Fiction

The road is straight; a long ribbon of asphalt disappearing into the basin that Liam isn’t sure is named. It’s hot, almost invasively so, the sun a sadistic two-year-old granted divine powers.

A pickup passes and Liam raises his thumb half-heartedly. The truck speeds on and Liam sits down again in the dirt, listening to the rumbling. Where are these cars going, these metal cages that disappear into this hellacious place. This is the road that crosses this strange anomaly in space-time between Las Vegas and Reno, the emptiness that is known as Nevada; the place people look down on from planes. The pickup truck doubles back, skids across the double yellow line and stops in a pullout not far from where Liam stands. A man, muscular, hairy and clad in plaid. “You looked like you needed a ride,” the man says. “Where you headed? GORGEOUS.”

The last word puts Liam on edge. “California,” he says. “My name is Liam.”

“Liam,” the man says, as if digesting the name. “Thought you were a girl at first. California, huh?”

Liam doesn’t know how to respond to this. “California. My cousin lives in Oakland.”

“All you young ones are going to California,” the man says. “How old are you, Liam?”

“Eighteen,” Liam says, nearly spitting the word. He’s annoyed at how angry this makes him.

The man snorts. “That’s convenient! You know. Just became an adult. Still young enough to look convincing.” The man smiles and half laughs, as if it’s a joke. “Are you sure you’re not a girl?”

Liam crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m sure.”

They drive for a while, just drive, the highway refusing absolutely to make the slightest turn. Highways generally appear straight on maps, Liam thinks, picturing the maps in Kansas, maps laid out on desks in quiet corners, windows upon windows of yellow lines against white background on the blinking screen of Google Maps. “It’s time to go, Leah,” say his parents. He hates the bathrooms.

Does this highway look any straighter on the maps? He tries to remember this particular highway from the map. He laughs, though he’s not sure yet what’s funny.

“What’s so funny?” the man asks.

“This place,” Liam says, feeling a little more comfortable. “The emptiness of it. The brown, the purple, the jagged mountains, the absolute…..” he trails off. “Zero. Lack of anything.”

The man laughs for a while. He laughs to the point where Liam isn’t sure whether or not he will continue holding onto the steering wheel.

“Shit, Liam,” the man says. “That’s what all you city folk think. There’s plenty there. Sagebrush and water and hidden springs. We aren’t stupid you know, we desert people.” He narrows his eyes at Liam, moving his face between Liam’s thighs and chest. “Where you from? Cal’fornia? The East Coast?”

Liam laughs, barks almost. “No. Kansas.”

“Shit!” the man elongates the word, as if there are multiple shits, or perhaps one long shit that will take a very long time to finish. “Talking about nowhere and being from Kansas! We nowhere people should recognize each other, you know. We should. You hitchhiked from Kansas?”

“Yes.”

“What was that like?”

“Blurry.” Liam shrugs. He digs around his pack, holds the remains of the kefir in his palm.

“What’s that?” the man asks, blending the two words into one.

“Key-fer,” Liam says, guessing at its pronunciation. “It’s a yogurt drink. I got it in Tonopah.”

“Scolari’s?” the man asks. Liam nods. “Just got back from there. Great food. Best around. ‘Course there’s just that and the store in Benton. But tha’s over the border. Takes a while to cross.”

“Does California have a customs station?” Liam asks.

The man guffaws. “Hardly. Agricultural Inspection Station. Might as well be customs, though. Takes so long.” The man removes one hand from the wheel and takes out a bottle of some type of alcohol, beer or whiskey, perhaps vodka. “I’m thirsty. I’s a desert, anyway.”

Liam squirms a little in his seat, hoping that the man doesn’t notice. The two of them drive along US 6 alone, the road climbing toward the tops of another jagged mountain range.

“How far are you going?” Liam asks the man.

“Basalt,” the man says. He slurs the syllables together and Liam wonders if he’s drunk already. “My ranch. Y’should stay wi’me tonight, Liam. S’late.” Liam has to work hard to understand what the man is saying but his driving ability doesn’t seem to have declined.

“I can’t,” Liam says, almost impatiently. “I’m going to California.”

“California’z‘bout four miles from Basalt,” the man says. “Been hitching nonstop from Kansas?”

Liam nods, wishing that he had lied.

“You deserve a break. Jus’ the night. Better than the side of the road.”

“There’s still all of California left,” Liam says, almost desperately. He feels a little like hyperventilating though he doesn’t know what it would accomplish. He needs to pee.

“California ain’t half as big as everybody thinks,” the man says. “Long, but ain’t but an inch wide really.” The man laughs for a long time.

“Let me out,” Liam shouts. The man stops laughing.

“Shit, Liam, I ain’t drunk. I just had a sip. You actually believe I was drunk?” And he chuckles, a wave of laughter, cascading down the mountain, evaporating in the basin below them.

“Stupid,” Liam says, thinking loudly but only muttering the words. He raises his voice without really thinking about it. “That’s a stupid thing to do.” His voice fills the car, surprising himself.

The man is surprised. “Well shit, I didn’t mean any harm. Pretty girl like you, you sure you’re not a girl now?”

“Reasonably sure,” Liam says dryly. He wonders if there is some exam to become a boy. What the definition is. Man, woman, boy, girl, none of the above. California, so close. SO CLOSE.

“What’s so close?” the man asks, surprised.

“California,” Liam says. “I just can’t believe that I’m almost there. It feels unreal.”

“There’s nothing really there,” the man says. “It’s all unreal. A line in the ground, that’s it. It can become a part of you, you know, these borders. The lines.”

“Thank you,” Liam says and he feels calm. “For…. what you just said.”

“No need to thank me,” the man says. “I’d love some company at my…. my place. Bar. In Basalt. Maybe a couple hours. Fill your tanks and all that.” The man sounds gruff and it makes Liam uneasy, but he remembers the borders, how it came out of the man’s mouth. Can this heteronormative, white, macho, Nevada rancher-man be simultaneously uncouth and polite? He wants to make his own words flow like the man’s but he isn’t sure what to do with his tongue.

“Alright,” he says and all of a sudden they seem to be there, crossing the road and pulling into a gravel turnout from the highway. The air is cool, brisk, and Liam wonders how high up they are. To the west the land falls away and the road makes its way down to a sagebrush-covered valley, light green. Liam walks across the parking lot, wondering why he is wasting time like this in a seedy bar, so close to California; opens the door to the clicking of dusty slot machines, whirring of neon, the clink of quarters as they disappear forever. The casino fades into a bar, the smell of cigarette smoke mingling with that of alcohol. The bartender has no teeth and smiles gummily at Liam as he sits down next to the man.

“Not from around here, are you, gorgeous?” another man calls. Liam feels on edge, as if the bar could explode at any moment.

“No,” he says simply. “From Kansas.”

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Liam,” Liam says. “Where’s the bathroom.”
“‘Round the corner, Leah,” the bartender tells him and he sees the two wooden signs, paint chipped away, that read ‘Gentlemen’ and ‘Ladies.’ He exhales loudly, walks through the door marked gentlemen, walks into the stall, and slides the metal lock through the notch, sits down on the toilet and pees for a long time. He can hear the mumbled voices of men as they stand outside the stall. He stands next to the toilet, waiting for the men to file out.

Liam slides the metal lock away from the notch, remembering the silent glow of computer screens, the yellow roads that crossed white emptiness, a blur of numbers. The bathroom door is slightly ajar; he slides through it, back into the bar, and crinkles his nose at the cigarette smoke. Hank Williams is playing from a radio and Liam tries not to listen. He’ll leave, right now. He realizes that he’s still holding the bottle of kefir and he unzips his backpack and lets it fall with a dull clunk to the bottom, not sure why he isn’t just throwing it out. The man who called Liam gorgeous sets a glass of some sort of alcohol before Liam.

“On me, gorgeous.”

`           “I have to go,” Liam says, shouldering his backpack.

“You just got here,” the man insists. “Pretty girl like you shouldn’t go running into and then out of bars. Drink up! It’s good liquor.”

“Beer and liquor, never sicker,” Liam mutters under his breath, feeling faint from the smoke. He sips from the glass and winces at the bitter liquid as it slides down his throat.

“Are you going to DRINK?” the bartender asks, her voice surprisingly loud. “Or WHAT? It’s good DRINK. Siddown, you come all the way from KANSAS.” Liam takes another sip of the liquor, bracing himself for the taste.

“NOW,” the bartender says. “I was WONDERING whether you’re a BOY or a GIRL.”

“Does it matter?” Liam breathes, not sure if anyone can hear him.

“What was that?”

“I need to go,” Liam says, louder.

“Ain’t that a SHAME. Lemme get WALT. He’s sure sad to see you GO!” Liam wants to leave, to spill the liquor onto the linoleum floor and dash through the casino back into the desert mountain air, toward California. The man who drove Liam here, Walt, returns from Liam doesn’t know where.
“Walt,” the bartender says, “Is this a BOY or a GIRL?” Liam isn’t listening.
“Saiz e’s a boy. She’s a boy. He’s a girl.” Deep throaty laughter from Walt mingles with smoke.

“I’M GOING!” Liam tells them. He reaches for the glass and takes another sip of liquor, his head feeling faint.

“WAIT,” the bartender says. “Are you a BOY or a GIRL?”

Liam unzips his backpack, removes the bottle of kefir. He places the open bottle on the counter.

“What ARE you?” the bartender asks him. Liam walks out of the bar, listening to the clink of quarters in slot machines. “What IS that?” He hears Walt’s voice, the word ‘kefir’, stands on the shoulder of US 6, walks down the mountain, leaning gently on the guardrail into California. He raises his thumb and a Prius comes to a stop.

“Do you have anything to drink?” Liam asks. “I’m dying of thirst.”

The woman driving opens the glove compartment, handing him a plastic bottle. Liam unscrews the bottle and lets the kefir flow down his throat until the bottle is empty.

“I never saw anyone drink that much.”

“Yeah,” Liam says. “I’m a big drinker.” He places the bottle at his feet without talking. California blurs outside of his window.

 

 

Zeke Gerwein was raised in Berkeley, California where they started writing at the age of four when they developed a near obsession with coming up with stories. After winning honorable mention in a city wide short story contest in elementary school they have since written and edited four novels as well as countless other short fiction pieces and short plays. They also enjoy travel by bicycle and have completed two fairly well read online travel blogs from which they have completed three short creative non-fiction pieces one of which was published by Adventure Cyclist Magazine. They are currently a corresponding writer on Nomenclatter e-zine and have performed their fiction at the Oakland School for the Arts, Oakland’s Black Box Theatre, and the California College for the Arts. They currently live in the San Francisco Bay Area where they attend school.

 

 

The August heat stuck heavy to the alligator hunter’s skin. The air stunk of Louisiana swamp but that’s the way she liked it. Her dog and her partner perched on the edge of the flat-bottomed boat, squinting into the murky water. The sun beat down on the back of the hunter’s neck, crisping it up nice and red. She drummed her fingers on the thick metal steering wheel.

“Think there’ll be a bite at the next line, Minnie?” her partner, still green and wide-eyed, asked. This would be their third line today with no bites.

“Hope so,” Minnie replied.

“Hope it’s a big’un. A big ol’ gator, all fat and pretty.”

“When’s s’last time you saw a fat gator?” Minnie shielded her eyes from the harsh glare of the sun and peered into the distance. The partner fell silent, staring at the water with a frown and placing a hand on the dog’s back.

“I seen plenty of fat gators.”

“You ain’t.” Minnie grunts.

“I have! Farther east, near Belle Chasse, there’s gators the size of horses!” The partner snapped, defensive, fist clenched on the dog’s back. He yelped and skittered to the front of the boat.

“That’s a dirty lie, Addie, I been to Belle Chasse.”

“You ain’t hunted there,” Addie snapped, glaring at the water now. “You ain’t hunted there.”

“S’all the same. Ain’t no gators nowhere – Not here, not Belle Chasse.”

“Y’all’s just bitter ‘cause you can’t get a bite,” Addie said, accusatory. She slapped a mosquito off her arm. Minnie looked past her, eyes forward.

“Then why’re you here if you know I ain’t got a bite?”

“’Cause I ain’t got any either,”

“Nobody’s got any,” Minnie stared in the distance. She could see the tall rise of cypress trees out of the water like bones floating up in an old cemetery. One of them had a heavy line weighted down with waterlogged chicken, hopefully with a fat gator hooked on the end. She wasn’t close enough yet to see, but the gnawing in her gut told her that she wasn’t going to be so lucky.

Addie shut her mouth as they neared the third line so that the only noise was the thrum of the boat’s engine, the cicadas’ cries, and Addie’s own stomach. The dog—a good dog, with a smart nose and no pedigree—perked his pointy ears up and licked his chops, barking sharply. He’s probably smelling the chicken.

“Wouldja look at that!” Addie pointed to the base of a cypress tree, among the tangled roots.

“Well, damn,” Minnie wiped her brow and pulled out her shotgun from where it had been tucked against the boat’s side. She cocked it once, standing up. “Get over here, bring us in,”

Addie clambered to take the wheel, revving the engine and sidling them as close to the cypress as they could get. The gator heard them and snapped his jaws. A glittering metal hook had embedded itself in the back of the beast’s throat, thick wire sprouting from it and tethering him to the thick tree trunk. He swung his tail uselessly, sending stinking droplets of water into the air.

“Shoot him!” Addie said, scrambling to grab the line and hold the gator still. “Get him!”

Minnie ignored her. She waited till the gator had closed his jaws and started a roll, thrashing in the water to break free. She fired once. The dog barked when the bullet hit the water. She cursed and aimed again at the fleshy triangle at the base of the gator’s skull. A quarter-sized chink in the armor, she knew it too well. She shot again, and the gator let out a scream. It stopped thrashing in the water.

“Ha ha, yes! Nice shot!” Addie said, moving over to help haul it into the boat. The dog wagged his tail. Minnie patted him on the head and reached down, gripping the gator with thick, calloused fingers.

Once they got it on the boat, they could get a good look at him. He was scrawny and old and missing a claw. He wasn’t going to fetch a good price, not enough to cover the two of them. Minnie cursed and kicked him halfheartedly with her boot.

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Addie said, wiping her sweat-sticky brow.

“Shut up.”

“No, I mean it—” Addie tried again, arms wide, pleading.

“So help me God, if you don’t shut up I’ll throw you over. See if that brings ‘em out. Jesus Christ.” Minnie’s words had thorns, but there wasn’t anything behind them. She was too tired to put any fire in her threats.

“…Yes, ma’am.”

They spent the ride to the next line in empty silence, the sun creeping inch-by-inch overhead. Minnie took her place at the wheel again, gripping it tightly, jaw clenched.

“Aw, shoot,” Addie said.

“What?” Minnie craned her neck to look.

“Bait’s gone.”

“And no gator?”

“No gator.”

Minnie and Addie glared down at the water together, the sun beating down on them. Addie’s stomach growled again, but the cicadas drowned it out.

 

 

Cecil Starr lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has been recently featured in Pulp literary magazine.

 

 

It was a sun-strained, shallow-breathing day in the ides of August – that treacherous month, with its cornflowers and ice-cream trucks – that my sister Barbara got sucked back into the sun. I’m not just saying that. I’m not crackers or anything. I’m just telling you what she told me, because it’s been bringing me comfort these past few weeks, and the time will come when it’ll bring you comfort too.

As I said before, it was August, the August of the overgrown roads, that time of year the air starts to get cool but still feels dry and sandpapery on the back of your throat. Barbara had cut Sunday school and gone out into the cornfield. The other kids had been teasing her. She was seven and I was five, which is probably why I didn’t notice her leaving at the time. But she left all the same. She waded through the blackberry bushes – where the gremlins live, as everybody knows – and climbed over the stone wall to the field. She went right to the middle and stood in the grass in her purple Sunday dress, motionless except for her enormous stuck-out ears. These were flapping softly in the breeze, skin so thin you could see the sun through it. Barbara stood out there for a while, blinking, and then began to run. She ran faster than any human being had ever run before, so fast that she could feel her heartbeat in her tongue, and then, all of a sudden, the wind caught her ears like a sail and she was lifted clear off the ground. She flailed around for a moment, half-surprised, before getting her bearings. Then she started flying around above the field in loops and dives and figure-eights, and all the while her ears were flapping up and down, up and down.

She circled around like that for a while, laughing in glee, until her ears got to feeling sore. She hovered in midair, then began to fall upwards into the sun. At first she was frightened, but her fear quickly subsided when she discovered that she could still somehow breathe. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again she was in a large room, with high ceilings and marble floors. All around her was a throng of people – not real people, though; as soon as you looked at one straight on it would disintegrate, the way a bubble does under its own weight. There was no god. Just the last Dalai Lama at the front desk, checking everybody in. Barbara went to him. He gave her a key and told her she could leave her skin in the blue hamper, and that she could look out the window one last time before going into the waiting room. He told her she could wait there as long as she liked.

She peeled her face off first. It didn’t hurt. Then she shimmied out of her arms and torso and stepped carefully out of her legs. For a few minutes she held on to the sound of her name, listening as it was repeated to her in many voices, over and over, last of all her mother’s. Then she smiled and nodded and set it aside.

The window was hardly a window at all, just a little porthole of turquoise glass carved into the far wall. She went and pressed her nose to it. Far below was the great blue expanse of the world she’d left behind, roiling with dust and storms and people milling around the cities like ants. At first she was watching a civil war – then she got distracted by a baby being born, cute little thing, with a harelip and astigmatism. She stood, and she watched, and she thought about the day she caught mama smoking menthols in the guest-room shower. She was desperately happy; she was indescribably sad.

The waiting room wasn’t a room – it was the soccer field by our elementary school, the one with the faded lines and the old bleachers that screamed when you sat on them. She stumbled down the little hill and went to lie down on the center line. She felt fine, just fine, a little overwhelmed but nothing that wouldn’t dissipate with time. Everything was warm and sunny; there was nobody else around. And as far as I know she’s still there, lying face-to-the-sky in the scratchy August grass, thinking about things.

 

 

 

Selena is a college sophomore originally hailing from Block Island, Rhode Island, where she spent the better part of her childhood catching hermit crabs and messing around in boats. She reads everything she can get her hands on, but her favorites in particular are Isabel Allende, Milan Kundera, and Louise Glück. She also spends a lot of time painting, going for runs, and thinking about aliens.

 

When my grandpa had a seizure, he left the assisted care facility as a bird. Not one of those eagles or falcons, since his house is too small. Not a dove, either, since that’s only for priests. No, he became a blue jay, the same kind that would sit in the tree outside my room and screech in the morning.

I go to watch him for the afternoon. He’s tweeting to the tune of Sweet Clementine while he’s perched on his rocking chair’s armrest. The room is stuffy even though it’s winter. The heater is running and its subtle brrrrr runs throughout the house. His Chihuahua is curled up in a ball on the couch, and he stares at the dog. Whenever he tried to flap over to her to pet her, she barked at him and ran away. He doesn’t try to get near the dog anymore. He just stays in his chair.

I sit down and pull out my laptop. He’s staring at me whole the time, chirping along to a commercial’s jingle. He tells me that he grew up in Virginia, had to walk twenty miles to school. He tells me that again after sitting there silently for twenty minutes. I nod along, since I’m just here to give my grandma some time to go shopping.

He falls asleep. I’ve been here three times in the last two weeks, and he always sleeps. He squirms and shakes in his chair sometimes, his blue feathers pooling on the hardwood floor. I pick them up and toss them in the garbage can, since the vacuum cleaner will get clogged with them.

He wakes up, lifting his head up real fast. He opens his beak to take a yawn, and then he tries to get up. His wings flap, but he’s not moving anywhere. I tell him to stop, but he can’t hear me over the beating of his feathers. Eventually, he gets up, and he’s flapping all over the house. He’s on top of the TV, chirping along with a pre-recorded Jimmy Fallon. He opens the refrigerator door and comes out with cheddar cheese hooked onto his talons. I think he’s smiling, but I’m not quite sure since I don’t know how birds smile.

Then he perches up on the windowsill, scratches his claws against the glass, and stares up at the sun. He tells me that when he was six years old that he was a bird. A seagull, he says. That’s why he went into the navy. That’s why he asks for glasses of water even though he doesn’t drink it. He tells me that he’s going to fly to San Francisco. He’s going to Fisherman’s Wharf, sit on top of the old submarine exhibit there and listen to the sea lions.

I tell him that I can take him there one day when he gets better. When he’s not a bird. He’s quiet and says that he doesn’t want to stop being a bird. He likes to fly. I nod, since even though I’ve never had wings, I always wondered how it must feel to be perched up on top of a power line. To be just a little bit closer to the sun.

He says he wishes he was always a bird. He likes the way wind flows into his beak. He tells me he does miss petting his dog though.

I ask him why and he says he wishes he was always a bird. He keeps chirping, repeating that wish over and over again, his voice frail and tired.

I open the window up for him. He looks at me and I tell him that a bird isn’t supposed to live in a house. He nods, asks me to tell Grandma he’s sorry for him, and flies off. He leaves a feather behind and I pocket it.

Each morning, I hear a blue jay outside, chirping. I know it’s not my grandpa because we live too far away from the ocean. But, I still grab the feather on my nightstand and hold it close to my chest. I try to listen to the bird, try to understand what it’s trying to say, but I can’t. There’s something about the way wings work, about how the wind gets in their eyes and brain, that I just won’t ever understand until I’m flying with them.

 

 

 

Austin Conner grew up in the East Bay Area near San Francisco. He started writing deep in the bowels of the Internet in a weekly flash fiction contest called ‘Thunderdome’ where he receives (and gives) critiques to other writers. Currently, he’s studying Biology at UC Merced while also pursuing a Creative Writing Minor. He has been published previously at Vestal Review, Dualcoast Magazine, Five on the Fifth, Manawaker Studios, and Flash Frontier.