Ghost of a Gun

Had he believed in such a thing as regret, it might have been the gun. The difference between zero and three and five fell into the hands of that gun, and though none of it was worth it, there was no more money to be had, with or without the weapon. 

“Name?” The uninspired clerk asked, fingers poised for attack above the keyboard, awaiting their flight plan. 

“Wallace,” said Wallace. 

“Wallace What?”

“Wallace Gilbert.”

“And, Mr. Gilbert, what was your previous employer’s reason for letting you go?” 

“I couldn’t work on account of going to prison,” Wallace said, unblinking. The ’s’ sound in the word ‘prison’ sloshed its way through the hole in Wallace’s bottom row of teeth. He held a baseball cap, folded in two, between his knees. A small, thin mustache grew on his upper lip in much the same way the hair on his head barely covered any ground. 

And oh, if it hadn’t been for the gun. 

“Were you convicted of a felony, Mr. Gilbert?”

“Yessir.”

“And are you currently looking for work or unable to find work?”

“Yessir,” Wallace lisped. 

“No, Mr. Gilbert,” the clerk said. He looked up from the computer for the first time to see Wallace’s creased and worried face, his sweat-stained hat shaking with unease between his bouncing kneecaps. “Are you currently looking for work. OR, have you been looking for work and can’t find any.”

Wallace slumped in the rounded, plastic chair. Yes, though, he thought. It was both. 

“Yes, sir,” Wallace said, more careful of the hole in his teeth. “I’m, uh, still looking.”

The clerk was silent, fingers poised on alert again. 

“Haven’t given up looking, I guess?” Wallace said, to further define.

“Hmm,” said the clerk. “We’ll call it currently looking, then.” 

“I was drunk and stupid,” Wallace said. 

“I’m sorry?”

“I took money from someone. I was drunk and stupid.”

The clerk’s hands sank from their mid-air perch. 

“Mr. Gilbert, I just file the paperwork.”

They sat in silence for 26 seconds. Wallace placed his ball cap over his knee, stretched it to fit this bony sort of face. The clerk tapped the letter “d” 11 times in a row. 

“In about three business days, call this number,” the clerk said. “You’ll answer the questions they give you and then if you qualify, the money will deposit directly into your account.”

Wallace thought this was arguably simpler than placing a gun to a soft part of someone’s body and asking for it. Hindsight, though. Plus he had never necessarily been looking for easy. 

He left the unemployment office and crossed the street against traffic to the 7-11. He would get smokes, but first, a Red Bull and the cheapest beef jerky. Peppered was fine, but teriyaki was ideal, and neither of them were in the four dollar range he had until EBT came through. 

“Hey, three fifty, yeah?” The voice asked, too loudly, too jaggedly, as coins jangled on a metal countertop. 

“Three fifty, yeah,” a second voice confirmed. More coins. 

The coins were a ruse, as Wallace watched the two - likely meth-heads, he reasoned from the lack of hair, the patchy movements - shove cellophane-wrapped sandwiches down their pants. Their shiny heads colluded behind the heated cage of taquitos, as they made enough metal noise to disguise the rustling in their clothing. This, too, Wallace thought, was a quicker path. 

Instead, Wallace had a Red Bull, some pricey dried meat, and the ghost of a gun.

Yes Answers

They had stopped saying ‘I love you’ to each other, not for a lack of love and not for lack of trying to say it hundreds of times over. The weight of everything is heavier than ever sometimes.

“There has to be some kind of a grievance,” she said. She fiddled with her wedding ring, interlacing and re-interlacing, un-interlacing her fingers, now in her lap, now on the table, around the coffee mug. 

“Well, you should call,” he said. His hands were still. Folded as a sweater, in a soft pile on the tabletop. His ring askew but stable where it lay on the correct and calm finger. 

“You think this is as weird as I do,” she said, as a confirmation, not a question.

“I think you deserve answers and you should call,” he said, ever the diplomat. 

She sighed. Spun the coffee cup, crumpled a napkin, pictured the penguins. There had been so many penguins. 

“I got a text at six in the morning,” she said “And they said, ‘no rush on the return call.’”

“Who said? Your parents?”

“No, no, about my parents.”

“Oh, your brother,” he said, as a confirmation, not a question. He stretched his hands from their pile; mountainous veins and four additional liver spots appeared new from the week before. Whose hands were these anymore?

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, and I said, I said, ‘what am I doing at six in the morning?!” What had she been doing at six in the morning? Not sleeping. Trying. Picturing all the penguins, scattered throughout the room. No you cannot have a real penguin, she remembered saying. At six in the morning she would mouth these words exactly. Try them in reverse, in a different order. This was years ago of course, but given all the figurines they had found, would it have changed even a minute?

“It’s supposed to be Toby’s Torah,” she said. “That’s what she wanted.”

“Yes,” he said.

“And what? Louis gets to have everything? Everything. Toby wanted the Torah, up on the bima, surrounded by the congregation.”

“The email went out about the Sabbath dinner.” This was unrelated and they both knew it.

“And I’m sure Louis wanted all of that too,” she said. This was not true and they both knew it. Someone needed to stay on course and she was a one-track wrecking ball of late. “Louis’ Torah. He said, ‘Louis’ Torah? Louis’ tuchus,’ he said.” She snorted, continued a messily angry laugh long enough to last for both of them. He placed his palms flat on the table to wait. 

They had cleared out Toby’s apartment together. Several diaries of varying emotional quality. Over a hundred photos, many of the two of them. A Torah she had saved with a request that it be given to the JCC and displayed prominently. But also, inexplicably, seventeen penguin figurines. They remembered how much she loved the animal, never factored in its centrality to her persona. Every word, every like, every detail - they’re all spots without the context, without the relationship. And now? And now they were spots. 

“Hmph,” he said. A settled sort of exhale. 

“It’s just not what was supposed to happen. It’s the Jewish Community Center, for God’s sake. There should be a grievance we can file.” 

“I think you should call and take it from there.”

“Yes.”  

A full yes. Not a ‘yeah,’ not an ‘uh-huh,’ nothing short or without meaning. It was as close to ‘I love you' as they got these days. Because how terrifying, how tragic, how unrequitedly devastating it was to hear of finality. No one wants to know it is the last one. 

Some hand gestures, a few assurances of normalcy, and yes answers without end.

Two Truths and a Lie

If it wasn’t for the whiskey, he wouldn’t have taken them at all. 

A sweetly acrid pinch lubed the hinge of his jaw. He should drink some water but he didn’t want to and it wasn’t in front of him. 

“I got tickets for my grandma,” he had told the bartender. It was the middle of the third inning and he was one of six people still drinking at the bar next to where his seats sat empty, sweating in the summer heat all on their own. “It was her birthday yesterday - same as mine - but then she died.” 

“Oh,” the bartender said, unsure if this was the beginning or the end of the story. “I’m sorry, man.”

“Yeah. She died on her birthday, can you believe that? Same as mine. Except I’m here.” Here he paused for effect, looked at the bartender, twirled a coaster in his fingers. “She’d been sick for a while. She loves the good game, so I thought…but then, yeah. Died.”

“No good, dude, I’m sorry.” The bartender patted the bar-top gently, in lieu of a shoulder or a hand. He set a new coaster in front of the man wearing a jersey not quite the right size, and a face not quite sad enough. “You want another?”

“Yeah. Might as well.” He leaned back, looked for oncoming traffic, stretched his arms. “I’m Tom.”

“Nice to meet you,” said the bartender without returning the introduction. He bent into a cooler, re-establishing the fourth wall. 

Tom surveyed his compatriots. 

—The heavy-set man to his far right: “I would say 80 percent of the girls who send me photos, I don’t even open them. Fat girls. All of ‘em. Not even worth lookin’ at.”

—Two younger men, scrolling through a text conversation: “I don’t know, it’s not a good idea. She’s crazy.” “Meh, any port in a storm, right?” Laughter. 

—A group of five business men, drunk on flavored vodka: “Candace?” “That’s a stripper’s name.” “Try asking her - CANDACE.” “I don’t think that’s her name.” 

Tom’s car bomb arrived on the bar without fanfare. Appeared. Reborn, refilled as magic. He was drinking a phoenix, now eight times over. It was a shade less lonely to drink with strangers and several Pantones deeper if you could make those strangers feel something. Even if that feeling was sadness. Feel sad for me and I will be real. 

A man with a Coors Light sat to Tom’s immediate right. The oceanic noises from the TVs indicated something good had happened in the bottom of the third. 

“Right?” Tom asked the man to his right.

“Hmph,” the man said, slender fingers tapped the dew on his beer bottle. “‘Bout time.”

“I know, man,” Tom said. “I should prolly go into the game soon.”

“You have tickets?”

“Yeah,” Tom said. This was the launch pad. He tapped his own, wide fingers on the underside of his upturned shot glass. “I was supposed to go to the game with my ex-girlfriend. But then she got herpes.” 

The man to Tom’s right said nothing, but gripped his Coors Light and shifted sideways. 

“And I’m like, I can’t fuck with that,” said Tom. “So, if I’m not gonna have sex, then I’m not taking her to the fucking game. Not talking to her, you know.”

“Uh, yeah,” the man to Tom’s right said, unenthusiastically, but gave Tom his full eye contact. Tom knew he was good to go. 

“My ex wife got it too and somehow I never caught it. Never tested positive. This other girl I had got it and then she wouldn’t fuck me anymore and I was like, I mean, when we had sex I’m wearing a condom, you know,” Tom laughed at this, most obvious fact, “But once she got it she thought I had it.” 

Tom paused. The man to Tom’s right glanced at the game. The moment was waning. 

“Anyway, if I’m not gonna get laid tonight, I might as well do a few car bombs and go into the game late, right?” Tom lifted his empty shot glass off the bar.

“Absolutely,” the man to Tom’s right said, as he stood up. He gave a wave to the bartender and swigged the last of his thin beer. “Enjoy, man.”

“Thanks,” said Tom, his phoenix reborn yet again shortly in front of his swaying vision. 

“You all set?” The bartender asked. 

“You know, I don’t even like Guinness,” Tom said.

Tagalong

“Eight has her shoes on and looks ready to go.”

eyes widen “Noooooo!”

“Yes.”

“So much nope. She’ll ruin everything.”

“Maybe not.”

“Remember what happened in your year?”

“Yes.”

“OK, well this is really important and, no offense, but I don’t want it to happen again.”

“First of all, yes offense. And also, you go tell her, in her little pink saddle shoes, that she can’t come with.” 

“When you put it that way…”

shrugs “Just tell her she has to stay quiet.”

“I’m not mad at her.”

“I know.”

“Can she hear us?”

“No. She was looking for that yellow plastic purse in the bottom of your closet.”

“Oh good lord.”

“It’s cute!”

rolls eyes “Twenty Five.”

“Oh, come on, it’s cute for her.”

yells “Hey, Eight, are you ready??”

grins “Yeszh!”

“”Do you want a jacket? Your sunflower dress is sleeveless, and it might get cold.”

“Nah, I’m good. We’re going on a daytzhe, rightzh?”

sighs “Yes. We’re going on a date.”

“Word. Bye Tzhwentzhy Five - don’t wait up!”

“Bye Eight. Listen to Thirty One when she tells you things, got it?”

“She doeszhn’tzh know everything.”

“No, she doesn’t.’

turns around “I heard that. Let’s go.” 

———

walks “I need you to be still and quiet and good tonight, Eight.”

“I szhwear.”

“Pinky swear?”

“Yeszh.”

“OK, shh, starting now.” speaks loudly “Hi! Sorry I’m late.”

“Not a problem. I ordered you a glass of white.”

“Eww.”

“Um, no that’s great, thank you.” whispers “Hush, Eight.”

“So, what do you do?”

“Reszhearch!” 

clears throat “Ahem, excuse me, I’m a research associate for the Jones Museum.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“Itzh iszh!”

whispers “Eight!”

whispers “Whatzh? I love your job.”

“Yeah, I know how it sounds. But I’ve actually always wanted this job.”

“So, you’re a little bit of a nerd, that’s OK, we can work with that.”

Eight groans and makes puking noises

“Are you not?”

“I just meant, you must read a lot. You were probably like good at school and…?”

“Yeszh.”

“What’s that?”

“Um, I mean, I guess?”

“You have a little bit of a lisp, don’t you?”

“No, no, I just…I talk to the sides sometimes?”

“What does that mean?”

“It doeszh…it iszh…nothing. Will you excuse me?”

nods

“Eight!” runs into bathroom, finds Eight hiding in a stall

“Eight, I can see your shoes poking out under the door.”

“No you can’tzh.”

“I can. I can and I can crawl under there and grab them too.”

“Pleaszhe don’t.” 

“Eight! You said a ’t’!”

“So?”

“And an ’s’!”

“I can do it szhometimeszh.”

“I know. And you’ll do it more.”

“What does it mattzher - you care more that he waszhn’t going to like me, notzh if I was mad at you.” peeks head under door “We are good at szhchool. Like really good.”

sits against door “I know.”

“You’re kind of a bully szhometzhimeszh.”

peeks head under to match “Hey!”

wiggles saddle shoes back and forth “Itzh’szh OK. I’ll just call you Timmy instead of Thirty One now.”

“Nice ’t’s, Eight.”

“Thanks. Yourszh too.” 

sighs, lays on floor, pats Eight’s leg “Anyway, Timmy works at a car wash now and hates everyone.” 

giggles “Good.”

Row 9

There, in row one, the girl wearing a princess dress tilted her face upward. 

Here, in row nine, Gil unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up. His legs felt heavy, frozen. Gripping the headrest before him, he rolled each ankle until the persistent swelling stopped its heartbeat. 

All my life/I prayed for someone like you

In this loud silence, this plate glass window of time, Gil’s brain wanted nothing more than a soundtrack. Maybe also some assurance.

“Is it real?” The princess asked. Gil cleared his throat to mask his surprise at her voice. It was a regular voice; it was the only other voice he could hear. 

“I would think,” Gil said as he made his way up the aisle toward her. She had turned her face forward, pointing with her silver, glitter wand to the hole in front of them both. 

“Can we see them?” She stood up, reaching for Gil’s hand as if she had known him for more than these forty-two seconds. 

“Sure, let’s go have a look,” Gil said, every word smaller than the last. They walked sideways down a steep decline to the front of the plane. Gil went first, his right arm winged out behind, cupping the atmosphere of the princess’ head in case of…any other cases. 

And I thank God that I/That I finally found you

They stopped at the edge of where the air met the land. 

“Can they see us?” The princess blinked up at Gil. Her hair had been plaited in four sections, braided together in a low rope at the underside of her head. She slowly petted the octopus inked on Gil’s forearm. 

“May uh,” Gil said. He was aware this was not reassuring nor a full sentence but he had nothing else to offer. Unless this small child enjoyed the musical stylings of the inimitable K-Ci and JoJo. 

Below their still and silent, hovering aircraft lay an equally still and silent restaurant, the roof shorn off by the belly of the plane. A woman sat at a table with a laptop, a coffee, and a pastry spread before her, a wide smile carved her face. A waitress with a hand to her seemingly sweaty forehead was mid-stride between two chairs. A man bent over a stroller, holding a banana in one hand and a pacifier in the other. Humans in various states of business were paused, just as, Gil thought, the plane and its passengers sat in stone behind them. 

“It’s like my dollhouse,” said the princess, bemused. 

“Yeah?” Gil said lamely. Around anyone younger than 22, Gil became an old farm dog: slow, good for petting, not good for conversation, and easily fatigued. 

“Yeah,” the princess said, unfazed. “And no one looks scared. Were you scared?”

Was Gil scared? It had been twenty minutes and he could no longer remember anything other than this concreted universe. The slow descent had seemed natural. Here is a rooftop, and there is the cathedral dome. How toasted the city’s buildings look up close in the late afternoon light. 

Then there was a scraping sound and then there was stillness. And then there was this. 

Yes, I pray that you do love me too

“Yes,” Gil lied, “Yes, I was scared.”

“Can we go play with the people?” The princess asked. Gil had no intention of poking at the waxed humans, but what exactly was the plan here? Was it better to step into this world, or step back to row 9, buckle in and wait for the old one to take off? 

Gil patted his jeans pocket with his right hand. The ring was still there. 

“OK, princess, you lead the way.” 

Thorns and Pedestals

I suppose they were always there, these thorns. I only noticed them today. 

Can you be the full sort of empty? Can you glue your 16 selves into a complete and current version? Can you not entirely fall apart?

I am kind and I am patient and I am hesitant and I am ignored. 

My heart has thorns. Did you know? They prick me while I sleep and all this time I thought it was you. 

It hurts. Not my heart - it has the thorns after all - the soft tissue that surrounds, however, it is bleeding all over my lungs, my dreams, my throat. Red and angry and telling anyone who will listen how I was wrong. 

Wrong. And stupid. Very and newly stupid. The pedestal I gave you was meant to make us taller. I have been chasing the biggest thing I know and I refuse to believe that’s not the point. 

We are at breakfast. It’s been over an hour. You stop to respond to a text message. Broken from the spell of our sounds, I look around. I have not noticed the family of four to my right. Haven’t noticed the line for the bathroom snaked through the back of the diner. I become fixated on the fiberglass figure suspended from the ceiling three tables away. She is aqua. She is naked. She is mid-backflip. She is seemingly a less-referential Koons, cast-off from exhibition and deserted here, because she does not make sense; her lumbar spine is curved too much to right itself but not enough for a graceful water entry. She is confusing. I can’t take my eyes off of her. 

If I were honest - completely, nakedly, unerringly honest - I would tell you that you are the only person for whom I don’t dumb down my language. That you pause when I smile and it’s the only compliment I will ever want. That I would trade every other look in the world for the one where you seem to think I hold all the light in the room. That I know there’s more to everything than the words you and I say to each other because we both have chosen the wrong ones over and over. 

She is blue and she is backwards and she is in flight. And you are here and you are everything and you are wrong. 

You are wrong about before. Busy is no excuse for fear. You’re wrong to continually pick the one for whom you think you can be most beneficial because it’s not about being better or worse or right. 

You are the wrong person. And I am backwards and aqua and bent too far.

How, though, do you explain these thorns? They must mean something. No one tears apart their own chest without a purpose. Or do they? I don’t know how this works since I only discovered it today. Perhaps you can carve out a home there in the carnage and live in a shredded cavity like a cave. 

A full sort of empty. 

I’m guessing the big thing, the important thing, is really a different thing. An unknown face who pauses at smiles, under a shroud of words much like these. Who wouldn’t rather a house of worn phrases than a fort of tattered tendons? Shifting focus hasn’t shunted any blood yet though, and so I wait. At breakfast. In backflips. Each breath a hair’s breadth from another puncture. 

They were always there, these thorns. My heart grew them wild for you and you let me stab anything they could reach.

Vigilante Town Hall Meeting

He had a full head of hair as recently as four months ago. 

They hide in the back, he thought. One mirror wasn’t enough and he didn’t have a hand mirror to hold up behind. This is how it had started. He couldn’t see and so he felt and then it was four months later.

A flicker at a time, each instance increasingly paralyzing, until the phrase in his head was all he could see. 

Now, still of mind but heaving in the bathroom sink, his face slowly cinched into view. The left side with a gold, etched earring. A ladybug-sized, star tattoo by his right eye. Crooked teeth in three, separate places. Tanned head, close but not clean, shaven. 

He kept the water running in the sink as he gripped the basin’s sides. They felt sandy with dirt. It was a church basement, after all - the Sunday School playroom vacant but adjacent.

Someone would come and someone would find him here, and soon. It didn’t matter. The meeting had started and he was the reason and he was the problem. 

This was how they all started, though, wasn’t it? One common goal regardless of the methods. 

Yet it’s not your decision to make.

There’s the hope for redemption.

What of you, then?

Oh, then the words, though. Eden-level snaky bitches, those words. 

He felt for the back of his head. Felt a rippling, a roping, and scratched. The words subsided at least long enough for him to stand upright in front of the mirror. 

What of me, then, he thought. He had wanted to fight. To use that pinch of rage at the side of his brain against those who deserved it. So was the motto of a vigilante and as such seemed the perfect fit. When they began to enforce the rules, he felt wary. He already knew he had gone too far the first time. By the third, the words were stuck in a loop, wedged somewhere between his earring and the end of time. 

The verdict would be unsurprising. When they asked him at the last meeting what he had to say, the words spoke for him. Tumbled out of their perch and slid right out of his mouth. 

They had gasped. 

This is not what we do. 

WWBD, What Would Batman Do, he could see it written on the stall behind him now. A code of ethics loosely applied across the board but applied as strong as skin glue in particular cases. This case. 

If but he could stay in this bathroom…the running water, the grimy sink walls, the one florescent light blinking just enough to make him wonder about an eye twitch, the too-short wooden doors made for children of God…children who were taught about good and bad. See, there was a line.

They hide in the back, he thought as he ran a hand up the bottom of his skull. Smooth skin between patchy scabs and all he could feel were waves of eels whispering those words. He couldn’t see and so he felt and then it was four months later. With the faucet in a steady cascade, he shouted into the void of such a holy mess, 

I WANT TO KILL BAD PEOPLE.

And then, the other words, the words of the others, three, six, maybe 10 times,

Please. Don’t.

Valuation

Any hope of sneaking in expired at the intersection of Room 12 and the library cart. Asher paused to sling the second backpack strap over his left shoulder - the not-cool way - and proceeded to sprint the length of the hallway. 

“…Abigail Queensbury…Thomas Rabinot…” Ms. Petersen’s voice bumped against the lockers across from the open door of Room 27. One name stood between Asher and death-by-tardy-mark. 

“…Faith Ramsey…Ash…” 

“HERE,” Asher wheezed as he skidded into the perfume-scented, notebook-heavy, fifth-grade classroom. 

“Asher Rasmus, you are the luckiest little slowpoke I’ve ever met,” Ms. Petersen said as she left his attendance row unblemished. Asher flashed Ms. (not married) Petersen what he hoped was a charming smile but was more likely an unsettling sort of scheming grin. Or the face of someone pretending not to have the stomach flu. He took his seat at the back of the room and fed the contents of his backpack to the gaping, metal envelope of his desk.

Writing notebook. Reading log. Math workbook. Math textbook. Social Studies textbook. Independent reading book (Harry Potter #4). Unused notebook. Five Star binder with six folders. Pencil case with 17 erasers and only two working pencils. And one Ziplock bag with 22 Jivamodo cards. 

It had taken Asher the course of the school year to date to earn those 22 cards. Harvey Elementary had banned them for all of September, relented mid-October, and because of their illicit past, now enjoyed a heightened popularity. Those who had them did too.

“What does this mean, then?” Ms. Petersen asked the class. Asher tried to look deep in thought while he leaned hard to the right to read the dry-erase board behind Ms. Petersen. 

“It’s like when you want something, but like, when you’re not like allowed to get it?” said Stupid Tammy Pigalle. Tammy had once caught Asher staring too long at a boy on the playground. She sang out, “Ass-her” and it ivied all over the building. You can make anyone’s name into something terrible, and Asher wondered if this ever stopped. Look for the bad things and they appear. Stupid Tammy. 

“Yes, good, Tammy,” said Ms. Petersen, “But so how is this different than when your parents won’t let you get a new toy?” 

The class snickered.

“Oh, OK, you’re all basically adults and toys are dumb. So, your parents find out that you didn’t do your math homework and now you aren’t allowed to get the new Jivamukti or whatever card.” 

“Jiva-MODO,” shouted Abby Queensbury from the row of desks by the windows. 

“Jivamodo. OK. How is that different than what we’re talking about,” said Ms. Petersen. 

Asher peeled open his Ziplock bag inside his desk and looked at his cards. Last week he scored a coup - two Deveries for a Gilopcus and a Vixary. He hoped to trade his last Figben for something good today. 

Mikel Bridges tipped too far back on two legs of his chair and fell to the floor, otherwise the room was silent. 

“That’s why we don’t do that,” said Ms. Petersen, “Alright, Wolf, what do you think? How is it different?” Wolf would know. Wolf always knew. He was everything Asher wanted to be as a fifth-grader and a person: taller, surer, less sweaty. And he had 150 Jivamodo cards. 

“Because with the cards, your parents tell you, ‘you can’t,’ but with this, its not like someone tells you. It just can’t happen,” said Wolf. Sitting upright in his chair, Wolf stuck both of his hands in his desk’s mouth and nodded to Asher. 

“Wha?” Mimed Asher, and a paper knot promptly hit him in the face.

Asher unfolded the note from Wolf: 

Lunchtime. I’m giving you all my cards. 

“Yes! Exactly. That’s perfect,” said Ms. Petersen. “Now, it’s your turn to write about it. You have twenty minutes.”

All the cards? 150 Jivamodo cards. The keys to the kingdom. The ultimate score. The Harvey lottery. 

Except. 

Wolf had deemed Jivamodo not cool enough to play with anymore, rendering the cards value-less. 

Confused, conflicted, longing to snatch a glance at Wolf, and still damp from running the halls in a 30-lb backpack, Asher opened his writing notebook and began his assignment. 

Friends with Monsters

Ffffffffffffffffffff. 

Yes, ceiling fan, I feel you, she thought. She wasn't quite sure where the fan ended or the ceiling began as they were both white and both moving at the speed of fever. 

“Hello?” She asked the room. More to see if her voiced worked than anything else, but it was always good to check. 

The ceiling fan swore at her. The room said nothing else.

“Margarita. Mar-gar-ita. Mar-grrrrr-ita,” she said. Which one was it? Would it have made a difference? She clutched her stomach and rolled her face into the blanket, white, dented with diamond shapes.  

What was Spanish for “pizza,” she wondered, because she was at least 70 percent sure she didn’t say it. Is Peru known for its Italian cuisine more than its Central American-inspired cocktails? How did she suddenly know so little about her home? Was this an omen? 

“Is it?” She drooled into the blanket. The blanket absorbed this but said nothing. The bed began to ripple and she hung her head off of it, toward the trash can positioned below. Metallic echoes bounced out of the oval can and against her throbbing head. All the chaos of dinner in a fast rewind. 

“That was when Arthur pushed you down the hill!” 

Giggle

“Shots?”

“Yaaaasss. Tequila?”

Clink

“Chase, how’s your pizza?!”

“Shut up anyone could have bombed ordering.”

Shriek

“Penelope ate sheep balls in Ireland.”

“Yeah, and Arthur wasn’t out of the closet yet.” 

Closet. Before Peru, someone would take Arthur out each morning and wear him like a suit. Put him back each night on his hanger like a monster who is also a close friend. Chase didn’t understand how Arthur could have been this limp suit, and her fully human friend within the span of one year. He wasn’t out of the closet then, but he is now? 

I would like to find the man wearing the Arthur suit then, thought Chase. She pulled herself up from the writhing bed and stumbled to her own closet. Maybe he was in there. Maybe he and the suit switched. 

“Hello?” She asked the closet. Hands trembling too rapidly to operate the doorknob, she shouted her question, head tilted to the side, one eye squinted, to the oak-stained door. The door said nothing. The closet held its breath. 

Chase rolled her eyes at the lack of response and flopped back to the bed. Her legs and arms wanted to burrito herself into the covers but her chest and stomach vetoed the move. The eight-square-foot Peruvian kitchen was 91 acres away and therefore too far to travel. This was Chase’s fifth country in three years. When her students asked her who took care of her, she replied, “I do, and I do a decent job,” but goddamn if she didn’t want someone, anyone, a walking suit or monster, to hike the miles to the kitchen and get her some scummy, tinny, gross, tap water. 

Listening to the ceiling fan’s lament, Chase began to wonder about the closet. There hadn’t been any monsters in there this morning. No one had responded when she called out. But everything in this room was breathing. All this movement and it was statistically illogical that she didn’t share the space with something else. 

She took inventory of the Things Under the Bed. 

1. Two shoes she had kicked off after the dinner debacle. 
2. One phone charger.
3. Three reusable bags she always forgot to use. 
4. $6 in American money she meant to save and then didn’t, inexplicably dropped on the floor. 
5. One monster. She was more than 70 percent sure. 

“Hello?” She asked the Things Under the Bed.

“Hello?” They said.