Probably on a Tuesday: Three Fictions by Townsend Walker

Is when she’ll come. That’s when she said she’d be here. And she is so faithful, wants to make the right impression. Says it’s an expression of how she feels. She tells me a story, a story of her past, one of a lover that did not last. She knew from the start that sooner or later he’d kneel down to make a confession of unfaithfulness, of wanderings. And she asks herself why she hung around. Let herself be drug down.

What will I do when she stumbles in, her eyes full of joy, her breath full of gin? What will I tell her about how I feel?  I have a confession; I’ve not been unfaithful, but can’t hold on. My arm is sore; my heart is rent. A bottle has taken my place. That bottle with a silvery printed face she carries wherever she goes.

* * * * 

Is when I’ll die. Somehow it’s more convenient for folks that way. Get put in the ground before the weekend, so plans for the beach are still on. The relatives will be happy.

The doctor said possibly on Thursday; that would throw the clan into a spin. Leave me hanging around in a box through the weekend. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll do that. What do I care? They will, after they find out about the money.

They never knew Ramona. My secret lush Ramona. The balm of my later years. When they find out they’ll probably say I was seduced by a woman of younger years, a woman practiced in preying on older men. And so? I’d like to think I did the seducing, but that’s probably not true.

There’s some symmetry in this affair if it’s Tuesday. For that’s the day ten years ago I met her. In Guadalajara, land of a thousand dreams, where you only need one to come true.

She was dancing in the cantina. Only three people there, me and a couple of Canadians. A honeymoon couple, paying attention to one another, on a bed break.

When they left, Ramona came closer to my table with her dance. If I’d felt the heat from twenty feet away, from two it was blistering. Of course we talked, then said good night. It was ten days of dancing and talking before I convinced Ramona of my honorable intentions.

And they were that. You see, love changes everything. I bought her an apartment in the center of town, extended my vacation another month, courted her and proposed. It was a small wedding with her parents and brothers attending. The youngest one, twelve year old Pedro, was my best man. There’s a little bit in the will for him.

Ramona will be a rich woman. And yes, I’ve taken care that all the money is in Mexican banks. Nothing for Bitsy, Ham and what’s-her-name to glom on to. They think they’re moving to this house. Ha! Mortgaged to within an inch of its value.

I lament I won’t see her as I close my eyes. Only a small picture to remind me. As if I need that. I can still feel her last kiss on my cheek. Still, still, if she could be here.

These regrets are making me tired.

* * * *

I’ll go to town, look around, scout the ground. That’s the day they send in the clown. To amuse the children. Free their parents for other affairs: drinking, smoking, dancing and pairing. That’s what parents will do when set free. Make a mockery of whom and what they are supposed to be. Injure a spouse, oh no, not me, after all, we’re all free, and whatever will be, will be. Thank you, Doris.

It’s George you have to be careful of. Last week he took up with a frog. Now for their allowance his children must go to the bog. It’s quite unfair says their mother; I have so much work cleaning them up for school. There should be a rule, strictly enforced, by the mayor of course, against such frippery. Oh where will it end? Though the mayor is an example you’d not want to follow. Last seen he was wallowing with a pig. Pity his children in a sty. Me, oh my.

 

* * * * * * * *

Townsend Walker is a writer living in San Francisco. During a career in finance he published three books: foreign exchange, derivatives, and portfolio management. His stories have been published in over fifty literary journals and included in five anthologies. Two were nominated for the PEN/O.Henry Award. Four stories were performed at the New Short Fiction Series in Hollywood. His collection "A Little Love, A Little Shove" is forthcoming from Shelfstealers Press in early 2013. Visit him online here.

Impressions by Matt B. Thomas

She steps up to the edge of the roof. She has already called the police, tossed her Blackberry away. Now she looks for their faces, faces like white petals in a painting; broad, soft strokes to carry her away -- a bloom of red among the grays and whites and blacks and blues. I want my water lilies, she says quietly to herself.

But there is no painting below her. It is a little world of noise and lights; the sirens of the squad cars, the deafening goose honks of the fire trucks, the shouting and the screaming and a smudge of a phone smashed on the pavement amongst them. She wants aspirin.

I want aspirin, she shouts down to the negotiator, who hasn’t stopped yelling since he arrived. He pauses for a moment, unsure.

Okay, he says, but you'll have to come away from the edge.

She stares at him with his megaphone and his police blues; he is the cop from that movie she has seen, she thinks.

It's all here, and yet, it isn't.

Oh, where are my lilies? she whispers, This is not at all what I expected.

* * * * * * * *

Matt B. Thomas lives in Bloomington, Indiana and wishes to live just about anywhere else at least once. This is his first published piece. He keeps a highly unprofessional blog which he challenges you to find.

Walt Whitman and The City by Adam Peterson

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman had ideas about what it meant to be a son and so he called his mother America and never spoke to his father. When he said hello he said America. When he said goodbye he said America. The soldiers who had already lost everything were the first to ask him why, and Whitman answered, America.  Because he understood this was the only way to treat everyone the same and that the difference between sun and son is more than a letter. There's a pronunciation to our freedom, he claimed. And in the hospital he'd squeeze the soldiers’ lips until they said it right. America. America. Then he’d spread his arms and no one ever knew if they should hug him or tell him they too heard the difference. When a soldier died, Walt Whitman would make everyone awaiting a similar fate say a prayer that went, America America America America America. America. The soldiers wanted to know if they were pronouncing it right. It became so hard to tell anything when they had been dying such a long time. Whitman put a hand on their knees and nodded. America.

The City

It started with rumors there were mountains behind the clouds. Americans wanted a place to get falafel and maybe somewhere all the disaffected teenagers could flee when their mayors wouldn't let them dance. They wanted something taller than the mountains so they could look down on the faces and win against history. The City grew up out of the ocean and everyone argued over whether or not it was an island. When buildings began to disappear into the clouds, no one could agree whether or not they were like stalagmites or stalactites. Or what the most authentic pizza place was. Or which museum was the best. Or what hotdogs were made out of. Or whether or not there was anything behind the clouds at all. Or if there was something underneath them. So many questions that the city fell down. As they bobbed in the water, Americans looked up and looked down and knew even less about direction. If the city is an island then everything is an island and if everything is an island there will be times the earth gets pulled back and the waves come up. That's when we'll know where we've really been storing our dead.

* * * * * * * *

Adam Peterson lives in Houston where he co-edits The Cupboard, a quarterly prose chapbook series. He can be found online at Stock Photography Museum.

Dear Dad by Wagner Israel Cilio

Dear Dad,

In the beginning everyone was ocean. There were no boundaries and everyone just flowed. Your body was considered only a body of water. And somewhere in there was you. This is how you would grow: like a mysterious island rising out of the ocean. It was this way with everyone and no one seemed to mind. The wind would come of course and work up all the water into waves. That was how come you could feel things. Whatever shape the waves were taking that was what you would be feeling. And so everyone was a body of water feeling waves within itself and with no one knowing anything about boundaries. Everyone was free to spill into everyone else and no one seemed to mind. Now look. At night the water would change. The moon would come out and everyone's waves would begin to make them feel pretty good. And so they would press close to each other and kiss and hug and rub all over each other because it felt good, see? And it was the moon that would work up all the water beneath the waves with currents and tides, which was why they felt this way. It was something that was inherent in every body of water. At some point, however, everyone stopped thinking of themselves as bodies of water and only thought of each other as islands rising unmysteriously out of nothing. Everyone's body became another tourist attraction and no one really seemed to mind. Everyone felt that was a pretty okay way to live. 

Everyone was okay with it.

Your Son,

Jesus

* * * * * * * * 

Wagner Israel Cilio lives in a sun porch in Lincoln, NE where he performs with his art cult rock experience Brothers Family Temple. He has been published in Robot Melon. Recently he quit his job at an organic food co-op where he worked as a cashier for three years. You can find him online at We Are All Good People and We Love Everything.

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