July 2014 | back-issues, fiction
No Good Deed
He might have been twenty-five, or fifty. His face was so dirty it was impossible to tell.
Mayra first saw him picking through a pile of litter near her dormitory. His purposeful search stopped with the discovery of a half-eaten cheeseburger. Horrified, Mayra watched the burger travel from the grass to the man’s mouth and disappear in two bites.
Her friend Lauren, a social-work major, said, “That’s Big Bill. Shelters don’t take him because he’s usually drunk, but he’s harmless.”
He’s still a person with dignity, thought Mayra, who tried hard to see the spiritual beauty in everyone. She gave him a ten. He thanked her.
“You’re just enabling him,” Lauren rebuked.
“But someone’s got to help.”
And she did, organizing a benefit concert and convincing the university to hire Bill as a janitor. When Bill stepped into the entrance of his new apartment, reporters were there to capture the moment. Conscious of the spotlight, he examined the secondhand furniture and full pantry with stoic gratitude.
Mayra chose to major in journalism after reading the feature article and deciding she could do better. A year later she won an internship at the local newspaper.
She interviewed Bill and discovered he was homeless again and unemployed. His breath reeked of vodka. She choked back her heartbreak, filed the story, and resolved to forget.
Two days later, she received an email.
Thank you so much for writing about Bill Arnolds. I’ve been searching for him for years. He’s my son.
Guilt
“Joe, get rid of that gum! You’re goin’ to church!”
Joe extracted the pink blob and smashed it into the coin slot of the parking meter, then ran to catch up with his mother.
His older sister Maggie scolded him. “That was nasty. God will get you for that.”
During Mass, Father Mayhew opened a birdcage and released two doves. As they escaped toward the open window, one defecated on Joe’s head.
Maggie elbowed him. “I told you. That was God.”
No, Joe thought, that was just a bird. And for that, he felt guiltier than he’d ever felt before.
Anna Zumbro
July 2014 | back-issues, fiction
Bill’s desk was clean, nearly antiseptic, holding a stapler, a rolodex and a computer terminal, the computer tower stashed under his desk. He had always believed the neatness of his desk represented his efficiency, and thus his value. That and his expertise with the Infamous system. By now, he was its resident expert. Surely that guaranteed job security.
He had recently seen others “let go” during the current downsizing, but he knew he was safe. Until he tried to log on to his computer:
LOG IN FAILED. SYSTEM DOWN.
Then his phone rang. It was Jim from Human Resources.
“Bill, can I see you in my office for a minute?”
Walking down the hall, his footsteps muffled on the carpet, Bill felt as though he were following an invisible executioner leading him to the gallows.
Jim’s office was sparsely furnished: a wastepaper basked next to a desk with a chair on casters behind it and a straight-backed metal chair in front.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way, but the company’s been downsizing for some time now…” Jim droned on. Bill stopped listening and stared at the curtain fluttering at the window.
After eighteen years, no retirement, no “golden parachute,” just a man saying something about “references” and “severance pay.” References? For what? At 58, who would hire him? He was alone; no children, his wife dead five years.
He began to listen again. Heard “… let you go,” and, at the word “go,” did just that – ran to the open window thirteen floors above a concrete sidewalk.
Lon Richardson
He has been writing non-fiction and fiction for about 20 years — in journalism having been published in newspapers, magazines, industry newsletters, and have had short stories published in two literary journals: From The Depths (“Two Tickets,” December 2012) and The Torrid Literature Journal (“One Thing Led To Another,” October 2013).
April 2014 | back-issues, fiction
Big commotion last night. Brianna O’Quinn ripped a shotgun blast into the night on Lookout Mountain. No one knows what she saw. She won’t tell neither. The widows on picket duty say they found her on her haunches, eating dirt. But they must of confused her with Darkish. No one else eats dirt but her.
I’m a man of few words. Back at LaGrange, my mama always told Gib and me, “Quiet, boys.” I listened. Gib didn’t.
But I want to ask Brianna what she seen last night. I want to do what I do best: listen. I sit with her at breakfast. But I don’t know what to say. All the widows look at her queer. But I remain with her. Brianna’s appetite has doubled since last night. She stuffs as much food in her mouth as possible. Eats like a hog, except she chews her food slow. She closes her eyes, which look like they might could tear up.
I want to talk to her, tell her whatever she thought she seen last night is gone. But I cain’t. Don’t have the words.
—Jeff Stayton
April 2014 | back-issues, fiction
Why doesn’t love end when it should?
The man I loved has found someone else. Palm trees lance skies full of low clouds. Sunset breaks like a jellyfish tide. It will rain.
She walks to his door with her wolfhound. I’m shocked seeing how old she is. Black hair, dark eyes, short, thin, not his type. He greets her, hugs her, and the dog, immense, jumps up. She glances in my direction.
What am I doing? Stalking? What is this craziness?
I married him six years ago. We divorced. What am I doing here in a rented car, looking at Jack and this woman? In the cloudy light, her long hair sways; she reaches for his arm. I hear soft rumble of thunder like the dog growling. She’s ordinary, nothing but a dark woman with a huge dog, an eerie look, Jack grinning like a fool at the door.
Don’t let her in.
Don’t don’t don’t don’t let her in.
In Greece, on our honeymoon, Jack found a statue of the goddess Hecate. We laughed, swam, drank too much wine, made love by a sea that hissed against black rocks. I left that small figure among shards and broken shells, dead fish and live gulls on that stony beach. I didn’t like her.
Jack, don’t let her in.
Death walks around these havens where the old come to the humid air, the orange groves, come in their millions, and die, one by one. In a flash he is shadowed, inside, in her arms while a wrongful dark stretches under the palms.
The woman, maiden, mother, crone, whatever she is, reappears, as red sirens rip the distance and some eager ambulance begins begins begins in the dusk-filled street to arrive.
—Janet Shell Anderson
Janet has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for fiction and published by Vestal Review, decomP. FRIGG, The Citron Review, Grey Sparrow, Cease Cows and others.
April 2014 | back-issues, fiction
The old man rested his elbows against the rail of the bridge and contemplated the churning depths below. He was ready to be done with his problems.
He held the plastic card over the rail and let go. There. He would never be tempted to spend himself into so much debt again.
Sammy shivered under the thin blanket as the wind invaded his space under the bridge. Something sharp hit him in the forehead. He swore and searched among the rocks for the assailant.
A credit card, sent to him straight from the heavens. Sammy knelt and praised the Lord.
—Anna Zumbro
April 2014 | back-issues, fiction
Melissa didn’t know why she was surprised that you could see all the gum stuck to the parking lot. You could see it right through the clunky gray snow and ice drowned by exhaust fumes. Every frostless patch shone with a newer squashed piece of color against the old, worn black tar. She imagined future gum archaeologists studying the rise and fall of the Clear Valley Mall.
Ah yes. Here we have a fine specimen of Big League Chew. I’d say probably from around 1984 or 85. Hmm. Could be from a mall rat or arcade junkie. Oh, and it looks we could have a teeth whitener, circa 2012, over here.
She remembered giggling in school when the nuns got riled up about gum in any form, whether it was being chewed, stuck under desks, or shoved in notes. Gum took them under siege—it was everywhere.
Melissa felt a little overwhelmed when she thought about the things they were right about, but even more so about the things they got wrong, and in that brief few seconds, before she continued walking toward the mall entrance—when her eyes perused the vast parking lot wasteland filled with dirty snow and chewed up gum—she wondered if she really believed in anything.
—J.M. Breen
