quit wiggling Zippy!” Varun shouted as he grabbed Zipper by the throat while Sid pried open his eyelid again. No adrenaline rush came this time. The grasshopper flailed its legs as it was forced to descend within a few millimeters of Zipper’s eyeball.

“C’mon old sport hock a good one!” Sid coaxed.

The Grasshopper’s deadpan eyes looked like saucers and its antennas tickled Zipper’s eyelashes. Then, to Zipper’s horror,  a brown liquid began to bubble out of its mouth. Tangible excitement rolled across Sid and Varun as their creative vision came to pass. Enough of the brown froth amassed to drop from its mouth. It stung like a floating ember from a fresh stoked campfire and blurred Zipper’s vision. Varun got off Zipper’s chest and high-fived his big brother. Zipper rolled onto his side and gulped in air. The brothers kicked red Georgia clay on his back as they broke into jubilee. Zipper dipped his fingers into the tadpole pool and washed out the grasshopper’s spit. It smelled like rot; it all smelled like rot.

****

Sid and Varun went everywhere together. They were brothers and that’s what brothers did.  They even went to the bathroom together. After 5th period, still giddy over their artistic success on the playground, they strolled into the boys room recounting how funny Zipper looked squirming to get away from the grasshopper. They didn’t notice Zipper standing behind the door until it was too late. A chunk of steel collided with Sid’s skull and he crumpled to the ground like a boxer who’s taken one on the button. Varun spun on his heel to see Zipper standing over his brother wearing a brown paper grocery bag with crude eye holes torn into it over his head. He knew it was Zipper because his short leg always made him lean to the left. Before Varun could figure out how to respond to the strange sight before him, Zipper clubbed him over and over again. Varun only screamed once but that was enough to bring the teachers running. Zipper’s arms felt like molten lead by the time Mrs. Wright pulled him off Varun.

That day Zipper found the power of the mask. He even began wearing invisible masks when people were around. They couldn’t see it, but Zipper knew it was there and that’s what mattered. The masks helped him survive the group homes. His brother, Shad, sent him a letter while he was in his third or fourth home. It said Mother had died. Zipper hadn’t even known she was sick. That was the last he ever heard from Shad.

 To Zipper’s good fortune, the world went to war just after he turned 18.  Desperate for warm bodies, they overlooked the hitch in his step. He shipped out to fight three months later. Overseas, he slung chunks of lead and smoked as much opium as he could stand. Everyone celebrated when they signed the Treaty of Versailles, but that’s when the gnawing started for Zipper. A void in the pit of his stomach opened up somewhere deep inside him. More opium, less money. Gnaw…gnaw…gnaw. Steel-toe boots. Thud, scream, thud…thud.

Heroin eased the gnawing.

“You can make it last longer if you shoot it,” his dealer told him when he got back stateside.

Zipper shot it and realized that he had never lived until that moment. Not long after this resurrection, his  dealer asked him for a favor.

****

Zipper fished a pack of tobacco out of his shirt pocket and put a big chaw in. The stray strands hung out of his mouth like nightcrawlers. The nicotine leveled him out as he approached the house; a bone-white moon cast black tendrils across the cedar shake roof. The house was about a quarter mile off the road, plenty far enough to be out of earshot when his .38 special went off. His dealer was making a statement by capping this couple in their own home. The husband, an investment banker with a penchant for the White Lady, owed his dealer more than money. But Zipper didn’t worry about the details. This was an easy way to get a lifetime supply of dope and that’s all he cared about.To Zipper’s surprise, the front door wasn’t even locked.

A hot wave rushed over his body as he crossed the threshold. He found the master bedroom at the back of the house. The couple, early thirties, never even heard him come in. Two rounds from his 38. and they never heard another sound. Zipper’s ears rang from the blast. He didn’t hear the small footsteps rush up behind him. When the young boy screamed, Zipper spun on his heels brandishing the pistol. The boy locked eyes with him. The terror twisted up the kid’s face and Zipper knew that was exactly how his own face looked on the night of the stomping. He hated the boy for it. He raised the gun but couldn’t squeeze the trigger. The kid reminded him too much of himself, and his self was all he had.  Instead, he grabbed the boy up by his shirt collar and pressed the red hot barrel of the 38. into his cheek. The flesh sizzled and the boy howled all the louder. 

“Don’t scream,” he growled and then spat tobacco juice in the boy’s eye before he dropped him onto the cold oak floors.

A week later, Zipper knocked his favorite spoon off the milkcrate functioning as his coffee table. He was three days dry now. After Zipper snuffed the fella and the flapper, his supplier went silent on him. He went through all the bathtub gin he had squirreled away and settled in for the come down. The ping of the spoon landing on the bare concrete floor of the dirty basement apartment made his molars ache. Facedown on the soiled couch, he tried to pick it up but the tremors wouldn’t let him. A fit of dry heaves wracked his body, and the boy’s face flashed through his mind. When Zipper’s front door came off its hinges and the blue lights poured in, he welcomed them.

****

The preacher visited the prison again. Zipper went like he did every Sunday, so he could steal the pencils the preacher gave out to write down prayer requests. The preacher’s message was always the same old thing. Shame on you for this and shame on you for that. Zipper tucked the pencil in his waistband and thought, Huh, shame on him for those patent leather shoes and $10 haircut.

Later that month,  Zipper went to get pencils again, but a new preacher man was giving his spiel this time. He only heard bits and pieces of it. It was hard to hear because this one didn’t yell as much, and Zipper always sat in the very back. When the fellas were leaving, the preacher told them to keep the pencils. Zipper still kept his in his waistband.

       The new preacher man was back the next Sunday. Zipper realized he wasn’t as distracted and thought that it might’ve been because this new preacher man’s shoes weren’t blinding him like the other’s did. This one just wore old sneakers. The preacher man started in on that father’s love bit again, and Zipper wanted to scream or stuff a whole roll of toilet paper in his ears. All Zipper could see was the bloodied face of a black man and an empty seat at the dinner table. He just wanted pencils. The bleach white walls dimmed and he couldn’t get the two images out of his head—then a third one came. It was a pierced hand, stretching out towards him covered in blood. Boots cracking a rib cage…thud…thump…flesh tearing…howls of pain on the heels of cruel  laughter…thud…thump…Oh God help me…Oh God…locust feasting…endless oak doors…the searing light..Oh God…the blood…the blood…Help me..

**1959**

Ella pinned the gas pedal of the ‘57 Buick Special to the floorboard. The whitewall tires barked even though she was already in fourth gear.  As the rising sun bloomed on the Kentucky horizon and glinted off the fresh wax on the mint green hood, Roscoe stirred in the passenger seat but didn’t wake. Before they hit the road that morning, he whined the entire way to the car while he tried to put on his belt in between drags of his cigarette. He told Ella that driving five hundred miles yesterday after a full day’s work at the Chicago Tribune warranted more than four hours of sleep. Ella told him to get his camera and get in the car.

The rolling hills of western Kentucky turned ash grey in the breaking light of dawn.  Ella saw a sign for Cadiz and decided that would be as good a place as any to get breakfast. They still had ten more hours on the road before they hit Reidsville Georgia, and she didn’t want Roscoe’s kvetching streak to continue.

Ella’s ‘57 Special started a neck craning competition as she cruised down the narrow streets of the riverbank town.  She took a right onto Madison Avenue and shook Roscoe awake.

“Hey, wake up if you want on the biscuit train.”

Roscoe grunted and raised his trilby hat out of his eyes. His press card fell out of the hat’s weathered leather band, and he grunted again as he fished around the floorboard for the card; his disheveled pompadour, still slick with yesterday’s grease, put smudges of oil on the dash. He found the card and rubbed his face to get himself back into the waking-world; his three-day-old beard sounded like sandpaper on cedar. Roscoe’s wedding band caught the morning light and flashed in Ella’s peripherals.

“Good morning to you too El.”

Ella saw a parking spot near a red brick building with a hand painted sign over the door that read Shandy’s Cafe.

“Good morning Roscoe dear!” She put on her best southern drawl.

Roscoe gawked.

“I didn’t know it was possible for you to be so God awful at something, Ella.”

“Well, you can blame Scarlett O’Hara. This is my first time crossing the Mason Dixon you know,” she said.

“Really, I thought you said your old man was from Alabama, had a church or something?”

Ella’s tires bumped the curb and she threw the car into park.

“He was. And he did.” Ella didn’t give any more.

Inside Shandy’s, an assortment of junk or antiques, Roscoe couldn’t tell which, adorned the walls. In the places not covered by oddities, crumbling white plaster gave way to red brick. Ella knew the plaster would find a way into her meal. They found a booth by the window that had a view of the Ohio river, and a blonde waitress with a pixie cut was at their elbows before they could sit down.

“Morning. What can I get for y’all?”

Roscoe raised his thick caterpillar eyebrows and asked, “What’s your favorite, doll? What’s good?”

A tinge of pink raced into the waitress’s cheeks.

“Biscuits n’ gravy of course.”

“Okay, I’ll take it. And a coffee,” he said.

 She flashed a smile at Roscoe and turned to Ella.

“And you?”

“Chicken n’ waffles, please. I’ll take a coffee as well. Thank yo—.” Ella’s gratitude got cut short by the double-pump of the waitresses ink pen.

Roscoe undid the paper band around his silverware.

“So six hours till we get to Atlanta and then four more from there to the prison. I’m thinking we should stay in Atlanta tonight, maybe get a room at the Ellis, and knock out the rest tomorrow, yeah?”

Ella shook her head as the waitress came back with their coffee. White steam rose up off the thick, black substance, and Ella wondered if they were serving cups of pitch instead of coffee.

“No, we drive through the night—sleep in the car. I want to be at the front door of the prison before the protesters get out of hand,” she said.

Roscoe flicked the wadded-up paper band. Those two big caterpillar-eyebrows pushed up a mound of skin on the bridge of his nose. He dropped the travel-plan discussion. Once the waitress was out of earshot, he leaned forward, lowered his voice a few decibels and asked,

 “This guy is really going to walk isn’t he?”

Ella stared out the window as she replied, “Not if we can help it. You just get one good shot of him glowering, and my pen will make sure the public sees him for the threat he’s always been and always will be.”

The waitress came back with their food and lingered long enough for them to each take two bites. Roscoe burned his tongue on the coffee and couldn’t taste the rest of his biscuits n’ gravy. Ella’s chicken n’ waffles were sublime and she knew the waitress didn’t know a damn thing about good. 

Back in the car, they headed south. Leaving the technicolor hills of Kentucky behind and crossing into the black jagged rock faces of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Roscoe reached across Ella’s chest and honked the horn as they crossed the Georgia state line. When the skyline of Atlanta came into view, Roscoe pulled Zipper’s file from his briefcase. He thumbed through the thick stack of brittle, yellow pages.

“Okay,  so let me get this straight. This guy’s all strung out on smack and blows an affluent couple to smithereens while they’re counting sheep, and their kid is sleeping in the room next to them.”

Ella swerved into the right lane to pass a navy blue Punch Bug spewing thick, black clouds of exhaust.

“Mmhmm. This coming Sunday will be forty years to the day.”

“Do we know what happened to the kid?”

“Not much other than he got shipped up to D.C. to live with a relative of the mother whose husband was a cop. I tried to follow that thread but it was long gone.”

“Damn, it says here that the kid ran into the room right after it happened, and Zipper just left him there staring at the mess.”

“Yeah, and the G.R.A.C.E. Initiative is springing this guy. Can you believe it?” She said.

“Hell no. Giving the Rehabilitated Another Chance to Excel, what kind of garbage is that? You can’t rehabilitate a killer.” 

“Yeah, well, they seem to believe otherwise, and they found themselves a ringer with that rat-back lawyer of theirs,” she said.

“I’ll say. What’s that skuz’s name again?”

“Adam New.”

“Yeah, that’s it. So he coughed up 1.2 million dollars in restitution fees to the state… geez he must be doing alright for himself. Is that even legal? I mean…footing the bill for your client like that?”

“Sure. But come on Roscoe, you’re not a dunce. This is one of the highest profile cases in the country right now. If Zipper walks, Adam New will be the most sought after name in America for criminal defense.”

Roscoe slapped his knee, “Yeah, he’s a skuz if there ever was one. But you’re right. He’ll be hot—real hot—if Zippy walks.”

Ella nodded and turned up the radio; she didn’t turn it down until they got past Atlanta. She made Roscoe drive through the witching hours. A few patrol cars and a white Ford pickup were the only things in the parking lot of Georgia State Prison when the delegates of the Chicago Tribune made it onto the scene. They both massaged their stiff necks as they watched the sun rise on razor wire and cold concrete.

****

 A bloodshot-eye Warden Billy Bowers greeted them in the lobby and said the chances of the interview happening didn’t look good.

“Look,” he said, “another riot, the third this week, broke out last night. Zipper got mixed up in this one. And I can’t say what—” 

“Mr. Bowers, I did not drive all the way from Chicago just to be sat out on the stoop. The Governor’s office signed off on my interview,” she said.  

“Ma’am, I understand. But this ain’t even my prison at the moment. The Fed’s have put their men in every position except for the clerical ones. With the damn riots inside and protesters in the parking lot,”–he started to pace–“not to mention the hot button legislation surrounding this whole thing, well, everybody from Washington to washroom is losing their heads. If you’d been here two days ago, I’d of brought Zipper down to you myself. Lord knows we need some good press around here.”

Ella balled up her fist and put it on her hip. She pursed her lips and glared at the balding warden—letting silence do all the work.

“Okay…okay. I’ll see what I can do but I ain’t making no promises,” he said.

Ella stared at his back as he tromp off. They found seats in the lobby and watched the crowd of protesters swell. Men carried cardboard signs with sayings scrawled in red ink that said, “No Cure for Murder! No Cure for Murderers!” and, “40 YEARS DON’T BRING BACK THE DEAD!”.

The chants of the mob grew in volume, and Ella never felt more justified. As they waited, Roscoe struck up a conversation with the deputy manning the front desk.

“So I heard ol’e Zipper was involved in the riot yesterday,” Roscoe said.

The deputy, mid thirties with a strong jawline and a good head of hair, just shook his head.

“Mmhmm, took a shank right in the shoulder blade to keep some colored boy from getting cut. Zip’s one crazy son of a bitch if you ask me, can’t believe he’s walking out of here next week.”

Ella and Roscoe exchanged glances. Bower’s came back, cutting short their conversation with the handsome deputy. 

“Good news, they’re bringing him down now. Come on, I’ll take you back.”

****

Inside the interrogation room turned temporary-interview-station, a heavy oak table was bolted to the floor. A well-used ashtray adorned it but nothing else. Two straight-back chairs of the same oak sat on opposite sides of the table. An earthen-skinned man sat in one of them. Wrinkles cut gashes into his face and stark white hair rested on his shoulders. A U.S. Marshal stood at the back of the room, every muscle spring-loaded and waiting for Zipper to try something. A single fluorescent lamp hung over the table providing poor lighting for Roscoe’s Kodak. Ella remembered he had a flash and felt a little better. Her dreams of being the people’s hero kept taking knocks this morning.

“Good morning Zip,” she said as she took a seat.

“Morning, Ma’am.” 

Roscoe stood off to Ella’s left and fooled with his camera.

“I’m Ella and this is Roscoe Fields. We’re with the Chicago Tribune.”

“Nice to meet you. Happy to be your circus pony this fine Thursday.”

 Ella forced a smile.

“So, Zip, all of America’s following your release. How does that make you feel?”

“Awful.”

“How so?”

“Well, I just hate it for them that they ain’t got nothing better to do than keep up with me.”

“You don’t think your story is worth keeping up with?”

“Nah, nothing special about me.”

“Except that you murdered two people in cold blood and are now about to walk free in three days.” Ella expected her blunt observation to cut Zipper to the quick, get under his skin real good.

But it didn’t.

He just smiled; his cleft lip exposing his top gums on the right side of his mouth.

“Ella, I’ve been free for thirty seven years. But I see your point.”

Ella didn’t know what to make of this retort, so she poked further.

“What do you mean, Zip? You’ve been under lock and key for forty years come Sunday.”

“Well, the way I figure it, before I came here, fear and hate had a grip on me ever since I could remember. And then drugs got a grip on me when I was a young man. None of them has had a hold of me in thirty seven years…so in my book—I’m free.”

“But you haven’t had an opportunity to…how did you say it? Let fear or drugs get a grip on you. Do you really think once you’re back in society that you won’t be affected by your past?” 

“Nah.”

“During your parole hearing, one of the best clinical psychologists in the country stated, under oath I might add, he could not guarantee that you were fully rehabilitated and ready to reintegrate into society.”

 Zipper tugged at his snow-white goatee.

“I see what you’re getting at. But all psychologists come at it from the wrong direction.”

“Really? How so, Zip?”

“It’s like this, the shrink comes to you and looks at the behaviors you got going on today that ain’t good…or up to their standards. Then, he looks at your past to see what’s causing you to be acting so bad. Right?”

“Right. In simple terms,” she said.

“Okay, see that ain’t never worked for nobody and ain’t gonna work for nobody—ever.”

Ella wanted to bust out laughing. He was an absolute loon. She glanced at Roscoe and he seemed to be having the same revelation. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground to hide his smirk. This guy was about to attempt to refute the best psychological practices known to modern science while behind bars. Wonderful. The Editorial was already forming in Ella’s head.

“Well, if that doesn’t work, then what’s the solution Zip?”

“You got to get a new past.” 

Ella scoffed, “A new past, huh?”

“Yes Ma’am, a full on life-transfusion.”

“A what? Hold on a second, Zip. You’re losing me.”

Zipper put his elbows on the table; pain from the shank-wound in his shoulder flitted across his face as he leaned forward. The chain of his handcuffs clanked against the oak.

“Well, more like a heart transplant really,” he said.

A pull somewhere deep in Ella’s stomach wouldn’t let her get away from the new past bit.

“Go back to what you were saying about your new past, Zip. I’m sure the public would like to know more, considering you’ll be walking the streets in three days.” She lit a cigarette with a slight quiver in her hand.

“I think you already know Ms. Ella. Yeah, somethings telling me you’re already knowing. Just like I killed them people and put all them drugs in my body and beat on peoples’ faces, you got things you want undid. Everybody does. And a new past is the only way. Maybe that’s what you came here looking for—an undoing,” he said and then leaned back in his chair.

Ella felt like the temperature in the room dropped, and the small of her back prickled. Roscoe straightened and the guard shifted his weight from his left foot to his right.  Shaken, Ella pressed on. She was going to get this story.  She just needed one photo of Zipper glowering and then she would hang him with her pen. She gave Roscoe the signal. He brought the pictures from the crime scene over to Ella and tightened his grip on his camera.  Ella shoved Zip’s past in his face and waited for this man’s decades of violent history to resurface in some degree for Roscoe to immortalize. But it didn’t happen.

            Zipper just stared blankly at the pictures for a moment and then tears started to roll down his cheeks, staining his light blue prison uniform. They kept coming and his body began to shake with the soft sobbs. Ella felt dirty. Roscoe pressed himself up against the wall. The Federal Marshal broke his at-attention position and moved towards Zipper. This was the first time Ella looked at the guard’s face. The corners of his mouth were stained with dried tobacco juice. A large lump from his chaw, and a circular scar on his cheek, made his otherwise handsome face look deformed. For a fleeting second, Ella thought she recognized him.

When the Marshal got to the desk, he reached over Zipper’s shoulder and picked up Ella’s pen that she laid down when Zipper began to cry. In what Ella took to be a gesture of comfort, the Marshal put his other hand on Zipper’s shoulder.

Without warning, the Marshal  brought the blue ball point pen down into the soft flesh of Zipper’s neck. Ink and blood spewed like a fountain across the room as Ella looked on in horror. Zipper didn’t even try to fight back as the man unleashed blow after blow. All the while the man yelled at the top of his lungs,

“Don’t scream! Don’t scream!”

Ella managed to tear her eyes away from the brutality and looked for Roscoe, but he was gone. He had bolted out the door the instant the Marshal attacked, colliding with the officers in the hallway and creating a pileup of bodies while the assault continued. Ella turned back to Zipper only to see the Marshal spitting the brown tar from his mouth into Zipper’s eye. After this final act of desecration, the other officers managed to make it into the room—where a scuffle between them and the madman ensued. Zipper lay in a pool of ink and blood. 

Ella found herself at his side trying to stop the blood spurting from his neck with her own bare hands and muttering to herself. Oh God help me…Oh God…Oh God help him…the blood…the blood…Oh Jesus help me.

End

Brody Smithwick is the founder of Lion Life Community. Lion Life is an educational organization that services the incarcerated population of North Georgia. He primarily teaches the Creative Writing courses where his students have produced a rich body of poetry as well as full length novels and plays. He most recently published “The Red Line” in Red Planet Magazine.

Long past the embers flowing flying in the night;
Long past the ash clinging covering and coloring the black night
His eyes flash back and forth, from the beach to shore from foam to fire
Salt filling the nose, ash in the pours sand in the toes
Screams long since silenced, now only replaced, not human, not gods but gulls
Thunder cracking, rain, and ash, eyes beholden to the salty torrents
Groans, water breaking on rocks, moans, footsteps in the ash and blood
Ulysses weak, sorrowful, Ulysses once strong, desiccated on the barren shore

Byron Lafayette is a journalist, author, and poet, he loves to read and especially likes the works of Louis L’Amour. Famously private he has never revealed his face publicly and leaves his audience to wonder just what he looks like…

The busy pub’s only redeeming feature was that it was the only one still open.

All brass and wood, with plastic shamrocks on the walls, it was full of nice people in nice clean clothes, who had nice regular jobs and nice salaries. Sitting with a group of people I didn’t know, I was listening to them talk about the contents of their properties. Modern essentials like wide-screen TVs, three piece leather suites, digital boxes and A2 colour prints of all of those far away places which they had visited once.

“And you?” asked the young woman sitting next to me, mistaking my smile for some kind of interest in their banal bantering.

“Of course,” I nodded, rolling a cigarette, “Who doesn’t these days?”

“Really?” she smiled, moving her chair closer to mine, “Sorry, but what’s your name? I forgot to ask, when we all, you know, just kind of sat down here and stole this table from you.”

“Jack,” I said.

“Nice to meet you Jack, my name’s Claire. So, go on then, Jack, please, tell me, what is in this flat of yours?”

Lighting my cigarette, I let the nicotine sink in before I answered her. It helped me to focus on her face better. Or at least, the best that I could. Thanks to two dogs and one horse, I had been drinking since the afternoon. And, yes, the amphetamine had helped, but it was now wearing off.

“Well, Claire,” I said, “It would probably be easier to tell you what I don’t have.”

“Really?” she said, crossing her legs in my direction, “Sorry, but you don’t look that-”

“Well heeled?” I said, “Well, maybe this old shirt and these old jeans are just to ward the vultures off, you know? Besides, when you are creative with your time, then it doesn’t really matter what you wear, does it?”

“No, I guess not,” she said, her right foot brushing against the back of my calf.

“You know, you’re more interesting than I thought,” she nodded, leaning in closer so I could both see and hear her better, “To be honest with you, Jack, I really have had more than enough of their conversation. Bores me stupid. Seriously, I didn’t come out drinking on a work night for this kind of thing. I’m Twenty-five not Thirty-five. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I feel you.”

“Good,” Claire smiled, “I thought that an individual like you would, Jack. So, go on then, Jack, please, keep me interested. Tell me all about this place of yours.”

“Sure,” I shrugged, more than aware that I now had her half-cut attention, “Well, Claire, basically, I just like to keep it simple. You know? To keep it honest. To make things direct. That’s why in the bare brick living room, there is nothing at all that gets in the way. Nope, not a thread. Nothing that blocks the energy, you know? Just a large black leather sofa and a wide-screen plasma TV.”

“Nice,” Claire smiled, her fingers brushing mine, “I like that. A mixture of the rough and smooth. And you have digital, right?”

“Of course. Got my box from Hong Kong. So, it’s not censored or restricted like a lot of them are. If you know what I mean, Claire.”

“Yes,” she winked, “I do Jack, I do.”

“Good,” I smiled, tapping her thigh, “So, you like things unrestricted and uncensored then, do you, Claire?”

“Love them,” she said, nearly spilling her drink as she put her glass down.

“Yes…”

Unlike my whole creative spiel, Claire wasn’t lying to me.

When she saw where I lived, there wasn’t any holding her back.

Up on the third floor of an old apartment block, my ‘flat’ was an unfurnished bedsit. Completely unfurnished. As in nothing in it. No furniture. No light bulbs. Nothing. Just an electric stove and a small broken fridge in its’ tiny kitchenette.

“You lying bastard!” Claire screamed, punching me hard in the chest, “You lying, drunken piece of crap! Where the hell’s the TV?! The sofa?! God!! You lying little bastard!”

Slapping me hard, Claire’s long red nails caught and clawed my cheek.

“You bloody deserve that,” she snapped, pointing at me, “Leading me on like that, with all of your ‘look-at-me’ lies.”

Blood dripping from my face, I didn’t do or say anything. We were both drunk but she was right. I had lied to her. I just hadn’t expected a young well-educated woman to have believed a single word that I’d said, let alone come home with me. Wiping the blood away with the back of my hand, I shook my head and turned away from Claire.

Behind my back, Claire carried on ranting and raving about the truth and liars, and winners and losers, while I looked up and out of the bed-sit window. That view of the moon; high above the same-same grey apartment blocks, seemed far more real to me than anything she was saying. That room, that street, that town, just all seemed so very, very small to get so worked up about.

“Hey,” said Claire, tapping me on the shoulder, “Hey, Jack. Look, I’m not going to say I’m sorry or anything. You deserved that. Believe me, you did. But… Are you alright?”

“Sure,” I said, turning from the moon to face her, “Don’t worry about it. Believe me, Claire, I’ve been slapped a lot harder than that.”

“Yes,” she replied, “Now, that I do believe, Jack.”

Claire shook her head.

“Seriously though, Jack, how can you live like this? You’ve got nothing here. Nothing at all. Obviously, I didn’t come here to just check out the colour of your wallpaper, but, look, I’m sorry, but I really didn’t expect this. How long have you been living here?”

“One night and two days.”

“Well, sorry, Jack, but, in my opinion, that’s already too many. Surely, you can find yourself something better than this. I mean, come on, Jack, isn’t there anywhere else you can go?”

I would have liked to have stated the obvious, but I didn’t get the chance. As, from behind me, a brick came crashing through the window, sending shards of glass all over my back and across the concrete floor.

Letting out a scream, Claire jumped back from me and started for the door.

“J-J-Jesus Jack,” she stammered, “W-what the fuck is going on…”

I had no idea and, again, I didn’t get the chance to say a thing, as Claire was out of the door and slamming it shut behind her, before I’d even fully registered what the hell had just happened.

Shaking the glass off my blue sailor’s coat, I didn’t blame her at all. If I could have, I would have done the same thing. Claire was just lucky that she had somewhere else to go. Somewhere nice. Somewhere safe. Somewhere that you didn’t have to put up with any of this crap at Two O’clock in the morning.

I shook my head.

“Fuck it…”

I couldn’t be bothered to sweep up the glass, or even think about why someone had decided to put a brick through my window. I was drunk and I’d had more than enough for one night. The door was locked and I had four walls around me. To my mind, that was far better than where I had been before and that would do for now. Crawling into my damp sleeping bag, I just pulled it up around my head and, blanking the night from my mind, I was out of there in seconds. No dreams. No bricks. No nothing.

“What the…”

It was around seven hours later and someone was banging on my door.

Reaching for my tobacco tin, I staggered up and out of my green cocoon.

Like the brick the night before, I wasn’t expecting anyone or anything, especially not at that time of the morning. I had only moved to that small town around two weeks before. And, except for a few faces at the half-way house, and a few more at the welfare office, I didn’t know anybody there. Scratching my head, I lit my freshly rolled cigarette, then tried to put the latch on the front door, only to see it come off in my hand.

“Jesus…”

What was wrong with this place?

Shaking my head, I put the latch in the back pocket of my jeans and watched as a stick-thin man in a pair of baggy blue jeans and a stretched black t-shirt, pushed the door open and then walked inside without asking me.

“Yeah, man,” he nodded, wide-eyed and scratching at his badly inked arms, “Name’s John, live downstairs. Any time you need a brew, yeah?”

Glancing at the glass on the floor, he carried on pacing around the room. The words flying out of his mouth, faster than his brain was frying.

“Like it man. Yeah, kept is simple. No strings on you, is there? No, just that bag… And that tape recorder… Not worth much. No, best way to be. Yeah, wish I could do the same. But you know how it is. Got a few problems. Yeah, got a few things that need sorting out. You know Gary, yeah?”

“No.”

“Right,” he nodded, wagging his finger, “I remember. You’re new. I’m old. Kind of like the furniture. But you ain’t got none. Yeah, I live downstairs. Gary’s in the block next door. Telling you mate, pucker gear. Weight always bang on. Seriously, I ain’t messing with you mate – proper gear. Always in, always got. Listen, tell you what, I’ll take you over and introduce you to him right now. Yeah, yeah, I know that is kind of me, so, let’s go, yeah?”

“Nah, I’m good, thanks mate.”

“Course, course,” he nodded, “Just had to ask. Can’t be a stranger, now can I? No, not with all this nasty business and that. You know, with us being neighbours and that. Yeah, you know what they say, ‘a friend in need is…’ Well, yeah, anyway, bollocks to that. Listen, you ain’t got a spare fiver have you mate?”

I shook my head.

“A couple of quid then? Or, you know, 50p?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head again.

“Fair enough, Guv, fair enough. Look after the pennies and… Yeah, right,” John shook his head, “OK, mate, well, look, that’s me then, yeah? All caught up and the damage surveyed.

Nice… Right, so, I’ll see you later on then, yeah?”

“No doubt,” I nodded, holding the door open for him, “See you later, John.”

And just like he’d arrived, John was out of there in a flash.

Shaking my head, I walked back into the bed-sitting room.

Outside, the sky was darkening and I was now stood there staring up at it through a gaping hole in my window. A hole which I couldn’t afford to fill.

“Fuck it.” I shrugged, shaking my head.

Fishing a C90 out of my bag, I took two OxyContin for my nerves, pressed play on the tape recorder, and then got on with trying to find something that I could cover the hole with, before it started raining.

‘… I don’t need no doctor, ‘cos I know what’s ailing me…’

Mr Charles was right. I didn’t.

Just as in the drawers, the cupboards and in the tiny kitchenette, I couldn’t find anything to cover the hole with. No free newspapers. No junk mail. Nothing. The only thing I did find was one small aluminium pan.

Yes, I thought, scratching my head, that was strange.

With the bedsit being what it was, you would have expected to have found at least some kind of evidence that other people had lived there before. As there was absolutely no way that I was the first person who had ever lived there. Just like that brick through my window, that wouldn’t have made sense.

“Fuck it.” I shrugged.

Instead I decided to boil two eggs, smoke a joint and then I’d head out somewhere else.

Where? It didn’t matter. Sitting there, staring at those four walls, wasn’t helping anything. The gaping hole and the broken glass could wait until later. What mattered more was changing the messed up scene that was in front of me. Nodding to myself, I put the eggs into the pan, turned on the stove and then went back into the bed-sitting room, where I sat down on the floor, sparked up a joint and waited for the water to boil.

‘…Well, you know, I woke up hungry this morning, I didn’t have a piece of bread, I went down to the grocery store, but here’s what the grocer said…’

“’Where’s my money?’” I sang along with Willie Jones, before my eyes then closed of their own accord and I sat back and let the music soothe my mind. Any thoughts about the broken window, the flying brick, or the strange space that I was in, all being quickly washed away by the THC and the opioids that were flooding through my system. It was only when the rain outside had turned into a thunderstorm that I realised that the tape had stopped.

“Shit…”

Wiping the cold rain from my face, I staggered to my feet.

I had forgotten all about the eggs.

“Ah, Jesus…”

Swaying over to the kitchenette, I was sure as anything that I was going to find yet another disaster waiting there for me. A melted pan. The stove on fire. Or, at the very least, the smoking ashes of the eggs’ remains.

But I didn’t.

No. There was nothing waiting for me. The water hadn’t even boiled.

I dipped my finger in to check.

“No way…”

The water wasn’t even warm.

“No…”

It was the electric plate. It wasn’t working, even though I I’d turned it on.

Slumping back against the worktop, my head fell into my hands.

What the hell was going on with this place? Not only did I have no furniture, no lights, no window, no fridge and no latch on the door, but now I had no cooker.

– KNOCK – KNOCK – KNOCK –

“Ah! For fuck’s sake!” I growled, turning towards the door, “What is it now? I swear, if it’s that bloody speed-freak again, I swear I’ll…”

But, no, it wasn’t John. It was just the postman.

“Sorry to disturb you,” the old boy shrugged, “But I need you to sign for this.”

“Sure,” I nodded, signing for the letter he had in his hand.

“And, yeah, look,” the old boy said, as he handed me the letter, “I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but, seriously, you really ought to get someone to sort that window out. ‘Cos, well, I’m not being funny or nothing, but it really does look a right state from the road down there. Believe me, it really does.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, rubbing my eyes, “I’m sure it does mate. I’m sure it does.”

“Oh, well,” he shrugged, doffing his cap, “See you later on then, mate. Have a good one, yeah?”

“Yeah, see you later, cheers…”

Closing the door, I shook my head at what the street or anybody else thought about the window, the glass, or anything else for that matter. What was of far more interest to me, was the blue envelope that was in my hands. An envelope that was stamped, ‘H.M.P’, and was addressed to, ‘tHE sQuAttEr’.“

Jesus…”

Opening the blue envelope, I took out and read the letter.

‘DeAr WHo tHe Fuck eVer You ArE,You ArE in MY plAcE. Yes. MY plAcE. Not Your plAcE. MY plAcE.tHAt is WHY tHErE Was A brick tHrouGH tHE WiNDoW. to lEt You kNoW tHAt You ArE Not WElcoME HerE. HAVe You Got tHAt? HAVe You?’

I had.

‘i HopE You HAVe. but Just iN casE You HAVeN’t tHEN Go look iN tHE kitcHEN.You iN tHErE NoW?’

I was.

‘NoW Go look bEHiND tHE oVEN AND tHE FriDGE.’

I did.

‘You sEE tHAt pAl? Do You? DO YOU??’

“Jesus…”

I did. The reason that neither of them worked was because the mains wire to each of them had been sliced in two. And the live ends of the wires had been left drooping down not far from the damp skirting board that ran around not just the kitchenette but the whole damned place.

“Fuck…”

‘Yes tolD You, DiDN’t i? i AM Not plAYiNG GAMEs pAl.You ArE Not WelcoME HerE AND i DoN’t WANt You HerE.Not tHEN. Not NoW. AND Not WHEN I Get out. VerY VerY sooN. tHis is Your lAst AND oNlY WarNiNG. NoW Get out. Get out NoW. bEForE it Gets rEAllY bAD.Do i MAkE MysElF clEAr? Do I?’

Yes, he had.

I didn’t read or want to know any more. Screwing up the letter, I just threw it on the floor.

Whatever was going on in that room, that building or that whole damned street, it had nothing to do with me. It was all far too small to get myself worked up about.

Of course, I wasn’t going to find anywhere that was any better or any worse than where I was then and where I still am. As ever, I was just going to find somewhere that would do. Fortunately, as Claire and John had already both weighed up, there wasn’t much there to pack.

J H Martin is from London, England but has no fixed abode. His writing has appeared in a number of places in Asia, Europe and the Americas.

We called our band The Laziest Airmen in the Navy because we calculated that we four did the least amount of work than anyone else in our branch of the service. The planes that we worked on, P-3 Orion’s, were the only birds that were too big to fit on an aircraft carrier, so we never saw the ocean or went on overseas deployments. Of all the P-3 Orion bases, Brunswick NAS housed the fewest squadrons and only flew small sorties into the north Atlantic to make sure the Russians were still doing Russian things. Our building housed the intermediate maintenance department where only the toughest cases were sent, when the squadrons couldn’t just fix the issue by swapping out a non-working box for a working box. Within our department, our shop, number 660, received the fewest repair items. We spent our work days reading novels and playing old computer games on an ancient machine that Ski built with parts he found lying around the building.

Ski had a long Polish last name full of r’s and z’s that none of us could pronounce so we just called him Ski. He only talked when necessary and whatever he said was usually pretty damn insightful. His caterpillar mustache crinkled along with his eyes when he smiled, which was all the damn time. Ski was a hell of a guy is what you can take from this.

On the other end of the talkative and hell of a guy spectrum was Declan. Declan never shut up, not even in his sleep. He was from Atlanta, which meant the only topics that you could not discuss with him were the Braves futility in the postseason and William T. Sherman. He was a college graduate that enlisted when he couldn’t find gainful employment after graduation, even though this was the late nineties when the economy was strong and jobs for college boys were tossed out like parade candy. It was obvious after talking to him for a few minutes his lack of options had more to do with his personality than credentials. He spent hours trolling the main drag in Brunswick talking to every female, from high school girls to hockey moms, into coming back to his room.

On his first day in the shop, Declan saw me reading a Dostoevsky and asked me what the fuck was I doing in the Navy. We rented a run down three-bedroom apartment together between the Chinese and Italian restaurants downtown.

Our other room/band/shop mate was Kimono Larry, dubbed this by the Bowdoin girls that Declan managed to talk into coming back to our apartment to listen to us practice in the unfinished garage of our building. Larry had a habit of walking around the apartment, wearing nothing but a kimono and tighty whitey briefs, even when we had company over. Larry had few possessions besides a bonsai tree he kept in his window and an impressive collection of throwing stars. He had this weird Japanese culture obsession that seemed to be a holdover from his 1980’s childhood. He slept on a pile of clothes in the corner of his room and one of his eyebrows traveled the length of his head, but he managed to wear an expression of surprise at all times. Ten years older than the rest us and in love with a heroin addict named Debbie, he spent most of the work day next to the shop telephone waiting for her to call.

I was in charge of the shop the morning of the Defining Event of our Generation because I was the only one with chevrons on my arm. I was 42 days from receiving my long-awaited release and had been counting down the days I had left since C school three years earlier, having decided this was not a career path for me. Our real shop boss, Pete, had not yet arrived for the day.

Ski was on the computer he built from parts playing the Is This It? album on Napster at full blast. Declan, Ski and I had bought into the hype that The Strokes were going to save rock and roll and we could follow in their footsteps. We’d be the Rolling Stones to their Beatles or something.

“Will you turn that down please?” Larry asked. “I’m trying to hear the phone in case Debbie calls.”

Larry was convinced that hair bands like Ratt and Poison were the epitome of rock quality. He was easily the best musician out of all of us and played our lead so I’m not sure how this terrible opinion gelled with his obvious talent. We tried our best to keep his guitar solos to a minimum, but sometimes we just let him go for as long as he wanted, letting our own instruments drop to our sides and watch him in awe.

Ski of course played bass and Declan owned the only drum kit, an instrument that matched his manic energy. I wrote and sung our lyrics tried to be Robert Plant to Larry’s Jimmy Page. We practiced just about every afternoon in that garage and while our sound was raw, mostly just GnR or Zeppelin covers, but we were getting good at it. We had yet to play a paying gig, but we felt that something big was just around the corner for us.

“Oh Debbie! I haven’t talked to you in twenty minutes,” Declan said, grabbing a broom handle and cradling it in his arms. “I’m going to die if I don’t hear from you soon.”“Ooooh Deb-bie! Your rubbery skin and stringy hair set my loins a-fire, baby,” I sang. “Hey, Ski. Write this down. This could be our first original.”

Declan mock kissed the broom head while I sang a few more bars of Debbie Song. Larry turned a shade of red that would make his uniform non-compliant and Ski strummed an imaginary bass at the computer.

This is when Pete busts into the shop and says, “Those goddamn towel heads did it! They crashed a plane into one of the Twin Towers. We should nuke the whole fucking Middle East!”

We all looked blankly at Pete. He was known for these fits of dramatics. He’d yell and stomp around the shop, threatening Declan and I with Captain’s Mast because we sang chain gang spirituals when he made us mop the floor. Pete was angry that his first supervisory role of his career he had to be in charge of probably the most useless three people, not counting Ski, in all of the Navy.

Regardless, Pete was not as bad as our first shop supervisor who I got into a shouting match with one time over something minor. That guy had a sleep apnea issue and would fall asleep in a chair in the shop, then Declan and I would throw small wads of paper that would rest on the man’s large belly until he woke up and shook them off. He wanted me to go to an anger management class, some ridiculous ombudsman program called “Taming the Tiger” because he thought I had an anger management problem. What I had was a Navy problem.

One day I told that supervisor where to stick his Taming the Tiger brochure and decided I was not going to be in the Navy anymore. I was going to get some of this freedom we kept hearing about that we were protecting and loaded up my car with my few possessions.

Two MPs who showed up at my barracks room door had other plans for me and dragged me off to the restricted barracks, where I stayed for a month and met Larry.

“Come on. Follow me you dolts,” Pete said.

All of us, except for Larry who stood by the phone in case Debbie called and could not be pried from it even if the Four Horsemen were riding into town that day, followed Pete down to the snack room, or geedunk, to use the naval parlance. There, a small TV tuned to CNN sat on top of the jankiest coffee dispensing machine in all of the military. A second plane had already hit the other tower before we arrived and a small crowd of airmen had gathered there to watch the news unfold.

We stayed long enough to see the reports of a crash at the Pentagon and until our CO, a Lt. Commander with thick birth control glasses who I only laid eyes on once before during my Captain’s Mast for trying to get some freedom, came down personally to tell us to get into battle stations. Battle stations on our base meaning just casually walk back to your workspace and wait for orders.

Back at the shop, Larry was on the phone cooing to Debbie, who, for some reason was convinced the terrorists were going to strike us all in Maine next. Pete told him to hang up the fucking phone and find something productive to do. We swept and cleaned the shop and then gathered around the computer to catch snatches of news online.

With every clip we watched of the towers falling and frightened New Yorkers panicking, running from the smoke and debris, Pete became more agitated. He threatened war with everyone from Albania to Yemen. I told him that we were an anti-submarine base and unless the terrorists had submarines, we’d likely not see any real action. This reminder seemed to depress and then anger him.

“You don’t give a shit about anything but yourself, Knox. I can’t wait for you to stop sucking the teat of the Navy so you can go suck the teat of your momma and daddy.”

Pete knew I hated being called by my last name, forget the part about my mom and dad’s teats. Everyone here went around calling each other by their last name like we were on a damn football team and it didn’t help matters that they were stitched above our breast pockets. I tried covering mine with electrical tape once but I was given extra swabbing of the deck duty for doing so.

“The only teats I want to suck on are Rhonda’s,” I said, which was probably the wrong thing to say.

Rhonda being Pete’s wife, a schoolteacher with a master’s degree who was very sweet and not too hard on the eyes for a woman who had just turned forty, which was ancient to us back then. She was accommodating and gracious during the previous Thanksgiving dinner when she invited the entire shop over to their nice house in Topsham. Declan wondered why Rhonda was with Pete when it was obvious she could probably do better. She had a look about her that she seemed to always be asking herself the same thing.

Pete squared into my face with his hammy fists balled tight at his sides. Then he relaxed, smirked a little, and I knew he was about to say something he thought was funny. He always smirked when he thought he was about to say something funny.

“You couldn’t get a real woman, Knox. You best stick to those high school girls who can’t read through your bullshit.”

“That may be so, Pete,” I said.

I let it drop at that. The guy had at least eighty pounds on me and another Captain’s Mast meant I was probably heading for restricted barracks for another long stretch. 42 days, I reminded myself.

The building intercom squawked to life and the CO’s voice came over it all staticky.

All personnel report to the hangar in ten minutes. I repeat, All personnel report…

The Laziest Airmen in the Navy and Pete, who was also lazy but acted like he wasn’t, filed out of Shop 660 to go to the hangar adjacent to our building. A procession of other, less lazy naval personnel carried us along in a wave of denim dungarees.

Once in the hangar, we stood in formation until the CO appeared at a podium in full dress whites, which he wasn’t wearing earlier. He tapped the microphone to test if it was working and it gave him a little high-pitched feedback.

“Rookie mistake,” I whispered to Ski standing next to me.

Never in my four years in the service had I been a part of a formation like that. I’d seen them in movies and in recruiting commercials on TV. Rows and columns of enlisted men and officers all standing proud on the decks of aircraft carriers while some patriotic music played over a baritone narrator. Behind the CO, a newly washed P-3 sat behind him and an American flag was draped over a rolling bulletin board.

The CO went on to say some very patriotic words about the country being attacked today. I don’t remember exactly what he said, I just remember thinking that we were about to go to war with somebody and it probably didn’t matter much to anyone there who it was and whether or not they had anything to do with what happened in New York, DC, and the field in Pennsylvania.

That night, the four of us gathered together for what would be the last time in the bar in the basement of MacMillian’s, seafood restaurant just a few blocks from the apartment. The place was pretty empty except for us, which was normal for a Tuesday night. Everyone must have wanted to be home with their loved ones and talk about the day’s events. The bartender had Fox News on the TV at the bar and paid us little attention.

“You think they will extend enlistments?” I asked. “I have 42 more days.”

“We all know how many days you have, Knox. You start every damn morning telling us how many days you have left. Doubt they will extend enlistments to anyone on our base. I mean we would have to be necessary personnel. We are far from that,” Declan said.

Larry jumped up from the table, saying he needed to make a phone call and would see us at the apartment.

“Jesus, that fucking guy. You sure you don’t want to move into his room, Ski?” Decland asked. “We can kick him out.”

Ski shook his head because was too smart to room with us. He had his own little neat studio in Bath near the shipyard.

“Well, the offer stands. His bogarting the landline at home is starting to wear on my last nerve.”

“The heart is a lonely hunter,” Ski said.

“You just stole from a classic, but I’ll allow it,” I said.

We didn’t have to ask Larry to move out because when we got back to the apartment later there was an absolute shitshow waiting for us. Two Brunswick PD officers stood on our porch, where a dark puddle of blood soaked into the wood at the top of the stairs. Inside, a steak knife lay in the middle of the slanted floor and blood ran in a small stream away from it, pooling on the other side of the room.

“What the hell happened here?” Declan asked.

The cops asked us a bunch of cop questions and after they were satisfied with our answers that we lived in the apartment, they informed us that Larry tried to commit seppuku with a steak knife. Upon realizing it probably wasn’t the best choice of a suicide weapon, he called an ambulance and sat on our porch to wait, where he passed out before the paramedics arrived. The conversation then turned to the events earlier that day and the officers wanted to know what we thought of it all and they thanked us for our service and whatnot. Not the typical exchange we had with Brunswick PD but nothing about that day was typical.

The officers had already called the base MPs, who showed a few minutes after we did. It was the same two MPs who took me away to restricted barracks that time I tried to get some freedom and one of they said he figured I had something to do with the call when it came in. Once they got a statement from the police, they all piled into their cruisers and drove to Midcoast Hospital ER where the ambulance had taken Larry.

“Now I guess we have to clean this shit up now,” I said, looking at the carnage in our kitchen.

“I’m not touching his blood. His girlfriend is a drug user and I’m not about to catch the bug.” Declan said.

“Just grab some rubber gloves and some towels. Unless you want to step around this until our lease is up next month.”

“You guys don’t own a mop?” Ski asked.

“I don’t like bringing my work home,” I said.

After telling him what had happened, Pete was kind enough to let the three of us off of work the next day so I drove to Midcoast to check on Larry. Declan declined and stayed in his room to pout, acting like what Larry did was done to him personally.

All of the televisions in the hospital were turned to cable news shows, which alternated showing the towers falling and talking heads who were making their prognostications about who we were about to go to war with and how soon it could happen.

I found Larry’s room and inside the two MP’s from the previous night were there getting their statement. Larry had just woken up an hour earlier and the MP’s were telling him not to leave the hospital, which seemed a ridiculous order giving the obvious state the guy was in at the time. He was propped up in the bed by a platoon of pillows, tubes and wires of ever sort running from his arms and stomach. A half dozen monitors keeping tracking of whatever those monitors keep track of with green blips and beeps. The two meatheads then left us alone.

“They seem to enjoy this,” Larry said once they left.

“If what they say about cops is true, then what do you think rent-a-cops have in place of a soul?”

Larry grimace smiled as if deep philosophical questions like this pained him to contemplate.

“So, what happened?” I asked.

In fits and starts, Larry told me the story. He had gone to look for Debbie at her house because she had not answered his million or so calls that afternoon. When she wasn’t home, he decided to return to our bar and found her messing around with another guy in the alley outside of MacMillian’s. He then walked home and found the sharpest thing he could find in our apartment and did his best disgraced samurai impression with the steak knife.

Leaving the hospital, I could not help but somewhat admire Larry’s laser focus on one thing in his life, whether it was love, lust, or obsession, while seemingly everything else in the world was on fire at the moment. Maybe that focus is what made him such a virtuoso on the six strings. How he could be driven to Dostoveskian heights of madness over a woman was baffling to me and I could not remember the last time I felt that way about anyone or anything.

He stayed in the hospital for a week for observation. The Navy couldn’t bother with him as it had other things to worry about at the time and had the two MPs deliver dishonorable discharge papers to this room. Once he left was free to leave the hospital, he stopped by a pawn shop on Maine Street where he bought a snub nose .38, then went directly to Debbie’s house and shot her and himself in the head.

Not long after the events of that September, Pete attacked Declan in the 660 shop while I was doing my exit interview with the CO. Pete had set up a hidden camera in his bedroom and found footage of Declan fucking Rhonda while Pete was on a night watch. This earned Declan a fast other than honorable discharge while Pete was just given a strong reprimand. The couple divorced and last I heard she and Declan were shacked up together in Atlanta.

I headed south towards home, Oxford, Mississippi, to start college on the GI Bill when I finished my remaining 42 days, the brass deciding that I was not necessary personnel for the wars to come. I played in a few bands while in college, but none came as close to whatever it was the Laziest Airmen had in those sessions in the garage.

And Ski, well Ski is Vice Admiral of the whole damn Navy now.

Kevin Baggett’s novella, “The Apologies” appeared in the Running Wild Press Novella Anthology Volume II. He lives in Moorhead, Minnesota and teaches at Concordia College.