Mommy, why is that man crying? A blonde girl about six-years-old in pigtails asks. It takes me a moment to realize that she’s talking about me.
I slide my sunglasses from my bald head to my nose. Never take them off. Never let anyone see my eyes. Force a smile at the girl. She stops kicking her legs, lets them dangle from the Wal-Mart shopping cart seat and stares at me. She’s probably looking at herself in the mirrored lenses, but I can’t help but think that she knows that I’ve killed girls like her in other countries.
Don’t look at her. Stare at the check-out candy. Chunky Bars? They still make Chunky Bars?
That’s right, Mommy. Shield your baby girl. Get her as far away as you can from the monster in aisle six.…
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The year 2010. He’s nothing I want to befriend, and I’m dripping in exhaustion, unable to rub two thoughts together. Spaced three feet apart, a gulf between us. A recumbent child, a dwarf, a lifetime could fill the hole between us on the bench. He says, “You missed a belt loop. And your pants are unzipped.”
I’ve dodged across the US all day, flown from Oklahoma to get to Texas to find Los Angeles to arrive in Albuquerque, all in pursuit of an additional forty-five dollars of savings. Now, in the late afternoon, I wait for a magic coach to carry me miles out to my car. I wait on a bench with a morose, humped-over man in black pants and a white shirt. With epaulettes and patches, a little American flag on his shoulder, a phone but no gun. …
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The heart was in bad shape when you gave it to me: a crumbly autumn leaf of a piece of paper with two gentle humps meeting neatly beneath the top. I don’t quite remember the lyrics to whichever pop song you painted on it, around the edges, spiraling into the middle. What I do remember is that those words, not your words, were dark and smudged like bruises.
Your heart had its fair share, too. You confided in me: rain smacking off my windshield, texts from our parents saying that the power’s out, and we should come home. But we didn’t leave. We lay in my tiny car, rubbing our noses together and wrapping our tongues around the abstract idea of heartbreak. You mentioned Ben, the brooding skater guy who left his heart in another zip code.…
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Justin’s basement was an open-air museum of ‘90s pop culture. Action figures, cassette tapes, professional wrestling belts, 16-bit video game consoles — it was enough to send any garden variety millennial into a euphoric tizzy. I wanted nothing more than to horse around with the sprawling collection of novelties lining the walls and bookshelf, but Justin was as stingy as he was nostalgic. We sat opposite each other, slumped in sticky polyester bean bags. I sucked down a billowing cloud of smoke, flicked a clump of ashes into a giant psychedelic conch shell, then passed the tightly-rolled joint back over to Justin. A round of aggressive thumps at the basement door interrupted the chilled silence of our smoke break.
I sprung to my feet and opened to the door.…
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Outside, the wind is whirling past Twelfth Street making the Pin Oaks tremble and the branches of the Norway Maples bow. Scattering those many conduits of seed across the sidewalks. The rain has stopped and the clouds hang in the sky like cobwebs stretched between the streets.
William sits on the couch and picks at a jagged edge of purple nail polish on his pointer finger. It’s satisfying to single out a fragment of the hard polish from the existing island and eradicate it. He inspects the liberated chip between his pointer and thumb then flicks it off.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he says.
“Too late to back out now.” He watches his mother’s white socks walk through a pool of light on the oriental carpet.…
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Sex costs. First, there are the drinks. You don’t know him too well. Actually, you’re still not sure you like him, but you’d like something. You keep hoping to feel happy. Like you’d planned. Another red might help.
Then there’s the taxi. ‘We can split it,’ you say, still not knowing whether it’s sex you’re going for. He is.
You’re kissing in his kitchen, his face in your neck, his hand pushing down into your jeans. The compliments help. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he whispers. As you walk up behind him you remind yourself that life, after all, is for living.
He presses you down onto the bed. He pulls your bra up over your head, undresses himself with one hand. He’s shaking. He’s ready. Are you?…
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The man parted the bushes and limped out onto the road. A chunky wind of dirt and sand blew across his face, mixing with the faint plume of his breath. He pulled his scarf up over his mouth and nose and adjusted his goggles. He looked both ways; the desolation seemed to stretch on forever. He took out his old pistol and held it ready before crossing the street. The convenient store was nothing more than a burned-out wooden frame with broken windows. Weeds were growing in the open doorway and he crushed them down with his boot. A skinny rat scurried along the wall and disappeared behind the counter where the clerk would have sat.
With his pistol still raised he started inspecting each shelf for food. …
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