The Mill (fragment of an exorcism)

[INTRODUCTION/SETTING THE SCENE]

That's just what they called it: the Mill.

It was a building where people went in, sat down for hours, and then walked out at the end. Some of them straggled outside to smoke, gnawing the filters of their cigarettes, hands moving sluggishly as they attempted to process the hours of the day and explain how they felt to the other blank-eyed smokers who stood beside them.

The parking lot was where these hapless escapees congregated, behind the dumpsters and beside the heaving growl of the central air unit. Some of them looked like kicked dogs, huddled into their coats, while others found momentary strength in numbers, complaining loudly and expansively to their comrades. Most just stood silently, staring into the bluer-than-blue sky, or off at the bigger building across the arterial, some firm with three names and what looked like ergonomic chairs at each desk. The winter was in the gray phase, when everything looked scuffed and corroded by the weird white markings of rock-salt and snow-sand. They felt their lungs, too, graying, like loose-leaf notebook paper gone to ash. Their eyes hung out of their faces.

It might as well have been Bedlam, but without the screaming and after the pre-frontal lobotomy.

Inside, it was worse. This was the Slow Season, and most of the people sat at their desks, hands on the home key row on their keyboards, staring sightlessly into too-bright monitors uncalibrated for hours of use. Overhead, garish rows of fluorescent lights stretched on for rooms and rooms, while stairwells were sinkholes of dark, flickering bulbs and breakrooms more of a storage space for vending machines and chairs with missing wheels or broken backs. Each room was structured as panopticon, with an overseer in the middle and their assignees grouped around them, all facing brick walls, so that the supervisor would be able to see their monitors. The Slow Season meant that everyone had just suffered through the crushing anxiety of Cut-Downs, where the wheat was scythed from the chaff, with blinding efficacy and seemingly no regard for circumstance. One grossly overweight woman, whom everyone knew had no acumen for the job, was kept on, while a young man who had just rented himself a studio apartment and was clawing his way out of debt had been told that he was “no longer needed.”

Desks changed every so often. They would come in to their position, only to discover, as though through some sort of dream logic, their desk was no longer their desk. Disorientation followed, and the onus of figuring out what, exactly, had occurred, fell on the hapless worker. He could always turn to ask the overseer, but they, likelier than not, would simply frost their gaze and point in a direction that the worker would then follow, hopefully, to some sort of answer. By the time the new location was ascertained (on another floor, but still facing another brick wall), the worker was considered “late” and suffered through the acid tones of their own supervisor as they sat down to prepare to do nothing for hours on end.

Most took up smoking just to be able to get out of the stifling atmosphere for 15 minutes at a time. These fifteen minutes were highly prized possessions. Some, especially those on the entry level, or the third floor, were in the unenviable position of having to ask their supervisor for an OK to leave. Cruelly, the supervisor would often either ignore their question, or simply say “no” with nary another thought. Their eyes, it's true, hardly ever left the monitors before them.

At five in the evening, the doors exploded with the rush of those freed from the innards of the Mill. Of course, there were some who had to stay behind, perhaps for hours, perhaps on a later shift. This, then, the optimal time to be there. Throughout the night, the third floor windows were illuminated. The hazards of being open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, even on Christmas Day. The Mill simply never slept.

It is a small city, perched on the edge of a harbor like a child testing its courage. The Atlantic turns into a widow in the winter, chilly and unforgiving and bitter, making itself a mirror for the world and showing nothing but bile and vitriol. Snow and ice crust the streets for months before melting into a gray sludge that looks like the residue of a painting after being attacked by turpentine. But this, the knothole of winter, the time after the old year's gone and the time before the new spring comes, this is the worst. The cold is unabated, the wind is hawklike and uncivil, and the hours leap by like whitetail deer before the sound of a hunter's rifle. The sun's passage across the sky is mortichnic, like tired clockwork performing a final time, every day.

There's a joke that runs through the city like an old thread, stained like a smoker's teeth: “You could always go work at the Mill.” And most, if they're lucky, know what that means and have been lucky to escape it, but some are desperate and don't know, and don't have anyone to warn them. And those who do go, stay for a long time. Hardly anyone ever quits the Mill - you're either fired, or you're a lifer. Most have been there past the three-year mark, declaiming with ever-withering tones as the months pass, “No, this time I mean it. I'm out of here. This is my last year. No bullshit.” And all the others nod their heads in mock-sage agreement, knowing better. The year passes, and even through the warm bounty of the summer and the crisp of fall, the ague of winter descends again and the year's wheel turns, and they're still there, at their desk, strapped in and just a bit more smudged around the hollows of the eyes.

This is a place where questions, once asked, lie unanswered on the floor like dead leaves. Eyes dart from corner to corner as if seeing shadows move, or as if seeking shadows. The breath of every single worker at the Mill is rotted and stale, and they stink of fear-sweat as it saturates their clothes.

And when they are finally off of a shift, they proceed in rank & slumped-shoulder file to bars, bars of different colors and stripes, different drinks clenched in different hands, but always a drink and hardly ever a beer. They chase away the weird grit of despair that lodges in the cracks between their teeth and in the corners of their eyes with the cleansing burn of alcohol. Soon enough, they overdrink, and the anger worms its way back into their hearts and their fists clench anew as eyes slowly creep back towards the clocks on the wall. As last call approaches with a heavy, almost tender step, the only thing on their mind is how many hours are left before returning to their desks and once again snapping closed the shackles around their wrists and tethering themselves to their desks.

Well, it's either this or a life of crime. Or a life working at the convenience store down the hill, where you're more apt to be stabbed than you are smiled at, and you'll go home with less in your pockets than you had when you arrived. The fifth floor of the Mill is reserved for these kinds of arguments, when the heads of the company bother to address the concerns of those who work below. The fifth floor, indeed, is never trespassed upon, not even to make use of its bathroom. Most do their business quickly, though the stalls don't lock and the urinals don't flush, and paper towels are hardly ever in supply. The handles of the bathrooms are almost always wet with someone else's residue, and most workers use the pinched sleeve of their shirt or jacket to open them. Once inside, the noisome chamber affords little privacy or even sanitation. In a sublimely cruel trick, the flusher on the toilets is situated in such a way that one must reach through the horns of the seat to depress, or put the seat down entirely. This is a problem endemic to the men's room, but there are other problems, and most would argue, somewhat worse, to the women's. The fifth floor argues that they are lucky to have a separate men's room and a women's room. This, they say, is an expense and ill-afforded.

In the lower levels, the temperature is hardly ever regulated, and most of the workers there are seen wrapped in layers throughout the day. Some prefer gloves, though that does make it more difficult to type, and the overseers frown on inefficiency. So the first floor are called the “Bluefingers” because of the strange hue of their hands, due to the cold. This is ironic, because those who deal most consistently with rich, upper-crust clients are on this floor. It is an enviable position, if only because of the prestige, but no one wants to work there because those who do inevitably come down with the First Floor Sickness: an unexplained phenomenon consisting of a constantly running nose, pertussis-like coughing, and a strange, low burr to their exhausted voices.

•

A pale, membranous blue, lit spectrally, as if from behind. The sun, slunk already between buildings, and the waves going in and out of the harbor like murderer's knives.

The still quiet of between-holidays, a city emptied from its brim to its dregs. The crunch of snow underfoot like day-old pastries, the street itself with a thin crust of delicate icing.

A toothache, like a black hole in his jaw, and his mittened hand at the side of his cheek, rubbing ineffectually. This is a different kind of cold, one that does not respond to half-hearted friction. Best thing is to relocate the pain. He strips off his left mitten and uses the teeth on the left side of his mouth to bite down hard on his index and middle finger, already pinking in the frigid air. He bites carefully, pressing hard on the divot between the third and second joint, and applies more pressure. The cold air seeps in around his fingers and saliva trickles down the side of his chin like a dam secretly preparing to burst. He feels the slimy trail go gelid as soon as it leaks from the corner of his mouth - too cold even to launch itself from the rampart of his chin and shatter on the sidewalk.

A carhorn, and headlights flashing - he's inadvertently crossed into the street at a green light. The driver, an old man with white hair and a Burberry coat (with matching red-plaid hat) is gesticulating angrily at him. He stops, standing directly in the road, staring at the man. The car is a shiny black BMW 5-series. There is not a single spot of rocksalt or sand on it, not even in the wheel-wells where plump, satisfied tires rotate on finely-greased axles.

The driver rolls down the window. He notes that the man is also wearing a scarf that matches his coat. “Whaddaya doin? Are you fuckin retarded?” Re-tah-ded. He doesn't recognize the accent. He shrugs and blinks, fingers still in his mouth. He removes them, gingerly, and the toothache gleefully reasserts itself. He notices the weird, nearly topological crescents of tooth imprints on his fingers.

“Toothache,” he says, by way of explanation, but his voice is quiet and the wind pulls the sound away from his lips before it has a chance to reach the irate driver-man's ears. Drooping ligaments of saliva are still attached to his fingertips from his mouth.

“GET OUT OF THE GODDAM ROAD!” The driver is turning purple. Like Veronica Salt, or whoever, from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. Maybe he'll explode. He laughs a little, wondering where the driver-man has got to go that's so important.

“Are you late for a very important date?” He asks, tossing out his voice like a lasso. He does not move from the spot he's stopped. A weird rash of light has grown in his eyes, making him appear almost feverish. “You should check your pocket-watch!”

The man has rolled up his window again. He is now holding the heel of his hand against the horn. The sound obliterates anything else, for blocks around. The whole world becomes the F# of the horn.

He opens his mouth, saliva still dripping from his teeth, and looses a sound to harmonize with it.

One of his shoelaces has come untied, he notices idly. It lays like an old, dead worm on the asphalt, after a spring rain. He cuts off his sound, and stoops down to fix it.

Redandblack birds fill his vision. It feels like he's falling through a strange, wet, leaf-pile. The pain of the toothache, finally freed, explodes throughout his entire body as the car slams into his side, rupturing his skull and shattering his bones.

The sound of the horn continues to echo, pitch-shifting, like a scream unsure of itself, and then finally pinches off.

•

He wouldn't have done it if there had been someone there to see. He wouldn't have done it if his daughter, who looks to be about the kid's age, had been in the car, or in the state, for that matter. He wouldn't have done it if he hadn't just left his ex-wife's house, dropping off the kids' Christmas presents. His ex-wife's house, his old house.

He adjusts the chunky Rolex on his right wrist and turns the seat-warmers up. A not entirely unwelcome heat seeps up and into his buttocks, rising through them. He catalogues the various aches:

right knee
third digit of right ring finger (where the ring used to be)
knife-edge of left hand, near to wrist
indigestion
a rough tickle in his throat (post-nasal drip, perhaps)
rattling in the lungs

He'd light up a cigarette, but he promised someone he wouldn't. His hands are shaking slightly, and his nose is running.

He wouldn't have done it if it weren't so late in the day.

He wonders if there's blood on the front fender. He wonders if he bent the fender. The goddam mechanic won't be in until the new year, which means he'll have to drive the Benz, which is a year older than he'd like it to be and doesn't have the seat-warmers.

“Fucking hell,” he grumbles. There is nothing about this season he likes. He drives past buildings liberally festooned with tinsel and blinking lights and ho-ho-hoing plastic Santas lit electrically from within. He doesn't like the cold, and he doesn't like the lines you have to wait in just to get a coffee. He'd go to the Dunkin Donuts instead of the indepedently-owned local shop, but they don't have the kind of beans he likes.

He is the kind of man who changes his clothes three to four times every morning before he leaves the house. He can put them out the night before in order to conserve time, but by the time he gets up, showers, and gets ready to go to the office, he feels differently, and staring at himself in the mirror, he just doesn't feel right somehow. As if he knows - can see himself hours ahead - having a miserable day. He is possessed of a certainty that if he changes what he's forecasting, changes into a new suit of clothes, the day won't be as bad. He knows this is entirely erroneous. He does not care.

Kiesenwetter (1)

cloud-watcher on his hill.  inscrutable & yet approachable.  wise, wry smile which rises over horizon-lips.  reflects in his eyes: twin sunrises.  a gentle curve of conversation, gliding evasion, after every posed question.  he is somehow akin to warm ice, oxymoron notwithstanding; constantly in the process of melting & yet, more solid than anyone else she has ever met before - including & up to her most recent boyfriend.

in fact, said boyfriend is the very reason she has sought out Kiesenwetter - the tumult of her dilemma has driven her to seek out the nephomancer, despite her loathing for divination in all forms.  she instinctively, unconsciously, turns to the methodology of fate - when one has no God, she often (drunkenly) opines, one seeks out God anywhere one might find it ... and that is how she references deity - by the genderless, vague, indiscriminate pronoun.  it settles easier in her stomach & lungs, like a less acrid smoke or a milder hot sauce.  still causes heartburn, but nothing a quick pill won't quell -

& she stands before the (irritatingly) cross-legged Kiesenwetter on his prophecy hill, his too-blue eyes cast reverently firmament-ward, somehow discerning (through whatever meteorological calculations) the future of each & every cloud.  at this point in their relationship, she can recognize the Linnean nomenclature of those moist bodies, tossing their particulate selves heedlessly against the unyielding wind.

she can tell, now, by the gentle, near-unconcerned furrow of his brow, that the seemingly placid stratocumulus are about to mount, galvanize, revolt, up towards the troposphere - gain vertical height & discover (somewhat triumphantly) a heretofore unseen power within their heavy, gray guts - become tyrants of the sky, and rage beautifully until they, inevitably & always, expend themselves & expire in the effort.

by the time this happens, she will have unmounted prophecy hill and be safe within the (albeit quivering) walls of her apartment, staring at the refrigerator-blue of her phone & wondering when he will call.

Anecdote: before she descends, Kiesenwetter will say, somewhat enigmatically:

'the compass, spinning,
always returns north.
why not follow the sun?
turn west.'

she will take it to mean: try something new.

she wonders if she is quiet love with the cloud-watcher.

seconds later, she dismisses the conjecture in favor of tequila - and later, beer.

the phone rings & it's him, and he wants information.  she is tired and all day (all week) it's seeped, somehow, into her bones, and when she walks to work, she cracks & groans like an old floorboard.  she calls him Simon though his name is Peter (it's an old joke, tarnished by too many years spent together like pennies rubbing together in a drawer) and answers his question while lying on her bare mattress.  outside, the sky hums a tune to itself, which is rapidly shearing away by an increasing wind, turning ugly, basso profundo.  Simon's voice is twittering away in her ear.

she looks up and backwards, out the window over her head, through the slats of dusty white blinds.  blue is turning purple-black, and the now only the bottoms of clouds are to be seen, opaque & grim.  her mind wanders to Kiesenwetter, probably now inside his small, one-room house (built himself) with the wide ceiling aperture. 

'i feel like i never see you anymore is all,' he is saying, and she catches a glimpse of his pain through his words, but finds a callus growing over her feelings for him.  'are we still even friends?'

'of course we are,' she soothes with a false balm.  'we're more than friends.'

'what are we?'

bad question, she thinks to herself.  come up with something poetic, that'll shut him up.  'twins,' she says, finally.

'that's kind of gross,' he immediately responds. 'twins don't have sex.'

'you know what i mean,' she deflects, and this is the precise moment the rain begins hissing against the ground, spattering virulently against the leaves, and the first unfurling of thunder works its way through the buildings.  she imagines the sound like a panther, shouldering its muscular way through the jungle - lean, controlled, unblinking.

'sure,' he deflates, and she she can hear him sigh through the phone.  his sighs are always accompanied by a hand through his shaggy blond hair.  'what are you doing tonight?'

'dunno,' she says, casually.  'maybe a margarita.'  her eyes wander over to the empty shot glass on the desk.  she'd opened a can of beer, but can't remember where she put it, and feels too lazy to traipse down the hallway to find it.

'i'm out of work around seven.  i'll come meet you before i come home.'

she likes it that their work schedules don't align.  having the whole apartment to herself is a luxury.  she sometimes walks naked down the long corridor, hearing the sound of her bare feet sucking at the hardwood floor as she goes.  she takes a shower with the door open and doesn't wash the dishes when she's done cooking. 'okay,' she agrees.  he has to come home sometime.  better that she's a little drunk and in public before he does - or at least, that's what she's telling herself.  'will you pick up a bottle of Silver on the way?  i just drained it.'

'we just bought that bottle on Sunday.'

'and it's Thursday,' she says acridly.  'what's your point?'

'nothing.  nevermind.'  another sigh.

'i'll see you up there?'  all sweetness & light.  more thunder, from behind.  she sits up and rakes a hand through her hair, viciously, through the snarls.  lightning reflects off of the white walls of her room.

'yeah, i'll come by after work.  love you.'

a fraction of hesitation.  'love you too.'  she hangs up first, almost too fast, and worries over the speed for a second before collapsing back onto the bed and closing her eyes, silently repeating the cloud-watcher's words.

she dreams of compasses, of mountains, of lightning seaming the sky, of a dark-clad individual with no face leading her into a chasm, of crossing a pewter river in a boat with a man in a hood, and of a song that is gone from her mind the second after the second she opens her eyes.

Eddy (part one)

​She spoke with her hands, illustrating the words her mouth revealed a half-second before she spoke them. Her hands were always ahead of her lips, even and especially when we laid together on top of rumpled sheets, with only the faraway moon for an observer.

​She told a story: a wind-chapped, angry story about her last lover. He had marooned her in his boat at the marina. She'd woken to the sound of nothingness, a fuzzy heavy feeling in the air. The shadows under the benches and around the table were still, but seemed to breathe shallowly, as though her waking had caught them in the middle of some roundelay or caper. They waited for her lapse back into the soothing dark of sleep, to blink once and then yawn, and then curl back against the small pillow, nestling down and then, further down.

​She didn't know at the time that he'd left her. The pocket of space behind each of her curves still seemed filled with him as she slowly climbed back to wakefulness. Her head throbbed with the fury of hangover, like something thrashing around in deep water, gasping for breath. Sharp, short bursts of electricity jabbed into the back of her neck, snaking up and around her head and invading her inner ear. This is what woke her up, what immediately forced her outstretched hand to seek his frame out - his big, broad frame, and - upon questing - found nothing.

​Panic set in the way it always will, first like a fog and then like a fire. Frostbitten with it, she cast her gaze around the room. The immediate litany of locations fluttered through her head: ... bathroom, abovedecks ... She was half-dressed, and suddenly, acutely, felt her nakedness like a shame. Cheeks burning and eyes swimming in their shallows, she clambered into her pants and pulled the curtain of her hair back across her forehead. She called out his name, and heard it sink, forlornly, into the quicksand of silence.

​That was the first time he'd left her. The second time, she began, was even worse ...

​But the thunder abbreviated her telling, as her eyes slanted towards the window and the lightning's sky-grimace. She made the same motion: pulled her hair across her forehead, fear congealing in her eyes.


​A month later, she, too, disappeared. It wasn't an entirely unknown phenomenon: this town had a habit of suddenly casting someone off, hurling them like a rider from the back of an angry bronco. A tear was shed, drinks were clinked together, and then the space at the bar where she sat was healed over like the space over an abscess in the mouth. It would be another number of months before she would be fondly remembered (a passing anecdote) and the feather of emotion and loss would tickle their sopping hearts.


​One night, her last lover shambled in.

​It was raining, though the day had been sunlit. The wind teased the oncoming storm like a prize on a string, blown first this way and then that, just out of reach. The smell in the air was of fish and gulls, and stale cigarette smoke.

​He pushed his way through slant-wise. If he had stood up straight, he would have been barred progress by some invisible wall, would have had to lean against it every step of the way, pressing forward like a doomed mime.

​One barfly leaned over and whispered to another, voice craggy with cynicism. It's him again.

​His eyes were wild and his hair was matted down over his brow, as though he had been swimming. The scattering of patrons on their stools slowly swiveled their heads to watch his passage, like blinking, insensate seals sunning themselves on sea-slick rocks watching a freighter steam by. The bar glittered like the ocean beneath their elbows.

​'Can I help you?' The bartender knew him, knew his glazed-over face and his glazed-over eyes. He was tolerated, though almost always politely asked to leave after one bottle of beer.

​'Where's she.'

​'I'm sorry?' The bartender blinked, though tilted his head to one side, as if examining an unknown variable in a math equation.

​'Where's she.'

​'I don't understand.'

​'Yes. You do. She.'

​'Look, man. You're obviously drunk. I think you should leave.'

​He stubbornly shook his shaggy head, like a beast furrowing the soil, head lowered. He gnashed his teeth and listed from side to side. 'Not till. Her.'

​They two were thrown into a momentary battle of wills, locked eyes, until the bartender chuckled and shook his head. 'I don't think you want me to call the police.'

​He turned then, almost falling over onto one of the stools, causing a yelp of surprise to emit from the occupant, and finally pitched himself out of the bar, slamming the crash-bar hard with the heels of his hands as he went. The door gave a shrill whinny of alarm, but allowed his egress.

​And that was the last time any of them saw him, either.


​It wasn't that he, too, vanished into the particulate air, but rather that they all did. The Friday afternoon crowd. One by one, over the following weeks, in a staggered formation, until one day the morning lasted until the late afternoon with no one astride their seats. At two minutes til four, he entered, meaty hands manicured and hair slicked back from his clean-shaven face. Dried blood pocked the underside of his chin from where the dull razor had nicked the wriggling, subdermal capillaries. His left eye gleamed with a virulent sheen, as though someone had embedded a diamond deep within the mine-black of his pupil. He nearly swaggered.

​The bartender raised an eyebrow as he walked in. 'Can I help you?'

​'No.' The man sat down at the bar, directly in the middle of the empty barstools. One free hand moved carefully over his hair, as if cautious of any disturbance. This hand motion followed down his front, adjusting his dark tie somewhat absently, before coming to rest like a malformed, fleshy bird perching on the bar. 'You didn't even try to help last time.'

​'I'm not sure what you mean,' he said, tilting his head to one side in the same manner as a dog does, upon hearing a sound whose origin he cannot determine.

​'She disappeared.'

​'People have a habit of doing that in this city,' the bartender replied, and went on to polish another glass that didn't need polishing.

​'I know that,' the man growled, and his hand formed a fist.

​'If you're not going to have a drink, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.'

​'Fine. Gimme a scotch.'

​'Which one?'

​The man glared at him balefully, one eye squinted near-shut, the other glittering, malevolent, quasar-like. 'Whichever. The cheapest.'

​The bartender turned, sizing up the man. He'd ordinarily turn him down, but something had changed. 'Fine. Neat, or rocks?'

​'Neat.' A wolfish grin, as if on springs, rent the bottom half of his face.

​Outside, the wind picked up, and slapped the awnings rudely with its big invisible hand.

​The glass, redolent of antiseptic, slid suddenly in front of him, the liquid inside slopping from side to side. 'Quiet in here today,' the man said suddenly, a trace of amusement lingering on the words like scurf from the breakers.

​'One of those days,' the bartender said, shrugging.

​'One of those days,' echoed the man, and toasted the thin air with his glass.


​A week later, the bartender disappeared, and someone new slid into his place like a picture in a frame. This one, a bit stockier, paunchier, balding at the edges, and not just around the head. He seemed worn down by the eraser of the world, as though by some miraculous coincidence he had escaped being completely folded down and compacted into a ball by shrugging through life as quietly as possible. He had never had a woman, never had a mother or a father, never even had a new pair of pants. He was colorless, his body like a pause between empty space and empty space. When people ran into him on the street - as would often happen - they simply bumped around him like the waters of stream encountering a rock. People eddied around him.

​Perhaps it was no coincidence that his name was Eddy, or at least, that was the name the orphanage had given him. When he was fifteen, he asked who his mother had been, and his case-worker (he was #999178-1) had (somewhat rudely) told him that she was a crackwhore who gave birth to him in an alley and that the only reason he'd survived was because his incessant squalling kept a tenant in the apartment complex above from fornicating effectively. Even as a baby, he would reflect ruefully, he would prevent those around him from having sex. He had lived an uncommonly long life for a human prophylactic, but felt just as discarded as a French letter.

​He had come by this job in a somewhat haphazard fashion. Most of the time, you would imagine a bartender should be friendly and personable, ready and willing to lend a sympathetic ear. Eddy ruminated he would only be lending a pathetic ear, having the prefix truncated by his sad-sack demeanor.

​It had been the pram's fault, really. Rolling, racketing down the hill. The mother's blank, terror-taut face as it relinquished itself from her grasp and went speeding by. He had watched it, uncaring for a brief moment, more thrilled by the proximity of disaster than by the prospect of rescue. It wasn't until he heard the thin, piteous wail of the baby that he was galvanized. A thread of electricity snaked through him, starting in the soles of his feet and rioting up to the stem of his brain and causing sparks behind his eyes. Before he was fully aware of what he was doing, he was to his feet and dashing, somewhat lumberingly, after the carriage. Just as it was about to smash into a post-office box, he snatched the handle and yanked it backwards, causing he himself to fall to his buttocks and exhale loudly in the process. The baby within set up an even more piteous howl, somehow seeming louder now that the forward motion had ceased.

​She was suddenly behind him, tear-tracks on her face like snail's footsteps. She gabbled out her apologies, her remonstrances, her heartfelt thank-yous, all the while pumping his hand up and down - even from his awkward, sprawled position. He slowly got to his feet and stared down into the carriage, ignoring the mother.

​The child had uncannily blue eyes. That's what he'd remember, he thought to himself, extending a finger down to the earnest, pink-whorled face. He brushed the back of his knuckle against the infant's cheek, who immediately went quiescent and stared up at him in awe. That, he thought with some satisfaction, is how you should treat your rescuer. Like God.

​The mother was the proprietress of the bar. Her name was Judy, and she needed a replacement, and he needed a job, and so one piece fit with the next, and the puzzle was complete. He showed up the next day, donned the apron and bowtie, and begin fastidiously polishing the glasses like his pre-decessor had and, no doubt, much like his successor would. In a city such as this, such thoughts were not only commonplace, but also necessary. He knew where his last will & testament was.

​Even certain apartment complexes would come equipped with small glass enclosures, for the storing of such documents, labelled, rather comically,

BREAK IN CASE OF DISAPPEARANCE

​Eddy didn't have that luxury. He lived in a run-down, shabby apartment building ruled over by a thundercloud of a woman, as egregiously nosy as she was conversationally inept. Continually followed around by a brood of gaggling children, she would accost him on the stairs as he drooped home from another shift at the bar, fistfuls of grubby tip-money shoved into his pockets. 'Rent's due in one week,' she'd remind him, underchin wobbling with gobbets of fat about ready to drip off and splatter on the warped floorboards. He rather thought she was so full of bile that the fat-gobbet would eat away at the wood and sizzle through the to the third floor landing, the second, and eventually on down into the concrete of the basement, where it would eat at itself relentlessly until only a small, shaded stain would remain - for years to come, even after the rest of her body's inevitable disappearance.

​And what do we, any of us, leave behind, after we've gone?

​The question curled around itself like an ingratiating cat, tail tickling the stem of his brain. He felt suddenly, disgustingly fat, and climbed the stairs all the more quickly. Once within, he sneered at the air and bared his teeth like an incensed wildcat.

Experimentally, he snarled, and then, feeling foolish, grimaced, made a moue with one hand, and sank into his easy-chair.

​The night would be long, longer than any day, and not even the rumble of (yet another) approaching thunderstorm would provide him with a much-needed frisson of excitement. He closed his eyes and imagined that he had a dog - heard the familiar panting and click-click-schuss of nails and paws on the linoleum of the kitchen floor. Felt the corrugated rupp of tongue against his cheek. Maybe tomorrow, Eddy thought to himself, he'd get to the gym. Stop smoking. Take up drinking. Maybe tomorrow he'd vanish into the particulate air, just like all the rest of them.

​His last thoughts before he tumbled into the yaw of sleep: wondering whether or not the police station still had a 'missing persons' department, or if such things were now superfluous, if people just had grown accustomed to suddenly losing people - strangers, their loved ones, even celebrities wiped right off of the television screen ...


​How the ragged fall apart. Something just tugs at the threads dangling from the edges of a person, a great unknown something with dextrous fingers.


​Eddy, back on the job, behind the deserted bar, humming along with Sarah Vaughn's muffled voice, percolating from the old and dingy speakers tucked in their crannies behind the bar. His thoughts swirl around the inside of his head. One customer, so far, today: a fecund, broad-lipped young woman who ordered a Cosmopolitan. He made it a little too strong on purpose, hoping she would unlock herself to him and spill out secrets. He wanted to hear a secret today. Wanted to break a promise to someone. Wanted, above all, to feel human.

​'So, when do you think you'll disappear?' she asked, trailing her finger over the rim of the martini glass. Her expression had gone from quiet to dour, and her hands, once tremulous, had stilled.

​This was not the question he had wanted, but, in keeping with his profession, he shrugged and pointed at the clock. 'Quarter to nine,' he quipped.

​She stared at him, uncomprehending.
​'When I get off work,' he supplied.

​She disapproved, with both lips. 'Not what I meant.'

​'Just trying to lighten the mood, miss.'

​'My mood doesn't need lightening.'

​'My mood always needs lightning,' he mis-heard, perhaps on purpose.

​Her lips only tightened. No laughter seeped through that ossified crack in her face. She downed the rest of her drink and stared at it for a long moment, as if willing it to refill of its own accord.

​'Another?'

​She shook her head, from side to side, slowly at first, as if unsure. Then, once more, and definitively. She'd already paid, but she made no motion to stand. Eddy watched her, and then returned to polishing the glasses, to wiping the bar, to standing just to one side.

​She rested her head in one hand, neck arcing west as if waiting for a monster to divest her of her blood-supply. She looked blankly into the air, at nothing in particular, and certainly not at Eddy.

​He was afraid, for a brief moment, that he'd turned invisible - somehow become even more colorless, faded. Then, abruptly, a shocking bleat of noise issued from his mouth. The woman startled, her elbow jostling the empty martini glass, which toppled to one side and fell with a loud report against the bar.

​'I'm sorry,' he apologized awkwardly. 'I was afraid I'd disappeared.'

​'You're a weird one,' she accused. 'Have a good day.'

​And with that, she gathered herself around herself like a thick fog and vanished out the door.

​'Yes, I know,' Eddy murmured, haplessly, to himself and to no one at all. To the ghosts of those long gone. Aiming his words up; through the low, dim ceiling, piercing the rain-heavy clouds, and finally, galloping toward the petulant, eternal sizzle of the sun.

MONOLOGUE

HE

I walk around when I’m on the phone.  Sit, then stand.  Walk in circles.  Press against weak spots in the floorboard with my foot.  Experiment with the malleability of the walls.  They’re always as solid as I think they’ll be, but the moment before I touch them I think to myself maybe this time they’ll give way.  And all the while your voice in my ear.  I’m listening.  I pay attention.  It’s just that I need to be doing something else while I am.  My mother did the same thing.  I used to find scraps of paper around. notes from the doctor, or the dentist, or the lawyer.  Certain numbers, certain letters, she’d go over and over them again and again with the blue Bic pen.  Like she was slowly, over the years, laying out a code that someone was meant to decipher.  Maybe that’s why she never threw anything out. 

I’m still listening to you.  You’re telling me a story about your stepdad.  I asked you to.  Not specifically about your stepdad, but you mentioned him and I said “go on,” you know, like you do when you’re being polite, though I meant it.  I think I did anyway. 

When I mentioned to you that I was thinking about going to a meeting, you said “you know that’s a real thing, right?  not just a place you can go for attention.”  And it made me think this thorny, ingrown thing.  My first reaction was how unfair it was, but then I thought what if you’re right?  What if this whole thing is just a play to get attention?  I think you were kind of talking to yourself, like you do whenever you dole out advice, but you’re almost always right.  You just say it so it hurts, and you say it so casually, like just kind of tossing out these little IEDs and wait for me (like you know I will) to drive over them.

How did we even come together?  Yes, I’m still listening.  You said how your stepdad was a mean drunk.  He drank Jack.  He called it the Gentleman’s Choice and was pissed years later when they came out with that Gentleman’s Choice Jack Daniels and didn’t pay him any royalties.  How did we even come together?  I remember that we met at the bar, sort of.  It’s like you just kind of melded into my life, and I yours.  Soon enough we were sharing late nights in the shallow end of the booze-pool, wading around and trading ridiculous grins at the stupidest of shit.  And where are you tonight?  You’re drinking and I’m at home.  This is a new thing and I’m sure it’s what will eventually drive us apart.  The booze.  Not the new thing.  Or, I guess the new thing.  The new thing is mostly me.

And you’ve been to the meetings already and I haven’t.  I haven’t told you that I made plans to go with someone else.  You’d be so furious if you knew.  I think it’s my turn to talk, and so.

Yeah, I mean, we all have that kind of person in our families.  Every family’s got one.  I know my mom never touched a drop of drink.  I don’t know what my life would be like if she did.  My stepdad only ever drank domestic beer out of cans.  I never saw hard alcohol until college.  It’s not all about me.  Do you want me to come down there?  You’re not a failure, you’ve just failed. 

See, I can do it too.  I just don’t like how it feels when you explode, because you don’t – not really.  You implode, go as cold as a brown dwarf and ice over.  Get these little frost patches on your lips and fingertips.  Anything you touch or say freezes over and then shatters while you look on, your mouth curving just a little, satisfied – but you’ll never be satisfied, not all the way.

And you’ll keep failing.  That’s the nature of the thing.  You’re not failing until you feel like you’re winning, but you’re not happy with winning, you want to conquer, you want to bust through.  I’m happy with just coming out on top for once.  Do we ever know where we are on the ladder?

What ladder?  I don’t know.  The ladder of life.  Bad metaphor.  I know.  Full of ‘em lately. 

I should let you go. 

I should hang up the phone.  Your voice is pulling me through.  In my mind’s eye, I can see the bar.  The dim places, the jostling shoulders of smiling-too-wide folks.  The thud of the music from each corner of the red room.  I am imagining the covert snickers the cooks in the kitchen are exchanging due to some drunk’s conduct.  I am imagining you imagine the things everyone around you is thinking about you.  Little horrible nightmares growing out of the sides of their heads, all depicting you with fangs and slobber.  Fat rolling off of your sides like waves.  I am watching you slam down another drink to shrivel those growths.  I am being drawn through the phone and I need to hang up and get back to work.

Yeah, I should let you go.  How is it down there?  Just like normal.  Nothing ever changes.

Herodotus says you can’t step into the same river twice.

Well, I guess some things change.  I could use one.  What do you mean what do I mean?  Why could I use a change? Well, I don’t know, I guess.

It’s hard to say.

I’ll talk to you later.

I love you.

quick scribble

and in my dream
we are both mice living
in someone else's attic

i still get drunk every night
and you still chitter endlessly

when your eyes get too black
or too beady
i seek the shifting dust and bones
of our ancestors
in the corners,
praying dutifully
at their steel mausoleums

ite, missa est

& the lightning is a vein
on the back of
god's subtle, murderous hand as
the tired old deity
stretches out across the sky.

the night is hot,
ripe and near-bursting,
like the moment
just before a flower opens,
its mouth like someone drowning,
gasping for air -

& the ocean shifts,
restlessly,
like a dog plagued by
torturous dreams,
whimpering & twitching,
at the foot of the earth's bed

oh something is about to happen
whispers the awed congregation
of tallgrass,
wringing their hands
around the deserted, windchapped
summer estates -

into this, eventually,
the sun rises -
an impatient member
of the audience, standing up,
making his irritable way
home