Blog Posts

Playin' Possum

3/1/2017

Written By: Jack Quinn

The coolest guy at my high school was named Brett. He drove a 1982 Ford F150 Pickup. He got it when he was 14 at a scrapyard for next to nothing. Then he spent the next two years restoring it, fixing everything, making it shine like new. By the time he got his license, it was in perfect shape.

But to tell you the truth, what really made Brett so cool was that he did not give a fuck. One morning, he came to school with a dead deer in the back of his truck. In the state of Wisconsin, this, in and of itself, is not that unusual. This, however, was not a deer that he had hunted. It was road kill. He was driving to school that morning and he saw in laying in the middle of the road, so he got out and threw it in the back of his truck.

He was telling us about it in math class. Then he got up and walked out. Minutes later, we could see him in student parking lot through the classroom window. He climbed up into the back of the truck and began wrestling with one of the deer legs, hacking at it with a knife. When the last string of flesh was severed and the leg was finally liberated, he swung it up above his head and began waving it back and forth. The whole school could hear him howling like a mad man. To this day, it’s the most inspiring thing that I have ever seen.

So, a few years ago, when I saw him post on face book that he was selling his truck, I immediately called him and told him that I had to have it. I went to get it that same night. I couldn’t believe it. It looked exactly how I remembered it.

Driving it on those country roads, I felt seventeen again. I pulled into a Blain’s Farm and Fleet and bought a Carhartt jacket and a tin of chewing tobacco. In high school, I smoked a few cigarettes now and then, but I never had the balls to chew tobacco. Even to this day, I still haven’t tried any, but it felt good just having the tin on the passenger seat next to me.

I was heading south towards Chicago, when it appeared in my headlights—a lump of flesh and fur, lying in the middle of the road. I thought aloud, “could it be road kill?” I slammed on the breaks. As I got out of the truck, I could already see that it was too small to be a deer. Still, I was excited. I figured that for my first night out on the road, this would be a pretty good haul.

I got a closer look. It was a possum. He was lying on his back. He had his head turned to side and his tongue was hanging out. There was a trickle of blood running out his mouth and pooling on the pavement. He had one paw up across his forehead. He had his other paw clutching at his chest. And he had a third paw pointing down the road, off into the distance, as if to say: “My killer went that way. Avenge me.”

I crouched down and studied him carefully. Something didn’t add up. I lit a cigarette and blew a large puff of smoke in his face. He didn’t move. Then it hit me—I was being played. I stood up. “Oh, Bull Shit.” I said. “What is this amateur hour? Fuck you, possum.” Disappointed, I turned around and began walking back toward my truck.

Then I heard someone yell “Hey.” I turned around, but didn’t see anyone. I felt something tug on my pant leg, just above the knee. I looked down. It was the possum.

“How’d you know?”

“What?”

“How’d you know I wasn’t dead.”

“Oh fuck off possum.”

He looked me in the eye. “Please, it’s important.”

I was so angry; I let him have it. “You’re so dramatic Possum--one paw on your forehead and the other clutching your chest. It’s some story your trying to tell. Who do you think you’re fooling? Well guess what: Dead doesn’t tell a story. Dead doesn’t give a fuck. Dead is dead. And until you figure that out, it’s going to be obvious to me and anyone else that comes your way that you’re just another phony.”

I looked at the possum. He seemed heartbroken. He walked past me back to my truck and sat on the bumper. He buried his head in his paws. I went and sat down next to him. I didn’t know what to say. I just sat there.

He broke the silence. “Cool truck, how long have you had it?”

“Oh, um, a while,” I said.

“Cool, does it still have an original Windsor V-8 engine?”

I had no idea. I didn’t know shit about engines. Now, I felt like the asshole. I wanted to change the subject, so I offered him my cigarette. He took in one long drag and then handed it back to me. “Thanks,” he said.

Now the cigarette was covered in blood from his mouth. It was disgusting. I was going to just put it out, but I guess he saw the look of disgust on my face because he said, “sorry.”

“No, its fine,” I said, putting it in my mouth. I could taste the blood on the cigarette. It was sweet. “What is that?” I asked.

His eyes perked up. “It really looks like blood, doesn’t it? It’s my own concoction: equal parts maple syrup and Heinz ketchup, the good stuff.” He said with a renewed sense of pride.

I knew was lying, though. It wasn’t Heinz. I could tell that it was a generic catsup,” but I decided to play along. I patted him on the back and said, “Yeah Possum, that’s good ketchup.”

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The Melting Man

2/18/2017

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Written by: Jesse Bradley

“The obstetrician couldn’t stop the melting fast enough,” I tell the detective when he looks at the part of my head that’s missing. I knew he could see through any of the other stories I’ve told gawking strangers: my father trusted his fists to bang out the dents, my mother choked the city skyline inside her with all of her smoking, a tragic dodgeball accident in kindergarten. The detective opens the manilla folder on the desk, turns a page or two. He pauses and then looks up at me for a moment before licking his fingers and thumb before turning to the next page.

Grandma said that I was more special because of my design flaw. She would elbow Grandpa in the ribs whenever he clutched the small gold crucifix dangling around his neck in front of me. Grandpa waited until she was asleep to come into my bedroom. He stood over me and chanted until I fell asleep or the Latin gave him cottonmouth. After all, the cheapest alternative to plastic surgery is prayer.
“Not your first time here, is it,” the detective asks. I shake my head. Whenever a window broke, a television disappeared, a sliding glass door was pelted with eggs, a car tire or two was slit or punctured, the neighborhood watch led the police to me. The neighborhood watch kept sending the police over to our house until my grandparents took the hint and we moved somewhere else.

The detective gets to the last page in the manilla folder. He slides the page over to me, along with photos of a smoldering house taken at different angles. “Why did you do it,” he asks. I look down at the photos and the report that the fire chief put together. My shoulders want to shrug but I hush them.

My parents cut off all contact after they handed me over to my grandparents. Sometimes, we would get Christmas cards from them when they forgot they weren’t talking to us. It was always a photo with my mother and father wearing loud, cheerful sweaters. Eventually, we would see them holding a baby boy and then a baby boy and baby girl. We stopped getting the cards after my Grandma called to congratulate her son and his new wife.

The detective gets up. He leans forward on the desk, brings his face close enough to where I can smell the stale coffee on his breath. “Why did you do it?”
I found the last address my parents lived at in my Grandma’s address book after her body finally died. Grandpa died a couple of years before so he couldn’t stop me from looking. The “For Sale” sign staked in front of the house told me they didn’t live there anymore but I didn’t care.

I flinch as the detective brings his face even closer to mine. He grabs my jaw. A knock on the two way glass tells him to let go and back off. After the detective leaves, I look at the two way glass. “The obstetrician couldn’t stop the melting fast enough,” I yell in case whoever was watching didn’t hear me the first time.

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3 out of 5 Stars

2/13/2017

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Written By: Giano Cromley

This was the first vacuum I ever bought, so I didn't really know what I was looking for. I combed the aisle, pretending to make an informed decision, before settling on the Dynamex Life-Scrubber 3000.

Once I got it unboxed and assembled, everything seemed fine. Those first few months were all about dust bunnies under the couch, cobwebs on the windowsills – small potatoes, cleaning-wise. You could say I was naïve to the types and depths of disorder that could infiltrate a person's life.

Three months later my girlfriend, Janice, had a living situation that had become untenable, and we decided it would be more tenable for her to move in with me. At that point things got harder for the Life-Scrubber 3000. It wasn't Janice who taxed the machine so much as it was her two Maine coons. In case you're not familiar with that term, let me just say that they're a particular breed of cat. I'm also convinced they're somebody's idea of a sick joke. Maine coons weigh in around thirty pounds, and they're as friendly as bobcats.

Janice called them Emma and Rosemary, but I privately referred to them as Butkus and C.H.U.D. Upon moving in, Butkus annexed the kitchen. I'd come home to find Cheerios or Kix littering the countertops and floors. For these messes, the Life-Scrubber's detachable extension hose made cleanups a snap.

C.H.U.D., on the other hand, took a keen interest in my houseplants. She would methodically uproot and dismantle them, leaving their dismembered parts all over the living room. Potting soil was dug up and flung like blood spatter at a crime scene. While these messes were more of a nuisance than Butkus's kitchen adventures, they were still well within the Life-Scrubber's wheelhouse.

These early challenges were upsetting, but this was also back when things were still fresh between Janice and me. Back when we had the kind of sex that was so passionate, physical and raw that our bedroom smelled like a gladiator's locker room. It's easy to overlook the little things when you've got that going on. Of course, sex like that has a finite lifespan. Which turned out to be shorter than the Life-Scrubber's.

The biggest challenge, though, was the fur. My god, the fur! Another thing you may not know about Maine coons is that they are prolifically hirsute. They're covered in dense blooms of hair, which would accumulate in mounds of reddish fuzz. I'd do a pass-through with the Life-Scrubber and within minutes there'd be fresh piles waiting. If we opened a window to get some cross-ventilation going, waves of Maine coon fur would roll across the floors.

At this point I discovered the Life-Scrubber's limits. The roller brush began catching, which would cause the rubber belt to shriek and smoke. I disassembled it and found the brush clotted with hair. It took me forty minutes to clean and reassemble.

It was during one of the brush reassemblies that I recalled something on the original Life-Scrubber box. Amid the boilerplate, where it had informed unsuspecting consumers of its many features, had been the braggy slogan: "Designed to fit your lifestyle." That line now struck me as breathtakingly hubristic. What do these vacuum people know about my lifestyle? How could they claim to have designed a vacuum for it?

Then I got to thinking. What if the vacuum people were right, and the Life-Scrubber was indeed designed to fit my lifestyle? Maybe my current lifestyle was out of whack with its true nature. I began to contemplate why Janice and I were living together. The trials of cohabitation can make you lose sight of the fundamentals. What first drew me to Janice was her essential mysteriousness. In her Spotify library, she always gave her playlists names that were both cryptic and louche – So Long Sly Stallone; Distant Macaroni Doodles; Hilltop Jesuit Empire; Kiss Me Marmalade Cousin – like the dream journal entries of an opium addict. They made me feel as if I could decode Janice, and I'd become a better person if and when I did.

But those goddamn Maine coons. They were a lifestyle no vacuum designer could have anticipated.

One Friday, while I was at the coffee shop, C.H.U.D. managed to pick the lock on the door to my office, which is where I kept several of my most prized possessions. Among those would be my aquarium containing a pair of not inexpensive Angelfish and one lovely Teardrop Butterflyfish.

I'd been gone less than an hour. By the time I returned, the massacre was over. C.H.U.D. was a thorough killer, and remorseless. My fish were scattered in ribbons around the office, julienned by C.H.U.D.'s sharp claws. And there he sat amid the carnage, licking bits of flesh from his whiskers. I chased C.H.U.D. around the apartment until Butkus came to his defense. Against one Maine coon, I believed I stood a chance. Against two, forget it.

I pulled out the Life-Scrubber, wheeled it to my office and began sucking up the remains, not caring that there was a warning in the user's guide against vacuuming wet items. I cleaned until I'd gathered every last scrap of fish and then I did something awful.

I took the canister of still-wet fish pieces, along with a good heap of Maine coon fur and sprinkled it Godfather-style on Janice's side of our bed. I then left the house and went to a bar down the street and proceeded to get blind drunk.

I don't know what Janice's immediate reaction was. I only know that she, Butkus, and C.H.U.D. were gone by the time I was coherent enough to remember anything. All that was left was a note asking me to be out of the apartment between 2 and 6 that next afternoon so her sister could collect the rest of her things.

I honored her request by going back to the bar down the street and getting slightly less blind drunk. That next day, I tried vacuuming up the remaining Maine coon fur, but the Life-Scrubber made a strange whining sound and emitted a reek of rotting fish. I tried finding a repair shop, but no one fixes vacuums anymore. So I carted the Life-Scrubber out to the alley. It was gone by the next morning.

Bottom line: Is the Dynamex Life-Scrubber 3000 a decent vacuum? I suppose so. Can it handle garden-variety cleanups? Absolutely. But every life will occasionally find itself imposed on by big, all encompassing messes – the kind that can threaten to bring you to your knees. What about those situations? It is any good for those? Don't kid yourself. It's only a vacuum.

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You | When

2/8/2017

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Written By: Alex Moss

You’ll be thinking about how your life is like a string of Christmas lights. Great big moments strung out in a line (or, if you’re you, tangled up in a box) with most days resembling the totally forgettable plastic wire between those lights. You’ll be thinking about this when you realize that you’re 25 and your boyfriend is a total dick. On your way out the door, it will occur to you that he still has your copy of Spider-Man 2. You’ll shrug your shoulders.
You might be on a date sometime. It’ll be a beautiful day, springtime, and Milwaukee Avenue will be alive with the feeling that today is the day for you. The day for you to fall in love. The day your life really starts.
“You,” the face of a graffiti Buddha wearing a Cubs jersey on a brick wall will seem to say, looking down on you altruistically, “keep your eyes open today.” It will either be a sign from the universe, or the adverse effects of your mood elevators, which you will have recently stopped taking.
You’ll be on the date, like I said, walking side by side, thinking, this can’t be who the graffiti man was talking about, when your date, a handsome-in-a-Legolas-from-Lord-of-the-Rings kind of guy says, “what?” and you’ll realize you said the thing about the graffiti man out loud.
“Oh, nothing,” you’ll say, and your date will suggest a stop for coffee. You’ll try to tell the guy in as gentle a way possible that this whole thing just isn’t going to happen, but what you wind up saying is yes, which is why twenty minutes later, you’re holding a coffee in your hand when you finally make an excuse like, “I’ve got to meet some friends later,” or “your jacket smells like Doritos,” and he will turn one corner, and you will turn another, and you will find yourself alone on Milwaukee Avenue on a day that hums with destiny.
You will be hungry, so before you pick up your collection of Blu-Rays from your ex-boyfriend’s (as you will have been planning on doing, but you now never will), you pop into The Ramen Shop for a messy bowl of broth.
It will be hard to describe, but the restaurant will be buzzing with that fateful feeling you will have felt while chatting with the graffiti mural, so it won’t surprise you when The Waiter turns out to be pretty cute.
When you’re on your fourth trip to the ramen shop, The Waiter will finally get the hint and ask you to the movies, where he’ll reach over and grab your thigh during a late-night showing of Evil Dead II. You’ll want to say that things are moving too fast, but it will also seem fitting because life itself is starting to move too fast, so instead you will lean over and kiss him, taste his beer breath, and accept the gifts life has given you.
You will be picking up an apartment key from him at The Ramen Shop when you casually mention that you’d like to learn how to cook ramen (hadn’t you always wanted to go to culinary school?) when The Waiter says, “honey, I bet the chef would be happy to show you a thing or to.”
Which is how you’ll find yourself alone, sweating, trying to keep up with orders in The Ramen Shop, which will have gotten a lot busier since you took over, because you will be a damn good ramen chef. The waiter will come back and say, “Hey, let’s get married.” Just like that. At first you won’t think he’s serious, but when he reaches into a steaming pot of bone-marrow broth and produces his grandmother’s wedding ring you’ll know it’s for real.
The wedding will be small and tasteful, the honeymoon brief (you have three restaurants to run, after all) but you will look back at the crazy turn of events and be grateful, grateful even for the Dorito jacket guy, who you will hope is doing well. He won’t be.
It will be hard to keep it all together with twins on the way, and for a minute, things with The Waiter will get tense. But you will remember the way the universe put the two of you together, and you will smile again. And when he surprises you with plane tickets to Hawaii, you will be overjoyed, although the food at the hotel will be overrated and in the years to come you both will wish you’d stayed a week longer, eating fruit straight from the trees, laying in each other’s arms, covered in sand.
And you’ll be taking a walk with The Twins, who will be home from college, when you notice that it’s a beautiful spring day on Milwaukee Avenue.
One of your children will be suggesting that you sell the restaurants, citing a substantial financial benefit, when you will suddenly wonder if the graffiti mural is still there, the giant Buddha wearing the Cubs jersey. You might, at that point, wonder if your whole life happened because of a message from the universe, or the adverse effects of your mood elevators, which you will never have gone back to.
But the mural will still be there, although someone will have tagged “gentrify the gentrifiers” over the big Buddha’s belly. And you’ll be standing there, trying to explain to your kids that this is the reason for everything, when The Waiter texts you to tell you that he’s waiting for you at the shop.
So you will ask the twins, who are worried for your sanity, if they are hungry, and you will all turn the corner together, and pop into the Ramen Shop for four messy bowls of broth.

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POOF

2/1/2017

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Written By: Erin Kay Van Pay
Carrie was lying wide open on Dr. Reid’s exam table with her half-socked feet in the stirrups when she first felt it.
“Oh my god, this is it!” she moaned to no one in particular, seeing as the last time she
saw the gyno was when she was paged out of the room 17 minutes ago, probably for an emergency baby squirting out.
“I’ll be right bach.” Dr. Reid said in what Carrie considered to be an international accent. You know the kind where they could be from France, or Nigeria or Mongolia? I t isn’t a bad thing to be of indeterm inate origin, Carrie thought as the speculum dove into her ya-know-what and made her want to melt like Alex Mack out of the room and the blood and the pain.
What she felt was movement, but more of a healthy punching. Which means she was further along than she thought, and super, super, very fucked.
Carrie grimaced and shifted to her left side. She stared at a laminated print entitled “Wombs of the World” and thought about the Tofurky sandwich she left half of in her car. Does vegan cheese spoil?
“Fuck!” she yelped, and the pain escalated like a misinterpreted work email all the way to the top of her stomach. Except she really had no one to answer to but herself.
“How hard is it to take a PILL!” The elderly nurse in Garfield scrubs opened the door without knocking as Carrie mourned loudly to herself.
“Miss Asch?”
“Yes, ma'am.” Carrie sat up because she was pregnant, not petty.
“Dr. Reid had to run across the street to the hospital for a premature birth.”
“Thank you.” At that, the nurse fluffed her hair poof, pursed her lips, and awkwardly let
the door close behind her, an act which seemed to take no less than four minutes. Carrie had zero idea why she was thanking anyone, especially someone who gave her no further directions.
“SO DO I...?” Carrie yelled to the closed door. “Excuse me?” The nurse poked her gray head in. “Do I go and just reschedule?”
“What was Dr. Reid going to do before she left?” “Um...tell me how pregnant I am?”
“Sure...” The nurse left the room with a confused look.
Carrie spiraled as she laid flat on the table. She thought about Dan in the shower, doing it doggy-style, the spigot splashing water and Head and Shoulders into her eyes and mouth. She coughed and he came, because ya know, guys are into a helpless woman with no dandruff. She thought about Dan P., the better Dan with the hair that was good, who was very responsible and always used protection, but some weird brand called “Rubbah.” Carrie was willing to go with knockoff condoms because she preferred off-brand everything else and honestly Dan P’s giant P, but guess what--Rubbah was no Honey Nut Scooters. And of course, there was Daniel, who ya know...would do. But with her nasty habit of forgetting the pill almost every other day and having to take two and throwing up because too much estrogen and then
going to bed for a day and half because too much estrogen and then crying because she slept forever because too much estrogen, she was really a wreck who should not be having sexual relations under any circumstances. And finally, she thought about the Tofurky sandwich going bad in her Ford Fiesta.
She closed her eyes and tried to do a fuck timeline in her head. Dan was late May, Dan P. was early June, and Daniel was July through October, because she was bad at ending things, and enjoyed sleeping lightly on a mattress directly on the floor, in a room with no window covering and plenty of Sonic cups. Because companionship.
Carrie’s stomach made a noise like an internal man shaking his fist at the sky. Except maybe it was a girl, and that might be better because women know better than to use a brand called Rubbah.
“Hi Caree.” Dr. Reid was back, and had blood on her white coat.
“Aren’t you delivering a baby?” Carrie kept her eyes closed because the internal man was still yelling.
“He requires a, eh...how you say...specialist. Anywhoo, I have your results bach.”
“But you didn’t do any tests?” Carrie opened her eyes and grabbed her stomach.
“No taysts needed beside urine and blood. You are nawt...” Dr. Reid put her finger to her
lips and looked to the fluorescent lights. Carrie stared at the international woman in a white coat. Dr. Reid screamed and doubled forward, her hands covering her nose and mouth.
“Escuse me, I am coming down with a cold. You are nawt pregnant. You aren’t getting your pay-riod because you have too much estrogen.” She left the room with snot coming down her nostril, searching for a tissue.
“WHAT!” Carrie threw her legs out of the stirrups and sat up. The internal man was
silent, but the internal punching had moved south.
“Oh, and your abdominal deescomfort, es probably gas.” Dr. Reid opened the door a
crack with a tissue stuck in her nostrils, because when you’re a doctor, who cares! She closed the door. Carrie got down from the table and stood with her ass to the wind in the patterned gown. She grimaced. There would be no Dans to text any news to, not that she would until the last minute. There would be no internal man or woman screaming and punching their way to existence. There would only be gas, and like Dans in and out of her life, and pills in and out of her body, it would pass. She thought of the rotten Tofurky sandwich and knew what she was to do. Poof. Frrrrrrt.

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River Time

1/23/2017

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Written By: Will Meinen

“Well if that ain’t a kick in the head,” exclaimed Cathy Potts as her 15-foot flat bottom Bass Tracker fishing boat had just sunk to the bottom of the Missouri River.

“God damn bird,” Seth shouted at the sky. “Avian asshole, feathered fuck face, beaked bastard.”

“Okay, enough with the illiterative insults. You should know better than steer straight into the goddamn shore, Seth. Jesus. A bird flies into your head and you go apoplectic and crash headlong into a pile a’ rocks. Lose all sense of responsibility for a watercraft and its passenger, your Mother, the women who labored uphill both ways for the duration of a TV mini-series to give you life. Blaming the bird is like Nero blaming the fiddle.”

“It hurt like hell,” whined Seth. “There’s no use arguing about it, the boat is swallowed up by the mighty mo at this point. Damn, I was looking forward to shooting some fish.”

Seth ran his hand across the strings of the bow mounted with a spool of fishing line.

“I’m not one to cry over spilt milk,” Cathy mused. “As you know I’d much rather let the cat lap it up while I finish my morning paper. I can’t help but notice, however, that while your bow is on solid ground my rig is lost to the currents. The two were next to each other resting at your feet, so explain to me, my boy, how your two hands only managed to rescue one rig? Your rig to put a finer point on it.”
“That’s not fair,” countered Seth. “I was trying to save the motor, with no help from you.”

“I wasn’t about to herniate a disk pulling a motor.”

“With no help from you and once I figured it was a lost cause, I admit I panicked, and grabbed the thing closest to me which just happened to be my bow. Let’s drop it already we gotta figure out how we’re gettin’ home. Where’s your phone?”
“In my tackle box. How about yours?”

“Back at the house. We can sit here and wait for someone to come by. Worse comes to worse Dad knows which spots we were checkin’ and if we’re not back by dark he’ll come looking. I’m gonna shoot some fish while we wait.”
Seth turned and started walking up the embankment.

“The hell you will,” called his Mother as he slipped up the hill. “This isn’t going to conveniently work out such that you get to do what you set out to despite crashing our vessel.

You can put that bow down and waste time in some other mindless manner. Skip rocks or jam a stick into the mud I don’t care, but no fishing.”

Just as Seth was about to register a complaint of judicial bias a shirtless man with a stomach like a medicine ball drinking a Budweiser out of a neon, green koozie that read “I’m on River Time” steered his Lund, steel V-bottom towards the marooned Mother and Son.

“Catching anything?” the man asked as the motor idled.

“We had a bit of an accident actually,” Cathy replied. “My boy here ran us into the rocks and our boat sank to the damn bottom believe it or not.”

“Those rocks? They’re pretty clearly marked; don’t know how you could run into ‘em.”

“A bird flew into my head,” Seth shouted in his defense. Although hearing it aloud made him realize how absurd it sounded. He would have faired better in this man’s eyes if he said he hadn’t see the rocks somehow. “A bird made me do it” made him seem like a real shit for brains.

“Well, looks like you’re hoppin’ in with me.”

The man maneuvered the boat towards the shore. Cathy reached out to grab the hull while Seth scrambled back down the embankment to climb aboard.
“I’m Ray, by the way,” said the man as he extended his hand and peered over the top of his truck stop Blue Blockers.

“Anybody want a beer?”

Cathy politely declined. Ray motioned a cold Budweiser in the direction of Seth who turned his eyes to his Mother who stared back coldly. Seth shook his head no.
The boat pulled away from shore as Ray pointed to his favorite sandbars on which to get wasted.

“That’s a good one there. My brothers and me, Rich and Dave, posted up on that patch of sand and drank two racks of Bud between the three of us. Rich got so sunburnt on the top of his feet he couldn’t wear shoes for a week. Dumbass”
Seth laughed while Cathy squinted her eyes and angled her head so that the wind pushed her hair out of her face.

“That one there my whole family, cousins and all, set up camp for the fourth of July. We put up a volleyball net and a cornhole set. Barbequed - the whole nine yards.
Partied from ten in the morning until damn near midnight. I got so drunk it took me an hour to get my boat on my trailer. I came out the house the next morning and the boat was sittin’ totally cock eyed.”

Seth found these stories of river debauchery hilarious and aspirational. He couldn’t wait until he was old enough to buy his own little boat, shitty most likely but his, go out on the river with a little cooler and catch a buzz.

Cathy found these stories of river debauchery evidence of arrested development. A middle aged man doing the same shit he’d been doing since he was Seth’s age. The lack of evolution was like sand in her bathing suit. These were the good ol’ boys that held court at the COOP drinking weak coffee from the Bunn industrial double burner speculating about corn prices and what kind of winter we were gonna have. These men were deacons and city councilman; business owners and football coaches; civic leaders and the molders of young minds. Each and every one them could give you a tour of the river and where they got so skunked they couldn’t recite the alphabet forwards. She shared a bed with one of these men. He wasn’t the worst of them but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree cuz the apple has no choice of what tree it grows on.

“Get up front there,” Ray instructed Seth so he could grab the dock. Ray expertly guided the boat alongside the warped wood while finishing his beer, pulling open the cooler with the big toe of his sandaled foot and tossing the can inside with the other empties.

“Here you go, back on dry land.”

“Thank you so much for your help. We would of been out there for awhile if you wouldn’t of come by,” said Cathy as Seth extended a hand to her from the dock.
“Ah, somebody would of snatched you up if I didn’t. You can buy me a beer if I see you in town.” “Sounds like a deal. Thanks again.”

Seth pushed the boat off and the two gave a quick wave before walking towards their truck, now with a trailer as useful as teets on a boar.

“Ray seemed like a good guy,” said Seth. He placed his bow in the bed of the truck and waited for his Mom to unlock the doors. She climbed in and Seth repeated, “Ray seemed like a good guy.”

Cathy, not one to speak ill of someone she didn’t really know although she knew the type and you get to a point in life where that’s all you need to pass judgement, sighed and turned the keys in the ignition.

“You owe me a boat,” she said and pulled onto the gravel road.

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the probably witch

11/12/2016

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By: Patrick Poulin

If you asked Abigail Sprocket who her favorite dog-walking client was, she’d say “the probably witch”. Abigail, at the too-young age of nine, walked people’s dogs. It’s all she ever wanted to do. And she was almost certain that one of them was a witch; one of the clients, not one of the dogs.

You’re probably wondering why Abigail thought this about her client, whose name was Ms. Francis Broom.

Her name alone was a sign of Ms. Broom’s witch-hood, but that was not Abigail’s first suspicion.

Her initial suspicion came when Abigail first attempted to walk Ms. Broom’s dog, named Cat. The dog’s name was Cat.

“Hello, Ms. Broom?” Abigail called out after knocking a few times on Ms. Broom’s front door. “I’m here to walk your dog?”

When Abigail realized she said this in question form, she questioned it herself, so she tried again.

“I mean, I am most certainly here to walk your dog!”

And just as she finished, the door flung open, seemingly on its own until Abigail realized that a very small, very beautiful woman stood in the shadows.

“Well, now that we’ve got that settled,” said the woman dryly, “Cat’s in the kitchen and the leash is on the banister”.

“Hi, Ms. Broom,” she said. “I’m Abigail...wait…did you say cat? I’m a dog walker. I’m here to walk your dog.”

“I know that. Cat is in the kitchen. And step to it because you’re already late and I need to stretch my legs.”

“You’re coming on the walk? Also, I’m not late,” said Abigail.

“I’m on moon time, dear,” said Ms. Broom, “and according to the moon you are late. Enough of this! Cat’s in the kitchen.”

“But I’m not here to walk your cat,” said Abigail.

“Yes, you are! Don’t play dumb with me,” said Ms. Broom.

“I’m not dumb!” said Abigail.

“I never said you were dumb, little lady. I said not to play dumb. And the fact that you think those two things are one and the same means you just might be dumb, because the dumb ones are incapable of playing dumb. It’s like a lion.”

“What is?” Abigail asked.

“A lion,” continued Ms. Broom, “cannot play lion because it is already a lion. So it must be a lion. A lion can play tiger, but that is a silly game for a lion to play since they are so similar.”

“Ok,” Abigail said, “but those are still cats and—“

“And yes, you’re here to walk the dog!” finished Ms. Broom.

A series of events took place next that gave Abigail her first suspicion that Ms. Broom was a witch. It’s hard to say what specifically led to the suspicion because they happened almost simultaneously.

Abigail opened her mouth to ask another question but her breath was literally swept from her tongue and she stood in the doorway speechless, with her mouth agape, while Ms. Broom gave her an icy stare. The stare made her shiver as if she had been dunked in cold water, and the yard gate behind her swung open even though it had been latched closed.

“I’m afraid you’ve spoiled my appetite, young lady,” said Ms. Broom and Abigail’s ability to speak returned.

“Your appetite for what?” asked Abigail.

“My appetite for a walk.”

“I’m sorry,” said Abigail.

“Now, if you’ll please come back tomorrow, we can try again. And tomorrow, try not to embarrass my dog.”

“How did I embarrass your dog?” asked Abigail.

“Today you refused to walk him because his name happens to be Cat.”

And Ms. Broom spun around quickly, not giving Abigail a chance to respond as the door to the house closed itself.

Abigail was shocked by the whole experience. And even more than the supernatural events that took place, she was bothered by how rude Ms. Broom had been.

All that Abigail could say as she exited the yard was, “What a witch!”

The next day, and in turn the next few weeks and months went much smoother with Ms. Broom. After getting around the whole dog-named-Cat thing, there wasn’t much trouble. The two of them actually became friends, which made Abigail think that her initial rudeness had been a façade.

Every day Abigail, Ms. Broom, and Cat went for a long walk. Cat turned out to be a very friendly sheep dog that actually behaved more like a squirrel.

And every day Ms. Broom revealed something new about herself that gave Abigail reason to believe she was a witch.

For example, one day on their walk, Abigail asked a question that she had been wanting to ask since day two with Ms. Broom, but hadn’t yet worked up the courage.

“Ms. Broom, why is your dog named Cat?”

“Well,” said Ms. Broom, “the others like me all have cats. They say it is unfitting for one of us to have a dog. But I am a dog person! I don’t like cats and so, as a loophole, I named my dog Cat so they couldn’t say anything.”

“The others?” asked Abigail.

“Yes. The other wi…the other women who are my sisters.”

“How many sisters do you have?” asked Abigail.

“Oh, a few thousand,” answered Ms. Broom.

Abigail never found out with certainty whether or not Ms. Broom was a real witch or not. If she was, she certainly didn’t like being a witch. Ms. Broom often complained that her “sisters” wanted her to dislike children more, or that they didn’t think she was aging properly.

“But, Ms. Broom, I think you’re very pretty.”

“I know!” said Ms. Broom, “I never hear the end of it from my sisters. ‘Inappropriate’, they say, for a woman my age to look the way I do”.

“But how old are you?” asked Abigail.

“One-hundred and twelve. I’m still young! What do they expect?”

Eventually Abigail worked up the courage to ask her friend the big question. She did it, though, with some care.

“Ms. Broom, you seem to have special powers, is that true?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Ms. Broom replied.

“And you don’t have any sort of job or profession that I can tell, right?”

“I choose not to, but yes that’s true,” said Ms. Broom.

“Are you a witch?” asked Abigail abruptly, and as she did, Ms. Broom and Cat both stopped walking and looked at her silently for a few moments.

“Well, Abigail,” said Ms. Broom, “since we have become good friends over the past few months, I think it is only fair that I tell you the truth.” Abigail’s eyes widened. “And the truth is, I’m not allowed to tell you.”

Yes. If you asked Abigail Sprocket who her favorite dog-walking client was, she’d definitely say “the probably witch”.

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That Which We Destroy

11/10/2016

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By: Sarah Baumann

The women resided in their room, which lay on the second floor of the white ward, one of three floors reserved for women at the South Carolina State Asylum. Their small room was dim, the minimal light stemming from the barred window on the wall across from their beds. Though reminiscent of a closet, it was spacious for a state hospital room in 1903.

The older patient, a woman of about forty-five, stood facing the window, strapping her hands to the right side of her body to keep from touching anything. Her eyes fell upon the courtyard just below, watching the male patients enjoy their leisure time, hideous, filthy people, she thought, menacing over them like a perched crow.
Her counterpart sat reading, disregarding her company. Though thirty-eight, her lighter features and lean frame made her look about eight years younger. Her lighter, blonde hair hid the number of grays she had; her face without a blemish. She sat poised, paging through her copy of Edgar Allan Poe. It was only when her roommate crossed the room to the sink that she even batted an eye.

Careful, Lucille, she said, her emerald eyes hardly shifting from the page, you’ll give Lady MacBeth a run for her damned estate.

Macbeth? Lucy replied, scrubbing her hands relentlessly, Macbeth? now that has got to be the one about that harlot runnin’ oft with that young man. God done killed them because they had relations, you know… before marriage.

The younger woman, amused, set down her book and leaned toward her contender.  Well bless your heart, Lucille, she said.  I should’ve expected you wouldn’t understand my reference, seein’ you are about as dim as a perishin’ firefly in the heat of Ju-ly. But no, you’re thinkin’ of Romeo and Juliet, who did not, by the way, have ‘relations’ prior to marriage. I tremble at the thought of what your god would do to them if it had been premarital.

Lucy edged across the room toward her Bible, picking it up and cradling it like a newborn.  the lord God shall smite the wicked before they enter his gates. you shall see upon your judgement day, johanna leonard. why, your wickedness will’t surely be rewarded by the fires brought on by the devil himself.

Say it ain’t so, Lucille?  Johanna smiled, a humorous vein painfully evident.  And your fate is so rest assured? I can’t imagine as to how you shall be dealt with.  She paused momentarily, visibly imagining Lucy’s demise.  I do like to imagine, if there is a god, that his plans for you are nothing short of a happenin’ in Mr. Poe’s most gruesome of dreams. Have you sent any cats to the gallows lately

If?  Lucy drew her Bible closer to her chest.  iI? there is no question of God’s presence in our lives. ‘remember lot’s wife!’ luke:32. ye that has of little faith, miss leonard, shall turn into nothin’ but a pillar of salt.

Johanna nodded, feigning to consider the thought.  I suppose I’d rather be a pillar of salt than havin’ my flesh devoured by bloodthirsty dogs.  She now crept toward Lucy, bridging her back in the impression of a wolf ready to pounce.

Was that not the fate of dear Jezebel?

Lucy slowly backed away.  don’t touch me, you evil witch! don’t you touch me!  Her yells were loud enough to be heard down the corridor.

What?  Johanna said, pawing at her prey.  Are you afraid of contact? What will you do when god embraces you in the kingdom of heaven?

Just stay away! Stay away you wicked thing!  Johanna reached her victim, giving her a good look over before the attack. She studied Lucy, who shielded her face with her arms, her eyes squinshed shut. Johanna smiled as she poked Lucy in the arm, then awaited the reaction. Lucy crumpled to the ground, writhing as if in pain.  you witch! you terrible witch! i shall bathe for months!

Johanna admired her work as three nurses rushed into the room. They attempted to calm her, seizing her arms in effort to raise her from the ground, which caused her to cower and flail further. Her screams pervaded the halls, causing a number of patients to follow the sound toward her door. The women gawked, standing just beyond the tiny door frame, fidgeting and observing as one of their own fought an imagined pending doom. In the heat of battle, one of the nurses turned to Johanna in a fury.  You did this! How did you do this, what did you do?

Johanna merely shrugged, leaning against the wall in a move of disregard.  Lila you know Lucy here ain’t the affectionate kind. But leave it to you to make things worse.

Why would you to this? Lila grabbed Lucy’s arm in an effort to restrain her, only to be swatted away and kicked in the stomach.  What did you do?
            Johanna casually walked over and picked up her book.  I didn’t do nothin’ and you know it. Just leave her be or take her to the showers; I could hardly care. She glided past the chaos evolving before her, paving her way through the amounting crowd outside her door.   She stopped a moment to look back, then turned to one of the other patients at the end of the mass.  Whoever said nothin’ interestin’ ever happens around here?

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Overdrawn

11/6/2016

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By: Joseph Pete

The soldier lived it up, knowing he was about to deploy to Iraq. He dropped $235 on liquor and mixed drinks at a bar on a $20-all-you-can-drink-draft-beer night when he could have drank himself to blissful oblivion and beyond on a double sawbuck. He bought trick bills he’d never use at a magic and curiosity shop at the touristy Pike’s Place Market. He tore into an overpriced and overcooked steak in the observatory at the Space Needle. He bought the baddest speakers for his ride, with the lowest base. He splurged on Courvoisier, and passed the Courvoisier, even though no one had asked for it. He sipped venti Frappuccinos. He even shopped at Whole Foods.

Hey, he could die soon.

The soldier was still shocked when he went to an ATM right before deploying so he’d have some cash to exchange for Iraqi dinar and it turned him down.

“Insufficient funds,” the screen read.

Frantically, he tried it again. “Insufficient funds,” the screen read.
Convinced it must be some mistake, he attempted a third time.
“Insufficient funds.”

The direness of the situation suddenly sunk in.

Nothing, he had nothing. The U.S. government was sending him off overseas to an early grave and he was bankrupt. He was morally bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt, emotionally bankrupt and bankrupt bankrupt. If he wasn’t mowed down by gunfire or ripped apart by shrapnel, he’d return to a barracks room full of spiders and a car with flat tires. He’d return to nothing, the vast empty nothingness of a life wasted.

But, it occurred to him in a eureka moment, at least he wouldn’t be broke any more, since his Iraq deployment would afford him the opportunity to save basically his whole salary, seeing as how he’d have no opportunity to spend it and the government would provide free lodging and MREs, which were filled with the kind of space-age, preservative-saturated food many wouldn’t even feed to stray cats.

Still it felt like a verdict on his life, a great indignity, his fate.
He was overdrawn, empty-pocketed, probably doomed to die in a hostile, foreign land for no reason.

His platoon sat around waiting in the airplane hangar talking about how hot it was Iraq, how they’d sweat out eight glasses of water a day and needed to ingest way, way more, and the deadly IEDs were.

He could only think about how he had nothing in the bank, how--if he had kids--he’d have nothing to leave them if AK-47 fire cut him down. He felt like he had nothing, was nothing, would never amount to anything.

“Go, go, go! Get on that plane, you maggots,” the sergeant screamed. “Hajji’s waiting for you.”

The soldier felt like a maggot, with no savings, literally nothing to show for the twenty-two years he’d spent on the earth.

Lo and behold, when they arrived in Kuwait there was a Burger King. The soldier's platoonmate Clayton, a Missouri native, was adamant they should avail themselves of their last opportunity to savor flame-grilled whoppers.

Though his checking balance was nil, probably less than that, the soldier was suddenly reminded he had a credit card. He didn’t know when he’d next be able to make a payment since the lines at the internet cafes in Iraq stretched all the way to Iran, but he realized while eating a burger he really should have run out his full line of credit back in the states too.

He could have taken ballroom dancing classes, stockpiled gold and ordered the seabass if he realized he could max out his credit card too. He could have skied, jet-skied, and bought a round of shots for the whole bar. He could have drank top-shelf. He could have rented a party bus, no, rented a yacht and partied with inflatable dinosaurs, and even parked at any garage in the Chicago Loop, for any length of time.

Even Visa wouldn’t go after a dead man or at least a dead soldier at a time when anything even vaguely unpatriotic was politically toxic. He should have scarfed down surf and turf or veal at some white tablecloth bistro the night before they went on lockdown before deployment because he probably would have been shot dead anyway.

He should have been epic, should have just lived it up in what could have been his final days. A dead man owes no payments. A dead man owes nobody. A dead man owes nothing.

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The thing that makes the light go clink

11/5/2016

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By: McKenzie Schwark

It was the first real day of autumn, so the windows had been open all day. Rhubbarb, Peter, and Sheila all crawled into the bed they shared. Their mother had come in a few minutes earlier to add an extra comforter to the now chilled room. She had left the window open just a crack; the sour apple smell of her perfume mixed with the smell of dead leaves and hung in the air.

Sheila was the last to crawl into bed. She curled her toes around the blanket and snuggled up against Peter’s arm.

“Get off me,” he shouted pushing her off and taking a scoop of blanket under his elbow. “And go turn off the light.”

“I always do it,” Sheila said tugging the blanket back. “And it’s cold tonight.”

“Shut up,” Rhubbard shouted smacking them both with his pillow. A buzzing sound had started from the ceiling. They each perked up and stretched their necks to listen.

“What is that?” asked Peter. He was the middle child; the inadequate one, not old enough to be the smartest, not young enough to be the cutest. On each of their birthdays their mother baked a cake with a big frosted number for how many years old they were. This year she had forgotten that his favorite flavor was Dutch Chocolate, not German Chocolate and she had scraped away the bottom of an eight and made it a nine. Peter could tell though.

“It’s the light, dummy,” said Rhubbard. “Someone go turn it off.”

“Yeah, dummy,” Sheila added sticking her tongue out at Peter. Sheila and Rhubbard had the same crooked left eyebrow, and she always took his side, even when Peter knew they were both wrong.

The sound grew louder as the mysterious buzzer approached the light hanging from the ceiling. There was a clink against the light. The buzz stopped for a moment.

“How is it the light,” Peter scoffed, “if it just touched the light?”

“It’s probably a toothbrush!” Sheila shot up at the sound of her own brilliance. They both looked at her sympathetically. She was lucky she was so darn cute. Sheila had big pink cheeks and eyelashes so long they practically made a whooshing sound when she blinked. Rhubbarb had knocked out her front tooth playing broomstick hockey in the kitchen. She looked like a cartoon character in a storybook about an orphanage for dusty, feisty, but dumb girls.

A shadow had crept its way onto their bedroom door. The wood had gone black in the shape of a dome. It breathed, slowly seeping onto the wall and then shrinking back halfway down the door. It looked like the ocean, Rhubbarb thought. They had been to the Pacific once with their aunt Clara. She told them to wear their swimsuits even though the water was practically freezing. Their family was full of dumb girls.

The shadow spasmed. It flickered and and flew around the room, bouncing from ceiling to wall to floor. Sheila tucked the blanket even further under her feet. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to snatch her and drag her into the portal to Hell that was under their bed. Peter watched it move, and stayed as still as he could. Rhubbarb tried to seem brave, but even he was shaking.

The buzzing grew. It stretched to each corner and wall of the room. Sheila pulled the blanket all the way up to her ears and tried to drown it out, but the buzzing only got louder. It was like standing directly under an airplane. The window rattled as the sound reverberated against the pane. The three glasses of water lined on their bedside table shook so hard that droplets jumped out the side of the glasses.

The shadow grew so big that it covered the entire light bulb. The room had practically gone black. Sheila squeezed her eyes shut. Rhubbarb screamed. But Peter, he knew what he had to do. Not the cute one, not the smart one, but he was something. He jumped out from the covers, and in one leap made it over Sheila and to the light switch. The buzzing had made the floor as jumpy as an Earthquake. He turned out the light.

Sheila blinked her eyes open. Rhubbarb took a deep breath. Peter shut the window, which he not noticed had been open just a crack. He scooched back into bed next to Sheila. They laid their heads against the pillow. The room was pitch dark, save for a small sliver of light coming through the bottom of the door. Rhubbard could see his sister’s big eyelashes shudder as she blinked her eyes open.

“It liked the light,” said Peter breaking the silence. “Sometimes to make the monsters go away, you got to turn out the lights.” Rhubbard rolled his eyes. Sheila slipped her cold toes back under the blanket. And Peter, the brave one, went to sleep.

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