THE LISTENING GAME BY EDWARD BARNFIELD

I’ve always been unsympathetic to complaints about pricing at Ashbury Court. Whenever some relative whines about extras on the monthly bill, I plump myself up to dress them down.  

“Who do you think is with your father/mother/granddad every day?” I ask. “Who do you think keeps them safe?” 

Families love the relatives they’ve placed in our care, you see, but they love the memory of them more. They drink tea and struggle to catch a glimpse of the person the parent used to be, faculties restored, body whole again. When they can’t find that—for that person is gone, gone—they get resentful, and jump into their sensible cars leaving someone else to clean what remains until the next visit. 

So, it’s down to me and my team to care for the residents and distract them from the unsympathetic tick of time. And I feel there’s a fair market price for that. 

When Mr. Otedola appeared, I was sceptical. He had all the right safeguarding documentation, and shining references from at least three other homes, but this tall handsome stranger in a vibrant green waistcoat seemed a touch too cosmopolitan for Ashbury Court. Still, we’d been mandated to seek out ‘third sector’ support for our residents rather than expecting government grants, so I gave him a hearing. 

“Is this some kind of theatrical production, Mr. Otedola?” I asked. 

“It is more a series of spiritual practices,” he answered. “We work to reawaken people’s appetite for life.” 

“So, a religious service? I should warn you; we have a diverse mix of faiths among our residents, and not all of them are open-minded about alternatives.” 

(I was thinking of the uproar at the most recent residents’ meeting, with the elderly Hindus insisting on separate vegetarian facilities and a war of words about kosher food on the menu. Cook was in tears by the end.) 

“Our approach will be ideal, then. Perfectly tailored,” he said and smiled. 

I’m not sure why, but I felt an enormous sense of peace when Mr. Otedola smiled. All the tension of the day, all the dry concerns about auditing and welfare checks, fell right away. I found myself agreeing to a trial run.

Few of our residents had mid-week visitors, so Wednesdays were often a long stretch of nothing, a waiting game until tea in the evening. We’d hosted a few events to break the monotony—talks from the local Women’s Institute, an overkeen physical therapist—but nothing had stuck. I thought, at the very least, that Mr. Otedola’s ‘happening’ would be something different.

I didn’t appreciate quite how different until the day came. Our television room had been transformed into a kind of velvet box, with purple drapes across the windows and walls. Mr. Otedola was there, along with two very young and very beautiful women, all dressed up in long white robes. As the residents shuffled in, the first woman, a redhead with impossibly green eyes, sang something at a high pitch, a foreign lament with a lullaby melody.

“Will we still have the cricket on this afternoon?” asked Mr. Withers, one of our longer-serving residents. 

“I’m sure we’ll be done by then,” I said, uncertainly. 

When the crowd had finally assembled, sinking into seats with various noises of deflation, Mr. Otedola stepped forward and raised a hand. The singing stopped, and the whole room seemed to take a breath. We didn’t have every resident there—perhaps about 20 or so, mostly the ladies—but the effect was electric. 

“I want you to tell me about a place where you were happiest,” he said. “Don’t give me the history, just give me specifics. What you remember, the sights and smells.”

Well, our residents are not extroverts by nature, so I didn’t expect volunteers, but Mrs. Metcalfe stood up. She has dementia, Lord bless her, and I was worried we’d hear the usual babble, but she was very precise that day, very clear. 

“I remember the garden in Cornwall,” she said. “I remember the blossom in the spring, the bees. My mother would sit in the garden shelling peas, and I could hear the wind in the poplar trees.”

Mr. Otedola’s other woman, who if I’d have to guess I’d say was West African, started sketching on a large flipchart in the corner. She drew freehand, quickly but with remarkable detail. You could see the brickwork in the cottage behind the bushes.

“That’s it,” said Mrs. Metcalfe. “Oh God, that’s it.” 

She spoke for about 12 minutes, the picture growing more intimate with every new recollection. And everyone in the room was rapt, amazed. It was like opening a window to Mrs. Metcalfe’s past, seeing how her life was back then. Quite a conjuring trick. 

Mrs. Subramanian stood next. “The house in Chennai. There were bougainvillea vines all down the walls, and sometimes monkeys would scamper up them.” 

I wondered if the foreignness of the memory might defeat Mr. Otedola’s assistant, her clever fingers unable to capture such post-imperial specifics, but I suppose most of these images were exotic to her. She drew, and as she drew the long-ago building in Tamil Nadu reappeared.

Mrs. Subramanian’s response was as marked as Mrs. Metcalfe’s, an old lady transported. By then, the whole room was captured. I saw Mr. Withers’ leg pumping, his heel bobbing with excitement. He didn’t get to watch the cricket that day and didn’t care. 

Like all modern institutions, we ask for feedback after events, the care workers passing forms around in the canteen. Our residents are usually non-committal, unwilling to collect their scattered thoughts on paper, or alternatively all too eager to grumble about old grievances. In the case of Mr. Otedola’s session, the response was overwhelmingly positive. 

“First time I’ve been heard in years,” one said. “Remarkable,” another. 

I was, I suppose, moved by the comments. I never had the chance to sit with my own parents in their twilight years—both passed when I was still at college—so it was gratifying to read such heartfelt appreciation. 

“The listening is the key,” Mr. Otedola told me in my office the next day. “My team know to let people talk and to really concentrate on what they’re trying to tell us.” 

We agreed he could come in every Wednesday for a month. I suggested a very modest fee, which he accepted without comment. Again, he smiled, and I felt at peace. 

Next week, the television room wasn’t big enough. Almost every resident had signed up, spurred on by the animated testimonies of Mesdames Subramanian and Metcalfe. We opened out the recreation room, stacking the game tables in a corner. This time, the space was decked out in deep magenta fabric of a quite remarkable shade. Mr. Otedola and his team wore orange, and the girl sang the same slow song as the residents scruffled to their seats. 

“Today, I would like you to tell me about one person who made a real difference in your life,” said Mr. Otedola. “Someone you remember when you close your eyes, whose voice you can hear in your mind. Tell me every detail.” 

I have to say, he did a very good job of managing his audience. Everyone had the chance to speak, no-one was rushed, all were included. Our residents told of former lovers, wartime friends, their children, not as they are, but as they were. There was no shame, no regret. Everyone opened the secret compartments of their hearts while the African woman sketched and Mr. Otedola smiled. 

At the end, there was another magician’s flourish. The paper the woman had used was thin, like rice paper, so that a few times her pencil tore through a layer. When our last resident had finished speaking, she began flipping the sheets back, one over the other, and you could see each sketch appear through its predecessor, a crowd scene forming with babies at the feet and old comrades at the back. It was a remarkable effect—the residents’ memories merging in a single image, perfectly proportioned, like a football team’s photo. The applause was terrific. 

“Let me tell you, friends,” said Mr. Otedola when the noise died down. “This,” – he pointed at the picture – “is what waits for us all. This is what it’s like in heaven. Now, is that anything to be afraid of?” 

It was beautiful. Even now, I feel the hairs rise on the back of my neck. 

After that, we saw Mr. Otedola and his girls around Ashbury Court quite a lot. You’d go into the lounge and one of them would be sitting with a resident, with Withers or Subramanian or Metcalfe or any of the others. On their first visits, they presented people with copies of their drawings, the pencil sketches of much-loved faces and places. Then they began to do private sessions in people’s rooms, recreating some part of the past immaculately while the green-eyed woman hummed her little serenades. 

I tried to tackle Mr. Otedola about this unapproved activity, to point out that we had only agreed to weekly public meetings, but he was so charming when we spoke. 

“It’s no problem for us to come,” he told me. “The pictures belong to these people. They are their memories, after all. And we want them to know these moments still have value, to them and to us.” 

He wasn’t asking for any extra money. At least, not from me. When he left, I found a small pencil doodle on the back of one of our care assessment forms. It was of a beach in Malaga, the one I visited all those years ago with Greta. Our last holiday together, as it turned out. I can’t think when I’d mentioned it. 

A couple of weeks later, Mrs. Metcalfe’s son came to see me. Mr. Otedola had cancelled his last Wednesday session, claiming one of his assistants had flu-like symptoms, and I thought the boy was angry about that. (People were still paranoid about COVID back then). Instead, he unfurled a screwed-up piece of paper on my desk and stabbed at it with a fat finger.

“See this? You think this is worth an old lady’s pension? The amount of money we pay you, you can’t protect my mother from this?” 

He was a strutting bantam of a man, a mass of entitlement packed into an off-grey suit, and I didn’t appreciate his tone. The paper was the sketch from that very first session, the cottage in Cornwall, although it had been badly handled since then.

“I don’t think Mr. Otedola is charging people for these pictures, Mr. Metcalfe,” I said, trying to mind my manners. “And if your mother has elected to pay something for it, then she is entitled to spend her money as she wishes, surely. It is … was a beautiful drawing.” 

(You’ve barely visited five times in the last year, I wanted to say. Your awful child screamed the house down for a wi-fi code last time you were here). 

“The drawing is not the issue,” he said.  

He handed me a second piece of paper, smaller and better preserved than the first. It was a contract, showing that Mrs. Metcalfe had agreed to pay £20,000 in return for a plot of land in the afterlife. The contract guaranteed a view of the ocean, and a ring of poplar trees around the garden. The sketch was included as an artist’s impression of the property. It was signed in Mr. Otedola’s clear hand. 

I managed to persuade the son to leave the issue with me, dissuaded him from calling the police for at least a couple of days. It gave us time to speak to the other residents, all those people who’d received extra visits in recent weeks, to assess the extent of the damage. 

You probably know what came next. The local newspaper was ruthless in its coverage, although seemed incapable of spelling the names of those involved correctly. They ran sad-faced photographs of distraught relatives day-after-day, bemoaning the loss of their inheritances. They interviewed some of our residents and seemed disappointed when none of them would complain about the security of their investment, proved impossible to shift from their faith in their land rights in paradise. They even tried chasing down Mr. Otedola and his assistants, but they were long gone.

Of course, Ashbury Court couldn’t escape. We had to take the outrage, the accusations. How could we let someone exploit these people’s loneliness? they asked. (Who let them get so lonely? I wanted to reply). 

There was a half-hearted investigation, some rummaging around in bank accounts to see if any of us had been beneficiaries for what was called a ‘shocking and unacceptable failure of the system.’ They didn’t find anything. In fact, the police inspector seemed almost sympathetic to me, lamenting that someone who had worked in the care sector for nearly 30 years had so little left for my own retirement. 

I didn’t mind. Even when I was called in front of the board of directors and told—somewhat unceremoniously—that my services would no longer be required, I didn’t complain. I already had my reward, you see. 

A total of 150 acres, stretching out beyond the horizon. It has a replica of the Malaga beach, and a villa identical to the one I shared with Greta. Mr. Otedola came to me late one evening, to say thanks for all my help, and told me he’d been holding one plot back. He even gave me a discount. 

My own piece of heaven. 

#

Edward Barnfield is a writer and researcher living in the Middle East. His stories have appeared in Roi Fainéant Press, Ellipsis Zine, The Molotov Cocktail, Retreat West, Third Flatiron, Strands, Janus Literary, Leicester Writes, Shooter Literary and Triangulation, among others. In 2023, he was longlisted for the Galley Beggar Press and shortlisted for the Mairtín Crawford short story awards. He’s on Twitter at @edbarnfield.

THE WORTH OF AN EAR BY PATRICK WHITEHURST

All color bled from Harry Compton’s face.

He had history with van Gogh. Not like how he felt for O’Keefe and George Rodrigue. Vincent rubbed him wrong these days. It had nothing to do with Starry Night, or the Yellow House, and everything to do with his fucking ear. Rodrigue had Blue Dog, Georgia had her genital flowers, van Gogh had that ear thing. He also had his sunflowers, self-portraits, nappers, and whatever else. But for Compton, the ear put the sold sticker on the man’s forehead. Made van Gogh infamous and gave Harry Compton night sweats.

And here he stood, having just paid a chunk of change for the entrance into the van Gogh Experience. No detectors in the joint and no wands. He doubted he could do the deed. The place was gloomy, lit by spotlights like half the pretentious clubs in the Bay Area. Fancy shit everywhere. Large plastic sunflowers glued to a dark blue wall behind his head. Straight razor in his pocket. Wad of paper towels in the other. Glad he wore the baggy brown corduroys for this. Deep pockets made none of it visible to outside eyes. Not that he planned to shit himself, but they’d do a good job hiding it from the art geeks if he did. 

Dressed in the brown cords, a black hoodie with black Nikes, blonde hair slicked back over his noggin, he looked like every other asshole in the city. Another young artist amidst the dad guts and bored tourists. One or two dudes in dark flannels milled about too. Looked like they’d be more at home serving shots in a seedy, pseudo-intellectual dive bar. Vincent attracted everyone. 

The exhibit on Van Ness kept the Arles incident to a minimum. That’s where he cut, southern France, after some bullshit spat with Gauguin. Downplaying the butchery didn’t come as a surprise to Compton. Keep the ear removal mysterious, keep it fresh. Marketing without marketing. Powers that be probably wanted to focus on the man and his art and throw a few pounds of dirt over the lengths to which his depression took him. 

It’s what fascinated Harry, though. In college, suffering through class after fucking class at the University of California Parnassus, he’d found himself rubbed the right way by van Gogh’s story. He majored in Art History, studied a lot of undiagnosed melancholia funneled through paint brushes, but couldn’t shake Vincent’s haunted eyes and bandaged head. 

First thing he came upon.  A giant bust of the man himself. Head so big that, if it had a body attached, the thing would be three stories tall. Both ears, too. Compton stared into the giant’s eyes. A projector illuminated its flesh, altering it, but Harry didn’t pay any attention.

He thought about his own left ear. The right side is more sensitive they say, not that he thought it would make much of a difference when it came to the pain. Would his acrylics, the seagulls on poop-stained wharf pillars, earn him a three-story version of his head? Or would the ear? Compton spent years honing the craft. Thousands of photos on his cell phone of western gulls perched on pillars. Opted for acrylics to start. See what the buyers liked. Of course, they wanted oils on canvas. Takes a long time to produce, unlike acrylics, which can dry in an hour. Linseed oil, quick dry solutions, none of that shit came cheap. And he’d already spent half his life in hipster farmers markets watching people buy forty-dollar vermillion hearts painted on wooden blocks, bundles of organic green onions, and not a single San Francisco Gull. Not even the hundred-dollar ones. 

Without realizing it, Harry pulled the straight razor from his pocket. The metal felt warm in his sweaty palm. His left ear, oddly enough, felt hot. Vincent’s lobe consumed him. He lost interest in the paintings, in the story of van Gogh’s tormented childhood, and allowed that bit of cartilage to rub him wrong.

No turning back now, he told himself. He positioned the razor, thinking he’d pretend to shave at first, something non-threatening, then thought better of it and went to put the blade back in his pocket. A hand grabbed it, lowering the blade for him. 

“Not here,” a male’s voice whispered in his hear. “Supposed to do it in the Bedroom at Arles installation.”

One of the bartenders. The man stood a few inches taller than Harry. Not a brawny gent, but muscular. Dark flannel shirt, tan khakis, and black, slip-on canvas shoes. He let go and Harry slid the blade back into his cords.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The man didn’t make eye contact. Stared at the bust like a true art nut. “I’m here to make sure you do it. No turning back now.” He repeated Harry’s thoughts out loud. “Now would be a good time to see that bedroom. Not a lot of people.”

The Bedroom at Arles. One of Vincent’s famous paintings. Little chair, little window, little-ass bed with a red blanket, and little doubt the location where that loser sliced off his flesh. Done up just so, a perfect reproduction of the random room with random crap. 

He faced the bedroom scene. Photos were allowed, people were allowed, and Harry didn’t want to set foot on the faux floorboards. When he turned to flee, the bartender blocked his way.

“Your phone. Give it to me,” he said.

Harry handed it over reluctantly. His hands shook. “You know how to go live? On Facebook? I can set it up if you don’t, uh…”

“Sam. No, I got it. Get your ass in that chair.”

Harry Compton never begged. He’d thought about it at those farmers markets when someone would show a glimmer of interest. But even then, he couldn’t bring himself to schlep. Today, that shit came easy.

“Listen, Sam. I’ve changed my mind. This is America. We can’t do that here. Can’t go through with it.”

“My America says get up there. Promised two grand to make sure it happens. Live on social for the world to see. Once I agree to a job, no stopping me.”

Harry Compton stared into the man’s cold, dark eyes. “But… but I hired you.”

The man named Sam paused. “Prove it,” he said.

“Open my Gmail. You’ll see the fake account. I still have it up. Right there in the sent folder.”

Sam closed out of the social media app as Harry Compton watched. The hired thug took a beat to stare at the phone’s background, at Harry’s gull portrait with French fries in its beak, then tapped away to find the email app.

“Ugly bird.” He lowered the cell a moment later. “Found it. You said you were a doctor. Something about blackmail.”

Compton shook his head. “All bullshit. Name’s Harry Compton. I’m an artist. Hired you because I wanted someone to hold me accountable. I fucking want to do this. Sam, I can’t stand the farmers markets. Columbia vest-wearing mother fuckers … but I can’t use this thing. Even for the fifteen minutes.” He patted the metal in his corduroys. Sweat ran down the bridge of his nose.

“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes,” Sam said. 

“What’s that?”

“Andy Warhol. Listen, Picasso. Pay me the two grand if you hired me. Don’t give two shits if you wuss out. Just want the money.”

Harry Compton’s eyes drooped. He stared at the man’s cheap slip-on shoes. The Arles chair called out to him from the installation. 

Harry never felt so poor. “Spent the last of it getting into the exhibit.”

The man sighed. He lifted the cellphone. “Live in ten seconds. Get up there or I’ll run that straight edge over your damn throat. Sell this video and you can pay me. Prove you’re not some wannabe.”

“My folks have money, I could ask them … friends too, a few, who might …”

But then he realized his parents had cut him off.  No friends. Nothing. Just those fucking gulls. And shore birds wouldn’t pay this man he’d hired. He pulled the straight edge from his corduroys. Felt the spotlight when he stepped into the installation. Golden rays burst from the stainless steel. Made it hard to see the man in the flannel shirt. Good. He sat in the chair. 

Metal felt hot against his ear. Fucking van Gogh. Fucking Sam.

#

(Photograph above: author Patrick Whitehurst, in full research mode)

Patrick Whitehurst writes nonfiction and fiction. His short stories have appeared in Punk Noir, Shotgun Honey, Pulp Modern and elsewhere. Find him online at patrickwhitehurst.com.

A LONGING FOR LUXURY BY DAVID HAGERTY

If you saw me on the street, you’d never guess that I design luxury goods. I rarely wear branded clothes and never anything flashy. Nothing with the maker’s logo anywhere but on the tag. I prefer not to be noticed, not to call attention to myself.

Which is why I won’t tell you my name, where I live, my background, nor anything else identifying. One of the benefits to working online is anonymity. No one knows who you are—only what you are.

I can tell you that I am a respectable, tax-paying merchant whose only desire is to please his customers. I own a small business selling handbags, scarves, gloves, and other fashion accessories that appeal to a discerning customer. My shoppers know quality and expect it.

Which is why I start every day by checking the overnight orders. Fulfillment, as the retailers now term it, is a fitting name for what we do, which satisfies both buyer and seller. They get an item they covet, and I get the rewards of another happy customer.

Only on this day, instead of my usual positive reviews, I saw one labelled BEWARE OF FAKES!!! The all caps drew my attention, plus the urgent !!! at the end. Probably a bot, I thought, but opened it anyway. Inside I saw more excessive capitalization and punctuation.

“I BOUGHT A LV HANDBAG FROM HERE, BUT IT IS NOT AS ADVERTISED!!!??? IF THIS IS LV, I’M KIM K.!!!!!!!” wrote glamourgrl69@everonline.com.

Truth is, I never claimed LV made her bag. I posted a picture of it with the label adjacent, but nowhere did I say it was his work. Those of us in the trade hate the term knockoff, which implies a poor imitation. Rather, I created an homage, a derivation of a specific designer’s style, one hand-stitched by skilled craftspeople overseas. A savvy shopper would know the difference.

Besides the tone, what irked me most was the pretense. Most people, when presented with a worthy tribute, can’t tell the difference. They overpay for a label—not quality, not artistry, not durability. What’s in a name? Nothing but snob value. 

My customers still get an exemplary bag. If they can suppress the common obsession with provenance, they’ll see the craft is the same. Maybe superior, in some cases. That is what draws buyers back to my site. Why enrich some French or Italian designer when you can support a working artist like myself? Only for bragging rights.

I gazed about my atelier—really a small, spare warehouse—looking for some distraction, but the windowless square offered none, only the rattle of metal roofing and the smell of sausage from a butcher next door. All around me stood stacks of goods, waiting for loving homes. Blank boxes of scarves and hats and bags, near replicas of the most exclusive designers.

Someday soon I plan to escape my own enterprise. Within a year, I will have the capital to start my own label so I can charge prices more in keeping with the workmanship of my goods and stop relying on the brand names of others. Because no one will bankroll a poor kid from New Jersey, no matter how strong his business plan, I have to fund myself. Until then, I remained a humble seamstress, working in anonymity.

I decided to do some trolling of my own and discovered a half dozen social media accounts for my accuser, all with photos of her showing off her goods: shorts with the brand name silkscreened across the butt, tops with a huge label imprinted on the chest, handbags with the designer’s logo used as a pattern, even a hat with the maker’s moniker visible. She flashed a spray-on tan and an excess of sparkly blue eyeshadow. Even though she couldn’t have celebrated her twenty-fifth birthday, she already showed surgical enhancement: inflated breasts, puffy lips. She was picture living—grasping at luxury, from her French tipped nails to her blond-tipped ends. I could even conjure the excess of her perfume, a noxious lavender blend popular at the time. A pure sybarite. 

In the dictionary, you’ll find two definitions for vain:

1. having an excessive opinion of one’s appearance, ability or worth
2. producing no result; useless

Both would apply to this princess, who lived a fantasy inspired by all the unreality shows you see on television, glorifying spoiled rich girls whose only talent is shopping. They haven’t the taste or the style to discern trendy from tasteful nor glamorous from gaudy. They may as well wear an outfit literally stitched from currency. Because Americans don’t have a class system, we equate status with wealth and bestow high status on the leisure classes, people wholly unworthy of such adulation. What did they derive from such conspicuous consumption? Any satisfaction, any satiation, or just a limitless desire for excess? I give people that same thrill of luxury goods at a price they can afford.

Nonetheless, I wrote back a polite response, vouching for the caliber of my merchandise—all handmade—and the legitimacy, without naming names. I thought that would placate her, but twenty minutes later I saw a reply with yet more caps and exclamation points. UR A FRAUD, A CHEAT, A FORGER…. it started. I deleted it without reading the rest and retired to filling orders for customers more willing to indulge the fantasy that they were buying the genuine article at a tenth the price.

That should have put an end to it, but an hour later my web designer messaged me. “Your social media is blowing up!” I forgave him the figurative exaggeration and checked my online monitors. True enough, I had over a hundred mentions that day on review sites and message boards, all with that same tone—“CHISELER, CHEAT, SWINDLER, SCAMMER, FLIMFLAMMER, BAMBOOZLER, CON ARTIST…” Was this shrew streaming a thesaurus? She continued, “I checked with LV, who confirmed these are cheap copies. Look around! No one else sells for this price…” Worse, she’d garnered thousands of likes and shares. Who was this woman, some influencer of influencers? I’d received bad reviews before—we all have—but never such vitriol. One review even called me a Jew although you’ll find nothing about my religion or ethnicity anywhere online, not even a last name. Further proof of her prejudice against those of us who work for a living.

“What can you do to silence this harpy?” I wrote back to my web guru and waited impatiently as the three dots of composition flashed.

“Nothing,” he wrote.

True, I could ask retailers to take down this libelous material, but it’s a slow labor. While they offer unchecked editorial to anyone with a keyboard, from respectable merchants they demand proof worthy of a slander trial. Such an unproductive use of time. So I posted back on a few sites, “See five years of positive reviews from satisfied customers,” and trusted that my intended audience would see through the gaslighting.

Shortly, I received another inquiry, this one more polite. “Are your goods authentic?” wrote Pennywise Penny. 

After some thought, I decided based on the correct punctuation it couldn’t be from that same shrew and replied, “Absolutely!” stealing the unnecessary exclamation from my persecutor. 

Such assurance satisfied most inquisitors, but this one replied, “So they are designer?”

I thought a bit about this query, as I didn’t wish to lie. “Custom-made and designed!” 

Quickly, she answered again, “But are they as labelled?” 

Normally, I wouldn’t engage in pointless word play, but that town crier had so unsettled me, I exceeded my usual guarantees. “Every product is as advertised,” I wrote and closed my computer.

To escape the insatiable internet, I packed some shipping boxes the old-fashioned way—by hand, with tape and tissue paper. Unlike most designers, I like interacting with my goods—the smell of the leather, the feel of the stitching. I don’t have an army of employees engaged in the grunt work, distancing me from my customers, only a couple kids who need diversion after school. I relish touching every aspect of my business.

After an hour away from the scurrilous screen, I reawakened my laptop expecting a trickle of new purchases. Instead, I saw an email labelled “Cease and Desist Order.” Without evidence, it accused me of trademark infringement. Some lawyer working for LV threatened to sue me for $250K per offense. The note contained the usual high-handed legalese composed to confuse and intimidate anyone without a JD degree, which I don’t have or want, and demanded that I stop “advertising, selling, distributing, or merchandising” most of my best-selling items.

I’d heard of such injunctions against some of my competitors, but I’d always stayed small and discrete enough to evade detection. Given the timing, I assumed that harpy had turned me into the company as revenge for my courteous reply. I did some quick calculations and realized I’d barely break even without those items. Instead, I asked of my supplier if I could change the designs before his next shipment.

“For the right price, sure,” he wrote, “but you gotta get me the artwork fast.”

I promised to do so and hung up before realizing the futility of the effort. My goods mimicked the style of one artist. Under any other name, they’d be discounted as mashups, not homages.

What could I do? Relegate myself to flea markets or art fairs? Dump my remaining inventory as seconds and find some new items to honor? No. I’d worked too long—five years—to give up on this business model. At my current rate of sales, it would take barely 15 months to accrue the capital I needed for my own label. Besides, nobody believes you carry quality if you don’t have at least a website.

I could instead ignore the enjoinder—force them to find my humble hideout, since all legal paperwork must be served in person. I purposely hide my address online in case someone takes after me. Better not to act as a peacock—better to leave that to the name designers.

To be safe, I logged into my vendor’s site to shut down new orders temporarily while I reconnoitered. Only the legal eagles had acted already—blocking all transactions. This couldn’t be the work of my persecutor, nor even LV. No consumer outside of Jeff Bezos has that much power. There had to be some invisible force at work here.

Then I thought of that second query—that polite but insistent question about the authenticity of my goods. I reread the message for a true identity or even a pen name but found none. When I traced the email address—iclaudia76@retail.net—I found no evidence of her. No one who posted on social media using that nickname, no pictures linked to it, no hashtags that referenced it. A honey pot. Likely a criminal prosecutor trying to get me to incriminate myself, which I’d avoided, but not by enough to satisfy the technocrats.

Yet they could put me out of business. Without my best seller or my best retailer, I’d have to act like the guys on the street corners of 5th Avenue—with their suitcases of gloves and scarves, looking around nervously for the cops—or work out of the trunk of my car like some professional shoplifter. I’d never regress to that klepto-capitalism. I may as well walk around in a trench coat packed with stolen watches.

Unless… I reinvented myself. A new identity, email, and website. That part would come quick enough, but rebuilding my following—generating positive reviews and online buzz—would require much longer. It takes years to develop a platform, a following.

Still, when faced with annihilation, what choice did I have? Adapt or die, as someone said. Social Darwinism.

I understood then the mistake I’d made: I’d been too visible. Much like my customers, I’d been too eager for attention. Going forward, I had to create an avatar, one so fully formed no one could recognize its originator.

The makeover me would be smarter, more circumspect. I could again capitalize on people’s longing for luxury, but this time I’d know better than to admit my artifice. I’d recreate products so accurately not even the source could tell the difference. Until I had enough savings to strike out on my own, I’d be a perfect knockoff artist, subsuming my creativity in the fame of others. I’d help my customers construct the glamorous image they wanted while I remained an anonymous haberdasher—always at hand for a fitting accessory or a distinctive statement.

Truly, it’s better to be a good fraud than a bad original.

#

David Hagerty has published four novels in the Duncan Cochrane mystery series, which chronicles crime and dirty politics in Chicago during his childhood, and more than two dozen short stories, most with a criminal bent. Read more of his work at https://davidhagerty.net.

LOOT BOX BY SEAN MELROSE-AUKEMA

Skeleton Jed Barstow was looking for a tactical shotgun. Extra potent at close range, pump action, nice and manoeuvrable. He would’ve had it three days ago, if the hands he got dealt were even remotely fair. You’ve got a 30% chance of making a pair on the flop in Texas hold ’em. Ten hands, three fighting chances. Despite his love of odds and probability, in the game of life it seemed Skeleton Jed was a statistical anomaly, and got fucked every single time. 

He should’ve known it’d end like this. Unknown representatives of the worst organisation in the city on their way, and him still empty-handed. These were wild dogs, diseased, hungry, and deranged. The type you never borrow money from. The type whose polished shoes you don’t want treading your carpet under any circumstances. He’d taken the cash anyway, just another in a string of bad decisions. It had to turn at some point though, didn’t it? Funny, how quitting poker didn’t make him any less of a gambler.

Skeleton Jed had sworn to himself he’d never lay another one of his long, white, bony fingers on a card. He was done with poker. He needed something with better odds. Inside his apartment, skeletal hands rested a few centimetres from a glowing gamer’s keyboard. Despite the tension in the room they remained still. A can of Red Bull sat within reach of the right hand, and next to it, an up-ended bottle of NoDoz with its pills spilling out. A 32-inch monitor rose above the assorted takeaway boxes cluttering the rest of the desk. Like a blue campfire, the screen cast its glare in a tight circle, hiding things in the darkness outside its range: a mattress with tangled sheets, a pack of playing cards in an aluminium trash can, a cavernous hall leading to the front door. There was a camera above the hall doorway and its red light blinked occasionally, like the eye of an evil bat … half asleep. 

There was no poker on the display, just the pause menu of a Wild-West-themed video game showing digital loot boxes for sale, each painted with a black question mark. Rough words painted on a wooden signpost declared Win and Grin Partner: Weapon Lottery. There was a bleep from a set of speakers hidden under the takeaway detritus. A message flashed on the screen. Congratulations! Your Both Barrels Crate contained: Antique Silver Rapier. Click yes to accept.The long-fingered hands on the desk stayed where they were, pale blue under the light of the display. No cursor moved, yet the ‘yes’ button appeared to have been clicked. To all appearances there was a ghost in the machine. One who didn’t care about playing Both Barrels, just the in-game items. 

Skeleton Jed didn’t have much in the way of looks, hence the name. Rakish and rangy, with luminous skin and sharp cheekbones, he didn’t do well in the bars along the famed Black Cat Alley. Fish in a barrel he’d been told, but again, the odds were mysteriously stacked against him. Words tumbled in his head and slipped out in the wrong order. There never seemed to be anywhere to put his hands. Those long fingers could code though. Probably too well, by his own admission. 

He’d known for weeks of course, that some sort of script was the only way. Anyone manually using the mouse and keyboard to purchase the loot boxes legally didn’t stand a chance. It had only taken him half an hour to write some code that exploited a vulnerability on the data access layer of the platform’s e-commerce system, including a neat little sub-routine to ward off eager security bots. The last thing he wanted was to get banned from the Both Barrels servers. At the time he’d thought it was laughably easy. He’d even written the eBay ad, ‘Tactical Shotgun, serious buyers only.’

The loan shark had sent another email two days previous, seemingly from Hammond’s Master Printers. At first, he’d found it amusing, their desire to conform to every gangster movie stereotype. The ridiculous front company. Even the lowered Chrysler 300 in front of their sham office building made him shake his head. After their emails though, it stopped being funny. This most recent one had said they’d be visiting at midnight sharp in two days, to repossess anything of value and repair their reputation. It had been followed by a text. We’re going to shatter your skeleton, Skeleton. He recognized the number. Carl, calls himself Febs, Febbrano. They didn’t care if he knew who sent it. 

The in-game clock on the screen read 11.21. The computer humming under the desk would be the first victim. Hawked at some pawn shop for half its real value. Skeleton Jed winced and squeezed his smartphone so hard it made a sound like popping candy. The speakers bleeped again, another item. A golden Glock. Useless. Only the Tactical Shotgun could deliver the cash he needed. Both Barrels fans had gone mad when it surfaced that there was an edge to be gained in competitive online play. Ethical debate raged. Meanwhile, game accounts with the shotgun attached were going on eBay for twenty grand. The ultimate digital status symbol. 

11.39. Another bleep. It appears you’re purchasing more than your usual amount of crates today, are you sure you want to continue? Yes. Just part of the game’s political window dressing, front-end stuff, not connected to anything important. Skeleton Jed had checked. Still, every transaction was costing him a few cents, draining the last drips of his bank account. Refunds or cancellation hacks hadn’t been an option, at this scale the admins would’ve been on him in a flash. His code exploited their lazy approach to incoming funds, and duped the system into thinking it was being paid more than it was. Nobody looks twice when they’re making money. Shit Jed, he thought, if you’re so smart, where’s the bloody shotgun then?

Skeleton Jed’s cheap and baggy suit had sleeves that came down to the first set of knuckles. A plastic ring with a fake emerald he’d got from a gumball machine adorned a bony ring finger. Jet black hair shining blue in the light of the screen hung down across the suit’s padded shoulders. Hollow eyes remained fixed on the screen. It was 11.45. Another bleep, another useless weapon. Maybe the Both Barrels programmers had injected a patch to remove the shotgun from the game. Unlikely but not impossible. 

Skeleton Jed pushed the thought away. Twenty grand could fix it. This next loot box could be the one. Another bleep, still nothing. 11.55. They’d be here any second now. Hammond’s Master Printers were nothing if not punctual. Twenty grand could fix it though, twenty grand could fix—

Heavy thumps vibrated through the room. 

“Payment is overdue Skeleton. Open up for your old pal Carl, we don’t ask twice.”

Hollow eyes continued to bore into the screen, a rictus grin completing the waxen visage. He might as well see it through to the bitter end. There was a long pause, interrupted only by the speakers bleeping. It appears you’re purchasing more than your usual amount of crates today, are you sure you want to continue? Yes… 

Crash. The door splintered on its hinges and two men in suits came stumbling into the room, the first of them holding a baseball bat. He had thick wide lips, smile wrinkles, and wet hair slicked back. In the doorway behind him, a younger man with a broad chest and crew cut glanced nervously at the empty street. Their heads and shoulders held the fresh sheen of rain. There was a moment of quiet, just the rain falling and the traffic outside. The first of the men held his bat up behind his head, as if he were about to swing for a home run. They edged forward.

Heavy footsteps on the fluffy hall carpet. The bat swished through the air and struck the skull with a hollow crack. The entire plastic skeleton crumpled to the floor. The strike was so hard the wig fell into the computer chair. 

“Fucking Skeleton,” the batter said. 

“Over here, Febs,” the younger one said, nodding at the security camera above the hall doorway.

Febs turned and pointed his weapon. “You watching Skeleton boy? We’re going to— what the?”

There was a double bleep from the speakers and a short fanfare. A message popped up. Congratulations! Your Both Barrels Crate contained: Tactical Shotgun. Click yes to—

“What is this shit?” Febs said, tapping the keyboard with his bat. Lines of code began scrolling, and a message appeared in a black terminal window. Skeleton injection interrupted. Press (y) to continue, (x) to close script. 

Febs shook his head. “You got time for video games, Skeleton?”

Fifty kilometres away, on a seedy hotel bed, Skeleton Jed sat up with his phone. He yelled at the video feed on screen. “No! Don’t!”

Febs was already crouching and reaching for the power cable. The screen on the desk went blank. 

“Nooooo!!!”

Febs stood, swiped a hand through his glistening hair, and approached the security camera, his face suddenly huge and menacing on the phone’s screen. The lips were wide and white in the camera’s night vision, the teeth exposed. A smile on loan from The Joker. 

“Be seeing you real soon,” Febs growled, and swung the bat. There was a pop on the phone’s video feed, then nothing but static. 

#

Sean Melrose-Aukema is a fiction writer, copywriter, and former sports journalist from Australia. You can find more of his work in Mystery Magazine, Mystery Tribune, Shotgun Honey, and Bristol Noir. He lives in Norway with his family. 

IT’S NOT DIRT BY CRAIG TERLSON

A sliver of the garden, black as my mom’s coffee, shouted at me from our bay window. The garden was my dad’s project, but I was the one on the end of the dumb shovel. I’d been trying to read my new Philip K. Dick paperback, and it pissed me off that the patch of dirt on the front yard was in my sight. When my father came home, he’d expect the weeds to be yanked, everything watered, and deadheads to be deaded—or whatever the hell it was called.

There was another big pile of dirt in the back yard. So much dirt. I went outside to start the chore. As I tied my Gazelles, a woman in a yellow dress came up our front sidewalk, sunlight sparkling on her and something she carried. As she came into focus, I stood, one lace still undone. I was dizzy but not from standing up.

“Do you mind if I look?” she asked.

I’d never seen her on my street before. I would have remembered.

“At what?” I took a half step, tripped and almost fell.

Her laugh was the warmest thing I’d heard that spring.

“Be careful.” She kneeled by the garden. “Might be too wet, but the soil is rich.”

“Uh, yeah. I just do what my–” I stopped. “What I’m told.”

She plunged her hand into the dirt and brought up a thick clump, squeezing it through her fingers.

“Leave it for today,” she brushed her hands, then unsure where to put them, she held them up to me. “Could I come in and use your sink?”

I leapt up the stairs and held the door open. She smelled like Christmas oranges. She gave a nod, and maybe a wink. Did I imagine that? She had to be ten years older than me. A glittery purse on a thin leather strap hung across the tight yellow dress. I followed her in, hoping she didn’t hear the pounding coming from my chest. 

“Straight through to the kitchen, yep, on the right.”

She ran her hands underneath the faucet, the water burbling over the dirt as she rubbed them. My dad would have said she had curves in all the right places. I always thought that was a creepy thing to say. 

I handed her a clean tea towel, pushing away my mother’s chiding about using them only for dishes. After she dried her hands, she readjusted the purse.

“You all by yourself here? No one else around?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

“You must be back from university, on a break.” She studied a photo of my parents stuck to the fridge by a cat magnet that read hang in there baby.

I rubbed the stubble on my chin that I’d been trying for a week to make into something. I wasn’t about to tell her the break was from Grade 12.

“Yeah,” I said.

She floated out of the kitchen into the living room. Outside, an engine gunned and a flash of red zoomed past our bay window. She turned from the window, walking past the chesterfield, Dad’s recliner, our chipped coffee table, and the upright piano.

“Oh, do you play?” she ran a finger across the keys. “I love musicians, simply love them.”

“A bit.” My voice skipped and it sounded like I said a beet. I coughed. “I’m in a band.”

“Will you play something? You won’t wake anyone up?”

It was 1:00 in the afternoon. Why would she think that? The engine noise was distant, but still revving, tires squealed around a corner. I sat down and played the solo from an Art Tatum tune my high school jazz band had been working on. 

“Oh, you really can play. That’s jazz, right?”

“Uh-huh.” I faded off my playing.

“No, keep going. It’s like I’m in one of those clubs you see in old movies.”

She leaned forward, hovering above me, her scent filling the room. A car honked right when I played the last chord. Her hand touched my shoulder, and she played an imaginary trill with her fingertips, trailing down to my bare arm. Her fingers left my skin, and she turned back toward the bay window.

“Music makes me feel like I’m somewhere else. Does it do that to you?”

I caught a slur in her voice, and reconsidered the scent I thought was her perfume. Dad had a brandy that smelled like oranges.

“Sometimes I see myself playing at one of those clubs. But there’s nothing like that around here.”

“I went to a place like that once. It was dark with blue lights that lit up the smoke. There was a lot of smoke. Women with big mouths laughed. Do you have anything we could drink?” she asked.

It took me a second.

“Uh, there’s some Seven-Up in the fridge.”

“What about something to go with the Seven-Up?”

Heat went into my cheeks.

“Sure. I’ve got something.” 

I grabbed the pop from the fridge, and reached below the sink where Dad kept his forty of rye, making a mental note to top it with water after she left. There was another honk outside. What the hell? We never have much traffic on our street. I poured the whiskey into two tumblers, grabbed some ice and spun off the pop lid. She put her hand on mine, stopping me.

“Just like that is good. I like to feel it burn, no bubbles.”

“Yeah, me too.” I handed her the glass.

She took a long drink, leaving a line of red against the tumbler. 

“Should we drink these in the kitchen or go somewhere more civilized?” She looked down the hall. “Where do you sleep?”

“In the basement.”

My answer came out too fast—I wanted to take her down there, lead her into my bedroom, and then I didn’t know what. Except downstairs were my basketball trophies, and my action figures that me and Jerry still traded back and forth—right next to the box of comics for shit’s sake. I swear if that yellow dress got any tighter she’d pop right out of it. Did I still have that condom Jerry gave me? Is that what she’d want? Jesus, what if I don’t know how to put it on?

 She gave a laugh that turned into a cough.

“Let’s go back to the garden. It’s too nice a day to be inside,” she said.

“Take our drinks?”

“Sure. But I need a top up if you don’t mind.” She rattled the cubes.

The horn blower leaned on it, drowning out my response. She gave a slow neck turn back toward the sound, and then to me.

“Do you know who that is?” I asked.

“Probably Archie. He’s looking for me.”

“Oh, should we, um…” I had no idea what we should do.

“It’s fine. Let’s go out the back.”

She took my hand and led me through the kitchen. Her skin was like the softest leaves. I felt the bump of something hard, not a ring, maybe a callus, though that seemed unlikely.

The back door gave a long squeak, and she looked quickly over her shoulder.

“You ok?” I asked.

Her eyes flashed—then her face softened to match her hands. She smiled.

“Of course.” She pointed to the fence. “The little gate, where does it go?”

“The alley.” 

“And where does that go?”

Footsteps fell hard and fast on the driveway. I spun around to see a guy in a suit churning towards us.

“Agnes.”

Way too many things happened at once. She hurled the glass, cubes and all, at the man’s head. He ducked, and it bounced off the BBQ, shattering on the concrete pad. She dipped into her glitter purse and brought out something black. The air exploded in three pops. The suited guy shouted, his shoulder jerked and his tie flipped up. He grabbed his chest. He took one more step before face planting into the row of petunias my mom put in last week.

“Holy shit.”

“That’s that,” she said.

Part of my whirling brain wanted to find a movie camera and hear someone yell, “cut.” The other part saw the police squeal into my yard with their guns raised, shouting what cops shout.

“Hands in the air,” I said barely above a whisper.

A gust of wind blew through the big poplar at the back of the yard.

“Shit. All right. You gotta help me,” she said.

She grabbed my hand, and I really felt the calluses, there were more than one. She stuffed the gun back in her purse.

“What? I… I don’t know–”

“Snap out of it, kid. He had it coming.”

“Agnes. That’s what he called you.”

“His name for me when he was mad. Which was a lot of the time.”

“Is that your real name?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She pulled me across the lawn to the dead body next to my mom’s flowers. 

“Who are you? Why are you here?” My tongue was thick in my mouth.

“Too many questions. Ah, grab that. You got another one?”

She pointed to a spade leaning against the back of the house.

“We can’t bury him here,” I said. A burning rose in my throat and I knew I was going to toss my cookies.

She squeezed my hand too hard. I bent over, gave a heave, and upchucked on the lawn.

“Jesus.” She dropped my hand.

“Sorry.” I wiped flop sweat from my forehead.

“Get it together, kid. Someone might have heard those shots.” She pointed again, this time to my dad’s pile of topsoil that I was supposed to spread over the lawn. “We can put him in there.”

“You can’t put someone in a pile of dirt. And it would take hours to dig a grave,” I said.

“Hours?”

“It’s not like in the movies. I read that it takes eight hours for a regular person to dig a grave.”

“In a book? You some sort of brainiac?”

Her voice had changed, no longer all sing-songy. The orange smell had changed into what it really was—mixed with the glass and a half of rye she smelled like grandpa after he’d had too many.

“You have to go,” I said.

She barked a laugh.

“Go where?”

“Anywhere. You can’t be here.”

She stared at me. It was like a shade had come down. She was way older than I’d first thought.

“I’m going to call the police.”

She flipped open her purse and pulled out the gun. She didn’t point it at me, just let it hang down her side.

“You’re not going to call anyone.”

The wind went out of me. I thought of my parents coming home, finding me in the back yard, my mom crying.

“I–”

“Shut up and grab his feet.” 

She shoved the gun back in her purse and swung it behind her back. She flipped the body, grunting, but she did it easily. Her biceps flexed.

“C’mon kid, move it.”

His eyes were shut, and his mouth drooped open, a bloom of blood on his chest. I was going to hurl again.

“Kid!”

She hoisted him under his pits. I took his feet and together we lifted. I didn’t notice it before, but he wasn’t a big guy, barely five and a half feet. He looked bigger when he ran toward us.

We carried him around the corner of the house. I thought he’d be cold. How long did that take? A wine-colored Buick was parked like it had slid into the driveway.

“Pretty quiet street,” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

Most people around here left for work early and didn’t show up again until supper. Other streets had stay-at-home moms, with babies and dogs to walk.

“Set him down. I’m gonna pop the trunk.”

My back twinged as we laid him on the cement. Again, I noticed her flexed muscles. My head spun and my chest was on fire—not from carrying the guy, but from the whole situation.

Our driveway angled in, so me and her and the dead guy were in the shade of the house. She peered out, taking a fast look, before coming back and fishing through his pockets. If he left blood on the driveway how the hell was I going to explain that? How the hell was I going to explain anything?

“Kid.” She was snapping her fingers.

She’d already opened the trunk. We lifted the body, carried it over, and dropped it into the large empty space. She adjusted the feet and he easily fit in the Buick’s trunk with room to spare. He looked like he was napping.

“When he starts stiffening up it will be a helluva time to get him out of there. But that’s not my problem.”

She closed the trunk softly, and pushed down until there was a click. I wanted to ask whose problem it was going to be.

“You seem like a good kid. Probably a bit horny like boys your age. I was thinking of making it with you, did you know that?”

“No.”

My face didn’t know what expression to make.

“It goes without saying that I was never here, and neither was Archie. I don’t have time to explain to you the ifs and buts and whys. I wasn’t going anywhere with him. Not while he was breathing anyway. Got it?”

“How did he know you were here?”

She fingered her glittery purse again, considering something.

“I knew your dad once. Hell, how long ago was that?”

She looked me up and down like I knew the answer.

“You look a lot like him. Not now, but from back then. He was handsome, too. Is he still?”

“Still what?”

She swatted the air like a fly was buzzing.

“Archie must have thought I’d come here. He knew your dad, too. Did you know that? Of course you wouldn’t, you’re just his kid.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Damn. I came looking for your dad, you know? I wish Archie wouldn’t have shown up,” she said.

“Me too.”

She laughed.

“Forget you saw me.” She pointed at me, and ended the gesture with a snap.

Agnes, if that was her name, got in the car. I expected her to peel out, but she just backed out of the drive slowly. I looked at the spot where dead Archie lay. There was no blood. How did that work? I thought when someone was shot they’d be bleeding all over the place. 

Back by Mom’s petunias there was some redness in the dirt. The flowers were ruined already, so I grabbed the shovel and turned them over, mixing them into the ground until I couldn’t see anything but soil. That’s what Mom always called it. 

“It’s not dirt, Richard, it’s soil.”I sat on the picnic table and stared out at the mound of Dad’s dirt. I felt cold. I hoped my parents would come home early for work. I had no idea what I would tell them, if anything.

#

Craig Terlson’s fiction has appeared in Mystery Tribune, Carve, Hobart, and many other literary journals. In 2021, he received his second Manitoba Book award nomination for, Manistique, the second novel in his crime fiction series featuring Luke Fischer. He has written essays on the writing craft for Write magazine, Substack, and Lit Hub. His new novel Samurai Bluegrass was released this summer, and the third book in the Luke Fischer series launches this fall.

BUILD YOUR OWN DISASTER BY STEPHANIE KING

“Macro Nails” by Travis Soule/ CC0 1.0

Men never seemed as impressed with well-done hair and nails as they were by my ability to use a nail gun, and that continued right up until the moment I put a couple of nails through Jared’s heart. He was building some bookshelves in the garage when I saw the text come in from Cheri, and maybe if it had been a weekday and I’d had some time to think about it and cool down, things would have been different. Instead it was a bright, sunny Saturday morning and I was about to head out to the farmer’s market in a breezy yellow sundress when I walked out there and heard the air compressor humming and I picked it up and shot before I thought better of it.  

The human heart is not quite where you think it is.  

Afterwards, I changed into an even more revealing sundress and put on my brightest red lipstick, heading out to the market like usual. I wanted to make sure every person who saw me shopping noticed me, so that when I came home and found my poor husband after his unfortunate nail gun accident, everyone would remember where I’d been.  

Remember, they did: I sampled cheeses made from local cows and the new craft bourbon distilled in an old barn; I squeezed handmade sock puppets and fondled skeins of yarn; I bought an artisanal sourdough loaf that oh-so-charmingly rolled out of my reusable bag when I dropped it in shock after stumbling on the scene back home. Small-town cops wouldn’t know a crime scene if it bit them on the nose. I’d thrown away the yellow sundress at the market and intentionally poked myself in the eye with my mascara, so my eyes were sufficiently red and watery as the police only dared to ask the gentlest of questions.  

I miss him, sometimes. 

Afterwards, my neighbors left so many casseroles on my doorstep that I had trouble returning all the crock ware to the right person. Cheri and her husband brought a lasagna, which I dumped straight into the trash. I got myself a new kitten and a bunch of batteries and life carried on.  

Some days, I think about how there was no pool of blood underneath. I guess when the heart stops right away, there’s not enough blood pressure to keep things pumping out onto the floor. I think about how things had gotten a bit stale in our second decade of marriage, and why couldn’t I just let her have her time with him. I could have taken a roll in the hay – literal or figurative – with someone like Jim, the farmer I bought my eggs from, who I could see looking, or maybe that nice young man Brendon, who was old enough, who sold the yarn.  

Mostly I think about how the same tools we use to build are also used to destroy. And that bookshelf will never be finished.

#

Stephanie King is a past winner of the Quarterly West Novella Prize and the Lilith Short Fiction Prize, with stories also appearing in CutBank, Entropy, and Ghost Parachute. She received her MFA from Bennington and serves on the board of the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference. You can find her online at stephanieking.net or whichever is the most recent social media site as @stephstephking

BOILED HARDER BY CORY FLICK

The cigarettes weren’t going to smoke themselves, so I got out of bed and did that for a while. I multitasked by not paying some bills. The little bastards just stared up at me from where I’d tossed them on the kitchen table, some folded, most crumpled. It ain’t always the ones we love that we hurt, baby.

When the phone rang, it was a welcome interruption of the inventorying I’d been doing of my fridge (down to just two pickles in the jar).

“Yeah?” I made my voice as threatening as possible, assuming it was a bill collector. It was usually a bill collector. Somewhere out there, I figured, there must be some enormous collection of bills.

“Mr. Coates?” She had a voice husky enough to win the Iditarod and smoky enough to cure meat.

I changed my tone to something more pleasant. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Coates, I found your ad in the paper, and I’d like to engage your services.”

I said, “That thing’s still running? Huh. Explains that thirty bucks goes outta my checking account every month.”

“Mr. Coates, I’m parked outside your office, the one mentioned in the ad. If you’re there, I could just come right up.”

I thought about it for a minute as I looked around at the pizza boxes, hookers, and spilled drinks. I said, “You got money?”

“Yes, Mr. Coates, I can pay you very handsomely for your services.”

“I’d prefer cash.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just come up. Oh, and if you see some half-naked meth-head girls run by, don’t think anything of it.”

“What?”

“Just come up.”

With that, I hung up the phone, rousted the pizza boxes, kicked as many of the hookers as I could into the biggest pizza box and kicked that under the sofa.

By the time I’d done all that, there was a knock at the door. I opened it and there she stood, the kind of tall drink of water a man’s happy to get up in the middle of the night for, even when he don’t have to take a leak.

She walked in like she owned the joint and was fixing to own me too. She said, “Mr. Coates, my husband is plotting to kill me, and I want you to investigate and prove it and stop him.”

I hadn’t been able to look her in the eyes yet and figured why start then, so I just kept staring right where I was. I’m a romantic. “That sounds more like a job for the cops, baby. Not that I want you to leave.”

She made a sound halfway between eww and blech, so I figured I had a shot. But she was all business. “Mr. Coates, my husband has been meeting with all the worst gangsters in the city—the Armenians, the Danes, even the French. He’s up to something. And he knows I cheated on him.”

I nodded, so she’d figure I was really into the story and cared. “What’s your husband do?”

“He’s wealthy, which makes me wealthy. He’s a businessman. Mostly security and waste management. ”

I nodded some more. “I imagine it’s a tough gig, securing peoples’ trash, what with the garbage collectors coming around like clockwork every week.”

“What?”

“So why’d you cheat on him? If he’s rich and successful why’d you cheat on him? Bet there’s a hell of a story there.”

“The other guy’s dick is bigger.”

“That’s not that much of a story.”

“Are you going to help me or not?”

“Are you going to pay me or not?”

“How much?”

“How much is your life worth to ya?”

“Everything, of course, you idiot.”

I stuck out a hand. “Well then, everything.”

“Five grand now, five grand when you come up with something we can take to the police that will get Gerald put away for life.”

“You’re afraid of a guy named Gerald?”

She rolled her eyes and reached in her purse and dropped a wad of cash into my hand.

I stuck the money into my underwear and said, “All right, toots, consider me hired. Where can I find this Gerald character?”

She told me the address and I forgot it right away, and I asked her again, and she told me again, and I forgot it again. That went on for a while until I jotted it down on my phone.

She turned to leave and I said, “Hey, babe. What’s the name?”

“Veronica. Veronica Tagmachalatti.”

“I think I ordered you once at a coffee shop.”

She muttered as she left. Some people do that, talk to themselves all the time. Happens a lot when they leave my office.

I got myself together and paid a visit to one Gerald Tagmachalatti, at his office on the corner of Brooks and Golding.

He was big and rectangular, the kind of guy looked like he’d been made from a freezer full of Play-Doh, easy on the detailing. He looked up from his desk as I walked in and said, “Who the hell are you?”

I flopped down in the chair across from him and put my feet up on the desk. “Coates. Trent Coates. Detective, investigator, troubleshooter.” I put some extra menacing emphasis on the troubleshooter bit.

He laughed, big booming noises that shook the walls. “That can’t be real! Trent Coates?!?”

I reached inside my jacket and pulled out the .45 and started spinning it around the way I’d seen that one actor do it that one time in that one movie. “As real as this, GERALD.”

He flinched a little every time the barrel of the .45 swung up level with him. 

“Stop that!”

I was about to laugh and tell him not to worry the safety was on, but just then the pistol went off and blew out the window behind Gerald. So the part about the safety wasn’t true, so I decided not to say that part.

“You should fix that window,” was what I went with.

Gerald Tagmachalatti stood up. Guy’s head almost went into the ceiling. If he stepped outside, he could probably cause an eclipse. “All right, loser. What’s this all about?”

“Your wife knows what you’re up to, pal. She’s paying me a lot of money to come up with the proof she needs to put you away for good. So give me that proof.” I gestured with the .45 to be threatening, but I’d forgotten that I still hadn’t put the safety on, and the .45 went off again and took out what little was left of that window right behind Gerald.

Gerald waved away the gunsmoke and said, “What the hell does Veronica care whether I subcontract the South Side waste management to the Danes or the French?”

I shrugged. “I guess the Armenians are just shit outta luck, huh, pal?”

“What?”

“Never mind. You know that’s not what this is about.”

I wouldn’t have thought Gerald’s face could have got any redder, but it did. “Well, it’s why I’ve been talking to the Armenians, and the Danes, and the French.”

I pointed at him with the .45 and said, “See, that’s not how I got it from your wife.”

He leaned over his desk. “WHAT?”

I realized I might have worded that poorly.

Just then, his phone rang. He scooped it up off his desk in one of those catcher’s mitt sized hands and glanced at the screen, and his voice went all soft and ooey gooey. Made for one hell of a contrast with the look he was giving me. He looked as if he wanted to pull me apart like I was a fly and he was a maladjusted eight-year-old. “Hey honey, what’s up?”

It looked like an expensive phone, but even so, all I heard from it sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Shame what technology could do to a voice like Veronica’s.

Gerald’s face actually got even redder. Veronica’s tech-mangled voice kept squawking from the phone, until Gerald tossed the phone right through, and out, the shattered window. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Your dick’s bigger than mine, huh?”

I blinked. “That was NOT what this conversation was about.” I waggled the .45 at him. “We were talking about you and the gangsters and killing your wife.”

Gerald actually roared, sort of like a lion and sort of like a bear but way more terrifying because unlike lions and bears, he was real. He grabbed the edge of his desk and picked the damn thing up and threw it at me.

Turns out it is really hard to dodge a flying desk, and I didn’t. I blinked and I was in a lot of pain and chunks of desk and wall were lying around me. Gerald stalked through the wreckage towards me.

I said, “Doesn’t anyone else live or work in this building? No one’s heard all this?”

“What?”

“Never mind.” I raised the .45 and pulled the trigger and nothing happened. I checked and sure enough, somehow the safety was on. If I live to be fifty-three years old, I’ll never be able to explain it.

Veronica’s voice, the real deal, the one ready to lead a team of sled-dogs to victory, cut through the smoke and the dust. “You two idiots haven’t managed to kill each other yet? God damn it.” She stepped out of the haze, a petite little pistol in each of her petite little hands.

I said, “Well, if you’d just be patient—wait a minute. Something strange here.”

Gerald looked at his wife, all hang-dog and mopey. “Baby. What’s going on? Why’d you cheat on me with this freak? What’s with the guns?”

I said, “She never cheated on you with ME.” I shrugged. “Not that I would have minded.”

Gerald spun back to face me. “I’ll kill you!”

Veronica said, “Promises, promises.”

The giant businessman looked back and forth from me to his wife and back to me. “I don’t know who to believe.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “Would one of you idiots just kill the other, so I can kill whoever’s left?”

I said, “That’s a lot of trouble to go to, just to avoid paying me that other five grand.”

She snorted. “I should have known you were actually TOO stupid to be useful. Who the hell advertises in a newspaper in 2023?”

Some things clicked, and it wasn’t just the safety on the .45. “Oh, I get it. You figured I’d come straight here, get the G-man here all riled up, then you call and tell him you’re having an affair with me. G-man goes nuts and kills me, then you show up. G-man in a jealous rage goes after you, but you’re ready because you planned all this in advance and you shoot him in self-defense. And you get all of G-man’s money and you even get to keep the other five grand you would have owed me if none of that had been true and I’d have gotten the job done you told me you wanted.”

Veronica said, “What just clicked?”

Gerald said, “Why do you keep calling me G-man?”

I said to Gerald, “It sounds so much cooler than Gerald, trust me, G-man.”

I said to Veronica, “It wasn’t just the safety on the .45, babe.”

I shot her, a bunch of times. The tiny little guns in her hands went off as she fell, and Gerald screamed and dove to the floor, the impact nearly taking the whole building down.

I shook my head as I got to my feet, “I cannot believe nobody heard all that! Wow.” I went over to Veronica and rooted around in her purse until I found a wad of cash. I counted out five grand and stuck it into my underwear next to the other five grand, let ’em be all cozy together down in there.

From the pile of debris on the floor, G-man said, “Thank you, Mr. Coates. I think.”

I said, “Sure thing” and made that gesture where you act like your hand is a pistol and you shoot it, but I forgot which hand I was using and I used the actual .45. Turned out there was one bullet left in there and the safety was still off and I nearly shot G-man.

I got the hell out of there and went home to pay some bills, but settled on pizza and hookers.

Not one of ’em had a voice could cure meat, though.

The hookers, not the pizzas.

#

Cory Flick is a database developer living on the Gulf Coast of Texas, crunching numbers and tacos in equal measure. Of any art form, good writing has always had the strongest impact and he wants to contribute to that art in some small way.

THE KNIFE BY FRANÇOIS BEREAUD

Morning routine: coffee—black of course, toast with butter, writing—typewriter of course, then newspaper. I write before I read the newspaper. I don’t want the news to cloud my mind or interfere with my stories. I think Raymond Chandler would approve. 

I wrote good today, real good. And my unnamed surfer dude character may think he’s getting away with little more than a scratch but he’s got something coming tomorrow. I pick up the paper. I go to the local section first, crime. Holy shit! There was a stabbing near the library two nights ago. Two nights ago. I was there. I was reading from my book. And a murder occurred right there. That reminds me, my friend sent me a video of me reading that I forgot to watch. I grab my phone and play it. Holy fuck! It’s all there. I drop the phone.

#

Tuesday afternoon—May gray—slow. People think San Diego is some kinda tropical paradise but we haven’t seen the sun in a week or moved a board in at least that long. At least rentals are okay and we sold six sweatshirts today. $65 a pop, cheap ass material. Fuckin’ tourists will go for anything, like a dog in heat. But I gotta deal coming in tonight. Real heat. I’m the middle man. I just hold it. Carlos brings it. I don’t ask from what side of the border. Ethan picks it up. Out to East County I’d guess. But I don’t ask him either. Just keep a space under a pile of damp wetsuits. Coppers never suspect a white surfer dude like me for anything other than some weed, and that shit’s legal now. At 5 pm, I tell Rachel, my one employee, she can knock off early, paid. She’s good, asks no questions. It’s critical to have a girl around. Chicks get self-conscious trying on wetsuits. I leave ’em to Rachel. 15 minutes after she goes, my phone buzzes. Carlos. I close early.

#

I’m staring at a red metal bin in the empty lobby of the back entrance of the police station. It has one of those hazardous stickers on it and scares me a bit.

“It’s for medical waste, you know syringes and stuff.”

I jerk and turn. The voice comes from a woman shorter than me—I’m 5’6’’—wearing a navy blazer and slacks. She looks like she’s in charge. Maybe she’s a detective. She looks at me with her head titled and eyes squinted just a bit. I notice these things. 

“I need to speak to a detective,” I say.

“Why’s that?” 

“I have information about a crime.” She squints again but doesn’t say anything. “The stabbing that happened a few nights ago, the murder.” She looks at me, unmoving. “I have a video.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and hold it toward her. 

“This entrance is administrative not public,” she says. “To see a detective, you’d have to go in the front.”

#

Carlos is talking real fast, his breath hot in my face. “Slow down dude,” I say. He stops and gives me a look. Hard. My balls tighten. His grabs my wrist. “You don’t tell me what to do.” His grip hurts but I hold still. “Listen carefully,” he says, “something happened to Ethan, I need you to drive that out,” he nods at the paper bag wrapped lump. “I’ll text you the address and instructions tomorrow at three.” He lets go. My wrist throbs but I don’t rub it. “I’m a surfer dude,” I say. “And the shop … ” I look around. “Your girl can watch it,” he says. “And don’t fuck this up. There’s people, people way above me, who wouldn’t be happy.”

#

“I understand Sir, but our detectives are quite busy. Why don’t I take down your contact information?” The clerk, a young man with a sallow complexion, gives me a bored look.

I want to yell, You don’t understand, you’re a bureaucrat, not a crime fighter! But I keep my cool. “Listen,” I say, “I have a video which shows the knife. A detective needs to see it.”

“A video?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get this video?”

“It’s a video of me.”

“You?” I nod. Now he looks slightly interested. “So you had the knife?” He says it slow like he’s talking to a child so I answer slow back.

“No, I was in the library reading. The guy with the knife was behind me.” He frowns. I keep going. “The Central Library. Right around the corner from the murder. It has big windows.” I hold out my phone. He has to look at it now. Instead, he puts his palms on the desk and leans back. He opens then closes his mouth. Then he speaks. 

“Why is there a video of you reading in the library?”

“My friend took it,” I say. “I was reading one of my stories at a local author event. I wrote a book.” Maybe I should have led with this information. I think he’s impressed. 

“What do you write?”

“Crime.”

“You really wrote a book?”

“Yes.” I don’t tell him it’s self-published on Amazon.

“I think Detective Harrison may be free.”

#

My hands are sweating on the steering wheel. I was right, I’m heading east. Jamul, Jamacha, Julian, some J name. Fuck the mountains and the desert. I’m an ocean rat. The package is in a bag on the front seat staring at me. Fuckety fuck. The GPS chirps. I’m here. The house—at least it’s not a trailer—is small and gray. The yard is dirt but tidy. I pull in the gravel drive and follow it around the house. I turn off the engine and wait like instructed. 5 minutes. Then 10. I spin my phone in my hand. Carlos told me not to message him. I could text Rachel but I know the shop’s okay. I look up and see the back door open. Fucking finally. My breathing is calm. One guy comes out. White guy, goatee, ponytail, looks like the half the surfers I know. He steps toward me and I’m blinded by a reflection coming from his waist. Sunlight on – ? A machete. He’s got a fucking machete. Bile rises in my throat. I’m frozen.

#

Detective Harrison looks like Tom Selleck should play him on TV. He has broad shoulders, thick hands, and a mustache. There’s a picture on his desk of him standing on a boat with a giant fish. A tuna if I had to guess.

“I don’t see a knife,” he says.

We’ve watched the video three times and I’m losing patience. How does this guy, supposedly a real detective, not see the knife? 

“Look,” I say as I play it once more. I watch myself at the lectern and behind me, outside, in the glow of a streetlight, is a man on a bike. Another man bikes past him, he turns and watches. 15 seconds later, a third man, who I’m sure is actually the second man, comes on foot and gives the first man a knife. The knife. The murder weapon. “Right there, that’s the handoff.”

“There’s no knife,” he says. “Now, I need to-”

“Who’s your supervisor?” I say too loud.

“Sir, you need to leave.”

“No!” I slam my phone on his desk. The screen cracks. His fish picture falls over.

#

Machete man signals me to get out of the car. I open the door slow with my left arm and grab the package with my right. It’s like a loaf of bread but way heavier. Getting out of the car, I stumble and almost fall into the guy. He takes a step back. “Whoa partner.” I hand him the goods. He takes it with two hands, rolls it over, and nods. I turn to get back in my car. “Not so fast,” he says. I look back and he’s brandished the machete. He steps a step toward me. I back up and slam my hip into the car door. It hurts like hell. “Easy,” he says. “Get in the car, both hands on the wheel.” I do it. He lowers the machete and leans forward. His breath smells like buttered toast. “You were never here,” he says. I nod. Then, in one motion, he slices the machete across my forearm. The cut is precise, maybe three inches but not deep. Blood flows freely. He tosses me a handkerchief. “That’s a reminder of where you never were,” he says. “I don’t surf much but I know where to rent one.” He closes my door. I press the cloth against my wound and start the car. Down the road, I dial Rachel’s number but hang up before she answers. What is there to say?

#

Tom Selleck, the detective I mean, grabs my wrist roughly. 

“Aiiee,” I shout. He stands and twists my arm so I have to stand. He pulls me away from his desk. I struggle, I need my phone. “The evidence,” I yell and pull back. He’s too strong. I know if I leave the phone all will be lost. I kick him in the shin, hard.

“Sonuvabitch,” he yells. I hear metal chairs scrape the tile floor and footsteps. I hit the ground, and land hard on my hip. Then my arms are behind my back. I turn my head and spew vomit on the floor. I see my buttered toast.

“Christ,” a voice says, “clean this skell up and take him to booking.”

I’m at Central Booking. I stink like puke. I’m charged with disorderly conduct and assault of an officer. I don’t quite remember how I got here. My hip throbs. Someone keeps asking me questions. “I don’t need a lawyer, just paper.” The guy laughs. But then a pad appears. I push the ink hard into the paper.

On the night of January 30, I was reading at the Central Library. Behind me, outside, there was a transaction between two men. A knife was passed. Shortly after, within two blocks of this exchange, a brutal stabbing occurred resulting in murder. This crime has yet to be solved but I am in possession of video evidence. Heretofore, the police have not considered this evidence. Justice is being thwarted. As witnesses I have my friends Carlos and Rachel (videographer) who were at the event.

I put the pen down. I’m very tired. I notice dried blood on my forearm. I can’t remember how it got there.

#

François Bereaud is a husband, dad, full time math professor, mentor in the San Diego Congolese refugee community, and mediocre hockey player. His stories and essays have been published online and in print and have earned Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations. He serves as an editor at Roi Fainéant Press and Porcupine Literary. The Counter Pharma-Terrorist & The Rebound Queen is his published chapbook. In 2024, Cowboy Jamboree Press will publish his first full manuscript, San Diego Stories, which is the realization of a dream. You can find links to his writing at francoisbereaud.com. Tweets @FBereaud.

PROOF OF SERVICE BY CHRIS HEAVENER

Gina says there are two mandatory employee trainings at Brighter2morrow. The official training keeps the client happy. The secret training keeps the rest of us alive.

Official rule #1: Collect Proof-of-Service

“Revulsion, disgust, nausea…” Gina told me on my first day, “Surprisingly temporary.” 

The fluids, Gina says, become background noise after the first month. I’d lose my mind at this job if it weren’t for Gina. I don’t remember Mom much, but I like to think her and Gina were a lot alike. Compassionate enough to notice when you’re hiding your tears. Loving enough to let you cry for a minute. Tough enough to tell you to suck it up after the minute’s over or else you’ll get a demerit from Management. 

Mrs. Tillis’s family photos watched me unlock the door to her penthouse and push the squeaky service cart down the corridor to her bedroom. Mrs. Tillis appeared saint-like, haloed in pillows, wires and tubes u’ing up to machines. Sanctified in sleep. 

I could do whatever I wanted to Mrs. Tillis right now. Sure, the likelihood of getting caught was high. But if you had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, what was stopping you?

Secret rule #1: Don’t get caught skimming fluids. 

The night before my 18^th birthday, Dad sat by the front door of our apartment, sweating over his watch, grip tightening around the straps of my duffle, as the seconds ticked closer to midnight. 

Mom was the one who wanted kids, he always said. After she died, he would have found a dumpster if it wouldn’t have gotten him thrown in the work camps. We both knew what would happen the moment he was released of his obligation. 

By streetlight, I walked from Dad’s apartment to the employment office, along with all the other kids that got kicked out on their birthdays. Hours later, I filled out Dad’s name as an emergency contact on the Brighter2morrow application. 

Mrs. Tillis ordered the basic bio-fresh package. Only took about 15 minutes to brush her teeth, turn her so she wouldn’t get bed sores, change out the colostomy bags, dab the catheter ports with anti-bacterial swabs and collect the Proof-of-Service. There was time before the next shift. And I couldn’t help myself.

I brushed and braided her hair. Then I sat down next to her on the bed, wrapped an arm around her shoulder, careful not to disturb any of the machines keeping her asleep, and nudged her head into the crook of my neck. I hummed Rock-a-by Baby. Country Road. Moon River. Every lullaby I knew. Twice. 

Official rule #2: Follow the client’s orders to the letter.

Clients get creative. Mr. Hammer ordered to be changed into a different three piece suit daily. Employees are instructed to take a picture of a dressed Mr. Hammer, including  pictures of new underwear for Proof-of-Service. 

Mrs. Kimball ordered her pubic hair trimmed and collected. You could do a lot worse than managing her reddish-grey clippings. However, Mrs. Kimball failed to disclose she’d contracted chlamydia before going under.

Secret Rule #2: Don’t be greedy. 

“Sperm is cheap,” Gina says. “This is the issue when your gender tries to fuck everything.”

C-suite sperm will only get you an extra loaf of bread. C-suite eggs can put your kids through college.

Anyone can learn how to collect blood. But for the big ticket items (bone marrow, stem cells), Gina has the number of a reputable harvester. To a harvester, clients aren’t people. More like prize steers. They’ll quote you a price on Mr. Woodhouse’s gall bladder or the current market rate in Dubai for Ms. Donnelly. 

“Your predecessor,” Gina said, “nearly killed Mrs. Green. The poor lady woke up anemic with barely two eggs to rub together.” 

I ask what happened to my predecessor and a shadow falls over Gina’s face.

Official Rule #3: Breach of employee code of conduct will result in punishment to the fullest extent of the law. 

“If a client’s organs get trafficked during your shift,” Gina says, “Brighter2morrow won’t sick the cops on you. You’ll still have to show up to work the next day. But they will send a van full of guys in balaclavas to your family’s house. Parents, brothers, sisters, sometimes cousins, even kids, maybe a neighbor or two, they take the Black Bag Express to the work camps. There they’ll stay until Mrs. McCrory’s spleen is returned and you work off the expense incurred to recover it, plus interest.” 

Secret rule #3: Don’t get attached to the clients.

“Brighter2morrow triple screens for sickos after what happened to Mr. Burr,” Gina said, “So it’s unlikely you’ll do anything gross. But for the rest of us, the client’s vulnerability is overwhelming. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s the parental instinct on steroids.” 

On Wednesdays I swaddle Mr. Arp until he looks like a mummy with his face sticking out of the blanket. Saturdays I read Mrs. Keller board books from the lost-and-found. Thursdays I give Dr. Brisson some tummy time. It’s a pain getting him on the floor, but it’s supposed to be good for abdominal muscles and neck strength. 

“The problem,” Gina says, “when a new shot rolls out, it’s time to wake them up.” 

This perfect angel you’ve been nurturing for the past three months turns back into the hedge fund manager that crashed the housing market. 

“I got kicked out at your age too,” Gina says. It broke her parent’s heart, but they couldn’t afford it anymore, had to move into a smaller place where the rent was cheaper.

“I see you,” Gina says, with a little frown like she might cry. 

I want to tell her, at least you have a family that cares about you. Dad hasn’t texted or called in months. He’s probably at a strip club right now, chomping on a fat cigar, celebrating.

Secret Rule #4: Never follow the cosmetics team.

Clients can order a simple trim, a high and tight, even a full blow out. Service does their best to schedule the haircuts toward the end of the contract term. But every so often a Mr. Tillis wants a bi-weekly tighten-up and God help you if your shift is after the cosmetics team. The clippings invade your PPE. 

And every single time, a hair will find its way into your mask and get stuck in the back of your throat. It will not be a normal hair either. It will be a magical hair that evades all efforts to pull it free. Stick your finger back there all you want, until you almost vomit. You’re not getting that hair out until meal break. 

Official Rule #4: Unauthorized personnel is prohibited.

The real joke is the first paycheck. After taxes and fees, there’s barely enough to pay rent. Management is practically begging you to call the harvesters.

The first time I went hungry I asked myself: How easy would it be to sell Mr. Zenger’s eyes and buy a log cabin far away? Grow food. Maybe meet someone. Have a baby. Disappear.

They would come for Dad. He would break his back on a boulder in the camps, be mercifully shot in the head over an open grave. Would that feel like justice or revenge? 

I was more repulsed by the idea of a harvester taking a knife to one of my clients. That night I rubbed citrus scented diaper cream on a rash beginning to form around Mr. Zenger’s waistline. My empty stomach felt like a screaming hot skillet. I called the harvester.

A knock at Mr. Malloy’s apartment door. Through a warm, bearded smile Daniel introduced himself. He looked more like the type of guy that might collect lizards instead of heart valves. He rattled off a bunch of options and dollar amounts.

“I’m nervous,” I said, “I don’t want him to get hurt.”

Mr. Malloy ordered a twice weekly shave. Unrequested was the warm lather and the straight razor scritch-scritch across his cheeks until they felt like polished leather.

“Who,” Daniel pointed, “him?”

Mr. Malloy also did not request to be wrapped up in his sheets like a burrito and shooshed as he snored.

“There’s a demand for cerebral spinal fluid at the moment. Non-invasive. Zero scarring. Pretty lucrative. Not a bad choice for your first time.”

We rolled Mr. Malloy onto his side. I held his hand as Daniel swabbed his lower back with an alcohol wipe. 

“He’s not going to wake up, like, paralyzed or anything, is he?” I asked as Daniel palpated Mr. Malloy’s vertebrae with vinyl gloved fingertips. 

He tore open a sterile syringe from its package with his free hand and teeth.

“Probably not.”

Daniel peeled a stack of bills off a wad and put them in my hand before he left. 

Secret rule #5: No leaving scars.

Even your babies can piss you off sometimes. Mr. Adams rolls off the bed, sending a colostomy splatter across the wall. Ms. Balkom neglected to disclose she suffers from night terrors and fills her apartment with screams at any disturbance. Mr. Brody routinely pulls out his IV which means whoever is in the area has to drop whatever they’re doing to go make sure he doesn’t wake himself up.

“We all need to blow off steam,” Gina says. 

A wet rolled up towel makes a satisfying crack across the bare ass of a client. You can beat a person’s shins with a bedsheet wrapped around a broom handle until your arms get tired. I find satisfaction in the smaller punishments. Plucked nose hairs. Slapped titties. Vigorous noogies. 

The second time I went hungry, I called Daniel.

“The market for spinal fluid seems to have cratered.”

I grab a chunk of Mr. Harris’s arm flab and twist.

“I’m getting a lot of requests for skin, kidneys, glands of all kinds.”

My nails leave a trail of dead white skin and I lick my palm to wipe them away.

“What about eggs?”

“Always demand for C-suite eggs.”

“How’s it done?” I sigh. 

Daniel tells me about transvaginal ultrasound aspiration. Probes and needles. I bristle. 

Daniel says, “Okay, well. Call me when you want to make some money.”

Official Rule #5: Respect the client’s privacy.

Past curfew, the squeak of my service cart echoed up from the sidewalk to the faces of the apartment buildings.

A government official stood in front of Ms. Balkom’s building. Her contract expired last week. On auto-pilot, I pushed past her building when the entrance opened and I felt a blast of cool air. There was Ms. Balkom, swishing toward me in a silk trench coat, trailed by the government official. 

A mask covered her face, but I could tell by the hair. I helped the cosmetics team layer in the pasty dark chestnut hair die, the result of which shimmers under the halogens of the building’s awning.

I wasn’t thinking. I only saw the soft hair I stroked as Ms. Balkom slept. I opened my arms as she swished closer. In retrospect, I recognized how silly I looked. A tiny, bunny-suited cleaner, face obscured by a mask and goggles, arms outstretched to this woman of consequence. 

“Back away,” the government official stepped between us.

Ms. Balkom brought her bag in front of her, shuffled backward in her heels. 

A long car screeched to the curb. The government official opened the backseat door, held me at bay with an open palm. Ms. Balkom and the official dove in and the car peeled down the avenue, running red lights, the door swinging wildly until a hand reached out and nabbed it closed.

Secret Rule #5: Seriously. Don’t get attached to the clients.

“I warned you,” Gina says as I soaked the front of her Brighter2morrow jump suit with tears and snot.

When I stopped blubbering, I said, “It happened so fast. I couldn’t help myself.”

“They’re not your babies,” Gina looked at me with her chin down, “Say it.”

I mumbled it. Gina knows. 

Official rule #6: If you come upon an active crime scene, run to safety, then notify the authorities.

The cosmetics team has left hair everywhere in Mrs. Lindell’s bedroom. As I collect the Proof-of-Service, sure enough, a magical immovable hair appears in the back of my throat. Coughing, hawking, plucking. Nothing works. Another hour until meal break. 

Fuck it. You know what, Mrs. Lindell? We’re having a spa night.

I click on the TV, pull a nail kit from my service cart, burrow under the covers next to Mrs. Lindell, and rest her hand on my knee.

“What do you think?” I present the bottles of polish to her, “Rajah Ruby? Vodka & Caviar?”

I hold the colors up to her nails as the news talks about the new virus. This one paralyzes you from the waist down.

“Ah, here we are. Rouge Fatal.”

A window crash, like a dissonant orchestra, surges from the dining room. Then silence. Then whispers. Then crunching glass.

Mrs. Lindell’s penthouse is a shotgun layout, the only way to the front door from her bedroom is through the dining room. 

Secret rule #6: There is usually nowhere to run. So hide. 

The only place to hide in Mrs. Lindell’s proto-modern revival decorated bedroom is under her bed.

Bootsteps down the hall. Two pairs prowl into the bedroom, circle the bed skirt.

The magical hair wants me dead. Like a bug’s antenna, trying to crawl its way up and out my throat. I reach two fingers back as far as they will go, but the hair dodges every pinch.

A cough slips loose. The boots snap their toes toward the bed. Guns ratchet. 

“What the fuck, Teddy!” One of the boot owners whispers, “You said they were gone!”

The other boot owner shooshes. 

“Come out,” a voice says, “slowly.”

Two men, one maybe Dad’s age and rounder in the gut, another younger and bird-like in his movements, point handguns at me as I crawl out from under the bed.

“Take a seat,” the Dad-aged man points to Mrs. Lindell’s feet.

I sit by Mrs. Lindell’s side, wrap my fingers around her IV port. 

Secret Rule #7: There is usually nowhere to hide. So fight. 

“What are you doing?” the bird man rattles his gun.

“When I pull this IV out,” I say as though I’m talking to a child, “my employer gets an alert that this client is in trouble and a medevac team is here in thirty seconds.”

“Let’s bail, Teddy” the bird man says.

“Shut up.” The Dad-aged man holsters his gun and squats in front of me. “Let us do our business. Then we’ll leave. And you never mention you saw us to anyone. Can I count on you for that?”

I grip the IV port.

“Wait.” The man walks into the hallway. A jangle of keys comes from the dark corridor. The man returns with a lanyard, holds out the badge attached. 

“Do you know who this woman is? What she’s done?”

Eileen Morgan Lindell, the badge tells me. Chief Discipline Officer. LightWork Carceral Systems. The work camps. 

“We’re here to make her pay. For my family, for his family,” the man points to his partner, “for the families of everyone out there who committed the high crime of fucking up at their job.”

I’ve massaged warm oil into Mrs. Lindell’s legs to treat her varicose veins. I’ve powdered her crotch to prevent chafe so many times I’ve lost count.

“Alright. Fine.” the Dad-aged man unzips a pouch hidden inside his jacket.

A stack of bills wrapped in a thick rubber band tumbles next to me on the bed. Then another stack. More money than Daniel would offer for Mr. Toomey’s lungs. Another stack. More money than Daniel would offer for Mrs. Cleveland’s brain. 

Enough for a log cabin far away. Enough for a baby. Enough to be the parent I never had.

“We’re not the only men with guns in a C-suite bedroom right now,” the man says, “Tonight is a reckoning. You can help make history. You can turn this around for all of us.”

The hair tickles my throat again and I cough, start hwark-ing it up, from deep in the lungs. 

The Dad-aged man points to a water bottle on Mrs. Lindell’s night stand. Bird man hands it to me. I wave it away, stick my fingers down the back of my throat, find the hair and tug it until it snakes out. 

This hair. It’s not long, straight and blonde like Mrs. Lindell’s hair. It’s short. Curly. Reddish-grey. Mrs. Kimball. The chlamydial client who ordered the pubic hair trimmings.

“All you have to do,” the man holds his palms out, “is walk out of this apartment and pretend you never saw us.”

Is this how Dad felt the night he flung me and my bags out the door? Was his temptation of freedom this intoxicating?

“Think about what these people are doing. To people like you and me.”

What was Dad’s dream of escape? Maybe a tiki bar next to the blue waters of a beach. Flowered shirts. Bronze waitresses. 

“You hold the future in your hands.”

Even your babies will drive you crazy some times. 

Even so. 

No one hurts my babies but me. 

“Official rule #5,” I say, yanking the IV out of Mrs. Lindell’s arm. “Unauthorized personnel is prohibited.”

A high whine comes from one of the machines keeping Mrs. Lindell asleep. The gun men scramble out and down the hallway. Glass break tears from the dining room. I plug the IV back in Mrs. Lindell’s arm and message Gina that everything’s okay. 

An ad for steak is on the TV.

Not a restaurant. Not a particular brand. Just the broad concept of steak. 

No one hurts my babies but me. 

I call Daniel and ask him how much eggs are going for these days.

While I wait, I look up listings for log cabins.

#

Chris Heavener was born and raised in Central Florida. Published in PANK, elimae, Vol 1 Brooklyn and Apocalypse Confidential. He lives in Durham, NC with his wife and kids. 

ROLE PLAY BY CLIFF HIGHTOWER

The voluptuous blonde dame sat in front of me, her eyes casting a shadow to the side.

I liked the look of her. Big lips and a flirty smile that seemed to have a ‘come hither’ look, but warned me away at the same time.

If it was a tell, I didn’t know it at the time. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have thought to myself that there was more to this lady than her golden hair and her ruby red lips.

Instead, I asked her the game.

“I want you to kill my husband,” she said.

“I don’t do that, miss,” I said. “I’m a PI.”

Her arms crossed across her body and I couldn’t help but lower my gaze. She probably wanted it that way. She wanted me to see those breasts pressed tight against that black dress.

She had me and she knew it.

“I’ll pay you $1,000,” she said.

“Well that’s not nearly enough to kill a man,” I said.

“It’ll be easy. He’s not that smart.”

The snub-nosed revolver sat in its holster, cold against my skin. I always carried it, a .32-caliber pistol. My PI license gave me a license to carry. It did not give me a license to kill. I fell right into it and her, like a guy going over Niagara Falls in a wheelbarrow.

I was going to do it.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.” she said.

The dame shuffled over a stack of $100 notes, Benjamin Franklin looking up at me, and I stuffed the wad of bills in my pocket without counting. It was bad for business to count.

“When do you want it done?” I asked.

“Right now,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yes,” she said. 

“Margaret, this isn’t part of the role play,” I said.

The gun came out of her purse. I saw the glint of the barrel and the silver markings on it. I saw her eyes looking straight at me. Those big dark eyes were wide and wild.

“It is now, John.”

I never heard the pistol fire.

#

Cliff Hightower is a writer and award-winning journalist living in Tennessee. He has been published in Mystery Tribune and A Thin Slice of Anxiety.