By Mary Elizabeth

It was a Saturday night in late September, and my next-door neighbors were holding their third party in as many weeks. My neighbors were three young men: Charlie, Stan, and Jeff. In the six months that we lived next to each other, I met each of them three times. Each time I ran into one of them, they introduced themselves as if it were the first time we had met.

Every time the neighbors had a party, I spent far more time than I would like to admit peeking through my warped nylon blinds trying to catch a glimpse of their backyard. If I looked from the right angle, I could peer through my second-floor bedroom window and watch the outdoor portion of the parties.

On this night, cheap Christmas lights blinking in an indiscernible pattern were strung around the fence enclosing the small lawn. A dozen glittering bodies swayed together to a deep bass beat. Forgotten red solo cups littered the ground, oozing stale beer. In one corner of the small backyard, Jeff stood unsteadily on his feet rambling to a woman in the lawn chair next to him. The woman wordlessly nodded and scrolled on her phone. A symphony of intoxicated voices rose into a dull roar that would play into the early morning.

Longing stretched out of my chest like an invisible third arm, reaching through my window towards the backyard below. I thought I had amputated this embarrassing yearning years ago. Maybe I was feeling a phantom limb.

I looked away from the scene unfolding in the backyard and fell backward onto my bed in a huff. The mattress sighed under the sudden surprise of my weight. I stared up at the ceiling and wondered how many more times I needed to meet my neighbors until I was invited to their parties.

                                                       *  *  *

Mary Elizabeth (she/her) is a social services professional and writer based in Washington, DC. She works with women experiencing homelessness, the elderly, and domestic violence survivors. She is inspired by complex inner worlds, urban environments, and her incredible clients.

By Carrie Kartman

“What are you going to do about it?”

This skinny mid-thirties man standing before me was wound up like a spring, about ready to propel straight out of his gray suit and shiny loafers. And he was twisting the brim of his hat so hard it would never get back in shape. Foolish to ruin an expensive hat like that, I thought.  I took my time, evaluating the situation, considering my words before answering. Ever since the state highway had gone in fifteen years ago, I’d been dealing with these types. They got off the highway, wandered into town, and sooner or later ended up in my office complaining about Mrs. Ferris’s dog, or the Grover boys, or something or nothing done to them in a town that asked only to be left alone. It was up to me as Sheriff, to get them back in their cars and out of town. This time it was about Irene Jenner, who lived out on County Route 17. She was in her eighties now, still made the best apple pies ever, and brought one to us every year. She’d been a school teacher, was widowed a number of years back and had lived alone ever since. I checked in on her now and then, and despite having a good-natured way about her, she  had a sharp wit which always seemed to surprise me.

“Now you weren’t hurt, right?” I repeated to the man, for the second time.

“No no, I wasn’t hurt, but that’s not the point! I could have been killed damn it! She was aiming right at my head. Fast reflexes saved me. Fast reflexes and a measure of luck, are the only reason I’m standing before you.  She’s a menace and something has to be done.”  

I held back a chuckle at the image of Irene Jenner chasing this pest out of her yard. “Yes sir you’re absolutely right, something has to be done. And now just as soon as we finish here, I’m going to take a drive out there and set things straight, don’t you worry.” 

“You had better arrest her. For attempted murder!  He stared with beady eyes as he wiped his hand across his mouth, and gave another tug on the brim of his hat. “I could have been killed by the crazy old coot. I want her arrested!”

As I looked at him bouncing around in front of my desk, it came to me what he reminded me of: a little gray squirrel dashing around in a frenzy. And I had had just about enough of this squirrel. 

“Well now, supposing I could arrest her for attempted murder, and I’m not saying that I could, you understand. You did say, didn’t you, that there was no one else present during this, uh, incident?”  He paused for a moment, then nodded ever so slightly. “Right so there aren’t any witnesses. Then supposing I make an arrest. You’d have to stay here in town, give a deposition, be available during a period of investigation, and be present for the trial, so as to testify to the alleged course of events.” I allowed that to sink in for a moment, then went on. “I mean I don’t see how the district attorney could make much of a case with the only witness off in, where was it you said you’re from?”

“Philadelphia.”

 He leaned forward to check that I was writing this down, so I took my time forming the letters, before returning my attention to him. “Right. Philadelphia excuse me, you did state that prior. The D.A., he’d have to keep his star witness right here, you understand. He’s not the kind of man to take chances with such a serious charge. And since there’s really no proof, you understand that your testimony is all he’d have. So you see you might want to consider that, being as you don’t look like a man with a lot of time on his hands.”  At this he shot me another narrow-eyed look.  “If you don’t mind my saying.” 

He looked around the room, jingling his keys and rocking from heel to toe. “Now the important thing is,” I continued, as I came around the desk and placed a hand on his shoulder, “between you and me. The important thing is that you weren’t hurt. Now I can see that your nerves have been rattled, and for that I am sorry. But I believe we have ascertained that you are healthy and well enough to resume your journey. Before this takes up any more of your time, I think you should take the opportunity to continue on your way. That would be my recommendation, though of course it’s up to you. I can recommend one of several fine local motels if you prefer to spend more time here with us in town.” I had in the course of this walked the fellow right up to the door of the office, so it would be real easy for him. He took his cue, mumbling and shoving the sadly disfigured hat onto his head as he left. 

After lunch I drove out to Irene’s house at the edge of town, where the state highway exits onto the county road. As I pulled up in front of her neat white house, I saw a movement in the front window. I stopped to pick up the hand-painted, “Apples for Sale,”  sign that usually hung on the gate, and was now lying in the grass. The yard was well-tended and other than the sign I now held, nothing appeared amiss. I paused for a moment to admire the lush apple tree standing in the corner of the yard.  We looked forward to Irene’s apple pies every year. It was a mystery how she grew such fine apples year after year; I reckoned she had a good soil mix and watering program. I stepped up onto the front porch and knocked. “Mrs. Jenner, it’s Will, Sheriff Wright.” I waited for a response from within. I knew she’d seen me pull up. “I’d like to talk with you. Irene, please open the door.” She opened the door suddenly, revealing, as I had guessed, that she’d been standing directly on the other side of it. “May I come in?” I could see from the mischievous glint in her faded blue eyes, like a child caught with candy, that the squirrel’s story was true. I knew before I spied the shotgun standing in the corner by the pantry, before looking back out in the yard and noticing for the first time, the uneven earth beneath the apple tree. 

                                                               *   *   *

Carrie Kartman is a writer, actor, and educator, with an MFA from San Francisco State University, where she taught in the Creative Writing Department. Her writing has been published in Everyday Fiction, CafeLit, The Crone’s Words, Gambles and Balances, Wingless Dreamer, The San Francisco Review, Curves on a Sidewalk Street, Using Our Words, Twins Magazine, and CitySports Magazine. Her plays have been seen on stage in the S.F. Bay Area and Michigan.

By Jennifer Mills

My sister arrived at my front door with a casserole at seven o’clock in the morning. She’d woken me up, though that wouldn’t have occurred to Elizabeth. Waving The San Francisco Chronicle in her hand, she said: “You got wonderful reviews! Wonderful!” 

I’d had my first solo exhibition, which opened at the Fitzgerald Gallery the day before. Suspicious of her elation, I blocked the door. “You’re using your chirpy voice.”

“I’m happy for you!” Even on a Saturday, she was dressed for work: navy suit, heels, copper-red hair blow-dried. I wore a nubby pink bathrobe, dark unkempt hair streaked gray. “Let me in!” 

“Tell me the date first.”

She glanced at her cradled casserole.  “Of course I know what day it is.” 

The cars swooshed along California Street, suddenly deafening now. “It’s March 1st. Since you can’t say it, I will.”

“Your show was a great success. Why can’t we enjoy that instead of…”

“Remembering them?”

She looked away. The traffic’s flow roared in my ears. Rarely was Elizabeth at a loss for words: she was a lawyer–a good one, promoted to partner already at 38.  

“It’s cold out here,” she said, and I relented, turning sideways for her to pass. 

My two-bedroom was a garden flat. In the kitchen, sliding glass doors framed a tiny patio with a Japanese Maple. As Elizabeth’s heels ticked, I gazed at the tree’s bare branches, black in the dim light, loving how they reached toward the light, fragile and curious. I must have painted the tree a hundred times.  Elizabeth had commended my choice of apartment due to its location, size, updated kitchen, but I loved the Maple best. Still, I had not yet captured its longing on canvas, and it tugged at me, an unborn child. 

Elizabeth set the casserole inside the oven.  “Broccoli and cheese.  No ingredient has ever insulted a cow.” (She hated that I was vegetarian.) ”Oven’s set at two-fifty. Should be ready in an hour.  Please. Eat. You’ve lost weight again.” 

“Do you ever sleep?” The maple tree’s branches had already shifted into a dark purple–how quickly the light changed!–my fingers twitched, yearning for a paint brush.  “I’m going to paint something for them today.”

Elizabeth drew close, words pressing against my back:  “Zoe, please don’t. You had all the stress from the opening.  Give it a few days.”

Our parents, driving south on 101, visiting friends who lived in Burlingame. I always picture my mother in her favorite dress of cobalt silk and my father in a wrinkled Oxford. A car cut them off, their car flipped, and they died.  Twenty years later, and I continue to be amazed that this simple chain of events destroyed my childhood.  I was fifteen; Elizabeth, eighteen, and from that point, our lives were divided: Before the Crash and After the Crash. 

My mother’s sister became our guardian after our parents death, and Aunt Catherine frequently declared: “They died instantly,”  as if an advocate for some strange justice I couldn’t register. I nodded vaguely, muted by grief.  But my aunt and sister grew louder, railing against civil injustices at dinner, near shouting matches while I played with my food, imagining myself by a stream, in a meadow, anywhere beautiful and far away. 

I glanced at Elizabeth now, trying to register a confidence I didn’t feel. “I’m going to paint something for them today. Try not to worry. It will be good for me.”  

This wasn’t true. I’d slipped into darkness on March 1st last year–not sleeping for forty-eight hours, drinking cheap scotch, I cried for seven days straight. The painting got nowhere. A car, swerving, flipping, crashing.  Ten seconds, maybe less. How was I to capture such a thing? Didn’t I belong in that Toyota Camry somehow? 

Elizabeth, digging into her thousand-dollar purse. “I brought you something.” 

A photograph of our parents? Of our old house? 

She extended a bottle of pills. “Two Restoril. To take the edge off.” 

“You don’t get it.  I want to feel something. That’s what artists do. Good ones, anyway.”

She set the bottle on the kitchen counter. “Let me offer you a bit of context, Zoe. First: the Crash happened twenty years ago. Second, last night you had amazing professional success. It’s time to celebrate, not self-sabotage, not–”

“–sink into the past.  That’s what you always say.”  

She reached for me, but I spun away, heart banging inside my skin.  She wanted to forget, I wanted to remember. Simple as that. Why couldn’t I let it go? 

A breeze whispered against the sliding glass door, and beyond, the maple tree waved slightly.  Its branches now a deep and, lovely red blurred by my tears. Oh, God. Maybe that was how I’d paint them. The car-crash had always been a distilled moment for me. But for them? Muddled confusion, panic. Nothing defined or clear. 

Elizabeth said, “Call me if you need anything.” Her heels clicked down the hallway, and I followed, my slippers whispering along the hardwood floors. “I’ll call you,” she said, hugged me, and stepped into the brightening day. How very lonely it must have been for her, how very exhausting.  

Before I could thank her, she was half way down the block. My sister, so good with words, never lingered with goodbyes.

                                                        *   *   *

Jennifer Mills Kerr is the founder & lead teacher of A World in a Line, an organization that connect poets from around the world through virtual workshops. Lit-amorous, she’s on a perpetual quest for the next amazing poem to read, savor, and share. Connect with Jennifer at http://www.JenniferMillsKerr.com.

  

By Francis Rago

Ten miles from her planned exit, as the moonless sky was losing its last rays of light, 26-year-old Katherine McCann sensed a vibration coming from the rear of her car. She took her foot off the accelerator, but the noise and shaking increased. Damn! A flat tire!

She eased into the breakdown lane and got out to inspect the left rear tire. It was now completely deflated. She felt a tightening in her chest, and she had to fight hard to beat down the anxiety starting to flood her mind and body.

Two hours ago, she was sitting across from her husband in a corner booth announcing that she was leaving him. He raised his arm as if to strike her, but his hand swooped downward, sending his water glass flying against the wall eight feet away.

That would have been my face, Katie thought, if she were at home instead of in this crowded diner. She was conscious of the bruise to the side of her swollen left eye, still raw from three days ago.

Well, girl, you knew there were going to be setbacks. Trying to remain calm, Katie opened the trunk, unscrewed the bolt securing the spare tire, and struggled to lift it out of thetrunk. It felt almost as heavy as her own 110-pound, 5’2” frame. You can do this, she thought, trying to reassure herself.

Katie secured the tire iron on one of the lug nuts with its handle positioned horizontally, then stood on it, bearing down with all her weight. It still wouldn’t budge. Only when sheadded a bouncing maneuver did the nut finally become freed up.

As she struggled with the second lug nut, she looked up to see an older cargo van pulling over. It stopped about 50 feet in front of her. Two men got out.

Katie reached through the open window and grabbed her purse, slinging the long strap over her shoulder. The men approached her. As they came near, she could see they were wearing some kind of work clothes.

“Need help?” It was the taller man who called out. He was about 6’3”, in his twenties. Without waiting for a response, he walked right up to Katie and looked her over.

She could smell beer on his breath.

Katie took three steps back, placing a firmer grasp on her purse. “I’m having trouble loosening the lug nuts.”

“Hey, we got some weed in the van. You’re in no great rush, right?” He stepped up to Katie, and again leered at her.

“No thanks.” She kept walking backward, yet he continued to approach her.  

“Come on, girl. We just wanna have a little fun. We’re gonna change your tire, ya know.”

Katie could now feel her heart pounding as her brain kicked into emergency mode. She spun around and ran ten feet away. Turning to face him, she jammed her right hand deep into her purse.

“Please don’t come any closer!”

But the man kept coming. He had a grin on his face, but it did not look friendly. Her fingers frantically rooted around the bottom of her large purse as she continued to back away. 

Finally they grasped the spray can.

“Don’t come any closer!” Her voice was dry and gravelly.

The man continued to approach her.

Katie pointed the can at him, her arm fully extended. The muscles in her shoulder grew rigid, and she felt her blood’s pulsations throbbing in her temples.

“You gonna douse me with your hairspray, girlie girl?”

Katie studied his narrowing eyes. They didn’t match his forced smile. She squeezed the trigger. But what emerged from the nozzle was not a soft mist but a powerful, voluminous blast of bear spray.

It hit its target. The man’s face and upper torso were soaked with the irritating chemical. He let out a painful cry. The shorter man backed further away.

“You bitch! You fuckin’ bitch!”

He scrunched his eyes shut as hard as he could and tried to wipe away excess liquid with his fingers and his shirt sleeves.

“Billy! Help me to the van. I can’t see!”

Katie stood motionless, her arm still extended, ready to deliver another blast. 

Billy ran over and yanked the incapacitated man’s arm, pulling him toward the van. The tall man continued spewing obscenities. Then Billy opened the passenger door for his partner.

The taller man, his eyes still tightly shut, banged his head on the edge of the door, letting loose another vulgarity, this time directed at his partner.

Billy began to run around to the driver’s side, but stopped half way. He turned and stared at Katie, who was still standing in the same spot. 

Suddenly he ran over to her car, picked up the tire iron, then flung it far into the adjacent field, a flat expanse full of high grasses and dense bushes. Then he jumped into the van and sped off.

Katie climbed into her car and locked the doors. Her heart was still pounding. Traffic whizzed by at 70-80 miles per hour. She tried to fight back the tears.  

Dammit, girl. You gotta handle this. 

She got out and opened the hood of her car and got back inside and locked the doors.

She tried to block out the scenes of those two men, but the images kept pushing back.

She grabbed her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

“Well, it’s not really an emergency anymore. I had a flat tire on Interstate-35 and two guys stopped and threatened me. But they left. I just need some roadside service now. They threw my tire iron away.”

“What is your location?”

“I’m on I-35 heading north. I was about 15 minutes past Exit 194 when I got the flat.”

“We’ll get you some assistance as soon as possible. Be sure to stay in your car.”

Katie wondered whether “soon as possible” meant hours. But thankfully, ten minutes later, she could see the flashing lights of a police car coming up behind her. The trooper got out and walked slowly to her window, shining a long flashlight in her face.

“You all right?”

“I’m okay now, I guess.  A little shaken.”  

“What happened?” 

Katie gave the trooper a detailed account of her experience. She described the men andtheir van as completely as she could, apologizing for not getting their plate number.

“Well, I doubt we could charge them with anything serious. You say he didn’t touch you right?” Katie shook her head. “But are you sure you’re going to be all right?

Katie turned away, facing the field where her tire iron lay hidden somewhere. The entire event, from the vibrating flat to the men in the van driving away, flashed in her mind like avideo playing at ten times the normal speed. I just had a really bad experience, and I survived it. I’m okay. 

“Yeah, I’m all right,” she said. “I just need to borrow your tire iron.”

“Of course.” The trooper retrieved a large tire iron from his trunk. 

“I can do it,” she said decisively, grabbing the large cross-type tire iron from him. It was more of a command than a statement. She easily removed the remaining lug nuts, pulledoff the deflated tire and angrily shoved it aside. Then she lifted the spare onto the lugs.

The trooper started to twist on a lug nut. “I can do it,” she repeated, and without asking, pulled the tire iron away from him and began tightening the nuts. The long arms of the tire iron gave her plenty of leverage, and in less than two minutes, she had all five lug nuts securely fastened. 

She rolled the bad tire to the back of her car. Then she bent down into a dead lift squat,spread her arms wide to embrace the troublesome tire, lifted it high and threw it forcefully into the open trunk. She slammed the trunk closed, and it responded with aloud, deep thunk. It was a note of finality that felt good. 

She got in her car and started the engine. Giving the trooper a quick wave, Katie pulled back onto the highway and accelerated rapidly. Once she blended with the flow of traffic, she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She felt her shoulders sag.

A large green sign said the next exit was eight miles away. She smiled at the thought of a restful night’s sleep in a comfortable bed. You’re going to be all right, Katie McCann, she said to herself, then reached forward and turned on the radio.

                                                                       *   *   *

Francis Rago is a retired biology teacher. A few of his poems have been published in poetry journals. He has been writing short stories for several years. He lives in Suffield, Connecticut.

 

By Carl Bettis

This story wants to be told, but the audience won’t let it, because the story has no conflict.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” the audience chants.

“No,” the story insists, “I’m not that kind of tale. Listen, there’s a boy—”

“Hero or villain?” the audience wants to know.

“He’s average,” the story says, “in all sorts of ways. But he dreams of effervescent oceans and chattering cobras, of uranium tigers wearing lead masks. And there’s a girl—”

“Whom he loves!” the audience yells, jumping up and down. “But something’s in their way!”

“No,” the story continues, “they’re friends. This girl has only one dream—”

“To marry someone else!”

“Yes,” the story sighs, “to marry somebody else. To marry you, in fact. Which she did, and the officiant lived happily ever after.”

“Well, that was abrupt,” the audience says.

In Paris for their honeymoon, the audience is disappointed in the Louvre.

                                                   *   *   *

Carl Bettis is a writer and software engineer in the Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He publishes the online horror zine tiny frights (tinyfrights.com) and serves on the Riverfront Readings Committee (riverfrontreadings.com). His work has been published in many places, including I-70 Review, Thorny Locust, Daily Science Fiction, and the anthologies Chance of a Ghost (Helicon Nine Editions, 2005), The Whirlybird Anthology of Kansas City Writers (Whirlybird Press, 2012), and Quick Shivers from the Midwest (DailyNightmare.com, 2017). Find out more at carlbettis.com.

By J. M. Williams

It took all of one week after my best friend checked out of rehab for us to stop talking.

I picked Anya up the day she got out. She was glad for the sunshine so we drove with the top down. I kept the radio off to make sure she didn’t get bombarded with get-rich mumble rap or ads for ambulance chasers. The first place she wanted to go was our favorite microbrewery.

I laughed, furious with her. “I think we’ll be okay if we miss a Friday. You just got out.”

She scoffed, opened her hand sanitizer, shot up with a vigorous rub of the palms. “Get real, Ed” she said to me. “Beer’s not what put me in there.”

We pulled in just seven minutes down the road. I too hated the idea of missing a Friday. Missing out would have only confirmed that things were no longer normal. The moment we walked in, we were consumed by the scent and swelter of hops and barley. Regular customers approached the bar for their regular pulls, paying with tokens they had bought at the door because our state cannot help but forbid direct payment for consumption on the property. We caught up, running on a deficiency of each other even after only three weeks apart.

“What’s next for you?” I asked, eyes on my phone, swipe texting story ideas that had come to me while I was driving. 

Anya chugged the last of her beer. She always held her bottles by the neck, her fingers pinching it the same way I hold my pencils. “Same as last time,” she said. “What’s new with you? What did I miss?”

I scratched my cheek, bashful about sharing good news on the heels of her hard times. “Actually, an online lit mag picked up one of my short stories.”

She slouched with an open-wide smile. Her tank didn’t fit her frame the same way it did just three weeks prior. “No kidding? I’ll drink to that!”

We clinked bottles.

She called me the next day, fuming. I was at my computer when I picked up the phone, rewriting my cover letter for a story that had been rejected ten times already.

“Why the hell did you write that about me?” she said. 

“I didn’t,” I said, though I understood how she came to that conclusion.

“The main character’s best friend is an addict. I’m not an idiot.” Something slammed on her end of the line. 

“I know you’re not,” I stammered. “Every character’s got friends and family. They gotta come from somewhere. Doesn’t mean they’re my friends. My family.”

“Can I quote you on that? To all the people that are gonna friggin ask me what I thought about Ed’s story? Cause they’re all gonna think it’s about me.” She was slurring her words. Not the earliest in the day I’d ever heard her like that.

My fingers hovered over my keyboard. “Anya. This isn’t about you. I know it came out at a bad time, but just look at the banner on the top of the webpage. It’s fiction.”

Another slam. “Oh, like that means a damn thing. You said it yourself. Characters gotta come from somewhere.”

“I wrote that thing like three months ago.”

“You didn’t have to post the damn thing.”

The screen glowed with my digital blank page. On the corner of the desk was my mason jar filled with IPA bottle caps bashed in like heads, all craft at the bottom, more mainstream toward the top. 

“Yeah, actually. I think I did,” I said.

She hung up. 

I was left with the memory of the time in second grade when I first met Anya, when I first decided I wanted to be a writer. I came home from school. I had just written my first story for a school assignment. It was called “Dad is Sad,” about a little girl named Fran, colored in orange, who has much more fun at the park than her father, George, colored in blue. My mother took my story in her hands, five different colored sheets of construction paper hole-punched and bound with yarn. With each page, her smile fell. She trembled. With a pout, she threw my story into the kitchen trash can, then stomped off to her bedroom. The corner of my story landed in a puddle of leftover pasta sauce, but I cut around it and hid the clean part of my story under my bed. The next story I wrote for school was “My Brown Dog.” Even so, my mother refused to look at it. I set it on the dining room table for her to read when she was ready. Once she did, it got a fridge magnet seal of approval. 

I went to college for creative writing. My father called from Reno to express his disappointment. Picturing him with a coke tray in his room helped me deal. Anya and I talked on the phone every Friday night. I learned to find something real within myself to channel into every story, even the fiction. I collected a bottle cap for every new beer I tried. My professor, a grad student I fancied despite her long pinky nails and dramatic flair, stormed into our workshop saying, “So what if they see yourself in the mirror you hold up to the world?” I dropped out to focus on work, but kept writing in my spare time. Anya dropped out of her own college for different reasons, but we both found our way back home. 

Two years passed. I thought of a story that would let me explore my thoughts on drug addiction in short form. On a Monday two months later, I drove my best friend to rehab. We put the top down on the way to let the wind in our hair, blasting our new favorite song on the radio as we sang along, all smiles.

                                                              *  *  *

J. M. Williams is a writer and educator in Atlanta, GA, where he lives with his wife and their cat. He can be found in local bookshops, cafes, and move theaters, and his short fiction can be found online at the Saturday Evening Post and forthcoming on Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast.