There’s a smell, a humid kind of smell. Wet concrete—car fumes. A fire hydrant cracked open, cool water steaming on the New York July sidewalk. I remember because my feet were burning. Cool water on too warm concrete soles.
Continue reading “Bullfrog by S. M. Rosen”
‘Who are you? What are you?’ I mean these were his first words. No ‘my name’s Hedrik and you are . . . ?’ holding out his hand to be shaken. Not a bit of it. Who are you, what are you? I mean, pardon? But then he’s a genius, you see, and they have different standards. They don’t need to stoop to the niceties, not when their heads are chock-full of . . . whatever it may be, tones, colours, visions, the likes of which the world has yet to fathom. Wars come and go, but Hedrik and his ilk come and go once only. There I go saying Hedrik and his ilk. His having an ilk at all was not something he cared to acknowledge, in fact he spat the word, as though I’d said something offensive, as if my saying ilk had meant that I saw him as one man among many, that there was an ilk from which he’d emerged or an ilk he belonged to, like some club. But the ilk of which I spoke was that of the elite, the pantheon of the greats, the most luminous of roll-calls there is. Once that was explained, he eased. As to the question who was I and what was I, I had no answer, which I suppose was answer enough in itself. But it was soon clear to him that, above all, I knew his music. I could hum the opening of his Palindromeda, could cite the shifts in rhythmic accent in his Strings Attached. The pathos of the toy-piano was known to me. There were rhythms I could mimic by tapping on a tabletop, whole sections I could whistle at the drop of a hat. He was perhaps impressed, despite himself. If so, it didn’t last. He was, unsurprisingly, upfront. ‘How can I put it,’ he said: ‘Fuck off.’ Just like that. I thought if he says anything like that again I’m just going to get up and walk out. His twilight years, these. Polly Tonal, I said, who was she? Just kidding. But seriously, polytonal, as distinct from atonal as distinct from parallel fifths all sixes and sevens and diminished this and augmented that and if the tone of C produces overtones of G and E the overtone G produceth subovertones of D or is it B whereas whole tone scales differing as they do from the diatonic bring to bear the atonal polyrhythmical dissonance such as heard in your Staccato-in-fucking D!
Continue reading “Strings Attached by Geraint Jonathan”
I can’t help the past. Even if it would have been good, and sometimes it was… It’s gone. I met Angie where all transitory beings are met. I met her in a bar.
A cool basement bar, the “Das Keller,” scattered with peanut shells on smooth cement. Where a young demonic Hitler might thrive, but there were no demons on that bright, wasting-away afternoon. Unless you counted the ones inside me.
Continue reading “Old Haunts by Christopher Ananias”
I am not a cynical luddite, but I believe everyone ought to have a little oldfashionedness in her for the sake of maintaining a soul. Still, progress isn’t completely evil. It brings more good than bad in medicine (at least it does when you compare modern TB and smallpox statistics to the way things were a hundred years ago). But I’m also convinced that as an animal, one whose evolution is influenced by long-term realities, we are not wholly prepared to accept sudden changes. Moreover, being small we are overwhelmed by reasons to feel worthless and dumb; and when it becomes clear that a ten-year-old can do more with our phones than we can, let’s just say it is not good for the self esteem. (Then again I can drive a stick and parallel park without an AI, so there you little Weaselings!)
For at least 99% of human history we lived the same way. It was hard to win a living from the soil and when we managed to light a fire with rocks and damp kindling and somehow outlasted another winter we felt like whatever the word for rock star was way back in the Middle Ages.
Continue reading “Week 581- Have You Never Been Melodramatic”
By the time the rain arrived in earnest, the house already knew where it would fail.
The first leak appeared near the window. One drop fell with stubborn consistency, as if the roof had chosen that spot long before the clouds gathered. At first, it was easy to ignore. Rain always starts politely in Liberia, tapping the zinc roof the way a visitor taps a door—soft, respectful, almost apologetic. You tell yourself it will pass. You tell yourself the house has survived worse.
Continue reading “The Weather that Lives With Us by Marvin Garbeh Davis”
Dad’s baritone booms through my cell phone, his words striking.
“So, how’s teaching going, old sport? Are you getting tougher with them?”
I stare at the cardboard box that I’ve plopped onto the plastic coffee table. The box looks like it could break.
“I think people are too tough already. They’re freshmen, not Marine recruits.”
A pause. It practically hums.
“Old sport, but that’s your problem. You don’t understand. The world’s got to kick your ass a little bit.”
Continue reading “Breaking by Yash Seyedbagheri”
Police had already handcuffed Roy Stafford and were placing him inside a cruiser when Susan Roberts arrived. Betty Stafford lay on a gurney that the EMS team hurriedly lifted into their van. Flashing her ID to one of the cops, Susan asked, “Where are the girls? Are they OK?”
Continue reading “Winter Solstice by Mary Jo Thomas”
Sometimes I don’t recognize good luck when I see it. For example, on Sunday morning, at breakfast, part of the filling in one of my back teeth comes undone. I crunch on the broken filling and spit it out, and after that, everything is either too hot or too cold to eat. And around noon, there is a little pain at the site of that missing filling.
Continue reading “Mr. Lucky by Frederick K Foote”
Magoolie had rules about who to swipe left on.
Cat lovers [swipe left] (allergic).Any woman looking for “generosity”(aka a sugar daddy) [swipe left] …any swipers demanding men of a certain height (at least 5’ 10”!) [swipe left].
Swipers that included photos of themselves with their past lovers —but with the face of the other person in the photo blacked out – turning them into a non-entity. I loved you once. Now I am cancelling you out with a circle on your face. [swipe left]
Magoolie swiped left on anyone outside of NYC or still living in Thailand or still looking to get married.[swipe left] Been there. Done that.
He also passed on any woman with an angry face or crazy eyes resembling a dinosaur or pit-bull, or whose profile started off with a negative attitude toward the male of the species— (“not into immature man-babies, men who are scammers, no ONS (One night stands) or FWB (friends with benefits) or ENM (ethically non-monogamous) only LTR (long-term relationships) and NO MAGA!!! [swipe left]
Most of the swipers wrote that they were looking for their “last first date” and they all seemed to be into yoga or pilates (whatever the heck that was),
“How do you like my jogging outfit?”
“It’s cool … looks like you are a cast-member from Lost in Space—that 60’s TV show.”
“Don’t remember that one”Two small iced coffees and a gingerbread snowman later.
“You’re not emotionally over your ex. I need someone who is more emotionally available and by the way here’s some advice, none of these dates you are going on want to hear about your exes.”
They agreed to get coffee as “friends” in the future.“Maybe we could introduce each other to other people”
Magoolie agreed but after saying goodbye he figured that would be the last time he ever saw her again. She had really cool hair. Like a bouffant.
Magoolie was still thinking about HER.
The one who had been his girl for a number of good years until she wasn’t anymore.
It happened suddenly.
He had embarrassed HER somehow in front of her girlfriends at a work event. The subject of Halloween came up and he asked the assembled women, “why was the witch late for the party? Because she was too busy riding her broom.” Stunned silence at the women’s empowerment event.
She let him have it good on the street after and then the next morning she called from her well appointed apartment and said, “that’s it. It’s over… Ripping the band-aid.”
And she told Magoolie not to text her funny gifs or memes.
Flowers didn’t work.
Long apology texts didn’t work.
She had already moved on mentally and had made that decision months earlier and there was nothing Magoolie could do. He had been on double-secret probation without knowing it.
He kept flashing back to the way he loved to touch and kiss her and hold her at night and make her moan and relax and laugh and he could not believe it was all over.
Really over.
He had bought tickets to see DEVO and the B-52s at Jones Beach for them some months prior, and so, after their silly fight, he texted HER to ask if she still wanted to go to the concert w him…hoping she would say yes.
Crickets.
She wanted a clean break.
Her friends had probably encouraged her to find someone more suitable, more liquid, with wanderlust to travel the world instead of the messy, needy, immature, hard-working, paycheck to paycheck schlub that Magoolie always was and always would be.
He would try to hold her hands in the beginning of their courtship and it was never a perfect fit.
She had the hands of a fighter. A heroic mom. And his hands were not as calloused.
She was way tougher than Magoolie despite her beauty.
She was a doer.
A problem solver and Magoolie was just another problem. But he felt that they could heal each other and he still believed it even as he scoured the bumblebee dating app for a possible last minute date to take to the concert instead of HER.
Finally, he found someone he had texted with from 5 years prior who somehow miraculously expressed interest in going to the concert w Magoolie on short notice, after all of his guy friends were busy or uninterested.
To make it all work Magoolie had called his cynical artist pal Manfred Gogol to beg a ride to Jones Beach. Gogol who spent most of his life driving various gorgeous women wherever they wanted to go, whenever, reluctantly agreed.
But when the night of the concert arrived Gogol came up with a super-lame last minute excuse and Magoolie and his old/new swiper friend, who was really only interested in going to see the B-52s and DEVO —were completely fucked… one hour before the opening act (Lene Lovich of “My Lucky Number’s One” fame) was set to hit the stage.
Rather than call the night off – the swiper insisted they try to get to the venue. That was a bad decision.
They took a subway to Grand Central and then made their way to the LIRR tracks that were completely redone with enormous escalators that took 10 minutes to ascend and go down
—they were lost and they missed their train and then another train and the information booth person was unhelpful and by the time they made it to the Jones Beach train station a couple of hours later the buses to the Jones Beach Amphitheater were no longer in operation.
Magoolie and his extremely pissed off swiper flagged a gypsy cab driver who spoke no english and had another passenger. They drove around all parts of the area at night—lost for the most part despite GOS. Using Google translate to ask the driver questions in Spanish. “Dude! Where the fuck are we?? …No bueno!”
The swiper now truly hated Magoolie and when they finally got to the venue – the security guard was incredulous,” hey folks where are you going?”
“We just got here from New York City”
“You gotta be kidding me— this is the last song… feel bad for you… let me see your tickets.”
Magoolie showed his phone and the security guard let them in to watch DEVO perform “Freedom of Choice” while encouraging the remaining few fans, sprinkled through the Jones Beach Amphitheater to “remember to vote!”
The anger suddenly enveloped Magoolie.
He now understood very clearly how OJ Simpson could go from being a beloved celebrity to viciously murdering his ex-wife, allegedly.
Magoolie started punching and stabbing Gogol in the face over and over. He could hear Gogol screaming and see the blood spurting all over.
“You fucking selfish asshole mother-fcker. I hate you so much I’m going to stab you in the face —you asshole!!!”
This is the phrase and vision that kept rolling around his head over and over.
The combination of frustration, heartbreak, humiliation and murderous rage washed over Magoolie in waves as he gritted his teeth imagining he was stabbing and killing his old friend.
The missed concert and the entire misadventure was a new low point in Magoolie’s life full of many other failures and disappointments. He now realized that he was neither noble nor a good person, really. He was a murderer. Or at least he had that violent killer nature inside him. Buried deep. But it was there.
And after he cooled down and finally made it back to NYC—$500 lighter in his depleted bank account because there were no buses still running, only very expensive taxis, he felt defeated and ashamed. A complete and total loser.
The Swiper was not happy either. She was pissed off— is what she was. She hated this loser named Magoolie but at least she didn’t seem to want to murder him. She just wanted to forget the night and Magoolie —forever.
It was now a month since the break-up maybe more and Magoolie still felt broken.
As he cleaned his crowded studio apartment he saw the white plastic orb with LED lights. He had purchased it on whim at a convenience store near HER apartment. To surprise and please HER. That’s all Magoolie ever wanted to do. He was given back the orb with HER thanks— but no thanks.
When he brought it back to his apartment, it was a throbbing white sphere of red, blue and green lights.
It added something. somehow.
It had been unplugged for a while and Magoolie wondered if the now plugged-in and pulsating sphere the size of a grapefruit would send out vibes in the chilly NYC air that would now cross the city to HER place and alert HER somehow to his desperate need to hold her again very close and kiss her and make her laugh before he would invite HER to partake in some friskiness.
They had had something very special. He could not believe it was all suddenly and abruptly and unexpectedly and perhaps irrevocably over and finished.
What seemed so easy and comfortable was no more.
Of course he was to blame.
Of course it was him.
Of course she had every right to right the ship and throw him overboard.
And that’s exactly what she did.
He was left with a raft made of refuse and a bag of his old clothes on an angry ocean to navigate to some safe harbor or get swallowed up into oblivion.
That’s when he re-activated his long dormant dating apps like tinderhooks and bumblebee- and got back into swiper-alley.
Then he also looked back at the notes section of his iphone where he wrote down in a drunken rage what he really wanted to tell Gogol that night:
notes:
Dont call me ever again
You puece of dcking shit i want ti tak wknife and stab in face yoyr fackinf piece of shit assholw swlfish fuck facw asshile fuck you
.Duxk you you fuxjing puex eod shit …
Uncle Ernie was a mongoloid and it determined what he could see.
i wwnt a double gimz and tonic no wait i ll get whatever this os called— a hollow mule —that’s what this night has been— a fucking hollow mule —stuck in the lirr railroad bar to get a train to a bus to see devo and the b52s
Exposed completely as a person unable to drive a car, own a car or get to a concert on Long Island on his own— using public transportation. A real loser.
“So wait a minute —how ling ago dis you buy yhtse tkts —-and how long have you been broken up “
“Give me back my man i’ll give you fish I’ll give you candy …
Magoolie looked at his jumbled notes from one of the worst nights of his life and sighed. He had lost his shit completely but at least Gogol had apologized and they were still friends. Gogol even dipped into his trust fund to reimburse Magoolie the 500 clams he lost on his Rock Lobster debacle.
So, Magoolie had missed out on seeing the B-52s and DEVO on a one-time only double bill but he was missing much more than just seeing two of his favorite bands.
He missed HER.
Some asshole was blasting his car horn outside the window now because he was undoubtedly blocked into a parking space nearby —
“Ok asshole,” someone yelled.
The horn noise stopped.
The anger. It was always there under the surface.
Magoolie shook his head and prepared to meet a stranger later that night for dinner.
Image by Felix Mittermeier from Pixabay – Black mobile phone laying on its back with a blank screen. Other images* – long escalator, ornament made of coloured lights forming flowers in red blue and gree and a band of two men one playing guitar and one singing into a mike with the heads of an audience in the foreground. Other Images* are from the author.
Nate’s flight was late landing, it took forever to get off the plane, and then his bag didn’t come out.
“Son of a bitch.”
Continue reading “Baggage By Richard Jones”
literally stories 