I want my latte
Now before my eyes
Hurry the fuck up
Memorize my name
You will be cheery
Be very merry
Or I’ll report you
But don’t think of that
We’ll act like old chaps
Where one is master
One is dependent
Enslaved mind and psyche
Where two people just
Happen to play house,
Abusive house, each
And every day.
Rage hatred scorn spit.
Have a good day sir.
When Andrew broke up with his girlfriend, she pulled her knees to her chin and let out a deep, animalistic moan, a noise more genuine than anything he had heard in their three years of regular and then semiregular intercourse. There was potential humor in this, Andrew thought, and he might have made a joke about it had there not been such an indistinguishable line between the drool and the tears coming out of his ex's face and had they been situated somewhere less confined and lower to the ground, rather than a 60-person airplane that was charging like a bull across the Rocky Mountains.
"How long have you felt this way?" she demanded in between raspy gulps of air.
Andrew shook his head. He could not give her the answer she wanted. He could not provide an exact length of time, although he could give her a vivid description of how sour her breath was in the morning, or the alarmingly high pitch of her cackle when in the company of strangers, or her consistent misuse of the word "literally."
"I don't know. I'm sorry," he said finally. He handed her his cocktail napkin and, upon catching the eye of the stewardess, gestured to the pile of soggy napkins overflowing onto both trays. The stewardess understood immediately and came over to replace the soggy napkins with fresh ones, displaying a smile that was so appropriately empathetic it made Andrew uncomfortable.
"This isn't happening. I don't believe it. I thought you loved me." She said “love” like it was a kitten she was dangling a knife over. They were both very sunburnt: her more on her upper arms and chest, him on the backs of his legs and face.
“I did love you. I still do.” He meant it too, because love was a tricky concept, something that usually sounds much more promising than it really was. If Andrew’s ex meant the inevitable affection that builds from waking up to the same person’s face for hundreds of consecutive mornings, from having passionate conversations with that person’s mother about the price of bagels, and from memorizing every groove and contour and sprouting pubic hair of that person’s vagina, then of course Andrew loved her. However, if she was referring to willpower, the want to move forward hand in hand into the daunting universe, a universe where other vaginas with different patterns of folds and flaps floated nearby freely yet unattainably, then Andrew did not love her.
“He meant it too, because love was a tricky concept, something that usually sounds much more promising than it really was.”
“It’s someone else isn’t it? That new office assistant. You’ve told me like 10 times about how you guys have the same taste in movies.”
“There isn’t anyone else.” This was true, although Andrew had been secretly and truly thrilled about his identical movie taste with the new office assistant, that and her nose freckles and unruly dark brown hair. At office karaoke nights, they often sang Fleetwood Mac duets, and Andrew felt that sometimes they were singing beyond their respective roles.
“So then what? What is it?”
They were on their way back from a week of camping in Grand Teton National Park, a collaborative gift from his ex’s group of friends for her 26th birthday. When his ex had begged them to let her bring Andrew, they had rolled their eyes collectively and said fine, under the condition that he didn’t act weird and that they brought their boyfriends too. Andrew did act weird, at least according to Briana and Chelsea’s standards, and after six cans of chipotle chilli and an unsettling, irritating rash on his inner thigh, he had made his decision.
“I don’t know what it is. I wish I did. I’m so sorry.”
“Trust me, Andrew, no one is sorrier than me.” As she moaned and blew her nose into an already damp napkin, Andrew silently agreed.
The plane descended gracefully and when it hit the runway, everyone applauded with the exception of two passengers. Andrew carried both duffel bags, as if that could make it better, and on the way out, the same stewardess said “have a pleasant stay in New York” in such a way that made his stomach turn.
Andrew took the subway home from JFK airport, closing his eyes as families, breakdancers, and homeless people alike loudly cursed the presence of his large purple duffel bag. His ex had insisted and then begged for them to share a cab — they lived only eight blocks apart — but by then his mind had shut down completely and he didn’t want her, or the cab driver, to see that. He had opened the cab door for her, lifted her bag into the space beside her, and placed 20 dollars into her reluctant palm. The disappointment in the driver’s eyes shone like street lamps.
He awoke to the sound of the kettle whistling. From the upstairs loft, he could hear her moving around the kitchen, opening and closing the cabinets, taking things from the refrigerator, using the appliances. If he craned his neck he could see her bare feet on the hardwood floor, toes painted red and blue for the fourth of July.
Outside, the sun reflected off the surface of the lake. Diamonds danced across the water, reflected off the canoe tied to the dock. Downstairs, she turned on the sink, and the smell of sulfur water rose up to meet him. He watched as she opened the sliding glass door and took a seat at the picnic table on the deck.
“Downstairs, she turned on the sink, and the smell of sulfur water rose up to meet him”
He made the bed, hunched over so as not to hit his head on the low ceilings, a mistake he’d made the night before after too many glasses of wine. Carefully, he climbed down the ladder and crossed the living room, waving at her through the glass before he, too, opened the door and sat across from her on the brown, splintering wood.
She smiled at him, asked how he’d slept.
“Fine,” he told her, and asked what time she’d gotten up. “I can’t believe I didn’t wake up when you climbed down the ladder.”
“I know. We should look to see if a screw is loose.”
“I don’t think repairs are in the renter’s lease.”
She took a sip of her tea and squinted out across the lake. “Maybe we should sleep downstairs tonight.”
“I’ll check the screws.”
He stood and went into the kitchen, put on a pot of coffee. She’d boiled water from the lake and left it on the stovetop to avoid having to drink from the tap. Before they’d realized the condition of it, they’d considered buying the house. She’d always wanted a house on the lake.
“Make enough for two, will you?” she asked, coming in from the sun. She dumped the remainder of her tea into the sink and rinsed the mug with the water from the stove. She turned and leaned on the counter. “What do you want to do today?”
He shrugged. “We could take the canoe out, go see if there’s a place to shore up on that island out there.”
“I have to run into town and get sunscreen. We could go see if there’s a place to get breakfast.”
He looked at her and smiled, then asked her to grab the cream from the fridge. “I’d google it, but I think my battery would die searching for the signal. I can check the scores while we’re in town.”
“I should call my mother.”
They drank their coffee while they dressed, both moving about the downstairs bedroom, the bed still perfectly made, opening and closing the dresser drawers. “Don’t let me forget bug spray too, OK?”
“Get eaten last night?” he asked.
“Alive. I have red bumps everywhere.”
They left the house unlocked when they left.
They found a diner that served breakfast until 10 and ordered more coffee. She got the eggs Benedict, and he the blueberry french toast. While they waited, he checked the scores from last night’s games on his phone, though the service was still excruciatingly slow. She went onto the front porch and called her mother. She told her what had happened. She offered to come pick her up.
She went back inside and sat down as the plates were being delivered. Steam rose off her eggs like mist. He drenched his toast in syrup.
“Is there a general store around here?” she asked the waitress when she came to collect the check. She received directions on a napkin. He got the address just in case they could use their GPS.
As they drove down the river road, through a town that could barely call itself that, she stared out the window, and he straight ahead. He followed the directions she gave him: turn left at the next stop sign, right at the park bench. When they arrived, she ran in and he stayed with the car running, playing with the radio.
Back at the house, after they’d applied a thick layer of sunscreen and bug spray, they went down to the dock and he pulled the canoe in closer. The ropes had been tied tightly, but the long stay in the water had begun to wear down the fibers. He wished he’d known to buy rope from the general store.
They each took an oar and paddled out across the water, he directing them toward the island from the back. He watched as the muscles in her shoulders moved as she rowed, the skin already becoming dark where the sun hit. He thought of the evening, what they would have for dinner to celebrate. He hadn’t seen any other restaurants they could go to. For a moment, he wished they’d stayed in the city, where this anniversary was comfortable. Where there was enough noise and cars and people to distract them both from what this weekend used to mean. He watched as her hair became moist with sweat and stuck to her back like leaves on cars after a rainstorm.
At some point, they both stopped paddling. The island was still far away. It had looked closer from the deck than it actually was. They sat in the middle of the lake, the water softly lapping up against the canoe, and he reached up to touch her shoulder but stopped himself halfway. Not yet, he thought, and leaned back against the stern.
I'm in Vancouver, British Columbia. How I got here I'll never really know. I still have an address in Brooklyn, NY, where my wife and I moved last year. We're from two different countries. Now we live in two different countries.
The marshland floodplain expands. Drifting currents sway gently through sap-lined pine trunks and decomposed maple leaves. Ahead, the riverbanks motion with unspeakable gratitude, bittersweet, enjoined to the drunk swell of an upraised wetlands.
“Drifting currents sway gently through sap-lined pine trunks and decomposed maple leaves.”
War zone.
Huddled under protection of stone, the dusty clamor of steaming trucks file past, carrying explosives, ammunition; the all-potent death of armed men. The sky burns under a 40-degree sun sear, magnifying the light of illusion with the bitter disbelief of guts strewn in the angry heat.
The moonlit fox scatters beyond the floodlit path, and I sit, knowing I'm under the eye of a flagrant bomb pattern, patiently scanning the sky for my fate.
Around the time I turned 18, Rolling Stone magazine ran their famed HST R.I.P. cover story. I removed a copy from the school library, and soon after began to write for a local daily newspaper. I began to make money. I've never looked back.
Down the gravelly road, an older man, built strong and lean, walks assuredly through hell's gate. In this valley, the shadow of death casts invisibly, as omnipotent fear; that cutting vibration that pierces as it electrifies. Every last medieval hell of our wildest imagining is child's play in comparison. The daytime moon fills my mind, obscuring the passion of escape into the dizzying architecture of mythology, roasting in this new Levantine world fire.
The black fly of firebomb death squeals past overhead. I run, sliding my fingers along the combustible river rock, much of it already crumbling into rough sand. My fingers, mysteriously blackened, feel into the stone.
Just this week, I read Djuna Barnes for the first time. The literary world, though often a source of anachronistic despair, is as infinitely intriguing and meaningful to me as it ever was, all the more so from one expatriate to another, even a century away.
A black liquid seethes. Viscous, thick, it's oil. I realize I can't leave. The slick spring beneath the land overpowers my body in a storm of evil lust. I treasure the root of all fleshly worship in this age of fire as the swarm of madness overcomes, and in a blinding instant, a boulder implodes. My exposed hand flits to dust. The earth gives way to pools of ash. I sink in the quicksand of eternal war, condemned to modern night.
He speaks, a guide of the ancient river basin, to reinvigorate the ground with the renewing tides of the planet. She beckons the swallowing of a forgotten landscape. The land is to be reclaimed, indigenous nationhood reinstated over the bi-national divide.
