Entries Tagged 'Short Fiction' ↓

She’s peeling bandages from her thigh in the floor of his bedroom,
long legs splayed, and the sound of salve and raw skin reminds him of
sex. She’s so beautiful and it’s so obviously effortless since he’s
only seen her wash her face once before bed and they’ve been dating 3
months. She exudes a rare grace and comfortable confidence that she
wears as simply as a sweater. She’s tall, thin and when she walks
people notice that she’s coming their way. Then they turn to follow her
before they can stop themselves. She’s a dancer. Or, she was, at least,
until he set her on fire.

Halloween night was their third date. He’d already been thinking
that maybe he did, but when she arrived at the door dressed as a mummy
he knew he loved her. She was concerned about not being able to afford
a good cosutme on her restaurant hostess salary, so she needed to be
creative. She fretted for weeks about what to wear, then decided
Halloween afternoon to wrap her long, toned limbs in gauze and go as
the undead. They attended a party that night where the women were
dressed in cheerleading uniforms and french maid costumes and catholic
school girl skirts, but he couldn’t stop smiling at his martini-sipping
mummy.

They left the party early and went to her favorite dive bar to play
darts. Hours passed and several bottles of wine were consumed.
Enamored, he couldn’t stop touching her when it was her turn to throw.
The last time, as she got up from his embrace to take her turn, he lit
another cigarette and she wrinkled her nose at the smell. He wondered
if she was incentive enough to actually quit this time. In a flash he
decided she was, and teasingly flicked his lighter near what he thought
was the floor near her feet. Instead he made contact with her ankle
where her costume began, sending the gauze encasing her lithe dancer
body into flames.

***

She’s applying more clear gooey sauve to her right thigh where they
cut away flesh for skin grafting. After the accident she didn’t go
straight away to the doctor because she wanted to protect him. He
couldn’t stop crying for having hurt her. She wanted him to stop
crying, so she said it didn’t hurt. The next morning it felt like her
bones were bruised so she saw a physician who promptly treated her
third degree burns. He told her no dancing for twelve weeks.

She didn’t see him for two days after her hospital visit. She stayed
in bed for 48 hours and rocked herself, numbed from the pain pills,
numb to his desperate messages.

It’s been three months since that Halloween night, and she tells him
she’s not sure she’ll ever feel like dancing again. She’s rewrapping
her once perfect legs with white, clean sheets of gauze. Despite her
delicate beauty, he’s repulsed by how she lookes in the gauze.

He loves her, but she’s gained weight since she quit dancing. Her
skin has become dull and her burn scars are extensive. Her legs will
heal, but there will be knotty scars and ugly discoloration where yards
of mole-specked creamy skin used to be. When they fuck he never touches
her below her hips if he can help it. He doesn’t understand how, but he
wishes he could tell her he is sickened by the bumps of her wounds when
she locks her legs around him. He often comes too soon by thinking of
someone else, a girl in his office with a preference for seamed
stockings.

He doesn’t know how, but he’ll leave her when she’s stronger. When she is healthy. For now he’ll be still, be silent and wait. For now he’ll just sit and finger the lighter that caused it all and try not to watch as she covers her trauma in the floor of his bedroom.

Axe prowls the old house at night, when children are in bed. His footsteps are light like powder. He takes inventory nightly, counting head after head after head. He can see them hiding, waiting, in the black dark of the den or kitchen. They sit on chairs. Some lie on the floor, but their heads and muscles alert. They feel his green eyes hot on their hairy faces. His shoulders move up and down in a sexy rhythm with every stride.

This is his house. It is where he stays. He keeps constant watch over his property and all the way to the end of Front St. He knows all those that live within the spray-stained walls. The neighbors hear the dozens of screaming voices with every passing moon, but they are too strung out or too evicted to notice. Axe never got used to the continuous howling.

Their number is multiplying every week. New ones in groups of five and six arrive wriggling and blind, eyes sealed, mouths gasping and gaping. A few of them will die within a few days or weeks, their carcasses left to rot and turn inside out. Bodies decay amongst countless piles of tissue and skull and maggots just like them.

Axe scratches where his ear used to be, digging at the pink scar tissue with unclipped nails. His stomach is hollow and infested with worms. His belly is distended, the worms slowly taking him over from within his guts. He no longer eats, leaving the scarce scaps to the new arrivals that survived. He is ready to die, but he will wander far from this house, far from these streets to escape his earth. He will not waste away to pulp in his house, exposed for the others to see. He will find a tall, tall building far from his home–his shit-filled home made of hair and stench. He will climb and climb and climb, his shoulders beating in his back like an exposed heart, until he reaches the top. Until he breathes thinner air. He will not look over the edge to the ground, only at the horizon he’s never seen before.

Everyone will say he fell. Only he knows he jumps.
And he didn’t land on his feet.

I’ve reworked a short story I wrote and published here a long time ago for submission into my first ever writing contest. The new version of the story is posted below. Feel free to make constructive comments about the piece if you want. But you’d better hurry. Deadline is in just a few hours.

Have You Seen Darryl?

Darryl was allergic to onions, something he told me every time I saw him. He showed up late because he always worked late. He’d had the same job for twenty-six years working second shift at the local telephone company. He told me he hated it there, that he was tied all day to his desk. He was 55 and had to raise his hand for permission to piss. He spoke to no one at his job because no one spoke to him. A co-worker once suggested he may know my phone number, which made something behind my eyes tingle and my stomach hurt.

Darryl carried a strip of velvet in his pants pocket. He took it out sometimes and rubbed it between the thumb and third finger of his left hand. He stroked the material with purpose and affection.

Long Island Teas mixed in frozen pint glasses was his drink of choice. I mixed them strong for him. He drank them up eagerly and through a straw. In between sips he propped his stubbly chin on the rim of the glass while he waited.

Always waited. Always waited for me to speak to him first. His eyelids and hairline and brow were eager for attention as I refilled the ice or turned his way to ring up a check. He sat just behind the register where it was hard to hear him and difficult to reach his glass. But it was where he could be seen. He got up to use the bathroom many times and whenever he wanted.

He only came in twice a month or so, but every time he did all he talked about was Felicity Robie. Some jazz vocalist with whom he was obsessed. When he whispered her name he would nod and rub his papery hands together. Always whispering. Always requiring you to lean into him. Every time he came in I promised to find some of Felicity’s music, maybe on the internet. He really seemed to want me to and asked me to each time he came in. By the time I’d closed the bar and smoked a joint with the manager in the parking lot I’d already forgotten my promise.

I asked Darryl what he did for Christmas just before January arrived. He told me that he did nothing again, just ate some tacos and listened to Felicity Robie.

With what felt like a punch to the gut I recalled his account of Thanksgiving. It was much the same. Except in November he bought Burger King and rented some videos. I spotted that his icy glass was empty before I could think of a response and was thankful for an escape from his expectant face. I wish I’d remembered he had no one. I would have invited him over for my own meager Christmas dinner. Except I wouldn’t have because he stared right into my mouth when I spoke, his lips parted, his tongue visible, quivering and snake-like. Because he was forever folding his papery hands.

One night an hour before midnight, just before the managers locked up the front doors, Darryl slipped in. He marched straight in and spoke without waiting. He shouted out my name. I turned and saw him in the lobby, hidden under a shiny navy blue slicker, his face wet from the walloping rainstorm that had kept the bar mostly empty that night. He stood only a foot away from me and held up a clear plastic baggie polka-dotted with droplets of rain. Inside it were two colorful concert tickets. Felicity Robie’s name was printed boldly in a square-ish font on each.

“Did you listen to any of her songs yet?,” he spoke again. Again without waiting. My eyes fell to the broom I that was supporting my weight as I shook my head no.

He carefully removed one of the tickets from the bag, then wrapped it in the scrap of velvet he pulled from his front left pants pocket. He took my wrist and tucked the ticket into my palm. Before he let go he held my hand in his for a few seconds. It felt nothing at all like paper. Then blinked and turned and dissolved into the downpour.

The bar stopped chilling pint glasses a few months later.

I now own all of Felicity Robie’s albums and a few of her imports, too.

You can read the final, submitted version inside.
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She drags her stains around with her in large black garbage bags. She hauls them through the front door, waiting only a second before dumping them onto the floor. There are panties wadded into balls, stray socks with shit brown soles and graying, tattered bras limp like ragdolls in her hands.

She crams all of her dirty laundry into one front-loading washing machine carelessly. She pushes and strains and uses her feet to make it all fit. Powdered detergent from the vending machine is 75 cents. She buys it, ripping the orange box with her teeth. She adds the chalky soap and softens her stance when the machine begins its cycle.

Two young children with matching cornrows in their hair–one boy, one girl–roughly play at her feet. The girl child opens her mouth to pierce the calming hum of tumbling dryers with a high-pitched scream she summoned from deep within her. Then she ran and hid behind a clothes cart.

The sad-faced woman seems not to notice at all, her eyes fixed on the now flipping and sudsy articles of clothing. The boy, his hands tacky with Orange Crush and BBQ potato chips watches the woman watch the wash. He wonders if she sees the same ghost in the machine.

The woman’s eyes are not vacant but entirely still. She switches her slight weight to the other floot and her tiny back expands with every pained inhalation. Each time her shoulders rise I wonder if she’ll bother to draw another breath.

The boy remains near her, his tight braids coming only to her thigh. He looks around to see if anyone is looking and holds his palm flat out to her, as if he were offering up candy or a small gift. He searches expectantly for a response to his outstretched hand in her dead stare. She doesn’t move, just stands quiet, though she must have seen or sensed the child’s gesture.

Defeated, the boy goes to find his sister, still hiding behind the clothes cart. He tells her he doesn’t know when they get to go home.

And still she stood.

Walk in the front door with your head up, head back. Place one pointy-toed stiletto in front of the other and throw each shoulder with every stride. At the first sight of the others toss your hair. Your lipgloss is mirror slick.

Air kisses for the lady. She is wearing brown cords and brown boots. Her hair is curly and pulled up with a barette. Rest assured in the knowledge that you outshine your dinner companion ten fold. Make no eye contact with her boyfriend until she excuses herself to the bathroom. Then make sure you whisper something about how he smells in his ear and slyly show a bit of tongue. Sneak peeks at him later while she’s eating. Bite your bottom lip once, not twice.

It’s your birthday and you are wearing your red off-the-shoulder dress that accentuates the slope of your tiny waist to the dramatic arc of your hips. Your hair is shiny black from the $30 blow out.

Your nipples harden beneath the thin material of the dress. With every sip of wine you grow wetter.

Your fuzzy haired dinner companion is slurring. She indulges in alcohol since she found out she can’t have any children. She’s on drink number four, which for her tiny, curveless frame is more than plenty. Notice her face looks sadder and sadder with every sip.

He’s only nursing beer. He allows his wife the luxury of a few hours drunk. They’d been trying for over two years before she learned she was barren. He wasn’t as devestated as she was about it. You notice when he reaches for his wife’s hand her eyes begin to tear up. She excuses herself to the ladies’ room.

While she’s gone slide the palm of your hand up the length of his thigh. Feel him harden beneath your hand before he grabs your wrist hard and pushes you away forcefully. He looks you in the face and says he’d love to fuck you. But he loves his wife far more than that.

When she emerges from the bathroom, mascara matting her lashes, he drops a $100 bill on the table and escorts her out of the bar. He will tell her he was too concerned about her to stay even a minute longer, never mentioning your encounter.

Take a cab home and finish the tequila your sister bought for your birthday. Cry later when you masturbate.

She talks to him on the pay phone Monday through Friday from 7:15 until 7:45 when the first bell rings. It is the only pay phone in that entire building. She gets a ride with her cousin in the mornings, who likes to arrive at school very early. She doesn’t care, getting there early is way better than the bus.

When she first gets to school the place is virtually empty. The school secretary is already on the telephone, making copies and gossiping with the senior girls with the big hair. It only costs 50 cents to talk to him on the pay phone for half an hour. She thinks that is very cheap and totally worth it.

By 7:40 though, the place is really humming with swells of people. People in groups. She tells him she should really go, she likes to get a soda before homeroom, but he’s always pushing her to stay on the telephone just a little bit longer. He works at the hardware store on Front Street. He’s 19, and there is this baby that he says isn’t his. She absolutely believes him because he she also believes he is brilliant. He knows about things and gladly tells them to her. They talk on the phone about how maybe I see blue when you see purple, and you see purple when I see blue, and we just call them the same thing. She assures her mother when she asks that they are only sort-of friends.

She calls him every, single morning. Some mornings someone will already be on the phone. It makes her nervous; it makes her stomach hurt. She drinks soda to calm her when she gets anxiety in her belly. Sometimes someone will be on the pay phone already and not get off of it. Not the whole morning, even though she paces furiously and bites her nails to pulpy stumps, and goes so far as to ask if he’ll be much longer. Sorry, he says, he’s talking to his girlfriend.

After a while she grows tired of the worry. She is barely a teenager and already she wears a crease between her brow from a constant, burdensome scowl. She is starting to eat and sleep less due to all the nervousness.

She is starting to dread her morning phone call to him. Soon enough he begins questioning her affection for him. She wonders why she does this. Subjects herself to the stares. The blatant whispering in her direction. All the rumors about the freshman girl and her love affair with a pay phone.

She waits until the day one of the blondest, most popular senior girls approaches her, one late morning when the building was filled with people. To a crowd of onlookers that popular girl asks her for a moment of her time. She gently places the receiver on her shoulder, never asking him to hold.

“We have to know. Who do you call every morning?,” the blonde girl purrs.

“My boyfriend, he’s older, you might not know him,” she replies timidly.

“I know everyone,” she shoots back, and soon enough she’s told them she talks to on the pay phone every morning.

The group explodes with laughter. She hears a confused voice shouting hellos into the telephone. She can hear him trying to find her amidst the onslaught of laughter.

“The one with the baby?,” the blonde girl yells finally, still laughing.

She hears one more muffled hello and slams the earpiece onto the base. She’ll never going to hear his voice again without a chorus of laughter accompanying it.

She’s thinking about walking to school starting tomorrow. Maybe reading in the library before homeroom.

I read your diary today.

I read about how you kicked her dog just to make her cry. I know all about how you feel guilty about thinking of other women when we fuck, even if it is only sometimes. I know now that you don’t know how to spell “definitely.”

Your handwriting is really girly, you know that? It makes me sick. You obviously spent time perfecting it, working to make the loops look just right. I can’t believe those fucking To-Do lists in the midst of all the pages of whining and crying about how you’re starting to look old. Work on Backyard, Drink More Water, Think more about Retirement Investments. I should have added in red ink, just underneath, Stop Lying to Yourself in your own Diary, you Piece of Shit. The neighbor’s teenage daughter does not have a crush on you, despite your endless efforts to charm the low-riders off of her.

I didn’t see much mention of my name. Your wife, apparently, doesn’t come to mind much when you’re alone, blaming your mother on paper for your every flaw. You did mention though that you hate how slack my face has gotten around the jawline, and that sometimes when you look at me sitting a certain way I repulse you.

I already knew that. I can see it in the way you hold your mouth when you look in my direction. Your empty, whispered compliments roll off my flesh like beads of oil. I loathe the way you smile when you say that I’m beautiful–an ugly, teeth-baring smile that belies your every word. At night, when you touch me, I pretend we’re still new at this and that you didn’t turn the lights off again. Or I pretend you’re the boy from the copy center who touches my arm every time I visit.

I know your weaknesses. I know you hate your body and you shame yourself at every turn. Knowing what I know now I will pick at those scabs on your soul every day until they bleed. And scar.

I read your diary, and I’m not at all sorry about it.

Darryl came in late because he worked late. He’s had the same job for 26 years, works second shift at the phone company. He made good money but was tied to his desk all day. He had to raise his hand if he wanted to take a piss. He talked to no one there because no one talked to him. He carried a strip of velvet in his pants pocket; he took it out sometimes and rubbbed it between the thumb and third finger of his right hand.

He ordered Long Island Teas mixed in frozen pint glasses. He drank them quickly and through a straw. Otherwise his frosted glass propped up his stubbly chin while he waited.

Always waited. Always waited for one of us to speak with him first. His eyelids and hairline and brow were eager for attention as you refilled the ice or turned his way to ring up a check. He always sat just behind the register where it was hard to hear him and difficult to reach his glass. He wanted to be seen. He would use the bathroom many times and whenever he wanted.

He only came in once every couple of weeks, but every time he did all he talked about was Karrin Allyson. Some jazz vocalist whom he absolutely adored. He would nod and rub his papery hands together when he whispered her name. Always whispering. Always requiring you to lean into him. Every time he came in I promised to find some of Karrin’s stuff, maybe on the internet. He really seemed to want me to. And every time I promptly forgot.

I asked Darryl what he did for Christmas just before January came. He told me that he did nothing again, just had some tacos and listened to Karrin. Immediately I recalled that his account of Thanksgiving was much the same. Except he had Burger King and watched some videos. I spotted that his icy glass was empty and was thankful for an easy way to slip out of a response. I wished I’d remembered he had no friends or family, I would have invited him over for dinner. Except I wouldn’t have. Because he stared right into your mouth when you spoke, his lips parted, his tongue visible and quivering and snake-like. He was always folding his papery hands.

One night at about 11, just before the managers locked up the front doors Darryl slipped in. He marched straight in and spoke without waiting. He shouted out my name. I turned and saw him in the lobby, hidden under a black slicker, his face wet from the onslaught of rain that fell just outside the doors. He held up a clear plastic baggie dotted with droplets of water. Inside it were two concert tickets. Karrin Allyson’s name was printed boldly in a squareish font on each.

“Did you listen to any of her songs yet?,” he spoke again. Again without waiting. My eyes fell to my broom as I shook my head no.

He slowly removed one ticket from the bag, wrapped it in the scrap of velvet. And when he handed it to me he held my hand in his for a few seconds. It felt nothing at all like paper. Then smiled and turned and dissolved into the storm.

We stopped chilling pint glasses a few months later.

Now I can’t get enough Karrin Allyson.

I know how you get down.

I know how you eat with your hands and sleep with your boots on and pinch your eyelids in the mornings when it’s all new light and no one else. I know you’ve got that postcard on the bathroom door still. I know you hate the whole world for what it did to you, and frankly, you have a point. You get to scream at your mother. You are allowed to punch your bed very hard.

I know your name, but I can’t say it fits you at all. I know you meant it and that you thought it would happen, but turns out, we were both crazy. I never heard your voice crackle through a telephone wire. I never saw you scratch an itch.

I know you lie wondering as the time ticks by beside you, wondering how things can go so fast when these minutes are heavy and so fucking endless. I know you hold your breath to feel yourself on the inside.

I see that every time you manage to laugh that your face and your eyes crave a good cry.

I just thought you should know that I know.

She’s got an ass like you’ve never seen.

Round, hard, high. She wears high heels every day of her life. High-heeled boots if it’s winter. She always wears the same pair of black, velvet, skin-tight pants, though I’m beginning to think she owns at least two identical pairs.

He manages the hotel where she works the front desk and the telephones. He’s tall with a small paunch; got a boy’s face that laughs too easily. He’s worked at that hotel for years–well, for the that chain of them, at least. He’s been moved around a lot since he was first hired. He thinks it is because he is too weak, but most everyone knows it was because he is always banging the girl with the phenomenal ass.

She’s 19. She usually dates athletes, but he plays a lot of video game basketball and plays actual golf, so that’ll do. He brushes her flat belly with his hand as he passes her in the corridors. Blatantly. In front of housekeeping and the kitchen staff. She smiles, her teeth short and ivory white, everytime he touches her.

He’ll be moved again soon. Somewhere outside of Baltimore this time, and he won’t take her with him. Without saying goodbye, he’ll sell the CDs she left at his house for a small bag of coke and will fly all the way to Maryland in his Tempo.