Issue 01

Wednesday’s Child / Lisa Ferranti

It started with my days-of-the-week panties. I’m too old, I said, but you insisted we buy them. Said they were sexy. Striped beach ball Monday. Thursday’s American flag. Your favorite: Sunday’s over-sized sunglasses. Better to see you with, my dear, you said the day we moved in together, pulling them down with your teeth.

But now it’s a months-later Wednesday and I’m brushing my teeth before bed, and you say Where’s the camel? And at first I wonder what the hell you’re talking about but then I see you staring at the bumblebee on my crotch, the delicately embroidered Tuesday above it, and I roll my eyes, toothpaste dribbling down my chin.

When you first lost your job and took over the cooking and cleaning, it was fine, fun even, you joking you’d be my manservant until you found something. That first day I came home from work, you wearing my red apron with nothing beneath it, moo goo gai pan steaming on the stove. But then you had a bad interview, and another, and unemployment was ending, and you went ballistic last time I called for Chinese take-out, huffing and puffing about your food not being good enough. 

For your birthday I bought you a bamboo steamer that made the rice just-right sticky. It came in a box too big for it, wrapped in sheets of bubble wrap. We had cake and wine—too many pieces, too many glasses—and spread the wrap on the floor, jumped on it. Pop. Pop. POP. The neighbors pounded the walls.

Now, I rinse my mouth, wash my face, linger in the bathroom, feeling you waiting for me in bed. I climb in and before I can lay my head down, you say, So where are they? And I know you mean Wednesday’s camel undies, but I don’t answer, and you say maybe I left them somewhere, perhaps at Jack-from-work’s house after the supposed business dinner last week. I say maybe they got lost in the wash, but you say that only happens with socks. 

I stomp from the bedroom to the kitchen, noticing how dust has settled on the table, mail piled up, mostly bills, with a China Garden coupon on top, and I miss the times we ordered take-out together, joked with the sweet delivery man, whose row of tiny teeth resembled kernels on a dried ear of corn. I take the bubble wrap from the pantry closet, knowing now that we’re not going to make it over the hump. I call for you, wait for you to come to the kitchen. I wrap you in bubbles, turning you round and round, hugging your body tight with plastic—like a mummy, a cocoon—careful to leave an air hole. I try to cushion the blow, but it has to be done, before you eat me alive.

Coffee With David Lynch / Thomas Morgan

“Say I had the power to grant you one wish,” his wife said. “What would you wish for?”

“Hmm...” her husband said. “Can it be anything?”

“It can be anything you want,” his wife said. “Just name it.”

“Okay,” her husband said. Her husband thought long and hard about what he wanted. And then it came to him.

“I’ve got it!” her husband said. “I would wish to have coffee with David Lynch. God, that would be great. We’d go to a diner-like The Double R Diner from Twin Peaks – and we’d sit in a booth with red leather seats, and there would be one of those napkin dispensers on the table. Then the waitress would come over and pour two cups of hot black coffee. She’d ask us if we wanted anything to eat – a slice of cherry pie, perhaps. We’d order two pieces of hot cherry pie with a side of vanilla ice cream – and I mean real vanilla ice cream with those tiny black pods in it, not that cheap artificial crap you get from the supermarket. Then the waitress would go and get us our pies.

We’d both take a few generous sips of delicious black coffee while we sat there waiting for our pies. ‘This is good coffee,’ I’d say. ‘Damn fine coffee,’ he’d say. Then I’d take another sip of my coffee, and he’d say, ‘Wait until you try it with the pie and ice cream. That’ll be a fine experience.’ Then I’d say, ‘You ever put milk and sugar in your coffee?’ Then he’d stare at me for a second and say, ‘Do I ever put milk and sugar in my coffee? Get real!’ I’d laugh at this.

After a couple of minutes, the waitress would bring us our freshly-baked slices of cherry pie. We’d each cut into our pies and put a piece on the end of our respective forks – adding a bit of that smooth vanilla ice cream with those tiny black pods inside of it – and then we’d clink our forks together like they were pint glasses full of beer. ‘Cheers,’ we’d say. Then we wouldn’t talk for a while because we’d be concentrating on our pies, washing every delicious bite down with some of that damn fine black coffee.

Then David would light up a cigarette and offer me one. Even though I’ve never smoked in my life, I’d accept his offer and have a few puffs with my coffee. Coffee and cigarettes are supposed to go well together. That’s what I’ve been told.

Anyway, when we’d finished eating our pies, the waitress would come over with some more of that damn fine black coffee, and we’d probably talk about Twin Peaks and transcendental meditation and that yellow wristwatch he wore in David Lynch: The Art Life before it was time to pay for our coffee and pie. David would pay. ‘I’ve got this, champ,’ he’d say. ‘I insist.’ He’d get out his wallet and pay for the coffee and pie, leaving a very generous tip for our lovely waitress. And then I’d come home and tell you all about it.”

“Wow,” his wife said. “You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?”

“Absolutely,” her husband said. “It’s important to me.”

Then his wife looked at him with a big smile on her face and said, “Guess what?”

“What?” her husband said.

“I knew that that’s what you would wish for,” his wife said.

“No, you didn’t,” her husband said.

“Oh yeah?” his wife said. 

There was a knock at the door.

Her husband looked at her and smiled. “What have you done?” her husband said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” his wife said. “Just go and get the door.”

Her husband walked out into the hallway and looked over at the front door. He could see the outline of a figure with elevated hair through the blurred glass. Was he about to meet his hero?

Her husband took a deep breath. Then he opened the front door to find a pizza delivery man standing in front of him.

“Hello,” the man said. “Pizza delivery.” The man took the pizza out of his special pizza bag and handed it over. “Have a nice evening,” the pizza delivery man said. Then he got back in his tired old Ford Focus and drove off.

Her husband shut the front door, walked back into the kitchen, and stared at his wife for a second.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” his wife said.

“I don’t know,” her husband said. “It’s just, for some reason, I thought David Lynch would be standing on the other side of the door.”

“Why on earth would you think that?” his wife said.

“Well, you know,” her husband said. “You kind of made it seem like you had arranged it.”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous,” his wife said.

“Then how did you know that I would use my wish to have coffee with David Lynch?” her husband said.

“Because I know you,” his wife said. “We’ve been together for over twenty-five years.”

“Oh, right,” her husband said.

“It was just a hypothetical question,” his wife said. “Jesus, Darren, I’m your wife, not a fucking genie.”

Eighteen (More) Reasons to Dump Your Girlfriend / Dylan Brie Ducey

1. She’s a prude: She refused a three-way with you and your ex-girlfriend.

2. She doesn’t know who Borges is. In a conversation, you referred to Borges, and she said, “Who is that? Who is Borges?”

3. She published a poem in a journal that rejected you.

4. She went to a state college.

5. She went to a private college.

6. She didn’t go to college at all.

7. She criticized you for not having gone to college, which was actually a secret you were trying to keep.

8. She suggested that the Situationist International was a fraud, a front set up by Guy Debord to help him get laid. You took this one personally. You found it insulting, especially considering how much time you spent as a Situationist yourself. After all, you know two people who actually met Guy Debord. 

9. She showed you a photograph of Guy Debord and asked if you’d chosen your lavender-tinted glasses so that you could look like him.

10. In a moment of weakness, she said she loved you. You pitied her, and that was sad.

11. When you told her that the matching towels in her bathroom were a sign that she was hopelessly bourgeoise, she started crying.

12. She said she was also from Dallas and asked you what neighborhood you grew up in and where you’d hidden your accent. But you never told her you were from Texas. How did she know?

13. She reads Vogue.

14. She ate veal once, and liked it.

15. When you went to a café with her, she asked the barista, loudly, “What is a ristretto?” Really embarrassing.

16. She’s too fat.

17. She’s too thin.

18. She’s promiscuous: She asked you to sleep with her and her ex-boyfriend. Yeah, the handsome one. You’d never measure up.

Mr Capone Was Our Milkman / Christopher P. Mooney

‘You gotta have a product that everybody needs every day. We don't have it in booze. Except for the lushes, most people buy only a couple of fifths of gin or scotch when they're having a party. The working man laps up half a dozen bottles of beer on Saturday night, and that's it for the week. But with milk! Every family, every day, wants it on the table. The people on Lake Shore Drive want thick cream in their coffee. The big families out back of the yards have to buy a couple gallons of fresh milk every day for the kids. Do you guys know there's a bigger mark-up in fresh milk than there is in alcohol? Honest to God, we've been in the wrong racket right along.’ 

Almost twenty inches of snow had fallen in less than forty-eight hours and four-foot drifts had brought parts of the city to a near stand-still. The wind coming off Lake Michigan, they said, was enough to cut a man in half.

Alphonse Gabriel, as he was almost never known, was holed up, away from such externals, at The Four Deuces; unarmed, as always, but with a bodyguard at each elbow, loaded Thompsons by their sides.

‘A little late in the season, no?’ Adelard Cunin asked the room.

‘Unusual for such a thing east of the Mississippi, sure,’ Al said, the words muffled because his chin was tucked into his chest. This was a habit he’d started in order to hide the three-slash scar on his left cheek; a permanent reminder of a tussle in the early days outside a dive bar on Coney Island with Frank Gallucio, now deceased. ‘That’s how come nobody but us is prepared.’

‘I hear you,’ Cunin said, ‘but what you’ve suggested, I don’t get it. Surely we should be putting everything we have toward making money before they repeal Volstead? Business as usual, as much as we can while the going’s still good, you know. This sort of thing, slopping through the snow to put milk on strangers’ tables, in children’s mouths, wouldn’t get the green light if Torrio was still in charge.’

‘Johnny ain’t around the rackets no more. That big prick Colosimo, neither. You gotta deal with me now, capisce?’

No answer.

Al raised his head and fixed Cunin with a stare. That stare. ‘Capisce?’ he repeated, almost a whisper.

‘Si, Alphonse,’ Cunin said. ‘Si. I understand. Of course.’

‘I knew you would.’ Al paused, took a sip of his Templeton. It must have gone down the wrong way because he coughed, a reflex, and some of the drink dripped out of his perforated septum, a result of years of cocaine abuse. The room saw it but said nothing. ‘The newsmen are saying milk deliveries are down forty percent. It’s got so bad already there’s talk of a milk famine. You fuckin’ believe that? A famine, for Christ’s sake. In this day and age. Well, I refuse to stand still for such a thing. It ain’t goin’ to happen. Not in my city. And not on my watch. I came here from Brooklyn with no more than a handful of notes in my pocket, my folks off the boat from Angri with less than that even. Point is, I can’t stand to see people hungry or cold or helpless, because I know what it means to be poor, to go without. I don’t want that for nobody, especially kids from this here neighbourhood. There’s a lot of people got me pegged for one of those bloodthirsty mobsters you read about in storybooks. The kind that tortures his victims, cuts off their ears, puts out their eyes with a red-hot poker and grins while he’s doing it.’ Another pause. Another go at the Templeton, this time without the nasal discharge. ‘Now get me right. I’m not posing as a model for youth. I’ve had to do a lot of things I don’t like to do, but I’m human. And I’ve made plenty of money here, supplying a popular demand. So, before I end up in the gutter punctured by machine-gun slugs, I want to give a little something back, show people I’m not as black as I’m painted. This blizzard’s my chance.’

‘And after?’ Cunin again; direct, but less forceful.

‘I’ll tell you, when this thing’s over and done with, after we’ve mobilised our trucks and got them through the snow, me and Mae and the kid’ll go down to my place in Miami, get us some sun on our bones. In the meantime, once the snow’s melted, people’ll still want to get wet and my outfit’ll be there to give them what they want.’ He stopped talking long enough to drain his glass. ‘Right, I want some food with this rye before the Metropole closes for the night. We’ll see each other again tomorrow morning at Meadowmoor Dairies. Nine sharp.’

‘Sure thing, Al,’ Cunin said, nodding.

‘And one last thing.’

‘Yeah?’

‘You can see from all this I’ve got a heart, but don’t mistake my kindness for weakness. If you do, this kindness, me sorting out the city’s milk, it ain’t what you’ll remember about me.’

Alphonse Gabriel got up and left without so much as a backwards glance, the collar of his tailored coat pulled up against the cold; the only thing in Chicago impervious to his presence.

Evidently Lovestruck / JY Saville

"It's not evidence-based," Jim said. "You barely know me."

For the sake of diversity, I'd cultivated an interest in STEM post-grads this year. It was refreshing, fooling around with guys lacking the brashness and sense of entitlement I was used to. There were those in my own faculty who suggested I'd run out of easy targets at our end of campus, but I think that was jealousy talking.

"So I can't possibly be in love?"

He sighed, took his specs off and wiped the lenses. He looked so vulnerable without the glass shutters up; I felt a twinge that might not have been indigestion. There was a chance I was believing my own fairytale.

"Look, Steve," he said, restoring normality along with the black plastic frames, "I have to go." He gestured to the lab door, turned and left me in an empty corridor.

Another stab and I could feel my mouth turning down. Apparently I was jealous of transgender mice.

The next six essays I read got harsh marks, some with bonus sarcastic comments that would probably land me in front of the head of department later.

"Steve, will you quit slamming that drawer?" 

My office-mate slammed her own desk drawer for emphasis and I took the hint.

I'd been waiting outside the biomedical building half an hour when Jim left for the day.

"Four hours," I shouted, pointing at the building across the courtyard, "and I can't find a damned thing on scientifically identifying love."

"What?"

"I could measure my heart rate and pupil dilation but that's only evidence of lust, I gather."

A couple of undergraduates sniggered as they ambled past.

"You've been in the science library?" Jim said.

"For four hours."

"I'd say you've found your evidence," he said and reached for my hand.

Stakeout / Lori Cramer

Parked down the street from your house, baseball cap pulled low over my eyes, I check the view through the binoculars. I know you’re not alone in there. Who is she? You said it’d never work because I have trust issues. I still have no idea what you mean.

Lord of the Fly / Gale Acuff

Soon I'll die though I'm only 10 and in pretty damn good health so I mean I'll die in maybe ninety more years but I mean that's not even a split-nano sec of Eternity so die at 90 or 11, there's not much difference if you look at life like I do, I'm ten years old but even sometimes 100 does seem very old and a housefly lives maybe a day or two but if it lived a month it would be the Methuselah of houseflies and maybe the other houseflies would build it a monument, just how I'm not sure because they've got no arms or hands or fingers, and I forgot, they have wings, too, and if I had half a dozen legs and super-vision and wings to boot I probably wouldn't build monuments neither, I'd fly around until I croaked with stops at corpses and rotting fruit and other dead flies for my nourishment 'til something catches me or swats me flat or I die of old age in the old-flies home then wake up dead in housefly-Heaven and since I'm made in God's image I'll ask Him how He could even think of sending me to Hell unless He plans to come along as well and then He'll say Wake up, Gale, and I do and I've fallen asleep in class and then a fly lights on my arm and I brush it away but it returns. My God.

MTA Missive / Jacqueline Brown

Marjorie,

A sandwich. Every day you bring a sandwich. It’s nice that you want me to have some sort of sustenance, but you know what would be great? Money. And not a lot, just a nickel. One measly nickel is all I need. Otherwise I will be riding this train forever. And you don’t want that, do you? Or do you? Wait a minute……Is that why you don’t bring me the fare? Are you-

You’re not also making sandwiches for someone else, are you? Damn it, Marjorie, I was only supposed to be gone a day! How was I supposed to know I may never return?! Not only that, but I’ve told you before I need the money, and yet. Turkey and cheese on rye every afternoon, like clockwork. And I don’t even like rye, you know this!

Oh, Marjorie, I’m not sure you’ll ever understand, but I am sure of one thing:

One day, I’ll get off this train, and when I do, I’m serving you with divorce papers.

Regards,

Charlie

Predicting Destruction / Yash Seyedbagheri

Betty loved predicting inclement weather. Then her husband Max was killed by a train.

She loved preparing for disasters. She knew every basement to take to, every corner to avoid.

Max lived on precipices, relishing danger. Now he lay mangled beneath the soil, due to a stalled car. She warned him not to take the Dodge Stratus. 

His last words: Lighten up.

Betty started predicting destruction on the air. A tornado will envelop a child. Lightning’s going to strike a girl. A train’s already mowed down a husband.

Chance of destruction: 100 percent. Betty had to laugh.

Max would have.