Category: Fiction

fiction by Jason Edwards

Hey Dave—good seeing you and yours that last weekend. I’m still drinking the beers that were bought and not consumed, which sometimes makes for a rough morning, but that’s the definition of family if you ask me. Anywho, I haven’t heard from Evan yet about your bachelor party, so if you could forward to him the following, that would be great. I’m sure he’s a busy man, and I don’t want to put too much pressure on him or anything, but I figured while I’m sitting here drunk as hell with nothing better to do, I might as well get some thoughts down on paper.

Hi Evan. This is Samuel, Dave’s oldest cousin. I understand that as Dave’s best man, you’ll be in charge of his bachelor party. Just wanted to start off by saying that there are no hard feelings at all that he didn’t choose me as his best man, despite the fact that we’re related by blood and that if one of us needed a kidney the other one would probably be a good match. “You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family,” they say. (I don’t know who they are, but apparently they don’t go to a lot of bachelor parties.)

I have a few ground rules when it comes to this sort of thing, bachelor parties I mean, and I wanted to let you know about them in advance. For example, bachelor parties always means strippers, and that’s fine, but there’s a brand of stripper-body-glitter that I’m allergic too, so if you could tell the strippers that in advance, it would be appreciated. It’s okay if they rub themselves on my face—it’s mainly my upper thighs that will break out into a rash. It only took my three or four parties to figure that one out!

Also, a long weekend with the boys usually means beer, and as a person who lives in Seattle, I, of course, know beer. I would appreciate it if only craft beer made with organic Pacific-Northwest hops is bought for everyone. I’ll contribute to the funds for that, no worries. You have to love the planet or the planet won’t love you back, after all.

I believe the Monday Night Football game that will be on when we’re all together will be the Bears at the Jets. I’m afraid this won’t work for me. I went to a Bears game once a few years ago when I was visiting Chicago, and a drunk guy in the men’s room shouted at me, saying “Hurry up, fatso.” (I assume he was talking to me, as I have struggled with an eating disorder since a particularly frightening episode of ‘Growing Pains’ that aired in 1988, the one where Carol is nominated for Homecoming Queen. I was so sure it was going to be a Carrie homage, I ate, like, three bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Minis, and I’ve been addicted ever since). I know bachelor parties are where men get to be men and real men like football, but since the Bears are one of my “triggers,” I’m sure everyone else will understand if we do something else instead. May I suggest a few games of Settlers of Cataan?

Dave indicated that he’s inviting my dad and his dad as well. Just wanted to assure you that while they both tend to get a little racist/homophic/mysoginistic/anti-semitic/pro-life/pro-Limbaugh/pro-Hobby-Lobby when they’re drunk, they’ve never actually killed anyone on purpose. Oh, I almost forgot to mention: both my dad and his dad have conceal-carry permits. But don’t worry. As long as Dave and I are more or less sober, we can handle them.

Sleeping arrangements: my sleep-apnea and snoring shouldn’t be a problem if everyone brings earplugs. Also, everyone gives GHB a bad rap but it really does help people sleep through loud noises. So just say the word, and I’ll bring some of my stash to share, and I’ll give everyone a fair price. I’ll also bring condoms if anyone’s worried.

I assume we’ll be showering together, as that’s a bachelor party tradition. I have no problem with this. I take very long showers.

And finally, wanted to let you know that I’m really looking forward to the fun! Ever since the car accident, my wife won’t let me out of the house, much less go to parties! But she had to give in on this one, house-arrest or not, since Dave and I are family after all. And you know what they say, “innocent until proven guilty;” so until the DA finds proof, I’m not letting some stupid ankle bracelet keep me from celebrating with my cuz!

Hope this email finds you well. Feel free to call me at (737) 874-2833 to discuss. English only, please.

–Samuel Hanson, age 42

fiction by Jason Edwards

The door to the captain’s office burst open like it normally does and the captain himself emerged, holding something in one clenched fist, shouting, “God damn it, Marcus, what the hell is this?”

“That’s your stapler, captain,” I said.

“God damn it!” The captain shouted and went back into his office, slamming the door again. The hub-bub of Precinct 17 went back to hub-bubbing.

Sergeant David Marcus, detective, Seattle PD. Been on the job for about ten years now, and I have seen some shit. I’m far passed my wide-eyed phase, but not quite to my cynical phase. I’m sort of in the middle of a wild-cannon phase, and probably will be for a while.

That’s how my writer’s setting me up, anyway. Mostly he just fakes it as he goes, more worried about word choice than character development. Still, it’s not all bad. I have a captain who yells all the time, a partner from the Paleozoic era, and all the donuts I want without getting too fat. Not sure if I have an alcohol problem or not— my writer likes his tropes, but he shies away from cliche, when he can.

It was a typical Tuesday in Seattle. The sun was fighting the clouds, the office was a hub-bub of felony arrests and misdemeanor paperwork, and the Mariners were getting ready for their October vacation. Day game. On the radio. Noise lost in the hub-bub, Mariner’s losing in the 6th.

The captain’s door burst open again. Captain Chauncey DelaCourt, six three, black, about 290 I think. Second stringer on his college team, straight into the academy, honors, beat cop to dick to captain along the usual routes. Some claim it was a case of affirmative action, but he was a pretty god damn good captain, and nobody said no when we got that door of his reinforced for his birthday three years ago. On account of all the slamming.

“Marcus! Get your skinny white ass in here now!” He left the door open. A good sign.

I shrugged off torpor, clicked off the game, put on my jacket. It never sits right when I don’t have my service piece in the shoulder holster, but I’m no idiot— gun goes in the desk lock box when I’m not on the street. Safety before vanity, my writer likes to say, for no reason I can think of.

I went into the captain’s office.

“Did I tell you to shut the goddamn door, Marcus?”

I took that as my cue to shut the door.

“What the hell is this?” He was pointing at a folder.

“It’s a folder, Captain.”

“I know what it is god damn it. You think I’m some kind of idiot, Marcus? Is that what they taught you in that college of yours! That police captains are idiots?”

“Captain, I never went to college, I—”

“God damn it, Marcus! You’re a loose cannon! I got the mayor breathing down my neck, I got the newspapers dragging the one-seven through the mud, and do you want to know how many calls I’m getting from the citizens of Seattle about your god damn shenanigans?”

“Uh-”

“Three! So you listen to me, you no good twisted piece of waste of god damn dirt bag piece of filth! You take this case, and you do it by the book, you hear me! Or its your badge this time, Marcus! I’ll have your gun, I’ll have your pension, I’ll have you writing parking tickets in Renton! You hear me you piece of what I said?”

“Loud and clear captain.” I picked up the folder. Cold case, homicide from about 25 years ago. “What were the calls about?”

“God damn it Marcus, do I look like some kind of Dictaphone to you?”

“No, but-”

“One from some lady saying thanks for helping out on the Jenkins robbery, an anonymous call asking for a large with pepperoni and olives, and one from your wife, asking me if Tilda and I were still on for dinner this Friday, you-”

“What did you say?”

“I said yes you god damn piece of low-life no good son of a piece of now get the hell out of my office before my foot parks itself in your ass!”

I walked out, shutting the door behind me.

“And close the god damn door on your way out,” the captain shouted.

I walked over to my desk, sat down, flicked the game back on. Mariner’s still losing. Made me wonder if my writer even cared about the team. This is fiction, after all. Throw ’em a bone, let ’em win one maybe? God damned verisimilitude.

I perused the file. A grisly murder, a priest, hammer to the back of the head. I sighed a few times, read a few of the newspaper clippings attached. Homeless kids, a shelter, a foods program.

I stood up, walked over to my partner. Mezzoni, 59 years old, a year away from retirement. “You’re under arrest, Mezzoni. Get up.”

Mezzoni got up with a heavy defeated look on his face. “That priest was runnin’ an underage prostitution ring, ya know. He had them poor girls hooked on skag.”

“I know, Mezzoni.”

“How’d you figure it, Marcus?”

I shrugged, putting a hand on his shoulder and turning him around so I could cuff him. “There’s always a twist, and my writer wants to wrap up this writing exercise so he can go for a run.” We walked towards the holding cells while the hubibub kept on hub-bubbing. “You have the right to remain silent. When I think of something clever to interject here, my writer will come back and edit it in. You have the right to an attorney…” etc etc etc.

fiction by Jason Edwards

Hey what’s up, my name’s Frank. I’m a battery. That’s not a metaphor; I’m an honest-to-god 9-volt battery. And I know how it is, you guys like to make fun of me. Double-A gets all the work, even triple-A comes in from time to time. And all those little watch batteries with their special ops. And me, old Frank, old has-been 9-volt, no good for anything except smoke alarms.

Well, you know what, mofo? It’s a quarter to four in the morning, and yeah, I could wait a few hours until you’re awake—hell, brah, I might even make it to the weekend. But no, screw that, I’m using up the last of my juice to let you know, loud and clear, in seventy-five second intervals, that I need to be changed.

Joke’s on you, jerk, because: am I in the smoke detector outside your bedroom, easy to get to? Nope. Am I down the hall in the office, close to where you keep the spare batteries? No sir. Maybe the kitchen, the smoke alarm that gets all the work whenever you fry bacon and forget to turn the fan on, ya terrible cook? No such luck for you.

Go ahead, try closing the bedroom doors to drown me out. Did it work? CHIRP! No it did not. Turn the fan on high, right next to your head, dry out your sinuses for all I care just for the white noise… CHIRP! There you go, pillow over your head, have to tweak your neck at a weird angle, your arm flopped over the top to-CHIRP! Better come find me, doofus.

Walk into the hallway. All is darkness and silence. Waiting, waiting for the sound. Where will it come from? Was it just a dream? Should you go back to CHIRP! Made ya jump!

I’m in the one above the front room, that lofty space, about 15 feet up. You know where I’m talking about. Yeah, you wanted “organic lines” and “free-flowing space” and “lots of natural light” when you bought the house. Time to pay the piper, dumb-butt. Time to get the ten-foot ladder.

The one in the garage. Punch in your house alarm code beforeyou go into the garage. Man that’s loud, how does your wife sleep through it? There’s the ladder, hanging on the wall, almost wedged in there where you parked your car too close. You idiot. So open the garage door. It’s louder at four in the morning, isn’t it? Now get in your car, to make room in the garage. Aw, you forgot your keys? CHIRP!

Get your keys. Get back in your car. Start it. TURN OFF THE DAMN RADIO! Jesus pleas us, who listens to NPR at THAT volume? Wow. Anyway, ease into your drive way. Turn off the car, set the parking brake, get out, step on a tiny pinecone with your bare feet. Are you loving this yet, suburbanite? My 9-volt ass is loving this.

At least it’s sort of calm out here, in the night air. Not too cold, not to warm. The sound of the highway, sort of like the ocean. CHIRP! Yeah, I can ruin anything.

Get the ladder, drag it inside by the light of baseboard night-lights because you don’t want to squint against regular lights. Carefully! You’ve already risked the wrath of wife with stumbling out of bed, closing bedroom door, turning fan way up, opening door, punching alarm code, opening garage door, starting car, shouting wonderful colorful curse words into the night air when stepping on pine cone! Don’t up the ante shattering vases with your Three-Stooges-ladder-carrying-technique, chirp!

There you go. You awake now? Well. A little foreshadowing—you will not fall off the ladder. That’s not part of my story. Your story. It’s our story now. Set up the ladder—Ah heck. Looks like the geniuses who built this house with its organic and its free-flowing and its natural decided to put the smoke detector on a part of the ceiling sort of but not quite above the staircase. So the ladder is sort of but not quite in the right place. Ha ha ha, chirp, etc.

Climb up anyway. Your halfway there. You forgot to get a fresh battery. You freeze. Your life now moves in 75-second intervals. Maybe you can just stop right there. You can stand halfway up this ladder, and maybe not move, and maybe time will stop too, and you can sort of just be, for all eternity, and that would be just fine. A tableau in frozen dimensions—you on the ladder, me silent forever, your wife all snug in her wee little bed… CHIRP! THIS AINT NO CHRISTMAS CAROL! GO GET THAT SPARE!

Sheesh, can I just lighten up for a second? NO. WAY. Off the ladder, up the stairs, quick little revelation- pinkie toes and ladder legs do not get along. Seriously, dude, WHERE did you learn to curse like that? There’s stevedores working the docks who’d blush to hear what you say. It’s just a toe, man, calm down. Go get the god-damned battery.

It’s in the laundry room. In the cabinet above the washing machine. No, not that cabinet. Yes that one. Not that shelf, that one. That little boxy drawer thing. Not that drawer, that’s spare keys. That’s one’s old keys that don’t open anything but you can’t throw away for some reason. That’s one extra rolls of Scotch tape. Nope, no clue why your wife keeps them here and not in the gift-wrap box. No, that drawer’s old mailing labels… don’t ask me, maybe people sometimes have to address packages of freshly washed clothes or something. This drawer DOES have batteries in it—but they’re all double A! Ha! A lot of good they’re doing you now!

Oh, way in the back, one 9-volt. Just the one. Not even in a package. And you, you have this tendency, don’t you, of not keeping track of your used batteries. You leave them lying around. And you can’t just throw them in the trash. You can’t recycle them, as it were. So what do you do? And later, your wife finds them, or you find the ones she’s left lying around, and sometimes they get put back in the battery drawer.

Which you only realize is the case when, for example, you swap out the batteries in the TV remote, and then it only works for a few hours before it dies again. As the kids say, WTF, man? You’re getting nervous, aren’t you. What if this is a used 9-volt? When was the last time you swapped out one of me in another alarm? A few years ago, or only months but enough months to feel like years? Are 9-volts sold individual or in multi-packs? Is this one fresh, was it bought with another, or has it been so long, even unused it’s still going to last only a few hours? Damn it damn it damn it.

Well, nothing to do about it now but try it and see. Chirp, by the way, as a reminder. Gurgle, your stomach says. Your bladder has finally decided this is not a quick wake and flip the pillow and go back to sleep situation. You are up, probably for good, and there are certain morning rituals your body has gotten used to. Chirp. Burp. We’re a regular rock n roll band, your body and me.

So there you are, sitting in the dark, in the bathroom. The guest bathroom, just in case wife finally wakes up, decides to use the bathroom herself, opens the door, startles you, making you yelp, making her absolutely scream, and hilarity and 911 calls ensue. Chirp. Your sitting because you have nothing manly to prove to anyone, and besides, it’s difficult to aim in the dark. Chirp. Did you leave the door to the garage open, the garage door itself open, your car door open? Aw who cares. Chirp. Once you’re done here, you can change the battery, put away the ladder, park the car, close up the house, go back to bed, wait for your wife to nudge you and tell you to stop snoring. Chirp. Where’s that spare battery? In the pocket of your pajamas, which are pooled around your ankles. Why do pajamas have pockets? For chirp like this, I guess.

All done? Good. Brief wiggle, stand up, pull up your pajamas, ignore that plopping sound, flush, wash, all in the dark. You’ve lived here a long time, you know every square inch of this house, working in darkness is no problem. Hands washed, out the bathroom door, square-inch my ass, there goes your pinkie toe against the side of the door jamb. You can’t even curse this time, can you, just bite your bottom lip and makea sort of “FFFGGGFFF” sound. Hand in your pocket despite the pain to get the spare.

Hand finds nothing. Other hand in other pocket. Also nothing. Pause, in pain, and wonder why Satan would choose this exact time to drive you insane. And then a revelation, and you can feel your soul sinking out of your stomach and through the floorboards. That plopping sound.

This is where I decide I’ve won. Frank the 9-volt has won. You don’t even curse anymore. You don’t even care, do you. Turn around, back into the bathroom, flip the lights on, blazing steely-hot javelins of light stabbing your eyes. There in the still trembling water of the commode, the 9-volt, at the bottom. You’re reaching in before you have time to think about it. Hauling it out. Back at the sink and casually soap and lather and rinse and repeat four or five times in water so hot that if you cared you’d be in pain. But you don’t care. Nothing matters.

Your bed and your wife and your house and your car. All of it, pointless. All of it meaningless because you had to make fun of me, Frank, me, a 9-volt battery, make fun of ME even though I AM THE ONE who alerts you if your house catches on fire. ME. FRANK the FUCKING 9-VOLT BATTERY helping to make sure YOU and your BED and WIFE and your HOUSE and your shitty little CAR in your GARAGE don’t burn down because SOMEBODY forgot to blow out the candle or turn off the stove or some other DUMBSHIT move that only YOU and not BATTERIES LIKE ME could ever do.

Get back downstairs. Get up that ladder. Open up the smoke detector. Pull me out. Put another me in. Did you remember to check which way I go? Is it positive left, negative right, or the other way around? Well, it’s too dark to tell, so you’ll just have to wait. Up there, 15 feet above the floor, perched precariously.

All those times you cooked bacon, forgot to turn on the fan, and the smoke detector goes off, and you got MAD. Idiot. MAD that the thing that keeps you from dying actually still works. Oh, the things you said. The number of times you pulled me out and let me dangle there by wires so you could unplug and replug me. Just dangling like a, like a… like a I don’t know what. But it sucked, man. It really sucked. You shouldn’t have treated me like that, man, you just shouldn’t.

But look. I mean listen. Hear that? Nothing so far. Maybe you got it right your first try. Count to something. I don’t know, count to one hundred. Slowly! There you go. Yes, sixty… seventy… man you’re on edge now, hey, better grip the top of the ladder tighter, in case the detector makes that sound and startles you off into a 15-foot fall. Break your ankle, if you’re lucky, your hip, old man, your spine, your neck, wife widowed, who’s going to change 9-volts for her when you’re gone? Ninety… one hundred.

You’re still not moving. Maybe you counted too fast. No, you didn’t count too fast. I think it’s okay. Descend, human. Fold up the ladder. Yeah, it’s probably okay. And you know what, if you’re wrong, if you did put in the battery backwards, or it’s an old one, so what, right? You’ve learned your lesson. You can set up the ladder again. Hop in your car and go to the 24-7 convenience store, whatever. Life’s too short to hate chores and make fun of 9-volt batteries.

Ladder folded, back in the garage. Yeah, yeah, you knocked over that broken lamp on the shelf next to where the ladder hangs, so what. Car back into the garage. Garage door closed. Door to the garage closed. House alarm set. Back up the stairs. Back into bed. Aaahhh. You thought you were wide away. But this feels sooo good.

Almost worth it, am I right? All that petty agony, that minimal suffering, all that suburbanite angst. Almost worth it to get back into this cozy bed. Wife snuggling up to you. A few hours left before the clock radio alarm will go off. So nice. No chirps for several minutes now. The torpor of drowsiness settling in. Wife murmurs “big spoon” as she rolls over. So with the last of your energy, roll over to hold her.

That used 9-volt battery, me, Frank, still in your pocket, and now pressing against your hip, smashed into the bed, very hard. But it’s okay. “Motherfucker,” you kind of chuckle. You’ll have a bruise when you wake up. So what. Small price. We’re friends now.

fiction by Jason Edwards

The Skipper hadn’t said a word yet. Pacing in front of the boys, in his baseball pants, a size too small. His baseball shirt a size too big and his nylon manager’s jacket, against the cold March air. His grey mustache, big enough to hide his mouth, stained in places with tobacco. Pacing back and forth, looking at these men, these grown men with their salaries and their agents and their endorsements and their fans. All of them in their uniforms too, some of them shivering, most of them scowling, casting glances around at each other or the gray sky or the sunflower seed shells all over the dugout floor or the splatters of ‘bacco juice or the skip, pacing back and forth. Wad in the skip’s cheek as big as a golf ball or maybe a cantaloupe or even a pluot. The skip spat another spit of ‘bacco juice into the dirt, even though the floor of the dugout was concrete, and even so it made a ding like he’d hit a spittoon. A big fancy brass one. “So what I’m saying,” the skipper said “is you got to put the bat on the ball.”

The boys looked at each other, frowning. Behind the skip, the assistant manager stood there, stoic, with his clipboard and his sweatshirt and his big ass whistle, which had not been blown once in ten years of assistant managering.

“I ain’t one for speeches,” the skip said. “Words ain’t what I do.” He spat again, ding. “But I know one thing. One word that pretty much sums up this stupid game.” He stopped, suddenly, and somehow peered at every single one of them in the eye. “You put the bat on the ball.”

Some of them nodded. Some of them rolled their eyes. Some of them secretly fondled their smart phones in the pockets of their nylon team jackets.

“You. Carlos.”

One them looked up. “It’s Gregory.”

“Same thing. You put the bat on the ball?”

Gregory frowned, looked around, got no support from the other boys. “I’m a pitcher.”

The skip paused for a moment, chewing furiously. “Did I stutter?” Spit, ding.

“This is the AL, skip.”

The skip nodded. “If I wanted sass, I’d go watch a movie in a negro theater. Answer muh question.”

Gregory tried not to smile, succeeded “That’s… that’s racist.”

The skip just shook his head. “Sparky, am I holding a ticket stub?”

The assistant manager checked his clipboard. “No skip.”

“Just checking.” He went back to pacing. “You put the bat on the ball.”

Murmurs, knuckle- cracks, the slick and slither of nylon jackets elbowing each other in the frosty dugout.

The skip spat again, nearly hitting one boy in the shoe, who nevertheless dodged it. “You, what’s your name, Rodriguez.”

“It’s Sanchez.”

The skip nodded. “Where you from, Rodriguez.”

“The Dominican Republic.”

Spit, ding. “No, before that.”

“Uh, Santo Domingo?”

“No, before that.”

“San Geronimo?”

The skip nodded, scowled, stopped pacing, stuffed a little more chew into his cheek, took up pacing again. “They play ball there, Rodriguez?”

Rodriguez smiled. “That’s all they do, skip.”

“Do they put the bat on the a ball?”

Pause. “That’s all they do.”

“Write that down, Sparky.” Spit, ding.

Sparky wrote it down.

The boys were silent, watching the manager. The cold March air was getting colder. The view from the dugout was gray misty sky. Some of them thought about their wives, their kids, the small-town parade if they ever made it back home. Apple pie and sitting onna bale of hay, gingham dresses and a coy little wink, curly blonde hair and the way she smelled in the spring-time sun, her hand so frail and smooth taking his and leading him ‘round back of the clapboard church, the doors of the old hand-dug cellar yawning open, down into the cool darkness, the way she put those leather straps on his wrists and ankles, cutting his clothes away with a rusty knife and forcing the dog collar on him and whipping him until he cried for his mommy and his body failed him and he hung there in chains and the terrible stink of his own fear.

Spit, ding. “Sparky, what’s the team ERA?”

The assistant manager checked his clipboard. “2.32.”

The skip nodded. “Not bad, not bad. How many Ks we getting per game.”

“Uh, about ten.”

“Not bad, not bad.”

“We were number one in the league last year,” a voice said from the back.

The skip stopped, a statue. “Whaju say boy?”

The crowd of nylon team jackets parted to reveal a shorter-than average little runt of a man, head bowed, poking at a cell phone like he was a five year old kid and the phone was a dead bird. Probably a god damned short stop.

“We had the lowest runs-against last year, Manless got the Golden Glove, we had only 55 errors, which broke all the records.”

The skip started to spit, but couldn’t. “Whaju say, boy?”

The kid finally looked up. “You asked what our ERA was and then said ‘Not bad.’”

The skip folded his arms, leaned back, peered at the kid. “Gonna have to try harder, boy, I didn’t go to no college.”

“You said ‘not bad’ like it could be better. I couldn’t be better. It was already the best. We’re number one in, like, seven categories.” The boy looked nervous, real nervous, and had to swallow a few times. “So back off,” he managed, in a small voice, the kind short-stops use.

Around him, the rest of the team was utterly silent. Utterly still, and yet edging away from him as much as possible.

The skip slowly extended an arm, pointing at the field “That look like the sorta place where seven categories wins balls games,” spit, ding, “boy?”

“Well, sort of, I mean-”

“When you go out there today, you gonna wave seven categories in the other team’s face, hope they just give up and go home to their kids and their nintendos, boy?”

“Today? It’s the middle of March!”

The skip put his hands on his hips, legs wide for balance, leaned back and looked up at the sky , chewing noisily, and muttered “Well goddamn.” He spat, looked at the boy. “You some kind of genius? Is that what I’m dealing with here today, son? A bona-fide genius?”

The kid shrugged. The rest of the team remained invisible.

“Yep, what I figgered. This kid’s a genius. Write that down; Sparky, Rodriguez here is a genius.”

Sparky wrote it down.

“Uh, my name’s Cordry.”

Spit, ding. “Alright then. We’ll do it the college way. Now.” Chew, peer, chew, eyes narrow, chew some more. “What’s this game called?”

The kid scowled the scowl of a four-year-old forced to sit there until he ate his peas. “Baseball.”

The skip nodded. “What’s the last part?”

“Ball,” the kid said, still frowning.

“What’s the first part?”

The kid puffed a sigh, barely controlled an eye-roll. “Base.”

“Is the e silent, you college- goin’ sumbitch?”

“Yes?” Around him, the team started becoming visible again, edging a bit closer.

“So what’s after S in the alphabet.”

Counts on his fingers. “T.” Teammates started looking at each other, eyes wide, grins slowly emerging. The gray March sky seeming not so gray, not so March.

“So what’s that make with a silent e?”

Pause, big grin, “Bat!” A few giggles, a couple of chortles from the team. A “yeah” and a “you tell ‘im!”

“So what’s that all together?”

“Bat-ball!” The team jumps to their feet, tackling the kid, as if they stadium wasn’t empty but full of roaring fans and the kid returning from a grand-slam homerun in the top of the eighth, putting them up by three and that much closer to only one game back, just one game back and they’d be looking at a possible division win for the first time in a decade, rolling all over each other in the dug out while the fans go nuts and the PA blares their theme song, this crazy group of guys rolling around in their nylon team jackets smeared and splattered with tobacco juice and field dirt and broken sunflower seeds, the sweat and tears of 155 stupid games in the hottest summer on record and all that hard work finally starting to pay off, rolling around in the frigid dugout in the middle of march and wind whipping, ignored by all of them, around the utterly empty stadium.

The skipper stood there, looking at them, nodding his head like a general nods at a battlefield strewn with dead bodies. “Now, that’s called the Socrates way.” Chew, spit, ding. “You put the bat on the ball.”

fiction by Jason Edwards 

Note—this is an edited version of the story Loretta tells Hugh in “Hugh’s Bris.”

So basically it all started when Gloria took Rex to one of those stupid palm readers and you know he only went along because he thought she was pregnant with Kevin’s kid and he was being nice but she wasn’t pregnant was she, no, she lied about that which was ironic considering Rex did get her pregnant later when she let him have his way with her and they didn’t use protection since he figured she was already pregnant with Kevin’s.

The palm reader I guess was once of those nasty smelly foreigners from Africa or Eretria or something you know the ones always sitting outside Starbucks and they drive cabs.

After she told them a bunch of stuff that Gloria thought was amazing and Kevin though was stupid Gloria said she had to go pee so Kevin went outside and smoked a cigarettes and so did the gypsy or whatever to you call a palm reader and then she told him, she said that for some men being an adult doesn’t happen until their fathers die, and it would be tough raising a kid these days since everyone lives forever, babies be having babies.

Kevin was amazed, because Gloria didn’t even look pregnant so how did the gypsy know. So Rex is like, nah, nah, nah, and he decides Gloria has to get an abortion even though she wasn’t pregnant and it was Kevin’s anyway, because Rex doesn’t want his own son killing him.

Gloria said she would but she wanted Rex one more time because you know the procedure’s painful so he had his way with her and I guess you could say she had her with him and she got pregnant, and then she moved to Tucson or something and when she came back she told him she’d had the abortion but that was a lie but her baby did have cerebral palsy so it wasn’t like she was going to raise it herself, she just left it with an organization or an institution or something.

Then later, like when the kid was 17 or something he moved back and he didn’t even have cerebral palsy he just had one of those things where a kids has to wear a bar between his knees for a while, like a hip thing. And the kid’s like a bad-ass now because all of his life kids making fun of him for wearing that bar thing between his knees and one day’s he’s strutting on Oak and this guy bumps into him and the kid doesn’t even think twice he just pushes the dude into the road and bam, bus.

He was smart, too! This guy’s been dealing E and ludes and acid to everyone in the neighborhood and he tries to deal some to the kid and the kid’s like how much and the guy’s like the first one’s free and the kid’s like the first one’s the most expensive of them all, then, and the guy’s like shut up and the kid takes a freebie and he cuts it and gives it to some junkies and its weak shit but it works the junkies start cutting their own shit and pretty soon they’re off the stuff more or less and they stop going around to the guy’s and he’s out of business.

At this party later the kid meets this milf and he’s like where’s your old man and she’s like, killed, and the kid’s like oh snap and feels bad for her and hooks up with the milf.

Everything turns to shit. The junkies are gone, people are moving back into the neighborhood, prices are going up, taxes are going up, the kid and his milf can’t afford the rent, so they go to church to pray on it.

That old blind pastor’s like, nah, nah, nah, when Rex was killed is when all the bad shit started happening, and the kid’s like, well who did it?

The pastor’s all like, a kid from around here is all I’m saying.

The kid’s like, damn. And he tells the milf how just a few years ago, this crazy-ass man broke into the institution where he was living and was shouting and cussing and he grabbed up the kid and yells daddy killer! Motherfucking daddy killer!  And it freaked the kid out so much is why he left! And that’s why he was, like, relieved when he heard the institution burnt down in that fire!

The milf goes, wait, institution?

The kid goes, yeah.

She goes, Arizona?

He goes, yeah.

She goes, and when you got here, you was where?

The kid’s all, Oak, some greasy asshole bumped into me so I shoved him into the road and she goes What? That’s how my old man died and the kid goes, so?

The milf goes that was Rex my old man was Rex you killed him and the kid’s like nah nah nah I ain’t from around her that old priest said Rex was killed by someone from around here I’m from Tucson.

The milf, Gloria, she goes, I was in Tucson once, left a kid there, a kid I made right here, with Rex. And the kid’s just sitting there, saying, motherfucker, over and over again. Gloria runs off, back to their crib, drops, like, three Es and a half dozen tabs, and when the kid finally gets home, there she is, hanging from the ceiling fan.

All the kid can think is, I was the shit, I was the shit, I was the shit, and he takes Gloria’s, his mom’s stash and he goes to the park and drops the rest of her tabs and he just sits there and stares at the sun until his eyes are burned out.

That’s where they found him, sitting there in the park like a junkie, just rocking back and forth, eyes streaming goo, saying, I’m shit, I’m shit, I’m shit.

And what’s really fucked up is Gloria killing herself like that and the kid’s tripping his eyes out like that, word got around, people didn’t want to live in the neighborhood anymore, and property values dropped, and taxes went back down, and it took like ten years, and a lot of other crazy stuff happened to their kids, but eventually everything went back to normal.

fiction by Jason Edwards

Forty-seven-year-old upper middle class lousy lover and excellent writer Hugh sits on a skinny white chair and grits his teeth and grins and bears it, pretending his skull beneath all that flesh and muscle and blood is just a skull. Can Death die? I am not dying, I am death, Hugh doesn’t say out loud, so she can’t kill me, skinny little hardened piece of brie that she is, Loretta, forty-six, not a day over thirty-six, babbling incessantly, as usual, ad nauseum, Hugh’s personal mausoleum, his penance for half a life of selfishness, he tells himself. He knows he needs to be around people more, needs people, needs to be seen with them if he’s to be accepted for who he is, forty-seven, lousy lover, excellent writer. So he sits on the skinny white chair and listens to the skinny pale Loretta and pretends not to notice that all mastication is delayed micturition. The Chablis at Chateaux Cher is awful, simply awful.

So basically it all started when Gloria took Rex to one of those stupid palm readers and you know he only went along because he thought she was pregnant with Kevin’s kid and he was being nice but she wasn’t pregnant was she, no, she lied about that which was ironic considering Rex did get her pregnant later when she let him have his way with her and they didn’t use protection since he figured she was already pregnant with Kevin’s. And the palm reader I guess was once of those nasty smelly foreigners from Africa or Eretria or something you know the ones always sitting outside Starbucks and they drive cabs. And after she told them a bunch of stuff that Gloria thought was amazing and Kevin though was stupid Gloria said she had to go pee so Kevin went outside and smoked a cigarette and so did the gypsy or whatever you call a palm reader and then she told him, she said that for some men being an adult doesn’t happen until their fathers die, and it would be tough raising a kid these days since everyone lives forever, babies be having babies. And Kevin was amazed, because Gloria didn’t even look pregnant so how did the gypsy know.

And Hugh grits. He prefers skinny things, Hugh does, but not women, not Loretta. Skinny books about angry men who get theirs, TV shows and not movies unless the movies are brief and extraordinarily complicated and damnably silly. Thin foods like watery pasta and cheeses made with too much rennet. Lagers over ales, ales over porters, porters over anything with an ABV higher than the time of day it is. He lived in temperate climates so the cloth on this clothes was thin. His hair was thinning. The soles of his shoes were thin from hours of standing in one spot trying to decide if he should go for a walk or not.

But women he preferred juicy, not fat, not obese, not morbid, not hamplanet, but substantial, not sturdy, not husky, not curvy, but evident, not chewy, not formidable, not manly, but tasty. Skinny women tasted terrible. They tasted like their makeup. Tasted like their perfume. Tasted like their clothes. Tasted like their underwear, which was never moist enough. Hugh liked a moist woman, but not too moist. Moist enough that you were distracted enough not to think of that awful word “moist.”

Not in a sexual way, of course. In a sexual way, he merely preferred willing. Hence Loretta, God save his lacerated cock.

So Rex is like, nah, nah, nah, and he decides Gloria has to get an abortion even though she wasn’t pregnant and it was Kevin’s anyway, because Rex doesn’t want his own son killing him. And Gloria said she would but she wanted Rex one more time because you know the procedure’s painful so he had his way with her and I guess you could say she had her with him and she got pregnant, and then she moved to Tucson or something and when she came back she told him she’d had the abortion but that was a lie but her baby did have cerebral palsy so it wasn’t like she was going to raise it herself, she just left it with an organization or an institution or something. And then later, like when the kid was 17 or something he moved back and he didn’t even have cerebral palsy he just had one of those things where a kids has to wear a bar between his knees for a while, like a hip thing. And the kid’s like a bad-ass now because all of his life kids making fun of him for wearing that bar thing between his knees and one day’s he’s strutting on Oak and this dude bumps into him and the kid doesn’t even think twice he just pushes the dude into the road and bam, bus.

All of these people in this damned restaurant, and Hugh. Knowing he needed to want to have the ability to interact with them. That fat man with his fat wife not talking to each other. Hello there, nice weather, is that your car, what kind of interest rate did you get on it, really, that’s higher than the ABV in the beers I like to drink chortle chuckle slap each other on the back assiduously avoid the topic of woman swapping because let’s face it, you don’t want your own but you don’t want anyone else to want it either.

The hostess, exactly the right size for Hugh, but not in a sexual way. Shall we discuss philosophy, economics, the environment, the next president of the United States, the war in Whogivesafuckistan? You know, the more meaningful the conversation, the less useful it is. Better to talk about Downton Abbey, young miss, yes, this table will be fine, tell the waiter I’ll have a glass of the Chablis, because at least with Downton you can commune with another person through a shared emotion: wistfulness.

The waiter arrives, and it’s about damned time. Hugh isn’t starving, but he’d like to be. Would like that empty feeling. And what if Hugh gets what he wants? Tragedy. So it’s about time. “Your hamburger, sir” the waiter says.

“You’re going to sneer your way right out of a tip,” Hugh doesn’t say, because Loretta hasn’t stopped talking and because he’s a coward. “Listen, you, Garcon, come back here,” Hugh doesn’t also say, and the waiter doesn’t come back, sneer planted firmly on his face, looking for all the world like he’s the Duke of Inevershit and Hugh’s toilet paper. “Yes, Garcon means boy, you feeble skinny man. I know what I said.” The waiter doesn’t stand there, he sneer glowering. “You think you’re high and mighty, that you’d rather have that gigantic cock of you father’s shoved up your rectum than care if I leave you a gratuity or not, but listen to me, you unfortunate result of woman who didn’t know better than to beat your father off when he was too drunk to stop himself. It’s not that I won’t tip, it’s that I won’t pay, do you understand me? I don’t come to the se restaurants for the food, that’s for damn certain, I come to play may part so I can get mine and if you sour the deal like some kind of human alum with your upper lip and your greasy forehead, I see no reason to pay for what I’m not getting. You’re a surrogate whore, you little shit, I pay you so that terrible woman sitting across from me doesn’t have to be paid, but a transaction’s still necessary so wipe that face off your face and go back to licking softly my asshole so I can convince her I’m not a drunk like your father and whatever kids we accidentally have will nevertheless attend college and not become,” and here Hugh didn’t take a large breath and muster up all of his withering disdain and breathe like rancid cigarette smoke into the waiter’s face, “a mere waiter. And bring me another Chablis.”

Instead, Hugh cuts into his burger with a knife and fork, like a pussy. But at least a juicy one, Hugh thinks to himself, chewing.

And he was smart, too! This guy’s been dealing E and ludes and acid to everyone in the neighborhood and he tries to deal some to the kid and the kid’s like how much and the guy’s like the first one’s free and the kid’s like the first one’s the most expensive of them all, then, and the guy’s like shut up and the kid takes a freebie and he cuts it and gives it to some junkies and its weak shit but it works the junkies start cutting their own shit and pretty soon they’re off the stuff more or less and they stop going around to the guy’s and he’s out of business. And at this party later the kid meets this milf and he’s like where’s your old man and she’s like, killed, and the kid’s like oh snap and feels bad for her and hooks up with the milf. And everything turns to shit. The junkies are gone, people are moving back into the neighborhood, prices are going up, taxes are going up, the kid and his milf can’t afford the rent, so they go to church to pray on it.

And Hugh thinks, you know what, maybe not. Maybe I don’t need these people after all. Maybe it’s okay to be by myself, and do what I do, and be very good at what I do, lousy lover or not. I don’t need people, don’t need to be a part of society, and discover humanity and togetherness and Jung and fellowship and camaraderie. I don’t need Loretta. You spider of a woman, with your two skinny arms and your two skinny legs and your short spiky hair like some kind of dreadful lesbian. I don’t need to go to bed with you, don’t need to drink this terrible Chablis, eat this odious hamburger. I can go home and have a weak lager and write another story about a boy chasing mosquitos and accept my third place short story contest prize, again, and be one hundred percent happy living off my meager inheritance. Fuck, basically, all of you.

And that old blind pastor’s like, nah, nah, nah, when Rex was killed is when all the bad shit started happening, and the kid’s like, well who did it? And the pastor’s all like, a kid from around here is all I’m saying. And the kid’s like, damn. And he tells the milf how just a few years ago, this crazy-ass man broke into the institution where he was living and was shouting and cussing and he grabbed up the kid and yells daddy killer! Motherfucking daddy killer! And it freaked the kid out so much is why he left! And that’s why he was, like, relieved when he heard the institution burnt down in that fire! And the milf goes, wait, institution? And the kid goes, yeah. And she goes, Arizona?  And he goes, yeah. And she goes, and when you got here, you was where?  And the kid’s all, Oak, some greasy asshole bumped into me so I shoved him into the road and she goes What? That’s how my old man died and the kid goes, so?  And the milf goes that was Rex my old man was Rex you killed him and the kid’s like nah nah nah I ain’t from around her that old priest said Rex was killed by someone from around here I’m from Tucson.

Yes, that’s it. Hugh will rise above his own mediocrity and become a patron saint to himself. He’ll sit in front of his skinny little laptop and stab his fingers at the keys and write the same damn story over and over and over again. Because who cares. Who cares about novels and stories with a handful of characters running around fucking each other. Not Hugh. Maybe other people, but Hugh doesn’t care about them, those people who care. He doesn’t need this foreskin, this extra flesh, it just gets in the way of masturbation. And is Hugh bored with masturbation? Maybe. But it’s better than being bored with all these people.

And the milf, Gloria, she goes I was in Tucson once, left a kid there, a kid I made right here, with Rex. And the kid’s just sitting there, saying, motherfucker, over and over again. Gloria runs off, back to their crib, drops, like, three Es and a half dozen tabs, and when the kid finally gets home, there she is, hanging from the ceiling fan. And all the kid can think is, I was the shit, I was the shit, I was the shit, and he takes Gloria’s, his mom’s, stash and he goes to the park and drops the rest of her tabs and he just sits there and stares at the sun until his eyes are burned out. And that’s where they found him, sitting there in the park like a junkie, just rocking back and forth, eyes streaming goo, saying, I’m shit, I’m shit, I’m shit. And what’s really fucked up is Gloria killing herself like that and the kids tripping his eyes out like that, word got around, people didn’t want to live in the neighborhood anymore, and property values dropped, and taxes went back down, and it took like ten years, and a lot of other crazy stuff happened to their kids, but eventually everything went back to normal.

Hugh gulps his Chablis. He’s lost count of Chablises. His hamburger’s masticated. He needs to micturate. It’s a nicer word than defecate, isn’t it? If shitting didn’t feel so good, Hugh would prefer to piss everything out instead. Much more convenient.

So, what do you think?

About what, Hugh says, pulling himself out of the miasma of self-reflection like a hypnopompic schoolboy before recess.

About what I just said!

“Oh, that. Tragic.” Hugh sniffs. He can smell ketchup, Loretta’s perfume, the greasy foie gras at the table next to theirs.

Exactly. Wanna go home and fuck now?

Hugh nods his head. Rubs his eyes, furiously, until they sing. Sighs mightily. People or not, he does like cumming. “Sure. I’ll just get the check.”

fiction by Jason Edwards

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. The blue blouse with the starched collar and the starched cuffs. And the black skirt. She sits behind a desk all day, her web cam doesn’t show anything below her shoulders, why does she have to wear a stupid skirt? Not that it’s uncomfortable, but still. And black pantyhose. And, for the love of Christ, sensible shoes. Strictly speaking, the shoes aren’t governed by regulation. She knows others who wear slippers, sandals, no shoes at all. But when she’d gone to the uniform shop, they’d given her the hard sell. That was five years ago. Five years on the job, and she still has the same shoes. Because she sits on her ass all day.

She looks at herself in the mirror. Every weekday for five years, minus vacations and furloughs and holidays. Free parking on holidays, you see. But every other day, wake up, crawl out of bed, take a shower, stand in front of the mirror and hide the slide into her 40s with these stupid clothes that she’s required to wear.

She likes the badge though. She pins it on, finding the same old holes. Three shirts, rotated and washed week after week, same old holes in each. She likes the badge, keeps it shiny. But hates the hat. Hates the stupid hat. She hasn’t been outside in at least week, but she’s worn the stupid hat every damn day. Just like the, what is it, do the math Helen, two hundred and fifty weeks before.

She goes to her desk and sits down, turns on the computer, takes the pillow case off the web cam. Oldest computer on the force, she always tells anyone she has to interact with. Captain Jefferson checking in, asking for a numbers check on citations that week. Just a second, captain, I’ll pull that up. Sorry, slowest computer on the force. And he’d chuckle that chuckle. The one that acknowledges without committing.

The screen finally comes up. The green light on the webcam pops on. There she is, in the lower right-hand corner. Fat nose. Beady eyes. Bushy brows. Decent lips though. Nice shellacking of red on them. That made sense, at least. Stupid to make you wear a uniform when you work from home and sit on front of a web cam all day, but it would make sense if make-up was regulation. She supposes someone would call that sexist. Whatever. It’s not sexist if you’re into it. Or something.

Nine other windows, street views. Her beat is thirty-six blocks of some downtown area, under the watchful eye of two hundred and sixteen cameras. Three on each side of the street. She cycles the nine windows. Not a lot of parking, this time of day. And even those cars that are parked, the meters only just turned on ten minutes ago. Still, sometimes folks park over night, and you catch a few out.

Five years ago, she’d give them half an hour or so. She knew what it was like- you’re out late, you know you shouldn’t drive, you take a cab, figure you’ll fetch your car in the morning, and then life happens and you can’t get back in time to beat the meter. She figured she was rewarding their good behavior, deciding not to drive drunk.

Then they started enforcing quotas. And her mother got sick. And her favorite TV show got cancelled. And she turned 36 and was still single and hated wearing that stupid hat and a lot of other bullshit, so she was there, flipping through screens at 8:01 am local time, nailing every jack-ass too lazy to crawl out of bed and retrieve his fucking car. The wages of sin, assholes. Just be glad you can afford to go out at night and get drunk at all. Be glad you can even afford a car. Some folks couldn’t. Serves you right.

Nowadays she gives them fifteen minutes or so. Not because she’s being nice. Mostly because she just doesn’t give a damn. So what if she misses her quota now and again? What are they going to do, fire her? Not while she still pays union dues.

Her iPad makes a noise, and she swipes it on. A chat window. Jerry saying “Hey girl”.

She types back “Hey boy.”

“Watcha doing.”

“Climbing Everest.”

“Ha ha. I’m late for work.”

“So why are you chatting with me?”

One of her screen’s edged in red, a meter expired. She selects the window, moves the camera and zooms in on the plate. What is it, 8:20? Who parks at eight AM and only pays for 20 minutes? She grabs the screen, opens her citation log and indicates the license tag number, make and model, time, location, what the asshole had for breakfast, how long he’s been married, how long he’s hated being married, where he’ll have a heart attack in a few months from eating all that crappy food, what his wife will do with the insurance money.

Erases most of that, saves the citation, moves on to another window. A few yellows, which she flags, just in case they come back and feed the mirror. Not strictly allowed. One hour max on this street, whether you pay for it or not. Apparently, that was a problem in some places. Coffee house denizens setting up shop with a computer and a caffeine addiction, pushing coins into the meters on their smoke breaks and parking all day while they sipped mochas at their novels.

Not sure if that’s a problem on her beat. She isn’t even all that sure what businesses are on her blocks. The cameras can sort of make out signs and such, but not very well. She could use Google, maybe, Streetview. But that feels too much like taking her work home with her. Nevermind that she does, in fact, work from home. Nevermind that in a few minutes she’ll take a break, make coffee in her own coffee pot, hike up her skirt and squat on her own toilet, wash her hands with her own soap and then stare out her own window at a street five thousand miles away from where those computers stared unblinking ten hours a day.

The city saves, what, thousands, millions? On coffee and restrooms and hand soap. And wages. Cost of living for an outsourced meter maid is way lower than for one who has to live in that city. A city she’d never been too. A city she’d heard of, of course, but made up of about as much reality as, well, anything she watches on TV when her shift is over and her panyhose are off and those stupid shoes are kicked to the other side of the room. So who the hell cares what businesses there are on her beat?

Her iPad beeps again.

“Helen. Helen. Helen? Hellooooo”

“Hey.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere. Where would I go?”

“How come you didn’t respond?”

“Sorry, got distracted. Somebody was taking a dump next to one of the meters.”

“Holy shit, really?”

“Is that a pun?”

She stands up, walks into her kitchenette, makes that coffee. Opens the fridge. Take out boxes and tupperware. Lots of leftovers. Closes the fridge, walks over to her window, stares out of it. What would someone think, walking by now, to see her, in uniform, her blouse and skirt and badge and hat, standing there like that?

Nothing. They wouldn’t think a thing.They might reach for a remote, see if they could change the channel. Reach for a mouse, click to another page. Or just go back to their cell phones. Seeing and thinking don’t have anything to do with each other anymore.

She flips on her TV, positioned to the side so no one can see it when she’s on the webcam. Not sure if it’s strictly regulation to have a TV on while she works. Not that there’s anything to watch. She doesn’t like soap operas much. Too fake. Doesn’t know if, strictly speaking, the iPad is regulation either. Well, screw em, they could cut her some slack. it’s just background noise.

The TV says something about protesters gathering in a city park somewhere. She ignores it utterly, thinking about a dream she’d had, she was a valet, parking cars illegally just so people would have to pay tickets. Her coffeemaker makes a sound, and she glances towards it, glances at the microwave. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. She dashes over to her chair, sits down, eyes locked on the screen, fumbles for the mouse. Clicks the left arrow, going back groups of screens. Click click click, damn it, why had she’d left herself so far north? She clicks in the go-to box, types in 4, hits return, the screens swim over, and she’s clicking on camera 6. Pulling back. The street is empty, no cars. She dares to take her eyes off the image to look at the time in the lower right hand corner. She’s one minute late. Damn it damn it damn it.

She’s holding her breath. Her iPad makes a noise.Without looking she grabs it, sets it face down on her desk. The clock says she’s two minutes late now. She starts to let her breath out. What is today, Wednesday? Does he even run on Wednesdays? Maybe he went earlier. Maybe it’s getting warmer where he lives, maybe he’s going on longer runs now and has to start before her shift even comes on, maybe– and there he is.

Oh sweet, sweet man. Just legs and shorts and so much skin. His jet-black Nikes, she looked it up, Nike Frees, minimalist shoes. Those calves, like bundles of thick rope. Those thighs. She’s never seen his face– he’s always running East to West, always comes on camera from the right, exits to the left. As he does, she clicks, follows him on the next camera. He has an easy, loping pace. He’s got white wires coming out of his ears, down to some device on his hand. One more screen as he runs by, she clicks over. This is the best part. On a nice day, for a few weeks, the sun catches his back, the sweat glistens, literally glistens, those sculpted traps and lats and rhomboids. She’d looked that up to.

And then he’s gone. She’s not exactly breathing hard, not exactly panting. But she finds herself touching her face, touching her hair, adjusting her hat. What’s his name? Where does he live? How far does he run? Does he have Skype? She hopes not.

A window pops up, Captain Jefferson. He’s got as smirk on his face. “Helen,” he says.

“Hello.” She glances at her own image. Is she blushing?

“How’s the beat.”

“Same as always. Five cites so far, but it’s still only morning.”

He nods. “Okay, good. Listen, we need someone to cover a few blocks later. Want any overtime?”

“Where?”

“West Coast.”

Sigh. Another late night. “You know, I’d be happier if I didn’t have to wear this hat.”

He laughs “Yeah. I’ll patch you in at five, your local. Thanks Helen.” His screen goes off.

Of course, hers is still on. Maybe she could take some art classes, buy some expensive paints and brushes with all this overtime money, and paint a tiny little hat on the lense of her web cam, so it looks like she’s wearing a hat all the time. For that matter, why not paint a little blouse on there too. And there she’d be, sitting half naked in her chair, no hat, no shirt, but still wearing her skirt and the hose and the shoes. Absolutely ridiculous.

The rest of the day goes by like it always does. She flips through screens, pretending to look for parking violations, actually looking for the runner to come back the other way. By lunch she’s only one away from her quota. She knows others who nail their quotas every day, never falling under but never going over, either. You couldn’t get away with quitting for the day if you hit yours early, so she imagines they ease up for a while, letting a few go, waiting for the last one an hour or so before they clock out.

The iPad makes a sound. “Hey girl.”

“Hey boy.”

“Busy day?”

“Same as always.”

“Mom wants to know if you can Facetime at dinner.”

“Not sure. I’m pulling some over time.”

“So? Just turn it on, she likes looking at your face. Don’t know why.”

“I’ll still have this stupid hat on.”

“So?”

She takes her afternoon break, a diet soda, some chips. Uses the toilet, washes her hands, stands in front of the TV. The Dr. Oz show. A mother and her daughter. One of them is, apparently, addicted to video games. She can’t tell which one.

A commercial for the news. The woman behind the desk is gorgeous. Tasteful but sexy dress, perfect hair. No hat. “At six o’clock, we’ll tell you about the riot that’s going on right now on the East Coast, and fish mercury– are levels on the rise?”

She turns back to her computer. Riot? She walks over and sits down. Starts cycling her screens. Sees a few reds, ignores them to cycle further. Everything looks fine. Everything looks- one of her screens is black. She flips to other side of the street, but of course, the cameras can’t see each other, they don’t have that much room to move. She flips back again, and the screen next to it is black, too.

She pages the Captain, but he doesn’t answer. Another of her screens goes black. And then another. She shifts to the last screen on the block. A face appears, scaring her. She pushes her chair back, but of course he can’t see her. His face is distorted, too close for the camera to focus. He seems to be smiling, laughing, shaking back and forth, and then that screen goes black, too.

She switches to the next block– more black screens. Tries another. Tries the Captain again. Nothing. Tries more screens. One of them is still on, but as she watches it starts to shake violently, then goes dark. Soon all of her screens are black. Every last one.

Except for the one with her face in it, in the lower right hand corner. She looks at herself, but of course what she’s seeing is herself looking at her self. She reaches up and takes off her hat. And then the entire computer screen turns off, and she’s left staring at nothing but dead glass.

fiction by Jason Edwards

The treadmill’s been unplugged for three months now. There’s a folding chair sitting on it, and the ground around is littered with food crumbs: Cheetos Doritos, Ruffles and Pringles. Funyans, Fritos and Fuck-Me boxes of Ritz Crackers. You can put anything onna Ritz. Or you can just eat ‘em plain, one sleeve at a time.

She’s perched on the chair, Fat Martha. Her real name’s Tabitha, Tabby, Tubby, Tabs, Tubs, but she calls herself Fat Martha. The treadmill is too big to fit through the apartment door. Hank put it together for her. Fucking Hank. Fucking Hank said, I can’t handle your shit anymore, Tabs. Good riddance.

Fat Martha sits on the chair and watches television. Mostly reruns. Mostly things on basic cable. Friends. What a terrible terrible show. Only Joey ever eats. Fat Martha wipes a sweaty paw on her chest, wiping more crumbs to the floor. Her cheese powder-stained sweat shirt. The one that used to be pink. Not aggressive pink, more like a subtle pink. A pink a boy could have gotten away with wearing. Fucking Hank had worn it once, after he’d put the treadmill together, and taken a shower, and gotten into her bed, and then gotten out of it again and thought it would be a good idea to run down to the bodega for a few diet sodas.

Bugs don’t even bother with the food crumbs. Fat Martha thinks about changing the channel, but the TV is perched so she could watch it while walking the treadmill, and the remote is who knows where, so she watches a commercial for Burger King. Does Burger King deliver? Fat Martha can’t make herself leave the apartment.

Fat Martha weighs 87 pounds. She’s five foot four, tall for a short girl. Her BMI is 14.9. If she can just get to 15, Fucking Hank will come back. She eats chocolate and donuts and very fatty steaks. She tries not to move much. She holds it in and doesn’t go to the bathroom very much. But she’s stuck.

The commercial’s over. Now Phoebe is saying something naïve, Chandler’s responding snarkily, and the other two skinny bitches are smiling knowing smiles. Joey looks confused. Ross looks like he’s just swallowed a small basset hound. Fat Martha is almost 40. She remembers when sit-coms would have “very special” episodes where they dealt with some problem. Like teen pregnancy, alcohol abuse, or racial intolerance. Sit-coms don’t do that anymore. Sit-coms are happy to help you build a treadmill in your tiny postage stamp apartment, laugh about how it’s impossible to get it back out again, but they don’t bother filming the episode where you admit you’re less than 90 lbs now and you don’t know why.

Fat Martha is not anorexic, or bulimic. She does hate her body. She does puke, on occasion, but never on purpose. Usually because the shit she crams down her throat is so vile, she can’t keep it in. She has a bucket for that. It is the only exercise she gets. She pukes until she sees spots, then she drags the bucket to the sink and washes it. It always smells like bleach. It’s gotten to the point where the smell of bleach is comforting because what comes next is the terrible terrible knot of hot hate in her guts exiting violently.

She doesn’t know what to do. Friends is over, and another episode of Friends is coming on. The box with the grocery store delivery is in the kitchen. There’s a clean path, in the debris, for the delivery guy. He’s foreign, thank god, and if he sees Fat Martha and her filthy apartment and her dusty treadmill and her pristine puke bucket, his noticing doesn’t show on his face. She tips him well. There are bags of garbage everywhere.

Lost her job, but so what. Mom died, but so what. Never knew her father. Blame him? Girls without daddies were supposed to be sluts. But she could never manage it. Too fat. And for a day, between too fat and too not fat enough, there was Fucking Hank. All the Friends are looking out the window. Fat Martha doesn’t even have to pay attention to know they’re staring at Fat Naked Guy. She absolutely hates that she knows this.

She tries to stand up. She feels a head rush coming on. She’s teetering on the edge of the treadmill. If she falls, she might land on the bed. If she has momentum, she might roll off again and land next to the tiny refrigerator. Then, as she lies dying, she can have a chocolate milk. Dying of multiple broken bones. Can multiple broken bones kills a person? If a rib goes through her heart, maybe. Hopefully.

Instead the head rush clears and she’ still perched on the edge of the treadmill, 5 inches above the floor. Fat Martha looks down, and sees her knees. Her knees are now the biggest part of her body. Her belly disappeared, her boobs disappeared, but her knees, they stayed right in. She’s in a filthy sweatshirt and nothing else, because clothes make you sweat and sweat makes you lose weight. Maybe the phone will ring.

Maybe the phone will ring. Ring, ring, Fat Martha lets it ring. Who has a phone that hang on a wall, these days. A gigantic intruder-bashing plastic thing. Answer it. Hello. It’s me. Who. Me, Fucking Hank. Oh. How are you. I’m fine. I called to tell you I’m sorry. No you didn’t. Yes I did, Fat Martha, I called to tell you I’m sorry I couldn’t deal with the way you were disappearing right before my eyes. Don’t me melodramatic. I just wish you would go to the doctor. How, Fucking Hank, am I supposed to do that? Don’t yell at me. Why not, you deserve it. I’m just a figment of your imagination, Fat Martha. So. So would I really call myself Fucking Hank? And you always called me Tabs, not Fat Marha. See. Yeah. So. Yeah. So go see a doctor, Fat Martha! Oh fuck you. And if she had enough energy, she’d slam the phone into the cradle so hard it would shake the walls and some asshole number would thump the floor with a broom.

But the phone doesn’t ring. Friends chatters away, the tiny refrigerator looms, the cupboards stuffed with chips beckon. But she’s not hungry. She wants to be hungry. Wants so desperately to be hungry. But she’s not. Fat Martha steps off the treadmill, winces with then pain that shoots through one knee. Chandler gets off three jokes and Joey alludes to sexual prowess twice in the time it takes her to shuffle around her bed. Now she’s standing next to the frig. It’s way down there. What if she bends down to open it and can’t stand back up? Well, that’s happened before, so who cares.

Fat Martha bends down to open the tiny frig, and all energy leaves her back. She’s hanging from her own hips. She grabs the gigantic jug of chocolate milk. She opens it. The cap falls… somewhere. She puts the jug to her lips. God damn it is so heavy. She takes a deep breath, cold chocolaty air into her lungs, a few millicalories of energy, some kind of weird cocoa osmosis, and with Herculean will she straightens up, the jug upended above her, chocolate milk splashing onto her face, coursing down her body naked underneath her filthy sweatshirt as she falls back into the bed.

The weight of the jug pushes it into her gums, gashing them, hot copper in their with the chocolate. Finally it’s empty and she lets it fall away. Her face is sticky. Her hair is sopped. Her bed is soaked. Fat Martha licks her lips, limps a hand onto her belly, wrist bone cutting into exposed ribs. Did she get any in her? Did she swallow any one the way down? Her life flashes before her eyes. It’s a fat flash.

In Junior high they read To Build a Fire, and her teacher kept bragging about how everything was foreshadowed in the first paragraph. Fat Martha must have read that story a hundred times, at least a dozen, at least three times, trying to see what the teacher was talking about. But it just wasn’t true. There was nothing in the first paragraph that foreshadowed the ending. Nothing in that first paragraph that let you in on the secret. You read the whole story thinking there was a chance. Sure, the second time you read it, you know the guy had no chance at all. But the first time—the writer was making it up as you went along. Anything could have happened. Anything at all.

The treadmill’s been unplugged for three months now. She gets up, relishes the sticky sweetness on her face, gluing one eye shut, fights off waves of head rush and plugs the treadmill back in. There’s a folding chair sitting on it, and the ground around is littered with food crumbs: Cheetos Doritos, Ruffles and Pringles. She kicks off the chair, and it smacks the walls, wedges up against the front door. Funyans, Fritos and Fuck-Me boxes of Ritz Crackers. Underneath her finger nails, in her hair. You can put anything onna Ritz. She’ll put a mile on every one she’s ever eaten Or you can just eat ‘em plain, one sleeve at a time. Fat Martha’s gotta lotta sleeves to get through. She starts the treadmill, starts running.